386 REFLEX ACTION, INSTINCT, AND REASON 



thing. All acting is imitating, and much of a child's play is 

 acting. Fashion is nothing other than a manifestation of imitative- 

 ness ; the infectious fury of mobs, and the steadfast purpose of 

 men in armies, is little more. Human society, which could not 

 exist unless the units composing it were much alike, is founded on 

 it. It is the principal means by which the traditions of the race 

 are transmitted to remote generations. 



640. The function of curiosity is obvious. Like imitativeness, 

 it impels to the acquirement of useful mental characters. Almost 

 as strong in the adult as in the child, it persists in men throughout 

 life. It is alike conspicuous in the aged gossip and in the man of 

 science. 



641. Sexual love is an instinct which prompts to actions which, 

 like swimming, are instinctive in the lower animals, but which man 

 acquires the ability to perform. At any rate, the ability to perform 

 all the actions which lead up to the sexual act are acquired by him. 

 The instinct is better developed, as a rule, in men, who play an 

 active part, than in women, who play a passive part. No man could 

 have offspring unless he had the instinct ; but women, who in past 

 times have often been the helpless slaves of their masters, may 

 have offspring in the absence of sexual inclination. 



642. Parental love is an instinct which impels to the care ot 

 offspring ; but none of the actions prompted by it are instinctively 

 performed by human beings. The lower animals are innately 

 capable of tending their young ; but the human mother must not 

 only learn during her own infancy to co-ordinate her muscles 

 for the tending of a child, but she must learn from other mothers 

 how to do it. However, some innate maternal impulses, which 

 prompt to actions that need no special learning, survive. Thus 

 almost every human mother delights in teaching her child to walk 

 and speak, characters which are essential to its well-being. 1 Very 

 beautiful and illuminating is the pleasurable participation of even 

 dull and care-worn women in the play of their babies and very 

 young children. Parental love is more highly developed in women 

 than in men. In " the state of nature " in which the race evolved, 



1 Apart from the parental instinct, the pleasure we feel in imparting information 

 seems as instinctive as the pleasure felt in receiving it. Every normally con- 

 stituted individual delights to awaken interest in this way. To-day, for example, 

 we bought my little boy, for use in school, a pair of drawing compasses, a pro- 

 tractor, and a set square. It is many years since I handled these instruments, 

 but I remembered some of their uses, and I am sure the child was not more eager 

 and pleased in learning than I was in teaching. The utility of both the imparting 

 and the receiving instincts are very obvious. 



