THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



is born with vocal cords and organs of speech, but 

 he has to invent his own language and music. The 

 animals, on the other hand, do not have to learn to 

 walk or swim or fly or speak. If these acts are ap- 

 propriate to their kind, they do them naturally. 

 The lamb and the calf walk, the duck swims, the 

 snake strikes, the hour they are born. 



Man is a generalized type, except as regards his 

 brain-power. He is not by his anatomy a climber, 

 or a swimmer, or a wader, or a flyer; he has neither 

 fangs, tusks, talons, horns, spurs, nor claws. And 

 yet, by virtue of his gift of reason, he does all of 

 these things — provides himself with tools that 

 serve all these purposes and many more. It is his 

 reason, and not his instinct, that places him so far 

 above all other animals. A man with skates on his 

 feet is like one of the lower animals in this respect: 

 he is specialized, his range is limited. If he were 

 born with such a device on his feet, he would have 

 an instinct for skating; or if he had a nose like a pig, 

 he would have an instinct for rooting; if he had feet 

 like a goose, he would have an instinct for swim- 

 ming. Man's organization and brain-power is such 

 that pure instinct plays a far smaller part in his life 

 than it does in the lives of the animals below him. 

 He has general instincts, while they have special 

 instincts; he checks and controls or suppresses his 

 instincts by his reason, which the animals never do. 

 A man may have more instincts than his dog or his 

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