The Training of Instincts 183 



to domestic animals, believing as we do that 

 our instincts and emotional expressions have 

 been derived from animal progenitors, it seems 

 reasonable to suppose that the method employed 

 by many generations of sportsmen to train 

 pointers, for instance, might give us an idea of 

 the kind of treatment likely to succeed in 

 developing the living nervous matter of our 

 basal centres. In the year A.D. 1621 a well- 

 known sportsman, Gervase Markham, observes 

 regarding the training of pointers that no one 

 should attempt to take this business in hand 

 unless he has a real pleasure in the work, and 

 a natural liking for dogs. He writes as follows : 

 " You shall beginne to handle and instruct your 

 dogge at four months old; if deferred longer 

 it will make the labour greater; make him most 

 loving and familiar with you, taking a delight 

 in your company, also mix with this familiarity 

 a kindly awe and obedience which you shall 

 procure rather by tenderness than by terrefieing 

 him, which only maketh him sly. When you 

 have got thus far in his training you may begin 

 to teach him the work you desire him to per- 

 form." Markham is quite clear in his instruc- 



