THE MASTER INSTINCT 



extravagances: bizarre colors and ornaments, gro- 

 tesque forms and weapons, fantastic rites and cere- 

 monies. The sexual instinct emboldens the timid, 

 and spurs the sluggard; it sharpens the senses, it 

 quickens the wits, it makes even the frogs and toads 

 musical, and gives new life to the turtle. In fact, the 

 drama of all life revolves around the breeding-in- 

 stinct. It is this that fills the world with music, 

 color, perfume. The nuptials of the vegetable world 

 are celebrated with lovely forms, brilliant hues, and 

 sweet incense. With the birds they are attended by 

 joyous songs, gay plumes, dances and festive re- 

 unions, and striking, if at times grotesque, forms. 

 With the insects, music and gay colors mark the day; 

 with the human race, how much of our song and art 

 and pursuit of beauty has grown out of the instinct 

 to please and win the opposite sex! Without this 

 incentive — the mating instinct, the love of chil- 

 dren, and of home and fireside — could we ever have 

 attained to our present civilization? 



What is the meaning of the spring and summer 

 chorus of bird-songs — the ecstasy of larks and 

 finches, the madness of nightingales, the melody of 

 thrushes, the intoxication of bobolinks and mocking- 

 birds — the jewels in the plumage, the fantastic in 

 behavior — but sexuality, the innate desire for off- 

 spring? How Nature surrounds this passion with 

 the gay, the festive, the hilarious! how she aids it 

 with color and form! how she lavishes upon it all her 



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