INSTINCTIVE, EMOTIONAL AND REFLEX ACTION 337 



copulation as single cells are very similar to the actions 

 of the individuals, from whence they came. The fact is 

 that our actions are directed by the sex cells and not by 

 the brain cells. This fact has been fully conceded by 

 other scientists, as will appear by the following from 

 Ribot on the emotions : 



"Solomon says that jealousy is as cruel as the grave. 

 Shakespeare agrees with the Bible and holds that only 

 fools are jealous. He also shows with wonderful insight 

 that jealousy is self-destructive and its venom more 

 deadly than a mad dog's tooth. 



"Jealousy undoubtedly is a magnifier of trifles, and the 

 most accurate and precise mathematician or bookkeeper 

 correct to the letter ordinarily, will when jealous turn a 

 simple sentence into volumes of pseudo-history. Trifles 

 as light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as 

 proofs of Holy Writ. A jealous woman believes all that 

 her emotions suggest. It is her jealous nature to swell 

 small things to great. Out of nothing she will conjure 

 much and then lose the truth amid the hideous phantoms 

 she has formed. She makes a true husband false by for- 

 ever suspecting him. Inquisitiveness never allays the 

 pangs of jealousy. You may as well expect drinking in 

 a fever to cure a thirst. 



"Dr. Savage's first difficulty is the well known one of 

 defining what he means by supposedly simple words. 

 'Jealousy,' he says, 'is a personal feeling where you feel 

 powerfully a want of something which you are deprived 

 of by another. It is a feeling and not a thought.' 



"So intimately is jealousy usually associated with one 

 of the other sex that you are prone to lose sight of the 

 fact that dogs are often jealous of new babies, children 

 of the same sex are jealous of each other, professional 

 men dislike each other because there is an unconscious 



