88 INSTINCTS 



impulse. But, however this may be, if these im- 

 pulses are instinctive, their germs must be lying 

 dormant in the animals below us. And to deny 

 that they are instinctive is only possible for those 

 who hold that they have been breathed into man 

 by a special act of Providence. 



These various impulses may be regarded as 

 Life's endowment, if not, indeed, as part of Life 

 itself. But all tribes of living creatures do not 

 possess the gift in its entirety. All animals must 

 be equipped with individualistic and reproductive 

 impulses if they are to preserve their own lives 

 and continue their species : all gregarious animals 

 must at least possess the social impulse of deference. 

 In most beasts and birds we can detect traces of 

 both cruelty and kindness. But the provident, 

 the aesthetic, and the ethical impulses are posses- 

 sed far less generally. Apart from man, provi- 

 dence is manifested most strikingly by insects ; 

 birds, it is true, construct nests, but these are 

 for their young, not for themselves, and we find 

 no trace of providence in its most elementary 

 form an impulse to store up food when it is 

 abundant against the time when it becomes 

 scarce. In quadrupeds, also, the provident in- 

 stinct is extraordinarily weak : few of them have 

 any notion of putting by for the future, or con- 

 struct a dwelling of any kind. The aesthetic 

 impulses are strongly developed in birds ; self- 

 abandonment can hardly be better illustrated 

 than by a bird in the ecstasy of its singing. Here 

 again quadrupeds are curiously deficient : man 

 appears to be the only mammal that takes pleasure 

 in dancing, whereas its delights are appreciated 

 by many birds. Outside mankind we can only 

 discover faint traces of the ethical impulse of 



