REPRODUCTIVE IMPULSES 79 



These impulses are accompanied by a number 

 of deferential emotions which are applauded 

 by mankind as unselfish, and certainly conduce 

 towards the comfort of the community. They 

 are condemned by Nietzsche as the slave morals 

 of the herd, and are, it must be confessed, 

 not characteristic of the original geniuses to whom 

 mankind has owed the discoveries and inventions 

 that have been the guiding stars of progress. 



REPRODUCTIVE. We have here two imperious 

 impulses the generative (or sexual) instinct, 

 and the devotion to offspring, which is strikingly 

 illustrated by the self-sacrificing care of bees for 

 their eggs and larvae, and the labour of birds on 

 behalf of their young. Amongst mammals this 

 instinct is generally concentrated in the female 

 sex, which has developed special organs for 

 sharing its own nourishment with its offspring. 

 Maternal love is, perhaps, the most beautiful of 

 all human impulses, and in many religions has 

 been enshrined for adoration. The mystery of 

 reproduction has, indeed, forcibly impressed 

 thinkers of all races, and has been introduced into 

 religious cults, with consequences that have some- 

 times been prejudicial to sexual morality. 



When the lustful impulse runs at its strongest, 

 it is crudely indifferent to anything but the sex 

 of its object : so it acts upon some of the brutes 

 and upon degraded men. From this crude animal 

 passion romantic love may be distilled if there 

 are thrown into the crucible such other emotions 

 as admiration, sympathy, and self-restraint. 

 These are aroused by the charms which are dis- 

 covered by the intensity of a lover's gaze, lust 

 in this fashion stimulating the birth of impulses 

 which compete with it. In certain abnormal 

 dispositions one of these may actually be the 



