352 LIFE AND DEATH. 



organs, the useless vestiges of organs useful to our 

 remote animal ancestors, atrophied in the course of 

 ages in consequence of modifications that have taken 

 place in the external medium. 



These rudimentary organs are not only useless; 

 they are often positively harmful. 



But the most serious discordance is that which 

 exists between the physiological functions and the 

 instincts which regulate them. In a well-regulated 

 organism slowly developed by adaptation the instincts 

 and the organs alike should be in relation with the 

 functions. All really natural acts are solicited by 

 an instinct, the satisfaction of which is at once a 

 need and a pleasure. The maternal instinct is 

 awakened at the proper moment in animals, and it 

 disappears as soon as the offspring requires no more 

 assistance. A craving for milk is shown in all new- 

 born children, and often disappears at an early age. 



Nature has endowed man as well as the other 

 animals with peculiar instincts, destined to preside 

 over the different functions and to ensure their 

 accomplishment. And, at the same time, it has 

 enabled him in a measure to deceive those instincts 

 and to satisfy them by other means than the execu- 

 tion of the physiological acts with a view to which 

 they exist. Love and the instinct of reproduction 

 exist in man before the age of puberty. Canova felt 

 the spur of love at the age of five. Dante was in 

 love with Beatrice at nine; and Byron, then scarcely 

 seven, was already in love with Maria Duff. On the 

 other hand, puberty has no necessary relation to the 

 general maturity of the organism. 



The family instinct is subject to the same aberra- 

 tions. Man limits the number of his children. The 



