CHAPTER XV 



EDUCATION 



There is no complete separation between instinct and experimental 

 action. The animals in which instinct rules come into their full 

 powers at once, and have little or nothing to gain from experience. 

 But the higher types of animals, those in which experimental action 

 directed from the experience stored in the brain is the dominating 

 feature of life, start with certain clearly marked aptitudes or ten- 

 dencies which may be called instinctive. It is not merely because 

 a carnivore has teeth and claws that it becomes a beast-of-prey, or 

 because a duck has webbed feet that it begins to swim. In the 

 slow process of evolution, the structure of different kinds of mammals 

 has become so fitted to the kind of life they are going to lead that 

 it is difficult for their machinery to work, so to speak, in any way 

 but the way for which it is fitted. And part of the structure is 

 the unconscious nervous mechanism which lies behind instinct, 

 and which requires time for growth, but not necessarily time for 

 training. But however definite may be the direction of apti- 

 tudes, most of these have to be educated by experiment and teach- 

 ing, to adapt them to the varying circumstances to which they 

 must be applied. The animals have to be initiated into life, they 

 have to learn to use their bodies. The moment a may-fly has freed 

 itself from its pupal case, it is able to crawl up on a dry bank, and 

 the moment its wings have expanded under the influence of light 

 and air, it flies off with as complete control of its powers as it will 

 ever have during its short life. This is not so with most of the 

 powers of the higher animals. They have to learn control over 

 their own body and over their special kind of locomotion. Even 

 when they are strong and active, young birds and mammals fly 

 or run against obstacles, lose their balance, fail to stop in time or 

 to turn quickly, and hurt themselves in many ways. The very flexi- 

 bility of their powers makes it more difficult to exercise them with- 

 out practice. They have to acquire skill in obtaining their food, as 

 well as knowledge of what that food is. To nibble grass, to gnaw 



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