XVI 
THE BRUISED SERPENT 
Some hold that our abhorrence of the serpent 
tribe, the undiscriminating feeling which involves 
the innocent with the harmful, is instinctive in 
man. Many primitive, purely animal promptings 
and impulses survive in us, of which, they argue, 
this may be one. It is common knowledge that 
the sight of a serpent affects many persons, especially 
Europeans, in a sudden violent manner, with a 
tremor and tingling of the nerves, like a million 
messages of startling import flying from the centre 
of intelligence to all outlying parts of the bodily 
kingdom; and these sensations of alarm, horror, 
and disgust are, in most cases, accompanied or 
instantly followed by an access of fury, a powerful 
impulse to crush the offensive reptile to death. 
The commonness of the feeling and its violence, 
so utterly out of proportion to the danger to be 
apprehended, do certainly give it the appearance 
of a true instinctive impulse; nevertheless, such 
appearance may be deceptive. Fear, however it 
may originate, is of all emotions the least rational; 
and the actions of a person greatly excited by 
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