MENTAL IMAGE OF THE FEMALE 77 



can be shown that males, when they first reach 

 their breeding grounds, are even then intolerant 

 of one another's presence, if their actions and 

 attitudes betray similar symptoms of quasi- 

 conation, if disputes are rife and the struggles 

 of a kind to preclude all doubt as to their 

 reality, then it is manifest that in such cases 

 their intolerance cannot be due to the presence 

 of the female. 



Here, however, I must refer to a view which 

 is held by some psychologists, namely, that 

 amongst the higher animals, even on the 

 occasion of the fii'st performance of an instinc- 

 tive act, there is some vague awareness of the 

 proximate end to be attained. Discussing the 

 nature of instincts, Dr M'Dougall ^ says, " Nor 

 does our definition insist, as some do, that the 

 instinctive action is performed without aware- 

 ness of the end towards which it tends, for this, 

 too, is not essential ; it may be, and in the case 

 of the lower animals no doubt often is, so 

 performed, as also by the very young child, 

 but in the case of the higher animals some 

 prevision of the immediate end, however vague, 

 probably accompanies an instinctive action that 

 has often been repeated." A similar view seems 

 to be held by Dr Stout. ^ " As I have already 

 shown," he says, "animals in their instinctive 

 actions do actually behave from the outset as 

 if they were continuously interested in the 

 development of what is for them one and the 

 same situation or course of events ; they actually 



^ Social Psychology. '^ Manual of Psychology. 



