6200 



Reason and Instinct. 



mutual services and reciprocal dependency which characterize them ; 

 all testify to the existence, and ihe powerful, however little suspected, 

 underworking of the Social Instinct. And yet all has to give way and 

 disappear under the expediencies of a highly artificial and arbitrary 

 state of society, so far, that is, as the inevitable human inter- 

 dependenc}^ will permit. The next class of instinctive impulses we 

 come to is that we have designated by the somewhat awkward term 

 Food-craving. Of this, too, it must be said that it exists and ope- 

 rates strongly, and yet under such modifications and restraints that 

 its results are greatly disguised, and its influence for the most part 

 quite unsuspected. The elementarj^ instinct certainly remains in innu- 

 merable instances : however little it may be usually recognised, there 

 are many little circumstances which may and continually do lead to 

 a manifestation of its continued vitality. It is really a most curious 

 and significant fact, that, however remote men's lives have been from 

 what are called field sports, however little awake to the existence of 

 such pastimes their understanding has hitherto been, scarcel}^ one in 

 a thousand can be singled out who is not at once, and possibly even 

 strongl}^, vivaciously interested if brought into contact with the active 

 pursuit of some species of game. Nay, it is no uncommon thing for 

 a thorough-bred cockney, a true indigene of" The Town," on visiting 

 his country cousin, to become a partaker in and quite engrossed by 

 the mysteries and enthusiasms of a rat-hunt or even a mouse-battue. 

 The merest child, again, scarcely able to do more than toddle by 

 himself, " wants" the rabbit or the bird which arrests his attention by 

 its flight ; as soon as he is a little more master of his limbs gives 

 eager chase to the insect or reptile ; counts it a day to be marked 

 with white on which he first captures the bird that has flown in at the 

 window, or unwarily entered his awkwardly-constructed trap ; or, with 

 his stick and string and crooked pin, magnifies in imagination the 

 minnows which, unharmed b}^ hook, rob him of his bait, into most 

 unminnowlike dimensions, and glories for a w^eek over the scaly 

 infant which in some inscrutable way contrives to become his 

 "first fish." 



Still Mr. Briggs or even Gordon Gumming ''takes the field" in a 

 somewhat different way from the otter or the lion, and with an equip- 

 ment somewhat varied from that of the red man of North America or 

 the Balonda of South Africa. And, allowing all that may be urged 

 here, — that Gordon Cunnning in stalking an antelope, a bufDilo or an 

 elephant, or Mr. Briggs in trying to get near enough to a capercailzie 



