170 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



more than Man is doing. We must in reviewing 

 such events depart from particular aspects and 

 come to the general ones. Man and the butcher-bird 

 and every other organism are impelled by the instinct 

 of self-preservation. To preserve itself the butcher-, 

 bird does one thing and Man another. No artificial 

 alteration of the environment can modify or destroy 

 this instinct. We may as well lament that the 

 earth is not Mars, as to bewail the existence of this 

 instinct in animal life. We have to recognise that 

 it exists, and that every battlefield and every revo- 

 lution brings it to the surface in all its nakedness 

 and ethical horribleness, as a quality deep seated 

 and inherent in Man. We have also to recognise a 

 further fact. The moment a race loses such an 

 instinct, its end is near. It will be destroyed by one 

 whose instinct of self-preservation is strong. 



MissWodehouse asks, "Seriously, what is this Nature 

 which includes and justifies the doings of all animals 

 but man ? Which render infallible all instincts and 

 aspirations but his ? " "I can find no profit," 

 she says, " in this way of using words." Neither 

 can I, and that is why I did not use them in that way. 

 I should not, for instance, ascribe aspiration to the 

 lower animals. But I pass this by, for I desire to 

 come to the implied and supposed infallibility of the 

 instincts and aspirations of some men, perhaps those 

 for whom Miss Wodehouse may conceive some hope 

 and place them among the " We." Let me recite 

 the facts. A girl of eighteen was in a London work- 

 house. A male friend of hers and a ne'er-do-well 



