294 Wild Beasts 



clang of bells, attracted Gate's attention and made him 

 restless, but he was not "moved by concourse of sweet 

 sounds." They possessed no meaning, and did not cause 

 him to think or feel. To sing to him was a waste of 

 time, and he looked upon a guitar as something that made 

 an insignificant noise. If the strings were roughly and 

 unexpectedly vibrated, the effect resembled any other 

 sudden interruption of meditation or slumber. He was 

 startled, and apprehension instantly took the form of 

 anger, and then passed quickly when he saw what had 

 disturbed his repose. All physiologists will agree with 

 Spencer that /'the existing quantity of nerve force liber- 

 ated at any moment which produces in some inscrutible 

 way the state we call feeling, must expend itself in some 

 direction, must generate an equivalent manifestation of 

 force somewhere." The feeling excited, whatever it may 

 be, will flow in accustomed channels, and manifest it- 

 self in what Darwin describes as "habitually associated 

 movements." This law, and that governing antithetical 

 manifestations, is founded in the physical and mental 

 organization of all creatures, and its expressions vary with 

 the differences obtaining among those of different kinds. 

 Gato and the members of every species belonging to his 

 family are primarily avatars of force. They inherit as 

 predominant traits those feelings and faculties, those 

 physical specializations and particular aptitudes, which 

 tend to make violence successful. When any nervous 

 shock let loose his energy, it flowed from the centres where 

 it was stored through the most permeable tracts ; those 

 which had been most frequently traversed in the history 



