lASTINCT. 411 



no complication hinders, to acts of relief. There is noth- 

 ing unaccountable or pathological about this — nothing to 

 justify Professor Bain's assimilation of it to the ' fixed 

 ideas ' of insanity, as ' clashing with the regular outgoings, 

 of the will.' It may be as primitive as any other ' outgo- 

 ing,' and may be due to a random variation selected, quite 

 as probably as gregariousness and maternal love are, even 

 in Spencer's opinion, due to such variations. 



It is true that sympathy is peculiarly liable to inhibi- 

 tion from other instincts which its stimulus may call forth. 

 The traveller whom the good Samaritan rescued may well 

 have prompted such instinctive fear or disgust in the priest 

 and Levite who passed him by, that their sympathy could 

 not come to the front. Then, of course, habits, reasoned 

 reflections, and calculations may either check or reinforce 

 one's sympathy ; as may also the instincts of love or hate,, 

 if these exist, for the suffering individual. The hunting 

 and pugnacious instincts, when aroused, also inhibit our 

 sympathy absolutely. This accounts for the cruelty of 

 collections of men hounding each other on to bait or tor- 

 ture a victim. The blood mounts to the eyes, and sympa- 

 thy's chance is gone.* 



The hunting instinct has an equally remote origin in the 

 evolution of the race.f The hunting and the fighting in- 



* Sympathy has been enormously written about in books on Ethics. A 

 very good recent chapter is that by Thos. Fowler: The Principles of Morals, 

 part II. chap. ii. 



f "I must now refer to a ver}^ general passion which occurs in boys wLo 

 are brought up naturally, especially in the country. Everyone knows 

 what pleasure a boy takes in the sight of a butterfly, fish, crab or other 

 animal, or of a bird's nest, and what a strong propensity he has for pulling 

 apart, breaking, opening, and destroying all comple.v objects, how he de- 

 lights in pulling out the wings and legs of flies, and tormenting one animal 

 or another, how greedy he is to steal secret dainties, with what irresistible 

 strength the plundering of birds' nests attracts him without his having the 

 least intention of eating the eggs or the young birds. This fact has long 

 been familiar, and is daily remarked by teachers ; but an explanation oi 

 these impulses which follow upon a mere perception of the objects, with- 

 out in most cases any representation being aroused of a future pleasure to 

 be gained, has as yet been given by no one, and yet the impulses are very 

 easy to explain. In many cases it will be said that the boy pulls things 

 apart from curiosity. Quite correct : but whence comes this curiosity, this 

 irresistible desire to open everything and see what is inside ? What makes 



