CHAPTER V 



INSTINCTS (continued) 



WE now pass to four classes of instinctive im- 

 pulses which, from a rigidly material point of view, 

 appear to be superfluous, and can hardly have been 

 of practical usefulness in the physical evolution 

 of man. 



CRUELTY. Not only do living creatures eat 

 other creatures : in many cases they seem to take a 

 fiendish pleasure in inflicting torture and in watch- 

 ing the agonies of their victims. We know too 

 little of the psychology of the lower animals to 

 accuse them with certainty. But a cat playing 

 with a mouse is a familiar illustration of this 

 instinct. It apparently attains its strongest in 

 man. Boys naturally delight in mutilating insects 

 and teasing animals : savage tribes torture their 

 captives : cruelty, as well as courage, actuates 

 the soldier in the heat of conflict, and suggests 

 the shameful mutilations which semi-civilized 

 races can perpetrate upon the slain and wounded. 

 Crowds of delicate women are fascinated by the 

 disembowelling of horses at a Spanish bull fight, 

 just as their sisters, centuries ago, critically gazed 

 upon the agonies of gladiators and Christian 

 martyrs. It is difficult to believe that it is only 

 ten generations since Englishmen the dons and 

 undergraduates of Oxford stood round while 

 venerable bishops were burnt in the streets. At 



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