Instinctive Actions 187 



portance of the subject, they would utilise in 

 the training of their own children and in guiding 

 those to whom they entrust their care. 1 It has 

 been our aim to show that instinctive action is 

 phylogenetically both older, and often to be 

 relied on with greater confidence, in the common 

 affairs of life than conclusions reached by in- 

 tellectual processes. In the case of many 

 women their instincts have been, and always 

 will be, their true and unconscious guide to 

 action; it is this which confers on them the 

 exasperating sway of often being in the 



1 In an article published in the Westminster Review for 

 December, 1900, p. 638, on the importance, from an educational 

 point of view, of rightly understanding .the development of the 

 innate character of young people, we endeavoured to show that 

 parents, guided by their own experience, can comprehend the 

 nature of the inherited mental qualities of their own children, and 

 are bound to make use of this knowledge in their home training. 

 The same principle, in our opinion, applies with even greater force 

 to the case of schoolmasters, many of whom receive lads from 

 eight to ten years of age under their charge. A master has seldom 

 any real knowledge as to the innate qualities of the lads he under- 

 takes to educate; he may make inquiries from a boy's parents as 

 to the infantile diseases from which his pupil has suffered, but it 

 rarely occurs to him to inquire concerning the boy's disposition. 

 If any thought is given to the subject, it is taken for granted that 

 the lad's character will soon make itself manifest by his conduct. 

 There is much truth in this idea. Nevertheless, we are convinced 

 that if parents and masters came to an understanding as to the 

 real innate and fixed character of the boys they have to deal with, 

 it would assist much in right education. Not a few self-respecting 

 natures are in early life driven into habits of sullenness, deceit, 

 and untold anguish by treatment and punishment misapplied from 

 ignorance and want of appreciation of a lad's character. 



