The Dawn of Mind 09 



their becoming stereotyped was to leave the animal more free 

 for adventures at a higher level. Being "a slave of instinct" may 

 give the animal a security that enables it to discover some new 

 home or new food or new joy. Somewhat in the same way, a man 

 of methodical habits, which he has himself established, may gain 

 leisure to make some new departure of racial profit. 



When we draw back our finger from something very hot, or 

 shut our eye to avoid a blow from a rebounding branch, we do 

 not will the action; and this is more or less the case, probably, 

 when a young mammal sucks its mother for the first time. Some 

 Mound-birds of Celebes lay their eggs in warm volcanic ash by 

 the shore of the sea, others in a great mass of fermenting vegeta- 

 tion; it is inborn in the newly hatched bird to struggle out as 

 quickly as it can from such a strange nest, else it will suffocate. 

 If it stops struggling too soon, it perishes, for it seems that the 

 trigger of the instinct cannot be pulled twice. Similarly, when 

 the eggs of the turtle, that have been laid in the sand of the shore, 

 hatch out, the young ones make instinctively for the sea. Some 

 of the crocodiles bury their eggs two feet or so below the surface 

 among sand and decaying vegetation an awkward situation for 

 a birthplace. When the young crocodile is ready to break out of 

 the egg-shell, just as a chick does at the end of the three weeks 

 of brooding, it utters instinctively a piping cry. On hearing this, 

 the watchful mother digs away the heavy blankets, otherwise the 

 young crocodile would be buried alive at birth. Now there is no 

 warrant for believing that the young Mound-birds, young croco- 

 diles, and young turtles have an intelligent appreciation of what 

 they do when they are hatched. They act instinctively, "as to the 

 manner born." But this is not to say that their activity is not 

 backed by endeavour or even suffused with a certain amount of 

 awareness. Of course, it is necessarily difficult for man, who is 

 so much a creature of intelligence, to get even an inkling of the 

 mental side of instinctive behaviour. 



In many of the higher reaches of animal instinct, as in court- 



VOL. I 14 



