INSTINCT AND ACQUIREMENT 423 



of instinctive actions and unlike his physical acquirements, most 

 of man's intellectual characters cannot, except through very 

 strained interpretations, be regarded as extensions of previously 

 existing innate characters. Thus many of his manual dexterities, 

 his efficiency in reading, his devotion to a religion, or an ethical 

 code, resemble nothing instinctive in him. They are wholly 

 ' acquirements.' 



696. We must distinguish not less sharply between instinct 

 and acquirement, than between capacity and acquirement. A 

 glance at the literature of the subject demonstrates that numbers 

 of human characters are accepted as innate on inadequate evidence. 

 Modesty is supposed to be innate. But what kind of modesty ? 

 that of the Mohammedan women, or that of the nun, or that of 

 the savage ? Savage women have no modesty in the European 

 sense, but I have known mission natives exhibit an extraordinary, 

 and, as it seemed to me an Englishman, an absurd degree of 

 prudishness. In Tonga, for untold centuries, the natives went 

 about naked and unashamed, and, judged by English standards, 

 sexual intercourse amongst them was almost promiscuous. A few 

 years later mere flirtation was regarded as a horrible crime and 

 was legally punishable. It is impossible to doubt that English 

 women trained by savages would show no trace of the traditional 

 modesty of their race. Modesty is not an instinct, but an acquire- 

 ment dependent on memory. The only instinct with which it is 

 connected is that of imitation. Morality also is supposed to be an 

 instinct. But what kind of morality? Like modesty, morals 

 vary with time and place. Real instincts are universal in the 

 species, and in measurable time unchanging. We often read of 

 the special instincts of savages, for example their instinct for 

 tracking game. But no savage, having all the while no notion of 

 the aim or end of his actions, has an innate impulse to follow 

 certain marks on the ground till he catches a kangaroo or a deer. 

 Manifestly his so-called instincts are acquirements. He excels 

 the civilized man for the same reason that the native Frenchman 

 excels the foreign resident in the perfection of his French because* 

 he has learned at the most receptive age. 



697. Even characters which have a large instinctive element 

 are extended, modified or even in some cases in a sense suppressed 

 in the human being by acquirement. Appreciation of sexual 

 beauty is an instinct, but the kind of beauty admired depends 

 greatly on acquirement. As a rule we admire women who are 

 decorated in the latest fashion. At the present day we can 



