1 86 Instinct and Intelligence 



as those of fear, jealousy, envy, hatred, and 

 malice, qualities which ancient philosophers 

 fully recognised as forming a part of human 

 nature which no device of man could wholly 

 eradicate, a residuum of the wild beast, liable 

 at any moment to assert itself, a fact of every- 

 day experience, and one which history has over 

 and over again proved to be true. 1 



Before undertaking the care and training of 

 a child it is desirable, as far as possible, to gain 

 sound ideas concerning his hereditary qualities 

 or natural disposition. There are two main 

 sources from which to obtain information on 

 this subject; we know the child inherits many 

 of the qualities possessed by his immediate pro- 

 genitors; and from about the third year of child- 

 life his hereditary qualities will be recognisable 

 from his behaviour, which we can study without 

 difficulty. 



Most people belonging to the upper and 

 middle classes of society are capable of forming 

 fairly correct ideas regarding their own heredi- 

 tary qualities which, if they understood the im- 



1 When making use of the term "young children" we mean 

 children from some three t' five or six years of age, the psychical 

 nervous substance of whose brains is gradually being matured. 



