58 INSTINCT AND REASON. 



inherent in its nervous system, and liantled down 

 to it from all previous generations of liunian 

 babies from time immemorial. Perhaps tliis may 

 be regarded as the very best instance of an in- 

 stinctive action among human beings, and it must 

 certainly rank among the most important from 

 the point of view of the preservation of the 

 s[)ecies; for, if, b}^ any conceivable accident, our 

 babies wei'e all unanimously to forget the way to 

 feed themselves and refuse to suck, it is clear tliat 

 humanity would very sliortly become as extinct 

 upon our globe as the mammoth and the mastodon. 

 But there are sever/il other instincts, less marked, 

 it is true, yet not less real — whicli persist with all 

 of us throughout our whole lifetime. There is the 

 instinct which prompts us to wink or close our eyes 

 before an excessive flash of liglit, a blow aimed at 

 tlie eye, or the sudden approach of an insect, dust, 

 a twig, or any other dangerous object. Babies 

 close their eves instinctivelv if menaced with a 

 blow, though they do not know that the eye is a 

 specially sensitive part, or that injuries to it are 

 peculiarly painful and disabling. As long as we 

 live the instinct persists, and, as it acts far more 

 quickly and surely than reason, it saves many of 

 us, no doubt, on numerous occasions, from the 

 chance of blindness or serious hurt. Instincts of 

 self-preservation of many sorts also occur in man, 

 and are never got rid of to the very end, even by 



