392 PSYCHOLOGY. 



"Wherever the mind is elevated enough to discriminate ; 

 wherever several distinct sensory elements must combine 

 to discharge the reflex-arc ; wherever, instead of plumping 

 into action instantly at the first rough intimation of what 

 sort of a thing is there, the agent waits to see which one of 

 its kind it is and what the circumstances are of its appearance; 

 wherever different individuals and different circumstances 

 can impel him in different ways ; wherever these are the 

 conditions — we have a masking of the elementary constitu- 

 tion of the instinctive life. The whole story of our dealings 

 with the lower wild animals is the history of our taking 

 advantage of the way in which they judge of everything by 

 its mere label, as it were, so as to ensnare or kill them. 

 Nature, in them, has left matters in this rough way, and 

 made them act alivays in the manner which would be 

 oftenest right. There are more worms unattached to hooks 

 than impaled upon them ; therefore, on the whole, says 

 Nature to her fishy children, bite at every worm and take 

 your chances. But as her children get higher, and their 

 lives more precious, she reduces the risks. Since what 

 seems to be the same object may be now a genuine food 

 and now a bait ; since in gregarious species each individual 

 may prove to be either the friend or the rival, according to 

 the circumstances, of another ; since any entirely unknown 

 object may be fraught with weal or woe, Nature implants 

 contrary impulses to act on many classes of things, and leaves 

 it to slight alterations in the conditions of the individual 

 case to decide which impulse shall carry the day. Thus, 

 greediness and suspicion, curiosity and timidity, coyness 

 and desire, bashfulness and vanity, sociability and pug- 

 nacity, seem to shoot over into each other as quickly, and 

 to remain in as unstable equilibrium, in the higher birds 

 and mammals as in man. They are all impulses, congenital, 

 blind at first, and productive of motor reactions of a rigor- 

 ously determinate sort. Each one of them, then, is an 

 instinct, as instincts are commonly defined. But they con- 

 tradict each other — ' experience ' in each particular oppor- 



and K. Semper's Conditions of Existence in Animals, where a great many 

 instances will be found. 



