LIFE AND HUMAN NATURE 
 
LIFE AND HUMAN 
 NATURE 
 
 BY SIR BAMPFYLDE FULLER, 
 
 K.C.S.I., C.I.E. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " STUDIES OF INDIAN LIFE AND SENTIMENT " 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 1914 
 

 ALL FIGHTS KE3ERVBD 
 

 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PART I: THE ATTRIBUTES OF LIFE 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY - 3 
 
 The study of human nature its attractiveness the sur- 
 prising anomalies and inconsistencies of man's disposition 
 if man has risen by evolution up the ranks of the animal king- 
 dom the roots of his behaviour must stretch down the animal 
 kingdom, and must, indeed, lie as deep as life itself the 
 essential nature of Life cannot be discerned by our senses, may 
 only be inferred from its manifestations what are these mani- 
 festations ? the marvellous energy of Life instincts, im- 
 pulsive and directive consciousness and volition memory, 
 habit and imitation sensitiveness and responsiveness 
 changefulness Life not the result but the cause of the sub- 
 stances and organs with which it is associated the proofs of 
 this contention Life's disregard of such natural laws as 
 express the workings of lifeless matterf unctions -without 
 organs anomalies of development and reproduction its 
 invasion of new environments the repetition of its schemes 
 with altered material. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 CHANGE ------ 24 
 
 Man's inherent desire for Change the ceaseless round of 
 change in the substance of our bodies also, by death and 
 reproduction, in the constitution of a species the changes 
 that have resulted in the evolution of species Darwinism 
 Mendelism the former cannot, the latter can explain the 
 occurrence of useless features or qualities illustrations of 
 such useless developments has evolution resulted from 
 capricious changefulness or has it been guided by design, or 
 by environment, imitation or habit ? the difficulties involved 
 in the spread of new characters from the individual to the 
 species possible influences of environment of imitation 
 man's changefulness of disposition illustrated by his migra- 
 tions, and by his pleasure in the ludicrous, in gambling and 
 in drink. 
 
 oor/i -i e: 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SENSATION AND REACTION 46 
 
 Sensations are produced in the brain, not received by the 
 sensory organs, and, so far, resemble memories and hallucina- 
 tions the typical sensory organ sensation without sensory 
 organs our sensations are not descriptive but symbolic, and 
 give us no true ideas of the things that excite them moreover, 
 they need to be constantly corrected by memories and 
 inferences the nature of memories they may be mistaken 
 for sensations sensations of ourselves the connection 
 between sensation and reaction is primarily automatic and 
 inevitable its control by other sensations and by memories, 
 impulses and habits reflex and ideo-motor actions the 
 mysterious workings of directive instinct in the lower animals 
 the origin of consciousness in sensation, in the feeling which 
 accompanies an impression pleasure and pain, derived from 
 sensation their ambiguity as guides to behaviour erroneous 
 conceptions of their utility their influence in the formation 
 of habits. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 INSTINCT 63 
 
 Man's behaviour is actuated not by nerve ganglia but by 
 instinctive impulses of which the nerve ganglia are the instru- 
 ments impulses aroused by memories as well as by sensory 
 impressions resulting complications of behaviour distinction 
 between impulsive and directive instincts the liberation of 
 impulses into action by sensory impressions and memories, 
 by imitation and the passage of time impulses consciously 
 liberated are accompanied by emotions these follow and do 
 not precede the promptings of impulse to action happiness and 
 unhappiness are the consequences of satisfied or unsatisfied 
 impulses their distinctiveness from pleasure and pain these 
 emotions and feelings cannot be original guides to behaviour, 
 but they assist in the formation of habits and they act like 
 impulses in expressing themselves by muscular reactions 
 laughter, tears, facial expressions classification of impulsive 
 instincts Individual, Social, Reproductive, Provident. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 INSTINCT (continued) 82 
 
 The impulses of Kindness and Cruelty the /Esthetic im- 
 pulses of self-abandonment the Ethical impulses of self- 
 restraint the distribution of these eight classes of impulses 
 along the ranks of the animal kingdom mankind possesses 
 all of them but they vary greatly in strength between indi- 
 viduals and races and in the same individual they may 
 
CONTENTS . vii 
 
 actuate different behaviour upon different occasions they are PAGE 
 liberated in varying assortments and are affected in varying 
 degrees by reason, will and habit their multiplicity reflected 
 in the numerous schools of philosophy Directive Instinct, its 
 independence of experience illustrations its inability to 
 infer its command of the internal functioning of the body 
 throughout the animal kingdom the weakening of its 
 authority over external behaviour as we ascend the scale 
 its survival in human aptitudes or talents Reason its 
 processes described, and compared with those of directive 
 instinct its possession by the lower animals, and indeed by 
 all animals its development in man assisted by consciousness 
 and by language. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 104 
 
 Classed together as representing repetitive influences the 
 Memory stream our personality depends upon its continuity 
 peculiarities of its course the effect upon it of emotional 
 impulses influenced by the will it becomes imagination the 
 statics of memory direct and symbolic recollections vis- 
 ualization correlation of symbols and objects recollections 
 that adjust our sensaticfis Habit its effect in regulating the 
 power of instinctive impulses its immense importance in 
 directing behaviour the influence of mental habits or fixed 
 ideas comparison ^beTween habit and directive instinct 
 how far may habit innately alter behaviour or character 
 Imitation is the impulse which underlies education its 
 conflict with habit the conditions which enable it to over- 
 come habit its possible effects in stimulating mimicry and 
 in the spread of evolutionary changes from the individual to 
 the specieg. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 CONSCIOUSNESS 128 
 
 Its origin in the cell as a feeling that accompanies sensation 
 its development through diffused (sometimes apparently 
 localized) subconsciousness into the flower of selfconsciousr 
 ness the sympathetic awareness of the brain cells a possible 
 explanation of our capacity of observing our recollections and 
 ideas, and of such phenomena as thought-reading the bear- 
 ing upon selfconsciousness of the phenomena of hypnotism 
 the effect of selfconsciousness upon outlook and behaviour 
 the idea of personality its growth within recent times the 
 effect of consciousness in widening the scope and intensifying 
 the power of reason, and in affording opportunities to the will 
 also in leading mankind into errors and unhappiness 
 errors of apprehension, confusion of the visioned with the 
 observed errors of inference, mistaken linkings of happenings 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 as cause and effect the unhappiness caused by conscience PAGE 
 the misery resulting from conflict between will and instinct 
 the appreciation of injustice. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 VOLITION - - 150 
 
 The distinction between suggested and original resolutions 
 only the latter manifest spontaneity or free-will the 
 determinist denial of the existence of free-will the arguments 
 which appear to show that man possesses it its unusual 
 strength in eccentric or original men its function concerned 
 not with invention but with choice, whether between methods 
 of satisfying an impulse, or between different impulses the 
 struggle of temptation the connection between spontaneity 
 and the separateness of living individuals' spontaneity- 
 appears to be a universal attribute of Life. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 RECAPITULATION- ... - ,61 
 
 Organs derived from impulses, not impulses from organs 
 evolution is the result of an impulse to change, guided, it may 
 be, by environment, habit or imitation individual develop- 
 ment, activity and conduct are the products of a swarm of 
 impulses, controlled by directive instinct, or by reason, will 
 and habit infinite possibilities of differences in innate strength, 
 combination, or control, account for differences in the dis- 
 position and behaviour of individuals, and for varying conduct 
 of the same individual deceptiveness of our senses fallibility 
 of our reason apparent duality in Life and Nature through 
 much that seems confused, evolution has at least developed 
 freedom, but at a heavy cost in degrading error hopes for 
 the future the extraordinary antagonism of our impulses 
 they may be marshalled in two opposing ranks, representing, 
 perhaps, the influence of Life and of Matter correspondence 
 between Christian precept and the impulses which may be 
 attributed to the spirit of Life. 
 
 PART II: CONSTRAINING INFLUENCES 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 RACE - 179 
 
 Difficulty of distinguishing between the effects of race, 
 environment and culture racial peculiarities of feature 
 racial peculiarities of character illustrations of their dis- 
 tinctiveness and persistence typical characteristics of peoples 
 comparison of the Baltic and the Mediterranean peoples 
 the origin of racial peculiarities their connection with en- 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 vironment, which appears to stimulate the production of PAGE 
 certain types and to spread them over a locality the dis- 
 turbing effect of changeful variations or " sports " the 
 levelling effect of marriage which tends to reduce a nation to 
 the uniformity of a family the disturbing effect of migrations 
 the levelling effect of infertility which eliminates alien 
 traits that are unsuited to the environment, or out of accord 
 with the genius of the native race illustrations of migrations 
 from Northern Europe to India and the Mediterranean their 
 influence upon the history of India, Greece and Rome the 
 impermanence of northern characteristics compared with 
 those of southern races. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 ENVIRONMENT - - - - - 205 
 
 Its effect upon the individual in modifying features, dis- 
 position and habits its effects upon the race, that is to say, in 
 producing peculiarities which are heritable the possibility of 
 this denied facts which appear to prove its actuality -, 
 hereditary peculiarities of size, colour and degeneration which 
 have proceeded from environment the effect of environment 
 in stimulating mutations, or " sports " its influences may be 
 unintelligible, but should not be denied on this account 
 illustrations of the association amongst mankind of distinctive 
 features and complexion with particular environments 
 similar illustrations in respect to traits of racial character 
 the direct influence of environment in modifying character, 
 its indirect influence in guiding habits effects are hereditary 
 in the former case, not in the latter its influence upon human 
 fertility the effect of a changed environment upon migrants 
 less in the case of southern than in the case of northern 
 peoples. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CULTURE 229 
 
 Is the tradition passed on by each generation to its suc- 
 cessor its dependance upon language for its formation and 
 upon writing for its continuity owes to reason its elaboration 
 and also its errors confusion of visioned with observed causes, 
 and the resulting conception of a double set of ideas, visionary 
 and practical illustrations the inferences of reason may 
 confirm the lead of unreasoning impulses the genesis and 
 spread of culture the initiative genius of inventors 
 imitation by the crowd, formerly reluctant, latterly more 
 eager under a growing desire for change other impulses 
 which conduce to imitation reverence for authority the 
 prestige of a conqueror sympathy instinctive satisfactions 
 the pressure of circumstances reason the effect of imita- 
 tion in producing new habits of mind culture cannot alter 
 racial disposition or change the innate impulses that form 
 character culture and population its effects upon the 
 birth-rate. 
 
x CONTENTS 
 
 PART III: HUMAN ACHIEVEMENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII PAGE 
 
 MATERIAL PROGRESS 255 
 
 The provident impulse signs of it amongst the lower 
 animals its need of reinforcement by other impulses the 
 domestication of fire, of animals, of plants the success of the 
 ancients in agriculture the beginnings of private property 
 and of marriage of the art of building the invention of 
 tools, of dress, of writing the development of trade its 
 civilizing effect the rapid material progress of Northern 
 Europe assisted by the freedom of women changes of ideal 
 that have accompanied it their comparison with the ideals 
 of former times the extension of the new ideals to other 
 parts of the world. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS --------- 274 
 
 The growth of polyandry and the matriarchate out of the 
 promiscuity of the herd war introduced the patriarchate the 
 impulses which combine to support the institution of the 
 family the development of the social fabric blood-brother- 
 hood propinquity the original stimulus, ideas of propinquity 
 a later refinement neighbourship the esprit de corps of 
 castes, guilds, and similar associations patriotism and 
 loyalty the bonds of religion nationality social institu- 
 tions slavery helotage foreign dominion the relation of 
 employer and employed influence of liberty as an ideal its 
 dangers and disappointments the spirit of kindliness its 
 helpfulness to the poor State education riches and poverty 
 the causes of poverty its extent and its compensations 
 review of the impulses which have contributed to social pro- 
 gress. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 MODERN ECONOMICS 293 
 
 The term " wealth " limited with reason to material posses- 
 sions the peculiar value of things that can be pledged the 
 usefulness of money in stimulating industry by enlisting the 
 co-operation of a number of impulses modern industrial 
 civilization likened to a whirlpool which must be kept in- 
 cessantly in motion prosperity dependent upon the rapidity 
 and volume of the current circumstances which contribute to 
 its rapidity, communications and enterprise in retailing and 
 to its volume, credit and low prices the development of 
 industrial civilization from earlier stages- the effect of 
 advertisement of good government the swelling of the 
 wealth-stream by foreign trade, borrowings, investments and 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 subsidies the appropriation of wealth by capitalist enter- 
 prise, by trade, by the rendering of services wealth attracts 
 wealth the influence of the spirit of kindliness services 
 rendered by the rich the prospects of Socialism. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 MODERN POLITICS - - - - - - . _ 31 , 
 
 The multiplicity of the interests that are aroused by 
 modern politics the simplicity of ancient political ideals the 
 head of the herd the council of patriarchs the warrior king 
 religious authority the conflict between monarchy and 
 aristocracy the interference of the masses how their intro- 
 duction to politics came about fundamental distinction 
 between democracy and the political liberty of particular 
 classes although gratified by the possession of the franchise, 
 the people are not generally anxious to exercise it the 
 stimulus of emulation or party feeling the party system and 
 the group system efficiency and prospects of the latter 
 effect upon elections of jealousy and chauvinism weakness of 
 democracy in foreign affairs the party pendulum- influence 
 of an earnest desire for reform so far has expressed itself 
 generally in non-official propaganda its prospects of increased 
 authority declining status of professional politicians local 
 government independent of party feeling review of the 
 various impulses or ideals which have operated at various 
 times to bring about political reform the fundamental 
 influences of national character political progress by 
 imitation the unrest occasioned by each change of ideal 
 conclusion. 
 
PREFATORY 
 
 WHAT, it may be asked, are the qualifications of 
 the writer of this book for entering upon so 
 difficult a subject ? I have travelled much, and 
 have enjoyed favourable opportunities of observ- 
 ing the behaviour and comparing the ideas of 
 different races of mankind. And, during many 
 years of my life, I have been occupied in the task 
 of governing men of inducing large numbers of 
 both Europeans and Asiatics to carry out the 
 desires of the State ; and it is probable that in 
 this business one gets a closer insight into the 
 complicated working of human nature than by 
 any other course of experience or study. So much 
 for what is empirical in these discussions. For 
 my psychology and evolutionary biology I am, 
 of course, immensely indebted to the many able 
 and eminent men who have written on these 
 subjects, and especially to Professors William 
 James, E. D. Cope, E. B. Tylor, W. McDougall, 
 C. Lloyd-Morgan, F. W. Gamble, W. A. Bateson, 
 R. C. Punnett, William Ridgeway, Karl Pearson, 
 Sir Francis Galton, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, 
 and MM. Gabriel Tarde, J. H. Fabre, and Henri 
 Bergson. 
 
 February, 1914. 
 
PART I 
 THE ATTRIBUTES OF LIFE 
 
LIFE AND HUMAN NATURE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 HUMAN nature is a subject that is studied by 
 everyone. It provides a philosopher with material 
 for the curious speculations of psychology ; but 
 it is not less interesting to the crossing-sweeper, 
 whose livelihood depends upon the disposition of 
 the passers-by. It may be vulgar to gossip : it 
 may be wrong to talk scandal ; but they fmve 
 charms that can hardly be resisted ; and to 
 many persons newspapers would be very dull 
 reading were it not for their personal paragraphs. 
 Human nature is the most attractive and the most 
 exciting element in politics : it is the source from 
 which dramatists, poets, and novelists draw nine- 
 tenths of their inspiration : painting and sculp- 
 ture are generally devoted to its illustration, and 
 even so abstract an art as music is in great 
 measure content to express the phases of human 
 emotion. Nor need we marvel that human 
 nature should be so engrossing a study. Our 
 happiness is conditioned by the way in which 
 others behave towards us. We win success in life 
 by our ability to read and to influence the 
 character of others. And, apart from these 
 practical interests, human nature attracts our 
 regard by a particular fascination. It is so extra- 
 ordinarily variable, it abounds in such astonishing 
 
- ; * . . 
 
 - 
 
 4 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 inconsistencies, that it offers to us, at any moment, 
 the exciting surprises of a dramatic entertain- 
 ment. It is not only that cruelty and kindness, 
 selfishness and self-denial, strength and weakness, 
 distinguish different members of the same com- 
 munity : the same person may unaccountably 
 display these opposite qualities at different 
 moments of our acquaintanceship. For what 
 diversity of purposes does man use his tongue ! 
 " Therewith bless we God, even the Father ; and 
 therewith curse we men, which are made after the 
 similitude of God." 
 
 By the variety as well as by the complexity of 
 his nature man is separated from the brutes by a 
 gulf that appears to be unbridgeable. Yet, if we 
 accept the doctrine of evolution, we must believe 
 that man has crossed this gulf to win the privileges 
 of his position, and owes his form, his talents, and 
 his aspirations to a gradual development out of 
 brutish conditions. The roots of the excellencies 
 upon which we pride ourselves must stretch down 
 the length of the animal kingdom, must, indeed, 
 be traceable were we able to trace them not 
 merely in what are generally called the " lower 
 animals," but in the minute animalcules which 
 flit across the field of the microscope. For, unless 
 the germs of our qualities exist in the lowest forms 
 of life, we must have been endowed with them, 
 at one stage or another, by acts of special creation, 
 and for such interpositions of Providence the 
 doctrine of evolution has no place. May we not, 
 then, reject a theory which strains our powers of 
 belief so harshly ? Only if we can close our ears 
 against a cloud of witnesses. Geology testifies 
 that the forms of animal and vegetable life change 
 and become simpler and simpler with the increas- 
 
ARGUMENTS FOR EVOLUTION 5 
 
 ing age of the rocks that contain their fossils, 
 and that during the remotest geological age 
 from which relics of life have come down to us, 
 no animal existed so highly developed as a fish. 
 The growth of the embryos of the higher animals 
 presents phases that appear to illustrate by 
 repetition the course of their progenitors' develop- 
 ment up the animal kingdom, exhibiting in transi- 
 tory stages the likenesses of adult forms that have 
 become extinct. The human embryo, for instance, 
 at one stage of its growth, is actually equipped with 
 gill-clefts, such as those through which fish pass the 
 water that gives oxygen to their blood. Useless 
 organs survive which can only be relics of an 
 outgrown constitution. There are rudiments of 
 hind legs in whales and boa- constrictors. Monkeys 
 have pointed ears, and from time to time children 
 are born possessing them. We all retain muscles 
 for moving the ears, although very few can use 
 them. And every baby confesses its kinship with 
 the monkeys by the disproportionate strength 
 of its arm muscles a necessary endowment in the 
 days when mothers sprang about the branches of 
 an arboreal home. The peculiar character of the 
 animals and plants of oceanic islands indicates 
 very forcibly that species have originated by 
 development, and that, remote from outside 
 influences, they have undergone changes along 
 special lines of their own. That differences, as 
 marked as those which distinguish one species 
 from another, can come about by development is 
 proved by the varied forms of our domesticated 
 animals : admitting that a Pekinese is akin to a 
 bulldog, we cannot deny that there may be 
 blood relationship between the horse and the 
 donkey. We may be unwilling to believe that 
 man is the last shoot of a genealogical tree that 
 extends down the length of the animal kingdom. 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 But the proofs are too strong for us. The straiter 
 Darwinists would have us believe that the varia- 
 tions which have brought about this marvellous 
 development have been guided by no directing 
 impulse, have not even been stimulated by 
 environment or experience, but are spontaneous 
 random fluctuations which, when useful, have been 
 preserved by the struggle for life. This theory is 
 non-proven, and we may disbelieve it if we please. 
 But as a process, and without implication as to 
 causes, evolution holds the ground as an explana- 
 tion of the origin of man, and of the animals that 
 are below him. We must remember that, from 
 the physical point of view, the gulf between man 
 and the monkey is after all not so wide as that 
 between the monkey and the squirrel. 
 
 Great as is the contrast between man and the 
 brutes, more striking still is man's inconsistency 
 with his natural surroundings. He has grown up 
 in a world that is unmoral, wasteful, and cruel a 
 world in which life feeds upon lite, in which myriads 
 are born without chance of survival, in which 
 justice and mercy are trampled down by the 
 fierceness of the struggle for existence. He has 
 taken some colour from his surroundings : he has 
 learnt his lesson in cruelty and selfishness nay, 
 in some respects he seems more bloodthirsty than 
 the brutes, for of them few kill their own kind 
 except under the spur of hunger. But, in other 
 moods, he exhibits the strangest paradoxes. He 
 rises from the feet of Nature in protest against 
 her teaching. In an arena of brutish struggling 
 he holds up ideals of self-denial, kindliness, justice, 
 and mercy : he gathers notions of Art from the 
 world's kaleidoscopic exhibition of forms and 
 colours ; against Nature herself he appeals to 
 supernatural forces which he seems dimly to 
 descry through the darkness of her forests, 
 
DISCORDANT IDEALS 7 
 
 building temples, not only to manifest his feelings 
 of veneration, but to enshrine conceptions of 
 immortality, asceticism and purity which con- 
 demn what daily happens around him. Most 
 strange of all is his respect for celibacy, which 
 directly conflicts with the strongest of human 
 instincts, and, if generally practised, would 
 altogether extinguish human society. Yet down 
 the vistas of history we see it enshrined by the 
 admiration of mankind. Centuries before the time 
 of Buddha it was the ideal of Indian sages. It is 
 a vivid feature in the life history of Christ. It 
 was commended by the earliest Christian teachers, 
 and at one time afforded to vast numbers of their 
 disciples a refuge from the pagan wickedness of 
 the world. It has come down to us as an honoured 
 institution of the Roman Church. Protestantism 
 has rejected it : but not without some regret 
 some echoes of an admiration so finely expressed 
 by a Protestant poet : 
 
 Thrice blessed whose lives are faithful prayers, 
 
 Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
 
 What souls possess themselves so pure, 
 Or is there blessedness like theirs ? 
 
 If man is an organism which owes its develop- 
 ment to natural circumstances, whence come his 
 ideas condemning these circumstances ? Whence 
 does he derive this strange conflict of impulses, 
 that urge him at one time to self-indulgence, and 
 another to self-denial this antagonism which has 
 been figured as between the Spirit and the Flesh ? 
 
 \':'. s; 
 
 As to the nature of Life, philosophers have been 
 theorizing for centuries. There are some who hold 
 that it is the appendage of a particular chemical 
 compound : this might be produced in a laboratory 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 and Life would be found in the test tube with it. 
 In fact Life is assumed to be an attribute of Matter. 
 But this view seems to ignore altogether the 
 peculiar character of the energies which it 
 exhibits. Its essential nature is unknown to us, 
 as is also the essential nature of electricity and 
 gravity. And it seems likely to remain unknown, 
 since it lies beyond the scope of our powers of 
 perception. Science is reluctant to admit that 
 the unknown is unknowable ; and the striking 
 success which it has recently gained in the analysis 
 of the constitution of the electric current, and of 
 the emanations of radium, may suggest that no 
 limits should be set to its powers of investigation. 
 But these discoveries, great though they are, 
 only prove that we can increase the acuteness of 
 our senses, and perceive appearances which have 
 hitherto lain beyond our ken. The fact remains 
 that we are dependent upon our sensations for 
 our knowledge ; and our sensations can resemble 
 realities no more nearly than a catalogue resembles 
 the furniture which it advertises. Conscious reason 
 enables us to analyse our sensations, to classify 
 them by their properties, and to deduce from their 
 relations to one another the abstract conceptions 
 that crown the edifice of science. But our sensa- 
 tions are the ground work or this intellectual super- 
 structure, and we can gain no clues to the nature 
 of energies, which are not themselves perceivable 
 by the senses, except by the observation of the 
 perceivable effects that they produce. Gravity is 
 known to us merely by the movements which it 
 causes in material objects. We can form any 
 view of the nature of Life only by scrutinizing 
 and classifying the manifestations of its activity. 
 The appearances upon which we rely are as unlike 
 realities as words are unlike the things that they 
 represent. But they are the only material that 
 
LIFE'S MANIFESTATIONS g 
 
 is available. And we may assume that they at 
 least possess a symbolic value, and can tell us 
 something, by their occurrence or non-occurrence, 
 their similarities and differences, and the order in 
 which they come to our observation. 
 
 
 
 The enormous power of Life's energy is not 
 generally realized. An animal or plant,if likened 
 to a machine, must be likened to a machine of 
 marvellous efficiency. Its strength must not be 
 computed by the force which is developed by its 
 external muscles : in the assimilation of its food, 
 and in the secretion of waste, it forms chemical 
 compounds which, if capable at all of being formed 
 in a laboratory, can only be produced by the lavish 
 expenditure of energy. A class of minute bacteria, 
 living in the soil, are able to fix nitrogen from the 
 air. For this same purpose factories have been 
 established ; but the energy required for the 
 process is so large, and, if obtained by burning 
 fuel, would be so expensive, that they can only 
 be maintained with hope of profit where their 
 machinery can be driven by large waterfalls. It 
 has been computed that an acre of wheat, in 
 coming from germination to maturity, daily 
 exerts the force of more than fifteen horses. The 
 coal beds by which modern industry subsists are 
 a store of energy that was accumulated by plant 
 life in ages gone by : in fixing it the plants 
 exerted as much power as we now obtain from the 
 coal by burning it. Coal is popularly described 
 as " stored sunlight," and it is true that the 
 plants needed light in order to produce it. But 
 so does a steam engine need water for its function- 
 ing. Yet we do not credit the water with the 
 power that is developed. 
 
 Moreover, not only is Life's force remark- 
 
io INTRODUCTORY 
 
 able for its intensity : it acts very largely in 
 a contrary direction to material forces. These 
 tend to dissipate energy : the action of the 
 sun, the working of our machines, alike result 
 in the conversion of energy into heat, which, if 
 not lost by radiation into space, diffuses itself 
 about the earth, tending towards a condition 
 of uniform temperature in which it is useless for 
 human purposes. Coal contains energy because 
 its carbon is held in a stressful disunion from 
 oxygen : when the coal is burnt, these elements 
 become united and the energy resulting from the 
 separation is dissipated. The furnaces which turn 
 the wheels of modern industry involve, then, a 
 continuous loss of energy. Life, on the other 
 hand, is always building up energy by uniting or 
 disuniting substances which naturally tend to fly 
 apart or come together. Conspicuous in this 
 matter is the activity of plants : they form out 
 of mineral substances organic tissues which, 
 directly or indirectly, provide the whole of the 
 animal world with its food. The most character- 
 istic ingredient of these tissues is nitrogen. This 
 abounds in the air ; but plants cannot directly 
 annex it. A small amount, in combined form, is 
 brought down by rain. But vegetation mainly 
 depends for it upon the action of the minute 
 bacteria that have been already mentioned. These 
 have the power of absorbing it from the air, and 
 they yield it up to the plant roots which ramify 
 in the soil around them. The peculiar capacities 
 of these minute embodiments of life ultimately 
 provide the living world with the nitrogen that is 
 essential for its subsistence. How they originated 
 remains the greatest of problems. We may fancy, 
 if we please, that Life pervades the Universe, 
 and under certain conditions joins itself with 
 Matter and commences its earthly evolutionary 
 
INSTINCTS ii 
 
 progress in the form of these minute organisms ; 
 we may go further, and imagine that, if these 
 conditions exist, this incarnation may be in 
 progress now around us. 
 
 
 
 Let us now attempt to survey and catalogue 
 the most prominent of the characteristics that 
 mark the action of Life as manifested to our 
 senses, limiting our view, in the first place, to 
 characteristics which are noticeable throughout 
 the whole of the animal kingdom, and, it may 
 perhaps be held, throughout the whole of the 
 vegetable kingdom also. 
 
 Instincts. All living things are actuated by 
 impulses, and are guided by directions, which 
 may be conveniently styled " instincts," if we use 
 the term in a broader sense than is usually attached 
 to it. Some of them may be classed as vaguely 
 impulsive : these are illustrated by the instincts 
 of self-preservation and of reproduction. Others 
 give definite directions as to complicated methods 
 of behaviour. Directive instincts of this class 
 that particularly interest us are such skilful 
 contrivings as those by which birds build their 
 nests, bees work up their combs, or caterpillars 
 encase themselves in their cocoons. But these 
 illustrate only one of many kinds of instinctive 
 action. A caterpillar is the young of a butterfly 
 in its embryonic stage : it differs from the young 
 of a mammal, growing within the womb of its 
 mother, in that during its embryonic life it is cast 
 adrift to fend for itself ; the construction of its 
 cocoon is part and parcel of its embryonic growth, 
 and, if we style this instinctive, we must also 
 recognise as instinctive the power which enables 
 it to develop from a germ into a caterpillar, and 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 from a caterpillar into a butterfly. By instinct, 
 animals and plants increase in size, and shape 
 their organs, until they attain maturity. They are 
 not conscious of the force within them : nor are 
 we conscious of the vital processes upon which 
 our lives, from hour to hour, depend. Directive 
 instinct needs no assistance from experience or 
 practice : the young chaffinch knows precisely the 
 materials for its first nest, and the method of inter- 
 weaving them : young birds generally know how 
 to fly without the need of practice : the bee is an 
 instinctive architect of hexagonal cells. By 
 instinct our organs perform their functions the 
 heart beats, the lungs pulsate, the liver and 
 kidneys distil their secretions. The direction of 
 these complicated processes owes nothing to 
 experience, and in this differs essentially from 
 the working of reason. But reason itself is a 
 development of processes that are fundamentally 
 instinctive, and are shared by man with the 
 animals below him. So also, we shall find, are 
 impulses which we do not ordinarily think of as 
 instinctive : such as the promptings of kindness, 
 and even the vague feelings of ecstasy which we 
 speak of as " aesthetic." Instinct underlies our 
 emotions. We love, are enraged, are terrified, 
 feel pity, as we are moved by impulses which lie 
 as deep as life itself. Our instincts may be com- 
 pared to a number of alarums, each of which is 
 set for a special stimulus and runs down im- 
 mediately upon being touched by it. The stimulus 
 may be a sensation of something that occurs out- 
 side us or inside us : it may be a recollection, or it 
 may merely be the lapse of a period of time. Once 
 stimulated, instinct acts forthwith, unless it is 
 checked, or inhibited, by another instinct, by 
 habit, or by an effort of will. 
 
 The diversity which we perceive in the behaviour 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS AND VOLITION 13 
 
 and manner of life of different kinds of living 
 creatures manifests a corresponding diversity of 
 instinctive promptings. The workings of directive 
 instinct exhibit extreme variety, although they 
 are generally uniform throughout the individuals 
 of a species. The similarity of blackbirds', or of 
 chaffinches', nests is a familiar illustration. But 
 each of the principal impulsive instincts of man- 
 kind can be followed down the animal kingdom 
 by traces which, coming to the surface here and 
 there, appear to witness to an underlying uni- 
 formity a continuity in germ if not in develop- 
 ment which acknowledges the fundamental 
 relationship of all living creatures. 
 
 Consciousness and Volition. In the strongest 
 contrast to instinct stand the faculties of con- 
 sciousness and volition. To an organism whose 
 behaviour is directed by instinct, it means nothing 
 that an experience is new, or is familiar : it 
 learns nothing, and has no need of learning. 
 Consciousness and volition, on the contrary, are 
 essentially means of drawing profit from experi- 
 ence : they may mislead us, whereas instinct is 
 infallible within its own province ; but error is an 
 incident of liberty, and these faculties, in their 
 fullest development, open to man possibilities of 
 freedom which the directing force of instinct 
 would have kept closed against him. 
 
 In the uniformity of instinct we may see a reflec- 
 tion of the continuity ol Life. Consciousness and 
 volition emphasize, on the other hand, Life's indi- 
 viduality : they could scarcely have been developed 
 had not Life been broken up into separate parcels 
 had it not been divided, that is to say, between 
 a number of different individual beings. The 
 forces of gravity, of electricity, are ubiquitous : 
 there is no spot on the earth but is subject to 
 
14 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 them, or, so to speak, contains them. But Life 
 is distributed amongst plants and animals that 
 are separated from one another by lifeless space. 
 Each individual experiences an environment of 
 its own : lives its own life, which differs, if by 
 ever so little, from that of other individuals of 
 the same species. Connected with other indivi- 
 duals by descent, it shares their instincts ; but it is 
 itself a separate focus of life which is capable of 
 evolving new developments. Its isolation enables 
 it to concentrate the vague feeling of awareness 
 which arises in sensitive cells that are touched 
 by an impression. Consciousness springs from the 
 convergence of these microscopic rootlets of 
 sensation, and flowers in the marvel of self-con- 
 scious personality. The independence which 
 comes from separation fosters the development of 
 a power of willing primarily an indefinite capri- 
 ciousness of choice; in man, however fettered by con- 
 vention and habit, a faculty of judgment by which 
 he may follow the good and eschew the evil. 
 
 It may be hard to believe that the lowliest of 
 living organisms possess the germs, however 
 rudimentary, of consciousness, personality, and 
 will. We can judge of the mind, so to speak, 
 of these organisms only by observing their con- 
 duct, and any conclusions must be in great 
 degree speculative. But there is good reason to 
 hold that sensation, in however humble a form, 
 involves a feeling, as well as a recording, and 
 differs in this respect from such chemical reactions 
 as result, for instance, from the influence of light. 
 And the directions of instinct, closely though they 
 may govern, cannot provide for every possible 
 contingency of experience ; they must leave some 
 scope, however small, for choice that is to say, 
 for the exercise of judgment or of volition. The 
 microscopic amoeba displays an activity which is 
 
SPONTANEITY 15 
 
 wholly different from that of lifeless objects. All 
 living organisms seem to possess, in some degree, 
 the faculty of selection, and are able to discover 
 ways of circumventing difficulties. Air bubbles 
 which are prevented from rising in water, simply 
 press themselves against the obstacle ; animal- 
 cules will find a path round its edge. 
 
 According to one school the " determinist " 
 school of thought, spontaneity, or free will, is 
 non-existent, and our impression that we can 
 direct our thoughts or our actions is entirely 
 fallacious. We are automata, and every idea 
 that enters our minds, every act of our behaviour, 
 is imposed upon us by our instincts, or our 
 habits, or is the inevitable consequence of our 
 sensations or our memories. Determinist philoso- 
 phers not only maintain that we are the result of 
 forces which are in theory calculable, but that it 
 is logically unthinkable that we should possess 
 any initiative. Yet, if one who is intellectually 
 convinced by these arguments will look into his 
 own mind, he will find there an ineradicable idea 
 that, as a matter of fact, he is endowed with a 
 will and can exercise it freely. Introspective 
 observation refuses to accept the conclusions of 
 logic ; but we need not conclude that introspection 
 is misleading. Logic traces effects back to causes, 
 and formulates, as a natural law, the invariable 
 connection of a particular effect with a particular 
 cause. But the effects of Life are so complicated 
 and elusive that they cannot be reduced to rule 
 with the precision that is attainable in dealing 
 with inanimate matter ; and, in classifying its 
 manifestations the logician is apt to mistake 
 conditioning circumstances for ultimate causes. 
 He might, for instance, conclude that I had 
 joined a golf club because the links were close at 
 my door, whereas the real cause was that I had 
 
16 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 resolved to take up golf instead of hunting. 
 Spontaneity appears, indeed, to be the most 
 distinctive of Life's attributes the capacity 
 which marks it off most clearly from lifeless 
 matter. To deny its existence is, then, the natural 
 inclination of those to whom Life appears to be 
 the result of purely physical causes. 
 
 Memory, Habit, and Imitation. These faculties 
 appear to arise from the tendency of living matter 
 to repeat its reaction to a stimulus to convert, 
 so to speak, a shock into a vibration. Our heart 
 and lungs, once started, maintain their rhythm : 
 a line of conduct, a course of thought, tends to 
 become habitual. This tendency appears also to 
 affect inanimate matter : the physical world 
 abounds with illustrations of it : such are the 
 vibrations which we translate into light and 
 sound. Memory is the faculty of repeating the 
 impressions which the brain has received through 
 the senses. Habit enables us to swell the influence 
 of one instinct at the expense of others, and affords 
 us an indirect means of controlling our passions ; 
 by Imitation we repeat, in thought or in action, 
 impressions that we have received by sight or 
 hearing. Repetition is the antithesis of spon- 
 taneity, and we may conjecture that these 
 opposites represent respectively, the dominance 
 of Matter over Life and of Life over Matter. But 
 we owe to memory the whole of the material with 
 which we build up our mental life : without it 
 thought would be impossible. And by imitation 
 and habit we appropriate the ideas or behaviour 
 of others who are more intelligent or experienced 
 than ourselves, so that the inventive originality 
 of the few bears fruit for the many, and the trans- 
 mission of human culture is assured. 
 
SENSATION 17 
 
 Sensitiveness and Responsiveness. Animals and 
 plants do not live in self-contained independence : 
 to exist they must draw food from their environ- 
 ment and avoid being eaten by others. They 
 must, then, possess some means of communica- 
 tion with their surroundings, and this is provided 
 by their senses. By sight, touch, smell, taste, and 
 hearing, animals can discover their food material 
 and perceive their enemies. Plants obviously 
 possess some sensory powers : they are affected 
 by light and colour : some of them are very 
 sensitive to touch : in absorbing food material 
 their roots appear to exercise some measure of 
 selection. Our senses give us only symbolic im- 
 pressions of the things around us, and leave us in 
 ignorance of their real nature. We have, as it 
 were, to imagine the machinery of a musical box 
 from the tones and intervals of the music it plays 
 to us. But our symbolic impressions suffice for 
 our animal needs, although they fail altogether 
 to satisfy our philosophic curiosity. 
 
 To be of practical utility sensation must be 
 followed by muscular reaction : the sight of food 
 must involve its seizure. Experiment seems to 
 have established that every sensation excites 
 instinctive action, and is followed by some move- 
 ment too slight it may be to be noticed by 
 consciousness, but capable of being detected by 
 elaborate appliances for measurement. Where 
 conduct is governed simply and uniformly by 
 directive instinct, movements that respond to 
 sensation ordinarily develop into definite action : 
 the mouth secretes its saliva immediately it is 
 touched by food ; the behaviour of insects 
 approaches the automatic. In the external 
 conduct of the higher animals, as we ascend the 
 scale of animal life, directive instinct gradually 
 surrenders some of its authority to inference from 
 
i8 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 experience : responses to sensation are compli- 
 cated by the rivalry of conflicting feelings, and 
 the primary reaction may be checked. A caged 
 bird will not snatch food from the hand if it be 
 afraid of the person who offers it. But, even in 
 the lowest organisms, the sequence of action upon 
 sensation does not appear to be as inevitable as, 
 for instance, the response of iron filings to a 
 magnet : the humblest of them show appearances 
 of hesitation, of choice, which would be inexplic- 
 able in simple automata. And in one essential 
 particular the sensation and reaction of living 
 things differs from the effect of light upon a 
 photographic plate : it is attended by feeling 
 dim and vague no doubt in the lower ranks of the 
 animal and in the vegetable kingdom, but still 
 something which, higher up the scale, has been 
 elaborated into consciousness. 
 
 Changefulness. Life, it would seem, can ally 
 itself with Matter only by driving Matter into a 
 state of continual change. The materials that 
 compose the vital organs of plants and animals are 
 never constant : elaborate compounds are built 
 up from the food only to be disintegrated and 
 expelled as waste. Individuals are, then, ever 
 changing their composition ; and by birth and 
 death the tribe is ever changing its individuals. 
 Nor by this process is merely one individual sub- 
 stituted for another : formed by contributions 
 from two parents, each new individual differs 
 from its predecessors. And as tribes change their 
 individuals, so does the kingdom change its 
 tribes. Of the species, animal and vegetable, 
 that are alive at present, but very few existed in 
 the days geologically not very remote when 
 the earth was dominated by enormous lizards, or 
 when it grew the dense forests of which coal-beds 
 
LIFE AND DEATH 19 
 
 were formed. The species which flourished at 
 that time have changed, or have become extinct 
 as the penalty for not changing. Life or the 
 matter with which Life is associated turns and 
 eddies in a state of never-ending flux. 
 
 Death appears to be the inevitable result of 
 stagnation of a condition in which the impulses 
 of Life can no longer keep the stream of Matter 
 in motion. We live in danger of being choked by 
 the wastage of our bodies : sleep enables secre- 
 tion to overtake the process of wastage, and to 
 rid us of accumulations that have collected during 
 our active hours. But not entirely. Gradually 
 the accumulations increase, clog our activities 
 and finally strangle them. Apart from the effect 
 of injury or disease, the duration of Life seems 
 to depend upon the strength of a propulsive force 
 which may be likened to the spin which keeps a 
 top rotating. It is extraordinary that this force 
 should be of such varying efficiency sufficing, 
 in some cases, to prolong life for a century, and 
 in other cases failing after a few days or even hours. 
 But, in the conceptions of science, time is of little 
 account ; and, if we can forget it, birth and death 
 will appear to resemble the vibrations which 
 constitute light or sound pulsations which main- 
 tain a stream of continuity. 
 
 
 
 This brief survey of Life appears to have 
 disclosed six leading characteristics, which, in 
 greater or less degree, are manifested throughout 
 the animal and vegetable kingdoms: responsive 
 sensation, changefulness, and the two pairs 
 of opposites, instinct and consciousness, spon- 
 taneity and repetitiveness. Before proceeding 
 to consider these attributes in more detail, we 
 may pause for a moment to reflect again upon the 
 
20 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 question whether Life should be considered as 
 an impulse a special energy which acts upon 
 Matter, or as the resultant of a particular com- 
 pound of Matter whether, in short, Life creates 
 protoplasm or is created by it. Apart from this 
 nitrogenous substance, Life does not occur ; but 
 the composition of protoplasm is by no means 
 uniform, and those who assert that it must be the 
 origin of Life may be mistaking a necessary 
 condition for an essential cause. We speak of 
 a current of electricity as " generated " by 
 chemical action; but we do not mean that, 
 apart from this action, electricity is non-existent. 
 To give a homely illustration of the difference 
 between a condition and a cause : I cannot go 
 out unless I find my boots, but I do not go out 
 because I find them. We have, it may be repeated, 
 no direct knowledge of Life : in itself it lies beyond 
 the field of our sensations. The view that is taken 
 of its nature may, then, depend very greatly upon 
 the predilections of the philosopher : if he is 
 inclined towards a mechanical theory of the 
 Universe he may be discomposed by the eccentri- 
 cities of Life, but will endeavour to explain them 
 as the inevitable, although complicated, results 
 of mechanical causes. 
 
 There is, however, an argument, derived from 
 our observations of the manifestations of Life, 
 which appears to tell strongly against these materi- 
 alistic conclusions. If Life is the result of Matter 
 we should not expect it capriciously to disregard 
 the tendency to uniformity which enables us to cal- 
 culate the sequences of material phenomena, and 
 even to make quantitative estimates of the things 
 which underlie them. But Life seems to delight in 
 displaying its indifference to rule. It provides 
 animals with special organs for particular pur- 
 poses for instance, with eyes for seeing, with 
 
LIFE'S ANOMALIES 21 
 
 nerves and muscles for moving, with gills or lungs 
 for breathing, with blood that contains a special 
 substance (haematoglobin) for the attraction of 
 oxygen from the air. Yet it reserves cases to 
 show that functions can be performed without 
 functional apparatus, and that complicated activi- 
 ties may be developed by the simple texture of 
 the body. Animalcules (protozoa), that are alto- 
 gether devoid of sense organs or nerves, distinguish 
 degrees of light, recognize their particular food, 
 absorb and digest it, move with great rapidity 
 and precision by the vibration of nerveless 
 appendages. Creatures of the jelly-fish type 
 (Ccelenterata) fix oxygen from the air without 
 either blood or breathing organs ; and earth- 
 worms, belonging to an order much higher up the 
 scale, have neither gills nor lungs, but breathe 
 through the skin. The processes of reproduction, 
 the growth of embryos, the course in which special 
 organs have been evolved, abound with incon- 
 sistencies and irregularities which tear holes in 
 any unifying theories, and serve to show that Life 
 is indifferent to rule. In plant-life the cross 
 fertilization of flowers is general: it appears to 
 strengthen vitality ; yet species are numerous 
 whose flowers always fertilize themselves are so 
 formed, indeed, as to render cross-fertilization 
 impossible. Amongst animals, sexual reproduc- 
 tion is the rule ; but female plant lice (aphides) 
 produce fully-developed young without the inter- 
 vention of a male ; the oak apple gall-fly 
 dispenses with males in producing every second 
 generation ; the eggs from which drone bees 
 are hatched are developed by the queen with- 
 out male assistance. The eye of the pecten 
 (mollusc) is similar in construction and action to 
 that of vertebrate animals : yet it is developed 
 in a different manner and of different materials. 
 
22 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Fishes and whales need fins for swimming : they 
 develop them, but from different portions of their 
 bodies. So also with the wings of insects, birds 
 and bats : they are, in each case, grown by a 
 different process. Life, when adopting the water, 
 or the air, as its environment, appears to be 
 wholly indifferent as to the method of adaptation. 
 It concerns itself with results, not with pro- 
 cesses in fact, la fonction fait Vorgane. 
 
 The evolution ot the myriad forms of animal and 
 plant life does not appear to have resulted from 
 the modification of living tissue under the pressure 
 of surrounding forces, but from the action of two 
 vital energies multiplication and variation 
 which have been incessantly forcing living organ- 
 isms into, as it were, a complicated and many- 
 branched system of channels, or moulds (such as 
 we may liken to the arteries of the human body), 
 which represent the almost infinitely varied means 
 of procuring subsistence. The multiplication of 
 individuals supplies the pressure : their variation 
 is the means by which they are able gradually to 
 penetrate each channel of the system. There is 
 enormous wastage : millions of organisms come 
 into the world merely to increase the head of the 
 pressure : millions of variations are useless, do not 
 assist their possessors to find their way into a new 
 channel, and are extinguished as soon as they 
 arise. 
 
 In the history of evolution there are two 
 features which appear to confirm this hypothesis. 
 Firstly, there is the gradual progress of life from 
 the sea to the land, and from the land to the air. 
 Of this, geology assures us. It can hardly be ex- 
 plained by any materialistic theory of adaptation, 
 since the progress must have come about, not by 
 adaptation to environment, but by the extension of 
 life to a new environment. Secondly, there is the 
 
LIFE'S ANOMALIES 23 
 
 curious circumstance that the drama of life should 
 have followed the same course at different periods 
 of geological time, although the personnel, so to 
 speak, of the actors has been altogether different. 
 During the Mesozoic epoch, for instance, mammals 
 were few and of a backward or unspecialized kind, 
 and the lead in the animal kingdom was taken by 
 enormous reptiles, of which our lizards and turtles 
 are the degenerate survivors. Yet we find that 
 to those reptiles parts were distributed which 
 resembled very closely those now taken by mam- 
 mals. Some were carnivorous, others were herbi- 
 vorous : some, like bats, haunted the air ; and 
 others, like whales, the sea. A similar generaliza- 
 tion may be made of the plants which flourished 
 at the time the coal measures were formed. 
 Timber trees occurred rarely ; their places were 
 taken by gigantic ferns and club -mosses, some of 
 which stood 60 feet high. It is a striking tact that 
 these plants grew, not by annual additions to 
 their tips, like the existing degenerate ferns and 
 club- mosses, but by the formation of annual rings 
 round the stem after the fashion, that is to say, 
 of timber trees. Life has repeated its functions 
 with organisms which have differed very widely in 
 physical development, and we seem to be in the 
 presence of an energy that can act independently 
 of form. We have reason to conclude that a living 
 creature is in fact constituted by the union of two 
 very different elements, one of which Matter is 
 subject to such natural laws as those of gravity 
 and chemical reaction, whilst the other Life 
 may entirely disregard them. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CHANGE 
 
 THERE is no thinking man but has been impressed 
 with the changefulness of life ; and in the 
 literature of all races this has been a fruitful theme 
 for lamentation, satire and cynicism. Not only 
 do birth and death ceaselessly change the com- 
 position of our society not only does each one 
 of us pass from the cradle to the grave through 
 the transforming corridors of the " Seven Ages " 
 but our minds, that claim to possess timeless 
 excellencies, are as shifting and changeable as 
 the wind. How long can a love keep its light 
 burning, or a grief maintain the shadow that it 
 has cast ? And, being by nature changeful, we 
 take an instinctive pleasure in the changes of our 
 thoughts. Any mood that is prolonged fatigues 
 us : gaiety may become more tiresome than 
 sadness, and it is not only kind-hearted sympathy 
 that interests us in the sudden changes that 
 are wrought by great calamities, or by the mis- 
 fortunes of our friends. The essence of the 
 ludicrous lies in contrast, in the sudden trans- 
 formation that it occasions in our moods. And 
 what charm does contrast lend to the drama ! 
 How delightful the change from Hero's tragedy 
 to the antics of the city watch from the law- 
 courts of Venice to the moonlit bank on which 
 Lorenzo and Jessica sit and make love ! With 
 what enchantment does Euripides suddenly veil 
 
CHANGES IN THE INDIVIDUAL 25 
 
 from us the death agonies of Phaedra by a vision 
 of sea-birds flying along the cliffs of the Adriatic, 
 distract our pity for the fate of Polyxena by a 
 glimpse of sails rising and falling on a white- 
 crested sea ! So it is with music. The idea upon 
 which the sonata is constructed is the procession 
 of a series of changing moods. 
 
 There is little that is enduring in the constitu- 
 tion of our bodies. They are material only in the 
 sense that a waterfall is material preserving their 
 form, but ever changing their substance. We are 
 ceaselessly absorbing substances from outside, 
 ceaselessly building up from them compounds 
 which, like explosives, contain potential energy, 
 ceaselessly converting potential energy into actual 
 energy by breaking up these compounds into 
 material which is discharged as waste. Every 
 movement of our bodies, every thought that flits 
 through our brains, destroys something that has 
 been created by our nutritive organs. In building 
 up these, so to speak, explosive compounds, Life 
 runs counter to the course of lifeless matter, 
 which generally tends towards the degradation 
 of energy, the breaking up of compounds that 
 contain potential energy, and the dissipation of 
 energy into the useless form of diffused heat. 
 Life, on the other hand, constructs ; but it 
 constructs only in order to destroy. It uses 
 matter by changing it ; and the more complete 
 is this change the more unstable is the tissue of 
 which an organ is composed the greater is the 
 vitality it exhibits. Animals which protect them- 
 selves by solid secretions, which have encased 
 themselves within shells or carapaces, have 
 generally forfeited some liberty of action. Plants 
 have lost almost all power of movement : they 
 
26 CHANGE 
 
 are largely composed of materials so stable as, 
 in the form of coal, to have outlived many 
 geological ages. But, in plants as in animals, the 
 vital energy, which enables them to live and to 
 grow, resides in delicate tissues which are in pro- 
 cess of constant change. When change ceases, 
 when the vital energy fails to preserve a whirl of 
 metamorphosis, the organism becomes clogged 
 and death ensues. This is the greatest change of 
 all : one individual is obliterated in favour of 
 another. Why, amongst the various kinds of 
 plants and animals, should one find such extra- 
 ordinary differences in the normal duration of 
 life ? Why should some plants be annuals, whilst 
 others can live through several centuries ? Why 
 should a sea-anemone live for fifty years, whilst 
 the vitality of a dog is almost exhausted in ten ? 
 We do not know. We should expect to find some 
 connection between the length of an organism's 
 life and the period within which it attains sexual 
 maturity. In some classes of plants and animals 
 we can trace such a connection : the northern 
 races of mankind appear to have gained in longe- 
 vity by being late in reaching the age of puberty. 
 But this theory is opposed by a host of contra- 
 dictions, as are indeed almost all attempts to 
 bring within the definition of a rule the multiform 
 vagaries of Life's activity. 
 
 
 
 The life of an individual may thus be compared 
 to the unrolling of a cinematograph film : so also 
 may be the life of a community, but in this case 
 the illumination flickers with the alternate flashes 
 and darkness of birth and death. And, by a 
 peculiar limitation of reproductive action, it is 
 ensured that each runner in the race differs in 
 constitution from those who give place to him. 
 
CHANGES IN THE COMMUNITY 27 
 
 This limitation is imposed by the process of sexual 
 generation, under which new individuals are 
 created by the combination of two parents, and, 
 owing their existence to two parents, are exact 
 copies of neither of them. It is, of course, quite con- 
 ceivable that a single individual should of itself 
 have the power of producing offspring, and in the 
 lowest classes of the animal and vegetable king- 
 doms we find that single organisms produce new 
 organisms simply by dividing themselves, or by 
 throwing out buds. Here, then, we have reproduc- 
 tion without sex, which may act, moreover, with 
 most extraordinary rapidity, the descendants of a 
 single cell multiplying themselves into several 
 millions within a few hours. But this process 
 will not generally continue indefinitely. After a 
 time the swarm appears to lose vitality, and can 
 no longer increase by the division of single cells. 
 Strength is recovered by the process of " conjuga- 
 tion " : two cells come together and blend their 
 substance into a single mass, which subsequently 
 breaks up into a fresh swarm of offspring. It is 
 believed that the two conjugating cells have, 
 before their union, developed the sexual characters 
 which, in less primitive organisms, distinguish 
 the " sperm-cell " of the male from the " germ- 
 cell " of the female. 
 
 In all but the very simplest organisms, 
 throughout both the vegetable and the animal 
 kingdoms, special organs of two kinds are 
 developed for the production of these cells. 
 Both kinds may be borne by the same individual, 
 in which case, of course, no individual distinction 
 of sex arises. Amongst plants, the sperm-cells 
 are produced by the anthers of the stamens : the 
 germ-cells by the ovary. These, again, are some- 
 times borne by different flowers sometimes on 
 different plants but they usually form parts 
 
28 CHANGE 
 
 of the same flower head. Generally, however, 
 reproduction that results from the conjugation 
 of the sperm-cells and germ-cells of the same 
 flower or of the same plant is not as vigorous 
 as if these cells are derived from different plants, 
 and in many cases flowers are elaborately so con- 
 trived as to prevent self-fertilization and to leave 
 the germ-cells dependent upon sperm-cells (pollen) 
 which are brought from other flowers by insects, 
 or by the wind. But any general theory on this 
 question is marred by the fact that there are 
 tribes and very important tribes of plants 
 which habitually fertilize themselves, or are, even, 
 so shaped as to render cross-fertilization impos- 
 sible, so that the germ-cells are entirely dependent 
 upon the pollen of the flowers to which they 
 belong, and reproduction is effected by the 
 closest in-and-in breeding. This does not appear 
 to have lessened vitality : amongst these self- 
 fertilizing plants is the pea, which is exceedingly 
 vigorous in growth and in seeding. 
 
 Amongst the simpler forms of animal life it may 
 also occur that the organs for the production 
 of sperm-cells and germ-cells are borne by the 
 same individual : this is even the case with earth 
 worms. But, as a rule, they are appropriated by 
 different individuals, and the distinction of sex comes 
 into being, together with the numerous correlative 
 developments of form, colour, and character that 
 mark the male off from the female. It is believed by 
 some biologists of the Mendelian school that a male 
 is, in essence, a female 1 plus a special character. 
 According to Mendel's law, the male would in this 
 
 1 Amongst mammals the possession of teats by males appears to 
 indicate an underlying femininity. But it should be remarked that 
 from breeding experiments made with the Currant Moth (Abraxas 
 grossulariata) it would appear that it is the female, not the male, 
 which is the more complicated organism, and produces two sets of 
 reproductive cells that are distinct in their sexual potentiality. 
 
ORIGIN OF SEX 29 
 
 case produce two kinds of sperm-cells, one possess- 
 ing, the other lacking this special character. A germ- 
 cell of the female, fertilized by a sperm-cell of the 
 first kind would develop into a male, fertilized by a 
 sperm-cell of the second kind, would develop into 
 a female. If sperm-cells of both kinds were pro- 
 duced in approximately equal numbers, a germ- 
 cell would have an even chance of being fertilized 
 by either one or the other ; and an explanation is 
 forthcoming for the fact that, on an average, 
 males and females are born in about equal 
 numbers. It may be conjectured that sexual 
 generation, by imparting a shock to the life sub- 
 stance, maintains its essential instability and 
 prevents it from settling down into such a state 
 of equilibrium as would come about from undis- 
 turbed habit. However this may be, one point 
 is clear that sexual generation modifies indivi- 
 duality, and contributes very potently to the 
 changefulness of Life. 
 
 We pass, now, to the consideration of still 
 greater changes transformations so wonderful 
 that until comparatively recent times their action 
 was hardly suspected. Individuals may change 
 and die ; but, so far as we can judge by ordinary 
 observation, there is no alteration in the type of 
 the species to which they belong. But, unless we 
 reject the doctrine of evolution, we must believe 
 that the type is subject to like changes with the 
 individual, and that, just as individual plants and 
 animals reach maturity through a number of em- 
 bryonic stages of advancing complexity, so have all 
 the species now existing worked their way up from 
 the bottom of the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
 by passing through metamorphoses, each of 
 which at one time, in bygone ages, stood for a 
 
30 CHANGE 
 
 type, or species, of its day. The testimony of the 
 rocks informs us, beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
 that at different periods of geological history the 
 fauna and flora of the earth were entirely different ; 
 that very few of the species now existing were 
 to be found during periods which, geologically 
 speaking, are not very remote, and that with the 
 progress of cycles the forms of animal and veget- 
 able life have advanced from the very simplest 
 to the complex developments of the present day. 
 It is true that in only a few cases have fossils 
 yielded us the actual links of a chain of evolution- 
 ary changes, to show the steps by which a tribe of 
 organisms has altered its form. The fossils of an 
 epoch are a miserably incomplete record of its 
 fauna : what, for instance, could we learn of the 
 bird-life of present-day England by scouring the bed 
 of the Thames ? But, in respect to a few animals, 
 such links are forthcoming. One of the earliest 
 forms of the horse whose fossil bones have been dis- 
 covered (Orohippus), possessed four toes ; fossils 
 that have been disinterred from later deposits 
 show very completely the absorption of the first 
 toe, and the gradual shortening of the second and 
 fourth toes until they only remain as rudimentary 
 " splint bones " in the horse of our time. 
 
 Moreover, there has been a gradual change of 
 habitat : Life, beginning in the sea, has passed on 
 to the land and thence to the air, and animals 
 which for the most part inhabit one of these ele- 
 ments have shown a tendency to trespass upon the 
 others. Thus amongst mammals which are 
 mainly terrestrial whales and seals have taken 
 to water, and bats to air ; amongst birds, ostriches 
 have become purely terrestrial, penguins and 
 divers almost aquatic ; whilst frogs, and other 
 batrachians, pass a portion of their life in water 
 and another portion on land. 
 
EVOLUTION OF SPECIES 31 
 
 These immense changes are shadowed, though 
 very faintly, by changes that we may see occurr- 
 ing at the present day. The members of no family 
 are exactly alike : they show variations, or 
 " fluctuations," sufficiently pronounced to mark 
 one individual off from another. These fluctua- 
 tions result in some measure from the blending 
 in various proportions of the traits of the father's 
 and the mother's stock ; but there is reason to 
 believe that they are also due to a spontaneous 
 tendency to vary which is inherent in Life. 
 Variations have been observed amongst uni- 
 cellular organisms which have come into being by 
 simple cell division. There occur, moreover, other 
 more substantial variations to which the term 
 " mutation " has been attached. These are very 
 noticeable indeed. Such is a red blossom in a 
 bed of white-flowered plants ; a chicken with 
 reversed feathers. They are commonly known 
 as " sports," and are of not infrequent occurrence 
 amongst domesticated animals and plants. 
 
 Darwin admitted these mutations into his 
 scheme, but relied for the most part upon the 
 fluctuations which, although far less momentous, 
 are of universal occurrence. Both mutations and 
 fluctuations might be useful or useless : one that 
 was useful assisted the organisms which bore it 
 in the struggle for life, enabled them to outvie 
 their competitors and procreate young in which 
 the fluctuation would be a settled hereditary trait. 
 Amongst the fluctuations to which the offspring 
 were subject would be one which advanced this 
 trait towards greater completion ; this would in 
 like manner become settled, and in this fashion, 
 during the lapse of ages, a minute pigment spot 
 might be developed into a complicated eye. 
 Fluctuations, normally spontaneous and (so to 
 speak) accidental, might in some cases be pur- 
 
32 CHANGE 
 
 poseful, arising from the effect upon the young 
 of their parents' habits : so the giraffe might 
 lengthen its neck by the striving of giraffes to 
 reach higher foliage. Peculiarities which were 
 of no direct advantage in the struggle for life 
 might, nevertheless, be established through their 
 influence in attracting the opposite sex. " Sexual" 
 contributed to " natural " selection in the develop- 
 ment of characteristics. Some years ago this 
 hypothesis was almost universally accepted by 
 science. It has since lost ground ; but its 
 straitest adherents have narrowed and hardened 
 it by denying that either " mutations " or the 
 inheritance of acquired, as opposed to in-born, 
 aptitudes, have contributed at all to evolutionary 
 progress. 
 
 It is difficult to believe that the gradual 
 accumulation of small random fluctuations could 
 have evolved such a complicated structure as the 
 human eye ; could have elaborated instincts which 
 would be suicidal if not exercised from the first 
 with the minutest accuracy, and instincts which 
 co-ordinate the behaviour of two separate gen- 
 erations ; or could have enabled animals not 
 only to make better use of their environment but 
 to migrate to another environment as from the 
 sea to the land. Nor is it evident how fluctuations 
 incidental to individuals could have crystallized 
 into the characters that mark a type could have 
 brought into existence a species, the members of 
 which would not interbreed with their near 
 relations. A still more serious objection is that 
 fluctuations are swamped by sexual generation. 
 It has been proved that any peculiarities of a 
 father, which are inherited by his sons, are less 
 fully developed in them in fact that the effect of 
 sexual generation is constantly to repress eccen- 
 tricity, and draw peculiarities back to the 
 
MENDELISM 33 
 
 normal. Fluctuations are thus repressed as soon 
 as they appear, and it is not easy to comprehend 
 how they could be the foundation for settled 
 changes. 
 
 The Mendelian school of biologists pin their 
 faith to " sports " or mutations. The researches 
 of Mendel showed that these may represent new 
 innate impulses which interbreeding may conceal, 
 but cannot obliterate. Hybrids between the 
 44 sport " and a normal individual may not display 
 the new character. But a proportion of the repro- 
 ductive cells which they produce will contain it, 
 and, if two of the hybrids interbreed (as may 
 happen in the course of a few generations) some 
 of their offspring will possess the new character 
 purely, will display it in their form or colour, and, 
 if they interbreed, will produce offspring in which 
 the new character is fixed. Here, then, is a process 
 by which a new variety of importance may be 
 established, and by which it is established by 
 breeders and nurserymen. Instances of per- 
 sistent, or Mendelian, characters are tallness and 
 dwarfness of habit in plants, the colours of certain 
 flowers, the forms and markings of different 
 breeds of rabbits, fowls and pigeons, the colour 
 of the eyes in mankind. All characters do not, 
 however, appear to be of this class. We know 
 from experience that there are numerous, and 
 very important, peculiarities that do not resist 
 cross-breeding : the characters of both parents 
 are blended in the hybrid offspring of finches and 
 canaries, of dogs and jackals, and of white and 
 coloured races of mankind. But Mendelist ex- 
 perimenters have proved a fact which is of 
 immense importance that the reproductive cells 
 which are produced in large numbers by male and 
 female may differ among themselves, that they 
 may possess different shares of ancestral charac- 
 
34 CHANGE 
 
 ters, so that the combination of any one male 
 cell with any one female cell is one of many 
 possible combinations, each of which might have 
 produced an individual possessing some characters 
 peculiar to itself. An element of chance is thus 
 introduced into the formation of offspring which 
 must contribute very greatly to the variety of life. 
 The origin of the changes whether fluctuations 
 or mutations that occur in individuals, and are 
 the steps by which new species may arise, remain 
 a mystery, unless we ascribe them to an inherent 
 or " bathmic " changefulness of Life, assisted by 
 the clash that results from the meeting of the 
 male and female elements in sexual reproduction. 
 Darwinists and Mendelists agree in holding that 
 the changes are purposeless that they may be 
 injurious or beneficial, and if beneficial are only 
 so incidentally. If they are injurious they are 
 eliminated by the struggle for life. If they are 
 beneficial they are established, according to the 
 Darwinian hypothesis, by the assistance they 
 afford to their possessors ; according to the 
 Mendelian belief they can become fixed by their 
 own vitality, irrespective of environal influences. 
 Mendelism can, therefore, explain the establish- 
 ment of changes that are neutral neither in- 
 jurious nor beneficial which, on the Darwinian 
 theory, would have little chance of persistence. 
 Darwinists are, accordingly, put to it to discover 
 some positive utility in all peculiarities that have 
 survived. Vast numbers of these are obviously 
 useful, and, as knowledge extends, utility is 
 discovered in characters the practical value of 
 which was at first not apparent. But it is hardly 
 possible to believe that utility underlies all that 
 is curious and beautiful in the animal and 
 vegetable worlds. It has been shown that, in 
 some cases, colours may be protective ; but 
 
PURPOSELESS HERITAGES 35 
 
 numbers of animals flaunt glaring hues in the 
 face of danger. If the thrush is protected by its 
 speckled plumage, how has the blackbird survived 
 alongside it ? The brilliant colours, the singing 
 capacities, of some cock birds are ascribed to 
 sexual selection to the advantages which these 
 give the cocks in finding mates. They doubtless 
 afford pleasure to the females ; but this does not 
 prove that they owe their existence to their 
 attractiveness. Is the taste of man responsible 
 for the vagaries of female fashion ? Moreover, it 
 is difficult to suppose that females are attracted 
 by the small eccentricities in which, on the 
 Darwinian hypothesis, these excellencies origin- 
 ated. The colours of certain flowers may attract 
 fertilizing insects ; but there are brilliant flowers 
 that must fertilize themselves. Of what use are 
 the flashing colours that embellish the chrysalides 
 of many butterflies, the long beaks and tails of 
 many tropical birds, the horns of female reindeer 
 and cattle, the hair which some races of men grow 
 on their faces ? In truth Life is not logical or 
 frugal in its activities, and we owe to its unstinted 
 prodigality of change much of that which is 
 beautiful in the world. 
 
 We must then admit that the varieties of form 
 and colour which distinguish the species of plants 
 and animals have proceeded in great measure 
 from a capricious changefulness which is inherent 
 in Life. But are we to believe that changes are 
 in no case purposeful that the influence of 
 environment, habit or culture may not stimulate 
 variation which is so far purposeful that it is 
 directed to an end ? Beyond a doubt organisms 
 are influenced in colour by their surroundings, 
 and also in form, if only by such artificial mutila- 
 tions as shorten the tails of puppies. But these 
 changes would be of no progressive value unless 
 
36 CHANGE 
 
 they were inherited by the offspring. Can acquired 
 peculiarities become innate, or do they differ from 
 peculiarities which arise spontaneously in not 
 being transmissible to the next generation ? This 
 question introduces us to the most controversial 
 of biological questions. It is very strongly 
 maintained by an influential school of thought 
 that acquired characters are not heritable, that 
 offspring are not innately affected by the ex- 
 periences of their parents (unless these have 
 injured the reproductive organs), and have no 
 inborn tendency to reproduce any change of 
 colour, form, or habit which their parents may have 
 contracted. This conclusion is certainly supported 
 by a mass of negative evidence, showing that in 
 particular cases peculiarities of form or habit con- 
 tracted by parents are not passed on to their chil- 
 dren. Circumcision has been practised by some 
 races from remote antiquity without producing 
 any hereditary results. It is indeed maintained by 
 Dr. August Weismann, and other great authorities, 
 that the reproductive organs are in origin and in 
 functioning quite distinct from the body of sense 
 and motion, and that bodily experiences can, 
 therefore, have no effect upon the cells which these 
 organs produce. But this theory assumes that 
 impulses arise from organs, instead of organs 
 from impulses ; and it is based upon grounds 
 which are in great measure conjectural. Its 
 opponents have collected a large number of facts 
 which indicate that in some cases acquired 
 peculiarities have actually been inherited. In 
 this uncertainty we may again remember that 
 Life does not limit itself to a single line of action, 
 and that it may in some cases permit what in 
 other cases it refuses. It does not follow that 
 acquired characters never become innate because 
 it is proved that they very frequently do not 
 
ENVIRONMENT AND EVOLUTION 37 
 
 become so. Peculiarities of form or colour 
 are commonly associated with peculiarities of 
 locality or climate. All men who inhabit the 
 tropics are of dark complexion : brilliancy of 
 colour prevails amongst tropical birds and in- 
 sects : it is in temperate regions that birds 
 develop most tunefully their powers of song. We 
 can hardly believe that in these cases environ- 
 ment has not influenced the course of evolution. 
 Amongst those who deny that the influence of 
 environment can originate variations there are 
 some who admit that it may prepare for them 
 that the giraffe by striving to reach high branches 
 may endow its progeny with a disposition to 
 develop a longer neck. And it is indisputable 
 that a change of environment may influence 
 evolution by stimulating variation. It is under 
 the artificial conditions of domestication or 
 manuring that plants and animals " sport " most 
 freely. During the cycles that are covered by 
 the records of geology the surface of the earth 
 has undergone strange transformations. Land 
 has been submerged and re-elevated time after 
 time ; an ice cap has advanced over countries 
 that are now temperate, has retired, and has 
 advanced again ; mountain ranges have risen 
 and fallen like the waves of the sea. There have 
 been no lack of changes to stimulate variation, 
 and we may reasonably conclude that in former ages 
 they occurred more frequently than the present 
 condition of the earth might lead us to suppose. 
 Granting, however, that we can in some 
 measure explain the occurrence of variations, or 
 mutations, we are still confronted with a most 
 difficult problem the spread of these variations 
 from an individual to a race, the development of 
 a new species from single specimens which emerged 
 from their own kind bearing new peculiarities. 
 
38 CHANGE 
 
 If the variations were persistent " Mendelian " 
 characters, and could not be obliterated in the 
 course of breeding, they would still be limited for 
 many generations to a very small circle ; and, in 
 cases where they did not endow their possessors 
 with a positive advantage in the struggle for 
 life, it is difficult to conceive how the members of 
 this circle could increase so greatly as to drive 
 out of existence the original species. If they were 
 merely small fluctuations, of the type contem- 
 plated by Darwinists, they would be even less 
 likely to spread, for reasons which have already 
 been given. The chances of development would 
 be greatly increased were the new characters 
 associated with prepotency in reproductive power, 
 and still more were individuals of the old type 
 losing their fertility and tending towards ex- 
 tinction. Of the inhabitants of England, at the 
 time of the Norman Conquest, a single pair of 
 individuals, endowed with sufficient reproductive 
 prepotency to transmit to their descendants the 
 capacity of doubling themselves in each genera- 
 tion, could have been the ancestors of the whole 
 of the present population that is to say, could 
 have spread any peculiarities which they possessed 
 to the whole of the English people. But there is 
 no evidence to show that " sports " are more 
 fertile than normal individuals, or that their 
 appearance marks a general decline of fertility 
 in the species. Accepting evolution as the origin 
 of species, but despairing of the discovery of the 
 processes by which it has come about, we may 
 be tempted to take refuge in the assumption that 
 its course was preordained, and may be likened to 
 the development oi an individual from its em- 
 bryonic stage to maturity. Were we able to 
 observe only one stage of this development an 
 egg, for instance, after so many days of incuba- 
 
THE SPREAD OF VARIATIONS 39 
 
 tion we should have no idea of the beginning or 
 end of the process. So the evolution of species 
 may be progressing by predetermined stages, 
 which need more time for their detection than may 
 be commanded by human observation. But 
 amongst the considerations that may be opposed 
 to this belief there stand the wastefulness of life 
 the creation of millions of living organisms which 
 are born only to be destroyed in immaturity ; and 
 the fact that evolution may be retrogressive 
 that species may descend the scale of life, as the 
 tapeworm and the barnacle have undoubtedly 
 degenerated. These considerations are hardly 
 to be reconciled with the idea of a preordained 
 scheme of evolutionary development, unless we 
 concede that it may be wholly out of accord with 
 our higher ethical ideas. 
 
 We are, however, aware of two forces, very 
 different in themselves, which may have contri- 
 buted to the spread of variations the influences 
 of environment, and the imitative impulse. There 
 appears to be an analogy between the evolution 
 of species and the development of civilization: 
 in both cases novelties arise in individuals and 
 spread to masses. The novelties of civilization 
 new mechanical inventions or artistic ideas, for 
 instance disseminate themselves by their suit- 
 ability to peculiarities of climate or locality (which 
 occasion a desire for them), or by the action of the 
 propensity to imitate, which is one of the strongest 
 of human instincts. If we assume that a chance 
 variation may be in accord with influences of 
 environment which we may not comprehend but 
 should not on this account rule out of existence 
 these influences may very materially assist its 
 possessors in outnumbering their fellows ; and if, 
 in some cases, the occurrence of a variation is 
 actually stimulated by these influences, their 
 
40 CHANGE 
 
 effects in spreading it would be still more power- 
 ful they might, indeed, cause it to arise inde- 
 pendently in several individuals. This would 
 explain the curious rigidity with which many 
 species of plants and animals are localized within 
 particular sometimes quite small areas. We 
 may be unable to trace, or to imagine, a connection 
 between the circumstances of a place and some 
 spots on a bird's or a butterfly's wing. But our 
 ignorance, or incapacity, does not entitle us to 
 deny the possibility of its existence. Within recent 
 times a dark variety of the peppered moth (Am- 
 phydasis betularia), formerly very rare, has spread 
 very greatly in the " black country " of the north 
 of England. It seems probable that there are 
 local conditions which favour it. 
 
 To suppose that variations have been spread by 
 imitation may appear to be altogether fantastic. It 
 recalls the success of Jacob in breeding ring-straked 
 sheep ; the story appears incredible, but not a few 
 practical breeders believe that the colour of a 
 calf may be affected by the colour of the cow's 
 stall companion. Nature abounds with illustra- 
 tions of mimicry, and we must not hastily con- 
 clude that an impulse to imitate could not work 
 subconsciously, or that it could not disturb the 
 tendency of the reproductive cells simply to 
 repeat the growth of the preceding generation. 
 Butterflies mimic other butterflies, even dead 
 leaves, and are themselves mimicked by moths ; 
 caterpillars and other insects mimic twigs and 
 foliage ; there is a great] tendency for creatures 
 to take the colour of their environment ; we 
 subconsciously mimic peculiarities of manner in 
 our 1 companions ; families that migrate to a new 
 
 1 One of the most effectively deceptive mimicries is that of a 
 humble-bee (Bombus agrorum) by a fly (Volucella bombylus). 
 These insects inhabit the same nest. 
 
MIMICRY 41 
 
 country appear gradually to modify their charac- 
 ter, and even their features, so as to resemble 
 their native associates. Mimicry, if protective, 
 may, it is claimed, have originated in useful 
 " sports." But it is not always protective ; and 
 of the curious resemblances which we find amongst 
 insects, few would deceive a sharp-sighted bird. 
 Mimicry appears, then, to be caused by an im- 
 pulse, not to be the result of chance resemblances 
 that have been stereotyped by the struggle for 
 life. Why should living creatures mimic some of 
 the peculiarities which they see about them and 
 not others ? We do not know. Children are 
 exceedingly imitative, but they select for imita- 
 tion sometimes one trait, at other times another. 
 One or two new species of flowers have been 
 known to arise and establish themselves, without 
 man's active interference, since the time when 
 botanical observation commenced. But their 
 distinctive peculiarities are of trifling importance, 
 and no evidence can be discovered of the move- 
 ment of evolution as an actually working pro- 
 cess unless we assume that the changes that have 
 occurred within historical times in the character 
 of some bacterial diseases, indicate that some new 
 species have sprung into existence amongst 
 microbes. The great development of the present 
 era of geology has been in the civilization of 
 mankind ; and we may fancy that Nature has 
 stood still in astonishment at this the culmin- 
 ating triumph of Life's activity. 
 
 The changefulness of Life is represented in 
 mankind by a definite instinct the desire of 
 variety, which is severely repressed by the bonds 
 of habit, but has powerfully contributed to human 
 
42 CHANGE 
 
 progress. Between it and habit there is constant 
 antagonism, and a slight preponderance of one or 
 the other marks the difference between the 
 Liberal and the Conservative temperament. The 
 manifestations of this instinct can be traced 
 throughout the animal kingdom : it is the impulse 
 which prompts so many creatures to change their 
 homes to migrate. The force of habit makes 
 strongly for stay-at-home life ; yet at certain 
 periods, or in certain circumstances, many kinds 
 of animals are seized with a passion to adventure 
 themselves in new surroundings. Swallows and 
 snipe, for instance, are annually driven by this 
 impulse enormous distances across ice-bound 
 mountains and stormy seas. In most cases the 
 impulse has results of advantage : stirred by it, 
 birds avail themselves of food which abounds 
 during summer in northern, and during winter 
 in southern latitudes. Those which feed upon 
 insects would perish during the lifelessness of a 
 northern winter. But the instinct is sometimes a 
 deadly possession. Swarms of locusts and butter- 
 flies will fly out to certain death in the ocean. 
 The lemmings 1 of Norway periodically assemble 
 in vast multitudes and travel westwards with no 
 apparent object, those that escape death on the 
 mountains not fearing it when they reach the 
 coast, but swimming boldly out to sea. In the 
 history of mankind the migratory impulse has 
 been of incalculable importance : it has provoked 
 desolating wars ; but it has maintained a con- 
 nection between different peoples, and has been a 
 potent influence in spreading culture. Without 
 it races would have lived, as it were, in closed 
 compartments, and we should not find that the 
 primary discoveries of civilization the use of 
 fire, of the plough, of the loom, as well as many 
 
 1 A small field rat (Myodes lemmus). 
 
MIGRATION 43 
 
 ancient superstitions have practically become 
 established throughout the world. The impulse 
 may be deadened by long-continued habit : 
 peoples who have settled down to the routine of 
 agriculture are usually much attached to their 
 fields and homes. But those who subsist by 
 pasturing cattle, or by cultivating the land after 
 a shifting fashion, or become hard pressed for 
 food, are liable to be strongly moved by it. For 
 uncounted centuries it has impelled the peoples 
 of Northern Europe towards the Mediterranean : 
 more recently it has urged them to establish 
 colonies of their own across the seas. Nor 
 has it always led the wanderers towards the 
 superior comfort of a promised land. The gipsies 
 have roamed northwards into a more rigorous 
 climate and harder conditions than they ex- 
 perienced in their Eastern home. In the migratory 
 instinct is seated the attractiveness of travel, and 
 the impulse, hardly to be resisted by the most 
 home-loving of English families, to go abroad, or 
 to the seaside, once a year. 
 
 "1|| ||| 
 
 We may perhaps find in this desire for change 
 the origin of three very curious human pleasures 
 the pleasures of the ludicrous, of gambling, and 
 of intoxication. In all of them an agreeable 
 emotion is associated with sudden changes of 
 mood. If instances of the ludicrous, in circum- 
 stances or in words, are analysed, it will be found 
 that the essence lies in an abrupt alteration of 
 mental attitude, which must not, however, be 
 attended with the excitement that would be 
 caused by any personal interest, and must not 
 arouse any so serious an emotion as pity, shame, 
 or indignation. This condition is essential. A 
 passer-by slips and falls on the pavement. Our 
 
44 CHANGE 
 
 amusement at the mishap depends upon the im- 
 pression which his dignity and his humiliation 
 successively make upon us : it would disappear 
 altogether were he seriously hurt : it is not shared 
 at all by the victim of the accident. " Her 
 father was asleep in the library : her mother was 
 dead, so she could count upon receiving the 
 young man alone." Here we are suddenly taken 
 from the idea of a siesta to that of a funeral, and, 
 again, to the contemplation of a young woman's 
 love affairs. It is supposed by the eminent 
 French psychologist, M. Henri Bergson, that 
 laughter, provoked by the ludicrous, has a pur- 
 poseful value, being a means by which society 
 corrects the abnormalities or eccentricities of 
 individuals. But this theory does not appear to 
 cover the ground. The question is not one of 
 laughter, but of amusement : our laughter is only 
 the expression of our amusement, and it is quite 
 possible to be amused in silence. 
 
 The pleasure of gambling is no doubt associated 
 in some degree with a desire for gain. But the 
 typical gambler is rather prodigal than avaricious, 
 and covetousness contributes but little to his 
 excitement. The alternations of chance produce 
 two strongly contrasted moods that of winning 
 and that of losing and the prospects of the game 
 arouse in imagination the changes in mood that 
 would follow luck's vagaries. Change is thus of the 
 essence of a gambler's pleasure : in this respect, 
 chance resembles the ludicrous. For the gambler, 
 however, the circumstances are too exciting to be 
 funny : his personal interests are at stake. But 
 you may often see bystanders smile when the 
 changes of luck are particularly frequent. 
 
 Here, also, may be classed the pleasure which 
 Oriental peoples take in litigation. During the 
 course of a suit the imagination of the litigants 
 
PLEASURES OF CHANGE 45 
 
 presents them with changing pictures of triumph 
 and defeat. Personal vanity, it is true, enhances 
 this excitement. But this would also be concerned 
 were the rivalry one of ostentatious expenditure, 
 and this would not be nearly as pleasurable as a 
 contest in the courts. Variety, or change of mood, 
 generally enters into the pleasure which we derive 
 from games. It is certainly one of the attractions 
 of golf. Games in which chance is the principal 
 element have, indeed, little but this to commend 
 them. 
 
 The pleasure of intoxication is of a more com- 
 plicated nature. There enters into it the taste of 
 the drug or liquor, the attraction of habit, and 
 the relief of freeing oneself from the worries and 
 mistrust that afflict introspective sobriety. But 
 intoxication is above all things a change of mood 
 often, indeed, a series of changes which to 
 onlookers may appear exceedingly ludicrous. 
 The change is not always in the way of gaiety 
 not infrequently the reverse and its attractive- 
 ness lies in itself. Some of the lower animals can 
 seemingly appreciate it ; and monkeys, and even 
 birds, may contract a very strong liking for 
 spirituous drinks. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 BY our senses we maintain some connection with 
 our surroundings. Of the real nature of our 
 environment we are profoundly ignorant ; but it 
 contains our food the material upon which Life 
 exercises its changefulness and to secure this we 
 require not only percipient senses but powers of 
 movement. The necessities of plants are less com- 
 plicated. They feed upon inorganic substances, 
 occurring in the soil, or in the air, which are 
 widely diffused by natural forces, and generally 
 will come if they are waited for. Plants have 
 accordingly cast anchor in the ground, and have 
 lost all but the elements of sensation. Animals 
 must ordinarily seek for their food, whether it 
 consists of vegetable substances or of the bodies 
 of other animals. They have also to avoid the 
 appetites of others. In this matter plants are 
 helpless ; but they have in compensation a power 
 of recuperation which enables herbage, however 
 closely grazed, to restore itself. Animals, further, 
 need senses in order to discover their mates, save 
 in the rare cases when individuals are hermaphro- 
 dite. Moreover, without senses social life would 
 be impossible ; and in the case of many animals, 
 man included, a gregarious impulse has developed 
 itself so strongly that death is hardly worse than 
 to be ignored by others. 
 
 46 
 
THE SENSES 47 
 
 Our senses are popularly numbered as five ; 
 but the appreciation of temperature which the 
 skin possesses should probably be reckoned 
 separately from the sense of touch. In some of 
 the lower animals certain senses are demonstrably 
 stronger than our own : we have no reason to 
 infer that our senses are the only ones that might 
 exist, and it seems likely that insects are endowed 
 with some peculiar detective powers. The males 
 of certain moths (Bombyces) will become aware 
 of a virgin female when at least a mile away, and 
 probably at a much greater distance : insects 
 whose larvae feed upon truffles will detect the pres- 
 ence of these fungi when two feet below the surf ace. 
 Amongst mankind, individuals probably differ 
 very considerably in the delicacy of their senses. 
 Some are colour-blind, others deaf to the charms 
 of music ; and it may be that the "joy of life " 
 which seems specially to exhilarate some indi- 
 viduals and races, proceeds from a keener sensi- 
 bility than is enjoyed by those who take a sober 
 view of life's vicissitudes, or can discover in a 
 fine morning only an opportunity of going out to 
 kill something. But sense organs, however acute 
 and however varied, are, it must be remembered, 
 only receivers : they collect messages from out- 
 side ; but it is in the principal nerve centre the 
 brain that these messages are translated into 
 sensations. We are popularly supposed to hear 
 with our ears, but the ears receive only rhythmical 
 pulsations of air. The brain converts these move- 
 ments into the sensations which we appreciate as 
 sounds, just as the needle and drum of a gramo- 
 phone convert the surface irregularities of the 
 record into a strain of music. It is difficult to real- 
 ise that when we touch an object with the foot the 
 feeling of touch arises not in the foot, but in the 
 brain. But so it is. A man who has lost a leg 
 
48 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 may feel pain in the toes that he no longer posses- 
 ses, if action in the brain should reproduce 
 twinges that he associated with his toes before 
 his leg was amputated. Our physical sufferings 
 are then, so to speak, all mental, and we locate 
 them in various parts of the body by inferences 
 which are deceptive but are very useful. Pain 
 that arises directly in the brain, in conditions of 
 mental hallucination, may be as acute as when a 
 bodily organ is physically affected. We should, 
 then, think of sensations as created by the brain, 
 not by the organs of sense ; in this respect they 
 resemble memories or hallucinations. Sensations 
 are generally more vivid than memories. But we 
 may at times be at a loss to decide whether a 
 brain picture comes from the outside, or arises, as 
 a vision, within us. 
 
 In the higher animals a sensory apparatus 
 consists, in the first place, of some peculiarly 
 modified tissue on the exterior surface of the 
 body, specially adapted for the reception of 
 outside impressions. Such are the rods and cones 
 of the retina of the eye, the Cortian fibres which 
 line the inner passages of the ear, and the nerve 
 endings by which we gather the impressions of 
 touch and taste. Secondly, it includes a nerve 
 system by which the impression is transmitted 
 to a point where it is converted into an impulse 
 that flies outward to actuate a muscle. In its 
 essential form this system consists of a sensory, 
 or " afferent " nerve, a ganglion, in which this 
 nerve ends, and a motor or " efferent " nerve 
 proceeding from the ganglion to a muscle. By 
 biologists of a materialistic way of thinking, the 
 afferent nerve is pictured as causing a chemical 
 reaction, or explosion, in the ganglion, and as in 
 this manner setting free energy which is stored 
 in the ganglion. But it may also be pictured as 
 
SENSATION A PROPERTY OF LIFE 49 
 
 releasing a catch which permits the starting of 
 machinery that is actuated by an instinctive 
 impulse. In the higher animals the ganglia are 
 collected into the spinal cord or the brain ; in 
 the lower they form less complicated systems, 
 sometimes very loosely connected. But we must 
 remember that this elaboration of sense organ, 
 nerve and ganglion is by no means essential. 
 The microscopic protozoa, which are regarded 
 by an evolutionist as his remotest ancestors, 
 possess no organs whatever for sensation. They 
 are simply small masses of nitrogenous jelly, so 
 far as can be ascertained of like texture through- 
 out, except for a small spot where there has been 
 some sort of concentration into a nucleus. Yet 
 all of them are sensitive to light and to touch : 
 some of them can even distinguish blue light from 
 light of other kinds. They can recognize their 
 peculiar food, and certain of them construct the 
 most beautiful little shells, the designing of which 
 by a man would be taken to show much delicacy 
 of conception. Plants are, of course, very sensi- 
 tive to light ; some of them, such as the sensitive 
 mimosa and a species of balsam,|violently resent 
 touch, and two species (Drosera and Dionsea), 
 the leaves of which are able to digest captured 
 insects, exhibit in divergent manners very delicate 
 sensibilities that are of use to them in distinguish- 
 ing flies from other objects. A study of natural 
 history shows us, in fact, that sensation is a pro- 
 perty of life, not a function of any description of 
 organ. 
 
 Did our sensory impressions originate on the 
 exterior surface of our bodies there might be some 
 prima facie ground for the idea that they repre- 
 sent things as they are that there exist, in fact, 
 
50 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 such things as a red colour, the twang of a zither, 
 or the scent of honeysuckle. But generated as 
 they are in the brain within a portion of our 
 body which is secluded from the outside world 
 by a bony covering there is no possibility of 
 their being other than symbolic. And science 
 assures us that this is the case. The results of 
 its experiments, so far as they are discovered 
 by sight, are indeed misrepresented ; but they 
 exhibit certain relations in time and space, in 
 the nature of similarities, dimensions and se- 
 quences which conscious reason enables us to 
 appreciate, to group under heads and rules, and 
 to predict by calculation. Their occurrence in 
 accord with our predictions endorses the rule to 
 which calculation has led us. So it is demon- 
 strated by science that what we term light and 
 sound are merely vibrations of extreme rapidity ; 
 that our environment is really dark and silent, 
 does not give light to the eye or sound to the ear, 
 but owes to the brain its illumination and its 
 resonance. It seems, moreover, that the sub- 
 stances which appear to resist our touch in solidity 
 are also in energetic vibration, and that, in fact, 
 our surroundings may be likened to the whorls 
 and eddies which we see when we press hard upon 
 our closed eyelids. Out of this confusion our 
 brains conjure up for us shapes and colours, sounds 
 and solidity ; but these impressions resemble 
 actuality no more closely than the notes of a 
 musical box resemble its machinery. We live in 
 the midst of the Unknown. 
 
 Moreover, our sensory impressions are in them- 
 selves so irregular that they would be useless were 
 they not corrected by a mental process of sensory 
 adjustment. We see what we pronounce to be a 
 circular table ; but we do not see it as circular 
 unless we are immediately above it. From any 
 
IMPERFECTIONS OF SENSATIONS 51 
 
 other point of view it appears to be more or less 
 oval. We judge it to be circular, not from its 
 actual appearance but from our memory of 
 previous similar impressions of it, coupled with 
 experiences of touch : we infer that it is circular, 
 although to our sensation it may appear oval. So 
 also with colours, the actual appearance of which 
 varies very greatly according to the amount of 
 light that falls upon them and the direction from 
 which it falls. Our real guide is not sensation, but 
 perception, which is sensation adjusted in the 
 light of previous experiences. Not only, then, is 
 the brain, as we have seen, the origin of sensation, 
 but it needs processes of the brain to render 
 sensory impressions useful to us. Practice enables 
 us to adjust with instantaneous rapidity. But 
 babies that reach for a bright object, regardless of 
 its distance, prove that the faculty of adjustment 
 rests upon experience. Having made these ad- 
 justments habitually, we can hardly disembarrass 
 ourselves of their guidance. It is quite difficult 
 to draw things, not as we infer them to be, but 
 as they actually appear : children's pictures, 
 primitive art and oriental art all aim at truth by 
 representing not the seen but the inferred. It 
 requires, indeed, an artist to set down the simple 
 impressions of the eyes. These are in perspective, 
 and those who look at the pictures are convinced 
 of solidity by their own powers of inference. 
 
 Our sensory impressions need, then, to be 
 adjusted before they will guide us trustworthily, 
 and we correct each one of them, as it comes, by 
 investing it with attributes, such as roundness or 
 solidity, which it does not appear to possess, but 
 which we infer from the memory of previous 
 impressions and tactile experiences that it does 
 possess. In other words, the key to our impres- 
 sions is a stock of memories and ability to infer 
 
52 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 from them. This ability is instinctive, and is 
 born with us. But we have to acquire our stock 
 of memories for ourselves. Lower down the scale 
 of animal life amongst insects, for instance 
 sensations do not need to be adjusted by in- 
 ferences from experience : the necessary connec- 
 tions are made by instinct, and the young come 
 into the world fully equipped to meet its dif- 
 ficulties. 
 
 Of what nature are the memories by which we 
 adjust our sensory impressions, and how do we 
 perceive them ? They are repetitions of former 
 sensory impressions, called up by the brain, and 
 are perceived by us by some faculty which may 
 be likened to sensation that is independent of 
 the special sensory apparatus of nerves and 
 nerve-cells. We look inwards as well as outwards, 
 or rather, we observe, as it were, a double 
 cinematograph show, in which two sets of pictures 
 are unrolled, the one resulting from sensory 
 impressions, and derived from the outside, the 
 other resulting from the repetitive faculty of the 
 brain, and evolved by it in association with, and 
 to correspond with, the sensory impressions. 
 When, as in children and backward races, the 
 memorial impressions of the brain are very vivid, 
 they can hardly be distinguished from sensory 
 impressions, and hallucinations result. We know 
 on what little excitement children will see 
 phantoms at night. Our grasp of what happens 
 outside us depends upon our ability to distinguish 
 the one set from the other. They are distinguished 
 in science by the names of " objective " and 
 " subjective," the former coming from sensation, 
 the latter from memory. 
 
 It may be observed here that the memory may 
 
SYMBOLIC SENSATIONS 53 
 
 be stimulated and directed by sensory impressions, 
 not only of things, but of symbols of things. 
 Such are words, whether spoken or written. The 
 word " sea " is a symbol : to one who had never 
 seen water it would mean and could mean nothing. 
 But, associated in the memory with a large ex- 
 panse of water, it calls up this idea, when seen 
 or heard. 
 
 
 
 By our sensory equipment of nerves and nerve- 
 cells we receive impressions not only of things 
 that are outside us but of the movements and 
 condition of our own bodily organs. If we lift 
 an arm we have an impression of its movement 
 which is as clear as any impression that we derive 
 from touch. We have, moreover, an impression of 
 the amount of force exerted by us in, for instance, 
 lifting a weight : we remember this impression, and 
 associate it with objects of similar size. We are, 
 accordingly, much surprised if an object, which 
 appears from its size to be heavy, proves to be 
 light when we essay to move it. We also have 
 some impressions of the condition of our internal 
 organs ; they may be associated with very 
 definite feelings of pleasure or pain, but are 
 ordinarily vague and uninstructive. A man has 
 but a very indistinct idea of the hidden processes 
 upon which his life depends. 
 
 In fine, by our nervous organisation we receive 
 sensory impressions of things that are outside us, 
 of symbols of these things (the most important of 
 which are words, heard or read), and of the move- 
 ments of our own bodies ; and, in some mysteri- 
 ous fashion, we are also aware of mental occur- 
 rences of memories and thoughts which have 
 been generated by sensory impressions of the 
 past. 
 
54 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 
 
 From the character of the typical sensory 
 organ a nerve ganglion to which two nerves are 
 attached, one for bringing stimuli of sensa- 
 tion, the other for carrying away impulses of 
 motion it would appear that the movement of 
 a muscle is the necessary and inevitable conse- 
 quence of the receipt of a sensory impression. 
 And there is reason to believe that this is so, and 
 that every impression is, so to speak, a starting 
 lever which releases muscular action. Experi- 
 ments with human subjects, in which the beating 
 of the heart, or the expansion of the lungs, is 
 carefully registered, indicate that sensory im- 
 pressions which, so far as consciousness can detect, 
 do not stimulate the least muscular reaction, 
 are, as a matter of fact, accompanied by it. 
 The sight of a red colour, for instance, is found 
 to quicken the motion of the heart in some per- 
 sons. We have then experimental warranty for 
 the expression " seeing red." 
 
 A sensory impression that affects the brain, 
 and is not localized in the instinctive nerve sys- 
 tem that directs our internal mechanism, is, 
 however, rarely a single occurrence : it generally 
 sets free several impulses and a stream of memo- 
 ries that conflict with the impulse that is 
 primarily aroused, and, it may be, with one 
 another. A terrifying noise makes us start : 
 it would make us run were hurrying not in- 
 hibited by a feeling of shame, by a suspicion that 
 we might be meeting the danger, or by knowledge 
 that the noise as a matter ot fact meant no risk 
 to us. Hence, in the majority of cases, our 
 external behaviour is not guided by primary 
 instinctive reactions, but is the product of a 
 struggle between a number of impulses. Such 
 an arrangement is obviously inconsistent with 
 
REFLEX AND IDEO-MOTOR REACTION 55 
 
 high practical efficiency. It involves hesitation 
 and the possibility of error. But it possesses the 
 transcendent advantage of affording opportunities 
 for the exercise of choice, that is to say, for the 
 play of the will. It is, however, fortunate for our 
 health that the action of the heart, the stomach, 
 and other internal organs is governed by a separate 
 nerve system that is directed by instinct in inde- 
 pendence of the brain, and is not liable to these 
 disturbing complications. With however great 
 an effort we cannot help winking when the eye is 
 suddenly threatened. Nervous impulses such as 
 these (styled " reflex ") are practically mechani- 
 cal : the ganglia which actuate them lie mostly 
 in the spinal column, and operate without 
 reference to the brain. We can, by practice, 
 acquire artificial " reflex " (or, as they are termed, 
 " ideo-motor ") capacities: the complicated move- 
 ments required in talking, eating, or playing the 
 piano can be effected subconsciously, at times 
 when the brain is occupied with other matters. 
 Skill was acquired by conscious effort in which 
 the brain took place, but, with the attainment 
 of dexterity, the nervous process has become, 
 so to speak, short-circuited, and is not interfered 
 with by impressions, or thoughts, which would 
 distract a beginner. 
 
 Ordinarily, however, so far as our conscious 
 lives are concerned, our impulses are liable to 
 inhibition : we may be distracted by a desire 
 for drink, but we may resist the impulse if in 
 habit, shame, sympathy for others, or solicitude 
 for our own health, we can find over-balancing 
 considerations. An outcry of " fire " an im- 
 pression caused by a symbol will drive the 
 audience in a theatre into a panic. But a speech 
 by the manager may possibly control them. 
 
56 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 
 
 So far, we have been considering the mechanism 
 by which man and the higher animals maintain 
 a connection with their environment. It includes 
 instinctive (reflex) and ideo-motor systems which, 
 when started by the touch of an impression, act 
 promptly and accurately, and are not interfered 
 with by the functioning of the brain. It also 
 includes a system which, connected with the brain, 
 is swept by a number of conflicting influences. 
 As we descend the scale of animal life, the direct- 
 ing authority of instinct spreads from the internal 
 functioning of the body to its external behaviour : 
 conduct is linked more closely to primary sensa- 
 tions, and there is a narrower field for the exercise 
 of choice. An impulse that is set free by a sensory 
 impression is so directed by instinct as to energize 
 a definite series of actions, often of a very elabor- 
 ate character, which are accurately performed 
 without previous experience. The marvellous 
 regularity and complexity of this directive force 
 is typically illustrated by the life history of insects. 
 A worker bee, immediately it emerges from the 
 pupal stage and sees its surroundings, sets itself 
 to a complicated process of working in wax, with 
 what seems to be practised dexterity and trained 
 intelligence. It is born an efficient mechanic, 
 just as our hearts and lungs are, from the moment 
 of birth, capable of exercising their functions. 
 Birds' nests illustrate very familiarly the posses- 
 sion of similar inborn skill in higher orders of the 
 animal kingdom. We are probably correct in 
 assuming that the functioning of the internal 
 organs of the body, the growth of the body and 
 the development of the embryo are all guided by 
 this process of instinctive direction. 
 
 We are profoundly ignorant of the nature of this 
 wonderful directive force. Its impulses do not 
 
DIRECTIVE INSTINCT 57 
 
 pass through the brain, and we are not conscious 
 of them, and cannot perceive them. Its origin 
 has been attributed to the faculty of memory ; 
 it is supposed to represent a talent which has 
 been won by the trials, failures, and successes 
 of remote ancestors. But it displays a mys- 
 terious complicated acuteness for which this 
 hypothesis can in no way account. The female 
 Scolia a giant wasp of the Mediterranean 
 burrows underground, like a mole, until she 
 comes across the fat white grub of a rose-beetle 
 (Cetonia). By a sting accurately directed at the 
 meeting-place of the nerve ganglia she completely 
 paralyses it, leaving it alive but motionless. She 
 lays her egg upon its abdomen, so placed that 
 the young worm, on emerging, will find its mouth 
 against tissues that may be eaten without killing 
 the grub will, in fact, discover nourishment 
 which to a mammal is afforded by its mother's 
 breast. A peculiarly long snout enables it 
 searchingly to explore the body of its victim. So 
 it feeds during the fortnight of its larval stage, 
 but, guided by such discriminating skill as the 
 most practised dissector could not command, it 
 scrupulously avoids the nerves and vessels, 
 so as to spare the grub's life while draining it of 
 its substance. Did the grub die, the worm would 
 die also, for experiment has shown that dead tissue 
 poisons it. Here instinct displays not only its 
 passionless cruelty, but its mysterious insight and 
 its extraordinary skill. Could we bring ourselves 
 to believe that an insect can pass on its recollec- 
 tions of fortuitous successes as an inheritance to 
 its descendants, we should be no nearer an 
 explanation. It may possibly be contended that 
 the wasp may have discovered by accident, or by 
 trials, that the grub was useful, that it could 
 be hunted by burrowing, and might be paralysed 
 
58 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 by an accurately directed sting. But it seems 
 wholly unreasonable to pretend that by chance 
 or experiment the worm could have acquired 
 its marvellous skill in dissection, or that a 
 complicated chain of events, affecting the 
 behaviour of two generations, could have been 
 elaborated by casual or tentative experience. 
 The fascinating pages of M. Fabre support this 
 illustration by hosts of others, which show 
 that, even if habits may in some cases be in- 
 herited, instinctive behaviour is too elaborate to 
 have been derived from them. The various com- 
 plexities of instinctive conduct must have origin- 
 ated in such mutations, or " sports," as have 
 produced the different species of plants and ani- 
 mals. And, after all, its manifestations are not 
 more wonderful than the instinctive functioning 
 of our vital organs. 
 
 A nerve cell is sensitive to an impression and 
 exhibits a reaction. The behaviour of a photo- 
 graphic plate under the action of light is,- so far, 
 precisely similar. But in the cell these processes 
 appear to be attended by something that is 
 lacking in the plate by a feeling of " awareness " 
 or " consciousness." To some this will appear a 
 monstrous hypothesis ; it invests a nerve cell 
 with attributes that are peculiar to the brain. 
 But the brain is but a mass of nerve cells, and 
 must derive its power from its constituents. Dur- 
 ing sleep the brain is quiescent : if the finger of 
 a sleeping person is pinched, it is sharply with- 
 drawn although he is not awakened. This, it 
 may be urged, is a purely automatic action, and 
 does not prove that any awareness arose. But 
 the pinch may move the sleeper to dream that a 
 
ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS 59 
 
 snake has bitten him. It must then have awakened 
 an under-current of awareness, or consciousness. 
 Again, if a patient sees the surgeon's needle approach 
 his eye, he cannot by any effort prevent himself 
 from winking. Drop in the eye a little cocaine. 
 This renders the touch of the needle painless, but 
 produces no awareness of this in the brain. Yet 
 the patient, before he has actually discovered 
 that the needle will not hurt him, will, un- 
 winkingly, permit it to come up to the eye's 
 surface and touch it. He must, apparently, be 
 influenced by some local feeling of consciousness 
 in which the brain has no part. Minor derange- 
 ments of the internal organs of the body which 
 do not make themselves apparent to the conscious- 
 ness of the brain, will, nevertheless, be felt, and 
 will influence the mood in which, for instance, we 
 come to the breakfast table. Our views of life, 
 as we awake of mornings, depend very often upon 
 happenings within us that have escaped con- 
 scious detection. Hypnotic patients not infre- 
 quently exhibit the most extraordinary shiftings 
 and subdivisions of consciousness. Not only do 
 they appear at times to change their personalities ; 
 on some occasions their behaviour can only be 
 explained on the supposition that two separate 
 centres of consciousness are operating within them, 
 one of which may be localized in some part of the 
 body outside the brain. Thus, in one well-known 
 case, Professor William James was persuaded that 
 the patient had developed a separate conscious- 
 ness in one arm. There are then good reasons for 
 concluding that consciousness, or awareness, is 
 not monopolized by the brain, but pervades our 
 bodies and may very well be possessed in some 
 degree by each nerve cell. In the brain there is a 
 concentration of consciousness ; but there exists 
 also a diffused consciousness which, under the 
 
60 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 name of " sub-conscious self," has of recent years 
 been the subject of much discussion. 
 
 If awareness, or consciousness, is possessed by 
 each nerve cell we cannot deny it to those primi- 
 tive creatures which are able without nerves to 
 exercise nervous activities ; we must, in fact, 
 admit that it is one of Life's characteristics. 
 Where, as in plants, living activity has been 
 cribbed by swathing upon swathing of lifeless 
 matter we should expect to find it nearly atrophied. 
 Yet we may believe, with some reason, that a 
 flower feels being picked, although dimly and 
 without touch of pain. 
 
 The arousing of consciousness, or awareness, 
 by a sensory impression, or by a recollection, is 
 usually accompanied by the feeling of an emotion : 
 the sight of blood disgusts us : we are ashamed 
 at the recollection of a misbehaviour in society. 
 The awareness that is aroused need not be the 
 concentrated consciousness of the brain. It may 
 be the diffused consciousness that is styled " sub- 
 consciousness " by some writers ; we may feel 
 terrified in our dreams at times when the conscious 
 brain is dormant. These emotions may be 
 pleasurable or painful. But they are not all of 
 like origin. Pleasure and pain may be the direct 
 and simple products of sensations, or of recollec- 
 tion of sensations ; but they may also arise from 
 satisfying or not satisfying the craving of an 
 instinctive impulse. To the first class belong such 
 feelings as are aroused by the tastes of turtle soup 
 and of castor oil, by concords and by discords of 
 sound and colour. In the second class fall such 
 emotions as the pleasure of satisfying hunger and 
 thirst, the pain of suffering them, the pleasure of 
 success in social life, the pain of social failure. 
 
PLEASURE AND PAIN 61 
 
 Both sets of feelings have played a leading part in 
 evolutionary and ethical theories : they have, it 
 is said, served us as guides for the avoidance of 
 what is harmful and the embracing of what is 
 useful, in the struggle for life, and in our conscious 
 behaviour. These theories assume that the useful 
 invariably excites pleasure and never pain, and 
 that the harmful invariably excites pain and 
 never pleasure. This assumption appears to 
 outrun the facts. Generally, it is true, we eat 
 wholesome food with pleasure, and dislike things 
 which would disagree with us. But all human 
 likings are certainly not to be classed as bene- 
 ficial : some are indeed harmful beyond doubt, 
 such as the passion for intoxicants or for gambling, 
 and the depraved refinements of lustful desire. 
 It is not only man's tastes that may be perverted. 
 Sheep and partridges may become exceedingly 
 filthy feeders : a New Zealand parrot has within 
 recent years become carnivorous. There are 
 plants, such as Venus's Fly-trap (Dionsea) and the 
 Pitcher-plant (Nepenthes), which capture flies 
 and feed upon them ; but they appear to flourish 
 equally well when this diet is denied them. The 
 smell of putrid fish is to most men disgusting : 
 yet to millions of mankind fish in this condition 
 is an enjoyable article of diet. Many of our likes 
 and dislikes are unconnected with utility or 
 harmfulness. Why, for instance, does the touch 
 of slime repel us, the squeaking of a slate pencil 
 set our teeth on edge ? Why are some persons 
 uneasy if a cat is in the room ? Why are women 
 so commonly frightened of a mouse ? An instinct 
 or a feeling which interfered with the efficiency of 
 an organism, would generally be eliminated in the 
 course of evolution ; but should, in the exuber- 
 ance of Life's activity, instincts or feelings arise 
 which are neither useful nor harmful, which may 
 
62 SENSATION AND REACTION 
 
 be compared with the extraordinary plumage and 
 colours of certain birds, the struggle for life would 
 leave them unobliterated. We may, then, hardly 
 affirm that pleasure or pain are evidences either of 
 design in our creation, or of the practical efficiency 
 of the evolutionary process. Pain leads us, in 
 some cases, to avoid the harmful to withdraw 
 a foot when it is being crushed. In other cases 
 it is merely an irremediable affliction : we cannot 
 voluntarily dispel a headache. Pleasure and pain 
 cannot logically be classed as impulses to action : 
 for an action must be performed before we can 
 become aware of the feeling which it will cause 
 to us. And we have already seen that action, in 
 its essence, precedes emotion. But they are of 
 immense importance in the formation of habits, 
 and in swaying the hesitating resolutions of the 
 will. We must confess that their interference is 
 often harmful. How many vicious habits does 
 man not owe to the pleasure of vice ! 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 INSTINCTS 
 
 THE body of an animal may be likened to an 
 elaborate piece of clock-work which is driven by 
 a number of powerful main-springs lying con- 
 cealed within it. The surface of the machine 
 bears a number of little starting levers, each 
 adjusted to respond to the slightest touch and to 
 start the machinery by releasing a main-spring 
 that is connected with it. Some of the main- 
 springs are always, so to speak, wound up : an 
 unexpected crash will, for instance, make us start 
 at any time. Others become tense only at intervals : 
 if one is not hungry the sight of food is not attrac- 
 tive. Subject to this qualification an impulse is 
 directly and inevitably aroused by the sensation 
 that is connected with it. So considered, a living 
 creature closely resembles a machine ; and this is 
 the condition of an animal, such as an insect, which 
 is guided by directive instinct, when it is acting 
 under the influence of its instinctive guide. It 
 also represents the process by which our internal 
 organs perform their functions. The stomach 
 secretes its digestive fluids immediately it is 
 touched by food. 
 
 But in the case of animals that are endowed with 
 memory we must expand our illustration. An 
 impulse may be aroused by a recollection as well 
 as by a sensory impression. The sight of a rat 
 
 63 
 
64 INSTINCTS 
 
 will set a terrier in pursuit : he will growl in his 
 sleep if he dreams of the experience. Memory 
 should, then, be represented in the machine by 
 another set of starting levers, separate from but 
 linked with those that represent sensation. In 
 an animal that possesses memory, sensory im- 
 pressions always arouse recollections, and have 
 thus the effect of releasing not single impulses 
 but assortments of impulses ; and its conduct is, 
 accordingly, not the simple and direct result of 
 sensation, but is determined by the predominance 
 of one impulse, or of a certain mixture of impulses, 
 over a number of competitors. The winning 
 impulse, or assortment of impulses, gains the 
 mastery on some occasions by its intrinsic force- 
 fulness ; on other occasions because it is reinforced 
 by an instinct which was in dominance at the 
 time it was aroused, because its influence has been 
 swollened by habit, 1 because it is endorsed by 
 reason, or because it is selected by the will. 
 
 This view will be rejected by many of the highest 
 authorities. They maintain that each starting- 
 lever or nerve-cell is supplied with a stock of 
 energy of its own ; that it is equipped, so to 
 speak, with a little charge of explosive which is 
 fired when the nerve is touched, and propels the 
 machinery. They maintain, in fact, that the 
 nerves not only start the machinery, but drive it. 
 Indisputably the nerves are furnished with sup- 
 plies of explosives, the replenishment of which is 
 one of the functions of the digestive, respiratory 
 and circulatory systems of the body. The theory, 
 accordingly, gains some corroboration from a 
 scientific fact. And to minds of a materialistic 
 tendency it is more attractive than a hypothesis 
 which postulates the existence of a number of 
 
 1 We shall see, later on, how potent is the effect of habit in con- 
 trolling the conflict between antagonistic impulses. 
 
NERVES THE INSTRUMENTS OF IMPULSES 65 
 
 intangible impulses : it reduces the actions of the 
 body to a mechanical regularity, renders them, 
 indeed, predictable. Yet, if we carefully examine 
 so much of our behaviour as is capable of being 
 examined by us, so much, that is to say, as is 
 regulated by, or is connected with the action of 
 the brain, we shall find much that it is impossible 
 to reconcile with the notion that the driving force 
 of the body is localized in the nerve-cells. Res- 
 pecting the action of the " reflex " nerve system 
 (which regulates the functioning of our internal 
 organs) we cannot feel confident : it acts out of 
 consultation with the brain and lies, therefore, 
 beyond the range of our observation. But, this 
 system apart, the behaviour of our bodies, if 
 introspectively examined, is seen to be governed, 
 fundamentally, not by sensory impressions or 
 memories, but by the powerful impulses that 
 have been compared to main-springs. A mother 
 is not affected by the sight of another's child as 
 by the sight of her own : she regards one with the 
 maternal impulse, the other without it. The 
 immediate cause of a visit to Switzerland may 
 have been the chance perusal of a volume of 
 Baedeker ; but its fundamental cause lay in 
 curiosity or a desire of change an impulse to 
 travel. Lacking this impulse all the Baedekers 
 in the world would not have tempted me. My 
 efforts in writing this book are started by daily 
 recollections of the undertaking ; but they have 
 their origin in a wish to employ myself, in ambition, 
 curiosity, or that strange desire to cause pain to 
 others that manifests the instinct of cruelty. A 
 pianist, who, relying upon her " ideo-motor " 
 aptitude, executes a brilliant piece of music while 
 thinking of a love affair, is subconsciously guided 
 by her sensations or memories of the notes ; but 
 the reason for her playing at all must be sought in 
 
66 INSTINCTS 
 
 some impulse in a desire to please, or a propen- 
 sity to obey. Her playing, in the automatic 
 character of its execution, precisely resembles the 
 movements that are guided by our " reflex " 
 nervous system, or the instinctive behaviour of an 
 insect, and we appear to be quite justified in 
 assuming that in these cases also, behind the 
 elaborate functioning of nerves and nerve-cells, 
 there lies an impulse which dictates the general 
 line of conduct. The action of the stomach that 
 seems to be stimulated by the touch of food is 
 driven by the impulse of self-preservation ; the 
 bee, in fashioning its comb, is guided by a special 
 directive instinct, but is impelled by its constructive, 
 or reproductive instinct. This view is directly 
 opposed to the very general hypothesis that life 
 may be defined in terms of chemical com- 
 pounds or of bodily organs. But it is very strongly 
 borne out by the fact that the most elementary 
 kinds of plants and animals lead a complicated 
 life of sensation and reaction without the assis- 
 tance of any organs whatever. 
 
 It is desirable to insist again upon the distinc- 
 tion that is drawn, in this analysis, between two 
 very different kinds of instinct the one a set of 
 impulsive, the other a set of directive energies. It 
 is unfortunate that the term " instinct " is associ- 
 ated with both of them. Impulsive instinct 
 urges us along certain general lines of action : 
 thus the impulse of self-preservation prompts us 
 to eat when hungry, to run away when in fear ; 
 the impulse of reproduction prompts us to protect 
 our young. Directive instinct is concerned with 
 particular methods of action : thus the directive 
 instinct of the horse limits its diet to herbage 
 and grain ; that of the bee enables it to construct 
 
IMPULSIVE AND DIRECTIVE INSTINCTS 67 
 
 hexagonal nurseries. The general, indefinite, 
 character of impulsive instincts renders them 
 ineffective unless they receive guidance in detail : 
 they are aroused by memories as well as by 
 sensory impressions : they present themselves 
 in assortments : there arises accordingly, a period 
 of hesitation ending in a choice. Directive 
 instincts, on the other hand, act simply and 
 inevitably. Their influence is hardly apparent 
 in man, but it increases as we descend the animal 
 kingdom, until, amongst the lowest organisms, 
 it becomes nearly all-embracing. But in no living 
 organism does its dominion appear to become 
 quite absolute : we may notice signs of hesitation 
 amongst the humblest of microscopic creatures. 
 Instincts, whether impulsive or directive, are 
 inborn, and are part and parcel of an organism's 
 being. A living creature may, indeed, be defined 
 as a bundle of innate impulses with machinery 
 for putting them into action. This definition, it 
 may be objected, ignores the influence of reason. 
 But reason, as we shall see, is itself developed 
 from an instinct. Obscured though it be by many 
 anomalies, we may discern a tendency towards 
 uniformity in the impulsive instincts of all living 
 organisms, and in the directive instincts of each 
 great class of the animal and vegetable kingdom. 
 This illustrates the solidarity of Life the fact 
 that all living creatures are, in a degree, blood 
 relations. 
 
 We have seen that impulses are most commonly 
 set free by sensory impressions or recollections. A 
 newly hatched chicken is stimulated to drink by 
 the touch of water. Acquisitiveness is excited 
 by the sight of money. The sound of music 
 arouses, in many people, a desire to dance, or to 
 
68 INSTINCTS 
 
 beat time. A lover's thoughts are moved by 
 the sight of his mistress, or by the recollections 
 that are awakened by a letter from her. In some 
 cases an impression arouses a single appropriate 
 impulse : a loud, unexpected sound will always 
 make us start the first step of a movement to 
 escape. But, generally, sensory impressions or 
 recollections have the effect, as it were, of starting 
 a complicated arrangement of machinery, in 
 which a number of impulses are set free to act in 
 combination or in opposition. The result will 
 depend very largely upon habit, or upon the mood 
 we are in at the time, that is to say, upon the 
 effect that has been produced by preceding im- 
 pulses. The crying of an infant may at one time 
 move us to pity, at another time to anger. So the 
 sight of a friend may, on different occasions, evoke 
 feelings of kindness or of impatience. 
 
 Impulses are also released by the tendency to 
 imitate. A chicken is led to peck by the sight of 
 its mother pecking : it may be stimulated by 
 tapping with the finger, or a pencil. Noise impels 
 a canary to sing its loudest ; dogs bark when they 
 hear other dogs. The cruel feelings which are 
 gratified by a bull-fight may be evoked by the 
 excitement of the surrounding spectators. We are 
 stirred by fashion to change the manner of our dress. 
 Self-control is most strongly inculcated by example 
 by a practical stimulus, that is to say, to our 
 imitative faculty. 
 
 We have compared instinctive impulses to 
 main-springs that are released by the touching of 
 a catch. In some cases they are set to a time, 
 like an alarum- clock, and are released automati- 
 cally on the expiry of the period. The growth of 
 an individual, from its first embryonic stage to 
 maturity, is controlled by a number of impulses 
 that act at definite periods and in a definite order. 
 
EMOTIONS 69 
 
 A certain number of days determines the life of a 
 caterpillar between its emergence from the egg 
 and the spinning of its cocoon. Many migratory 
 birds are extraordinarily punctual in the dates of 
 their departure, and cannot be tempted to out- 
 stay them by however genial weather. A newly 
 hatched chicken will attach itself to the first 
 creature that comes into its impressions, be it a 
 hen, a dog, or a man ; but if it be kept isolated 
 until some days have passed, it will fly in terror 
 from its own mother. Certain sexual affections 
 are periodic in their occurrence : the sexual 
 instinct declines with advancing years. Life is 
 itself an illustration of timing : however cherished, 
 it can endure only for an appointed period. 
 
 The liberation of an impulsive instinct is some- 
 times accompanied by an emotion which brings 
 its action before the observation of consciousness. 
 We are impelled to run from a terrifying object: at 
 the same time we experience an emotion of fear. 
 But there may be impulses without emotion. We are 
 quite unconscious of those which order the function- 
 ing of our internal organs, and we are also uncon- 
 scious of the impulses which underlie such ideo- 
 motor actions as speaking, eating, or walking. These 
 do not affect the brain. Impulses are emotional 
 only when they touch the brain. We are con- 
 sciously impelled to strike an aggressor : we have 
 a feeling of anger which makes us aware of the 
 impulse. This statement may appear to invert 
 the order of events ; according to common judg- 
 ment the feeling of anger develops before the 
 impulse to strike is, in fact, the cause of the 
 latter. But this impression is incorrect. If 
 ^suddenly attacked we strike out automatically, 
 and the emotion of anger does not arise until we 
 
70 INSTINCTS 
 
 have had time to apprehend the situation. So 
 fear is the accompaniment of a movement to run 
 away; hatred, of a movement to kill. Fortunately 
 for the regularity of our lives, the development of 
 these instinctive movements beyond a rudiment- 
 ary stage is liable to a triple check or inhibition. 
 Reason may intervene to strengthen an opposing 
 instinct: we may refrain from striking because 
 we fear our antagonist as well as hate him. 
 Habit may intervene : we do not run because we 
 are disciplined to stand firm. And, thirdly, we 
 may consciously control ourselves, or " pull our- 
 selves together" : we do not run because we make 
 up our minds not to do so. The conscious, or 
 deliberate, control of an instinctive impulse takes 
 time to develop itself, and is a strain upon our 
 capacity. But by habit we may reinforce a 
 virtuous instinct which will assist us in over- 
 powering one that is vicious. It is habit that 
 preserves our lives from the frivolity and in- 
 decency of the brutes. 
 
 It appears, then, that we should believe that 
 action precedes emotion, that we feel because we 
 are moved, and do not move because we feel. 
 An instinctive impulse is an impulse to action 
 and, however strictly inhibited, produces some 
 movement, be it nothing more than a slight 
 trembling of the muscles or a quickening of the 
 motion of the heart or lungs. The movement 
 is generally too slight to be apprehended, and 
 hence we commonly style our impulses by the 
 names of the emotions which accompany them : 
 the impulse to fondle is called "kindness," the 
 generative impulse " lust." The strength of an 
 emotion may be increased by uninhibited move- 
 ment : when a crowd begins to run fear grows 
 into panic. It follows, then, that we can control 
 our emotions by controlling our actions. Are 
 
PLEASURABLE AND PAINFUL EMOTIONS 71 
 
 not respectful feelings stimulated by respectful 
 manners ? Those who wish to stir the village 
 labourer to independance bid him not to salute 
 the parson and the squire. 
 
 We class our emotions as pleasurable or pain- 
 ful according as they proceed from satisfied or 
 dissatisfied impulses. Pleasure and pain may also, 
 as we have seen, result from sensations that are 
 unconnected with impulses as, for instance, from 
 the taste of chocolate or the smell of sulphuretted 
 hydrogen ; and we may more conveniently use 
 the terms " happiness " and " unhappiness " 
 when we are concerned with the agreeable or 
 disagreeable feelings which accompany satisfied 
 or dissatisfied impulses. Generally, the satisfac- 
 tion of an instinct is exhilarating : its obstruction 
 causes uneasiness or irritation. We subconsciously 
 experience an agreeable sense of comfort when 
 our internal organs are functioning properly ; 
 irregularities produce a mood of depression. 
 We give special names to feelings of happiness 
 and unhappiness that proceed from particular im- 
 pulses which are satisfied or baffled : posses- 
 sion produces joy, beieavement, sorrow, failure 
 regret. The happiness oi gratified egotism is 
 termed pride ; shame is its reverse. The ex- 
 pected happiness of satisfying a particular 
 instinct reinforces its control over our conscious 
 life by influencing our choice when various 
 instincts are competing for mastery. But it does 
 not follow that it will influence us beneficially. 
 Happiness may be obtained by the satisfaction of 
 impulses that are exceedingly injurious to the 
 individual and to society. 
 
 
 
 Our behaviour is, then, influenced by pleasure 
 and pain, happiness and unhappiness. Are these 
 
72 INSTINCTS 
 
 emotions in themselves not sufficient to direct 
 our actions ? If so, why should we complicate 
 the study of man by supposing him to be actuated 
 by cryptic impulses ? There is a fourfold reply to 
 this objection. In the first place, pleasure and 
 pain unless the meaning of the terms is distorted 
 will not account for numberless peculiarities of 
 behaviour. What pleasure, in the proper sense 
 of the word, is there in self-sacrifice, cruelty, 
 kindness, or asceticism ; in venerating a king, or 
 in deferring to a majority ? The pleasure, it may 
 be replied, of satisfying an impulse. But this con- 
 ceeds the existence of impulses. Secondly, these 
 feelings do not affect the current of our sub- 
 conscious life, our reflex and ideo-motor actions 
 and the all-important functioning of our vital 
 organs. These must be guided by forces which 
 arouse no emotions, and we can hardly suppose 
 that these forces cease to act upon our conscious 
 life. Thirdly, when opposed to a masterful 
 impulse, pleasure and pain may not move us at 
 all. Human behaviour abounds in instances of 
 absolute disregard of physical pain. What will 
 not be endured by a mother's love, a soldier's 
 courage, the self-repression of an ascetic ! Finally, 
 pleasure and pain cannot be original guides to 
 behaviour, since until the consequences of an 
 action have been learnt by experience or in- 
 struction, we cannot know whether it will give 
 one or the other. A child will heedlessly grasp 
 at a wasp. Our feelings most certainly influence 
 our conduct : memories of them persist, actual 
 or symbolic, 1 and move us to repeat or avoid an 
 experience. That is to say, pleasure and pain, 
 while not original impulses, are powerful stimuli 
 to the formation of habits. 
 
 1 That is to say, memories of what we have been told about 
 them. 
 
REFLECTED IMPULSES 73 
 
 
 
 We must, however, admit that the pleasure 
 and pain that spring from our sensations, the 
 emotions that accompany the liberation of im- 
 pulses, and the happiness or unhappiness of 
 satisfaction or the reverse, play the part of im- 
 pulses in so far that they produce very decided 
 muscular reactions may, perhaps, be regarded 
 as reflected impulses. These expressions of feeling 
 most commonly show themselves in the muscles 
 of the face, but they may stir certain glands, 
 and not infrequently extend to the whole of the 
 body. Smiles and laughter are evoked by pleasure 
 of sight or hearing, by happiness of mind, and by 
 the satisfying changes of mood which are brought 
 about by the perception of the ludicrous. Little 
 children round a Christmas tree show their delight 
 by ecstatic jumping. Some of the expressions of 
 pleasure and pain are equivocal, and may arise 
 from either of these feelings. Tears, trembling, 
 and blushes are generally associated with pain: 
 but they may also be caused by overpowering 
 happiness. The emotions, on the other hand, 
 provoke each a peculiar facial expression of its 
 own. The gamut of emotions may accordingly 
 be illustrated pictorially ; we easily identify 
 facial expressions of greed and curiosity, vanity 
 and shame, love and hatred, ecstasy and self- 
 restraint. We may hardly believe that all expres- 
 sions of feeling have been of practical usefulness 
 in the evolution of man ; indeed, many of them 
 appear more likely to have impeded than to have 
 assisted him in the struggle for life. But we are 
 by no means obliged to assume that they owe 
 their existence to any utility. If they are neutral 
 neither advantageous nor injurious they will 
 resemble multitudes of other capacities which we 
 may observe in the living creatures around us. 
 
74 INSTINCTS 
 
 So long as they were not positively harmful 
 they would not be eliminated by the stress of 
 competition. 
 
 It is contended by some psychologists that 
 expressions of feeling are actually the causes of 
 the mental states which they manifest that we 
 are glad because we laugh, ashamed because we 
 blush, envious because we sneer, and angry 
 because we tremble. This theory is difficult to 
 sustain, and is in conflict with the fact that the 
 same reaction a blush for instance may arise 
 from either of two different feelings. There are 
 believers in the idea that a cheerful disposition 
 may be maintained by keeping a smiling counten- 
 ance. This may be true : memories of a feeling 
 may no doubt be recalled by the muscular reaction 
 which ordinarily expresses it. And we may 
 unhesitatingly believe that emotions and feelings 
 are enhanced in influence by being muscularly 
 expressed, just as panic may be increased by 
 running, and courage by the bracing of self- 
 control. Expressions of emotion may reinforce 
 emotion, although they are its accompaniment, 
 not its cause ; enjoyment may be increased by 
 laughter, although one may enjoy with an un- 
 smiling face. 
 
 The expression of feeling is common to all the 
 higher animals, and generally follows the lines 
 that are instinctive with mankind. Anger may 
 be shown by the lips, affection by the eyes, 
 pleasure and displeasure by the voice, joy by 
 spasmodic movements of the body. Birds tremble 
 in the ecstasy of song. Dogs, like children, jump 
 for joy : there are those that can smile, or will, 
 it is alleged, shed tears of grief. 
 
 We must not confuse with these spontaneous 
 reactions the behaviour which is accepted by our 
 community as the proper means of expressing 
 
USELESS IMPULSES 75 
 
 approval or disapproval, respect or contempt. 
 Clapping and hissing are purely conventional. We 
 salute a friend by offering him vestiges of homage : 
 the Tibetans salute him by protruding the tongue. 
 
 Our instinctive impulses are so numerous and 
 so varied that it is exceedingly difficult to group 
 them into general classes. And the difficulty is 
 increased by our desire to find a useful purpose in 
 everything. Those who hold that evolution has 
 been directed by the struggle for life are generally 
 as persuaded that all things have evolved for 
 good as the most convinced believer in Provi- 
 dential intervention. Yet a dispassionate survey 
 of Life's activities will hardly find justification for 
 so comforting a belief. What, for instance, is 
 the use of lust that is not limited by the require- 
 ments of reproduction, of appetite that outruns 
 digestion, of gratuitous cruelty, of kindness that 
 disregards merit, of the impulses to dance, and 
 to practise asceticism ? Many, perhaps most, 
 of our instincts are of practical utility more, no 
 doubt, than may appear to possess it at first sight. 
 But there are many that are out of all connection 
 with the stern conditions of the struggle for life. 
 From its point of view they are superfluities. If 
 harmful to their possessors they will be eliminated ; 
 but when we reflect upon the vast number of 
 species that have become extinct in the past, a 
 suspicion arises that injurious impulses may have 
 survived until they brought a race to destruction. 
 Did not the giant lizards of the Mesozoic age, the 
 giant mammals of a period less remote, outgrow 
 their food supply ? Does it not appear that there 
 may be glands and outgrowths in the human 
 body (such as the appendix) which are not merely 
 useless but injurious ? If superfluous impulses 
 
76 INSTINCTS 
 
 are harmless, they remain as witnesses to the 
 exuberance of Life's eccentricities. Amongst 
 these unpractical impulses the aesthetic are con- 
 spicuous. We are accustomed to regard them as 
 man's peculiar endowment. Not so. Can we 
 deny an appreciation of the aesthetic to a bower 
 bird, or to a robin, singing, when love instincts 
 are dormant, on a chilly November afternoon ? 
 
 Let us now attempt to formulate the heads 
 under which instincts may be classified. 
 
 We may, in the first place, form four groups of 
 impulses that are of essential practical value to 
 organisms in their individual and social lives, in 
 their function of reproducing their species and 
 in their provisions for the future. Next come, 
 in four more groups, impulses that from the 
 utilitarian point of view are superfluous, and 
 are, indeed, if classed in two pairs, antagonistic 
 to one another kindness (or an impulse to 
 fondle), cruelty (or an impulse to hurt), (esthetic 
 impulses which induce self-abandonment, and 
 ethical impulses which induce self-control. There 
 remain two compelling guides to behaviour, 
 directive instinct, and the processes which con- 
 stitute reason. 
 
 INDIVIDUALISTIC. In this group fall the im- 
 pulses that stimulate and direct the development 
 and growth of the body and the functioning 
 of its organs. These arouse no emotions, and are 
 therefore not apprehended. Self-preservation 
 the primary and most imperious object of external 
 behaviour is, on the other hand, actuated by 
 impulses that are generally emotional hunger 
 and thirst, chilliness (the impulse to maintain the 
 temperature of the body), the hunting passion, 
 
INDIVIDUALISTIC IMPULSES 77 
 
 pugnacity, ambition, or emulation (the impulse to 
 excel), secretiveness, and flight (accompanied by 
 the emotion of fear). Curiosity is necessary for 
 the discovery of food, and also to protect oneself 
 from enemies. It is strong in defenceless animals, 
 such as deer and sheep, and is abnormally devel- 
 oped in some birds and mammals. In man it 
 may be allied with reason and the provident 
 impulses, and in their company may guide him to 
 the discoveries of science and mechanics, and to 
 the speculations of philosophy. 
 
 The essence of these individualistic impulses is 
 selfishness, and they together with the emotions 
 that accompany them are condemned by society, 
 since they are not concerned with the welfare 
 of the community. The selfishness of individu- 
 ality is in itself rather a cold-blooded antagonism 
 to others than active animosity. But when 
 touched by another instinct that of cruelty it 
 develops into such emotions as anger, hate, re- 
 vengefulness, and that bitterest of all feelings 
 jealousy. When focussed in the mirror of self- 
 consciousness, it becomes vanity and self-conceit. 
 
 We may include in this group the subconscious 
 impulse of young creatures to exercise their 
 muscles in play. This subsists in the conscious 
 life of maturer years, and underlies the attractive- 
 ness of athleticism, and of the physical culture, 
 which was so essential a feature of Greek civiliza- 
 tion, and found its renaissance amongst young 
 Englishmen. Like all instinctive impulses, it is 
 strengthened by habit : lawn tennis and golf may 
 now count their devotees in every country of 
 Europe and America, and football is rapidly 
 captivating the youth of India. 
 
 SOCIAL. Gregariousness or sociability is mani- 
 fested by some plants as well as animals, and pines 
 
78 INSTINCTS 
 
 on a hillside, bees in a hive, and men in asocial 
 club all illustrate an identical tendency. Associa- 
 tion would be impossible without sympathy, an 
 impulse which may exercise irresistible sway over 
 herds of cattle, or mobs of men. Deference 
 may be allied with it : there is then engendered 
 the respect for public opinion which is so marked 
 a feature of human society, and, in remoter 
 descent, the democratic acceptance of the will of 
 the majority. If we incur the disapproval of our 
 fellows if we are " sent to Coventry " our 
 social life is blighted : the desire for approbation 
 is accordingly one of our most imperious impulses, 
 and there are few who are not rendered miserable 
 by unpopularity. Of sympathy is born the desire 
 for intercommunication, from which is derived 
 the capacity for expression by gestures, sounds, 
 or language. The regulation of society is based 
 upon the feeling of reverence, or admiration, the 
 bent of which is instinctively directed towards 
 the aged : amongst dogs and horses, age demands 
 and receives precedence ; children respect their 
 parents and teachers : the titles which we give 
 our leaders or advisers " senators," " pres- 
 byters," " aldermen " imply that age is of 
 itself a claim to respect. The traditions of the 
 past, the culture of the race, are in the hands of 
 the older generation and the prestige of age has 
 assured that they are passed on. Respect is also 
 given to the leader of the herd, be he amongst 
 men the tribal chief or an alien conqueror. 
 Undisciplined by a propensity towards obedience 
 communities could not exist : obedient con- 
 duct is (as we shall see) associated with the 
 imitative impulse which will be separately con- 
 sidered in Chapter VI. But the inclination to 
 imitate is much stronger in gregarious animals 
 than in those which live a solitary life. 
 
REPRODUCTIVE IMPULSES 79 
 
 These impulses are accompanied by a number 
 of deferential emotions which are applauded 
 by mankind as unselfish, and certainly conduce 
 towards the comfort of the community. They 
 are condemned by Nietzsche as the slave morals 
 of the herd, and are, it must be confessed, 
 not characteristic of the original geniuses to whom 
 mankind has owed the discoveries and inventions 
 that have been the guiding stars of progress. 
 
 REPRODUCTIVE. We have here two imperious 
 impulses the generative (or sexual) instinct, 
 and the devotion to offspring, which is strikingly 
 illustrated by the self-sacrificing care of bees for 
 their eggs and larvae, and the labour of birds on 
 behalf of their young. Amongst mammals this 
 instinct is generally concentrated in the female 
 sex, which has developed special organs for 
 sharing its own nourishment with its offspring. 
 Maternal love is, perhaps, the most beautiful of 
 all human impulses, and in many religions has 
 been enshrined for adoration. The mystery of 
 reproduction has, indeed, forcibly impressed 
 thinkers of all races, and has been introduced into 
 religious cults, with consequences that have some- 
 times been prejudicial to sexual morality. 
 
 When the lustful impulse runs at its strongest, 
 it is crudely indifferent to anything but the sex 
 of its object : so it acts upon some of the brutes 
 and upon degraded men. From this crude animal 
 passion romantic love may be distilled if there 
 are thrown into the crucible such other emotions 
 as admiration, sympathy, and self-restraint. 
 These are aroused by the charms which are dis- 
 covered by the intensity of a lover's gaze, lust 
 in this fashion stimulating the birth of impulses 
 which compete with it. In certain abnormal 
 dispositions one of these may actually be the 
 
80 INSTINCTS 
 
 instinct of cruelty. The impulse of acquisitive- 
 ness is commonly aroused : this shows itself in 
 a desire for exclusive possession of the loved one. 
 But generally they are of an etherializing kind. 
 The beloved may excite admiration, kindliness, 
 sympathy, and even self-sacrifice : in the com- 
 pany of these impulses lust may almost wholly 
 conceal itself. The extent to which its crudeness 
 is softened by alloys varies very greatly amongst 
 individuals and peoples ; and the marriage 
 customs of the different races of mankind show 
 how much or how little refinement it may gather 
 from the association of other feelings. Romantic 
 love may be less imperative than lust ; but it 
 casts a gleam of enchantment across the dull 
 stream of practical life which may change its 
 course or transform it into a torrent. 
 
 PROVIDENT. In this group are brought to- 
 gether those impulses which urge living creatures 
 to contend against their environment instead of 
 accepting it as their inevitable lot. The roots of 
 all these instincts may be traced in an impulse to 
 anticipate in foresight, as it would be termed in 
 conscious life which is a stimulus to make 
 provision against future deficiencies or hardships. 
 Thus many insects store up food for their young, 
 or against the winter ; squirrels make a hoard of 
 nuts ; dogs, of their bones. Throughout the 
 animal kingdom we may find illustrations of the 
 provision of shelter for self or for offspring. In 
 conscious life the effect of this impulse is of 
 supreme importance : we gather from it that 
 there is a future before us : from our sensations 
 and our memories we could learn of nothing but 
 a present and a past. Touched by imagination it 
 breeds hope and despair two of the strongest 
 of human emotions. 
 
PROVIDENT IMPULSES 81 
 
 Acquisitiveness is the most elementary of the 
 human impulses that fall into this group. Apart 
 from man, very few mammals make stores of 
 food. Amongst some birds, as those of the crow 
 tribe, there is a curious development of a passion 
 for hoarding. But we have to descend to the 
 insects to find illustrations of such a desire to 
 appropriate as urges human industry. There 
 are species of ants which have enslaved other 
 ants, and keep, as milch cows, the minute insects 
 known as " aphides." Constructiveness is dis- 
 played in every class of the animal kingdom. 
 Some minute unicellular protozoa (Foraminifera 
 and Radiolaria) construct shells of marvellous 
 delicacy and beauty : zoophytes have their corals, 
 molluscs their shells : fish and birds make nests : 
 the larva of the caddis-fly protects itself with a 
 mantle of sand and fibre. Curiously enough this 
 impulse influences mammals but little, and in this 
 class, apart from man, there are few animals that 
 construct themselves a house. Its importance in 
 human development needs no illustration. In- 
 genuity has taught man how to domesticate 
 animals, has endowed him with the art of agri- 
 culture, and has enabled him to make tools and 
 machines which, commencing with the stone axe, 
 have culminated in the aeroplane. But man owes 
 to this group of impulses his avarice, covetous- 
 ness, and propensity to overreach his fellows. 
 
 We shall see that the reproductive and pro- 
 vident instincts are in some measure antithetical : 
 one gains strength as the other loses it. There is 
 a curious illustration of this contrast in the loss 
 of sex by those bees which are specially charged 
 with the construction and management of the hive. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 INSTINCTS (continued) 
 
 WE now pass to four classes of instinctive im- 
 pulses which, from a rigidly material point of view, 
 appear to be superfluous, and can hardly have been 
 of practical usefulness in the physical evolution 
 of man. 
 
 CRUELTY. Not only do living creatures eat 
 other creatures : in many cases they seem to take a 
 fiendish pleasure in inflicting torture and in watch- 
 ing the agonies of their victims. We know too 
 little of the psychology of the lower animals to 
 accuse them with certainty. But a cat playing 
 with a mouse is a familiar illustration of this 
 instinct. It apparently attains its strongest in 
 man. Boys naturally delight in mutilating insects 
 and teasing animals : savage tribes torture their 
 captives : cruelty, as well as courage, actuates 
 the soldier in the heat of conflict, and suggests 
 the shameful mutilations which semi-civilized 
 races can perpetrate upon the slain and wounded. 
 Crowds of delicate women are fascinated by the 
 disembowelling of horses at a Spanish bull fight, 
 just as their sisters, centuries ago, critically gazed 
 upon the agonies of gladiators and Christian 
 martyrs. It is difficult to believe that it is only 
 ten generations since Englishmen the dons and 
 undergraduates of Oxford stood round while 
 venerable bishops were burnt in the streets. At 
 
 82 
 
CRUELTY AND KINDNESS 83 
 
 the present day, newspapers find that their cir- 
 culation is increased by the publication of horrors. 
 And which of us will not confess with shame to 
 having been assailed by an impulse to say things 
 which he knows will unnecessarily hurt the 
 feelings of a friend ? 
 
 KINDNESS appears to be an emotion which is 
 derived from an impulse to fondle or embrace. 
 We may, perhaps somewhat fancifully, detect the 
 effects of this instinct in the curious association of 
 different creatures, known as commensality or 
 symbiosis. Instances of this are very numerous. 
 A species of sea anemone (Adamsia) attaches 
 itself to the shells of hermit crabs : puffins and 
 rabbits, prairie dogs and prairie owls amicably 
 share the same burrow : grackles nestle round 
 the nest of the osprey. There is no question of 
 parasitism : each animal lives its life independ- 
 ently, but appears to be attracted by the other's 
 society. In mankind the propensity to keep pets 
 is very strong, and may not improbably have led 
 the way to the domestication of animals. In some 
 districts of India every man carries a bulbul about 
 with him, and caged birds enliven homes through- 
 out the East as well as Europe. Many people are 
 not happy without a dog. As objects of worship, 
 and as totems, animals, since the beginning of 
 history, have been treated by man with an 
 affectionate regard which the propensities of our 
 own boys will enable us to realize. The natives 
 of Peru have domesticated a snake : many a 
 schoolboy will carry one within his waistcoat, 
 and would sleep very agreeably with guinea pigs 
 and white rats nestling against him. 
 
 In their dealings with one another, men, even 
 the most depraved, are often moved, most un- 
 expectedly, by feelings of kindness. In the cynical 
 
84 INSTINCTS 
 
 days of classical brilliancy, when more than half 
 the population of Athens and Rome lived in 
 slavery, society could hardly have existed if the 
 authority of the master had not been tempered by 
 a humanity which prompted frequent emancipa- 
 tion. Kindness shows itself in feelings of pity. It is 
 the pride of our own times that philanthropic 
 sympathy should have prompted us, not merely 
 to a liberal dispensation of charity amongst the 
 poor and afflicted, but to self-sacrificing legislation 
 on their behalf. 
 
 Some emotions which are generally attributed 
 to the individualistic or social instincts may, it 
 appears, be more appropriately assigned to im- 
 pulses of cruelty or kindness. Hate, revengeful- 
 ness and jealousy are concerned with injury to 
 others, not with profit to ourselves. And friendly 
 affection, generosity, mercy, and gratitude arise 
 rather from the springs of kindness than from any 
 promptings which are connected with our depend- 
 ance upon, others. 
 
 ESTHETIC IMPULSES. In these we can trace, 
 from very humble origins, the genesis of the 
 artistic feelings and creativeness which in the 
 opinion of some mark the highest flight of human 
 accomplishment. The instinct of self-adornment is 
 probably the germ of our sense of the beautiful. 
 We see the fruits of its sub-conscious action in the 
 brilliant colours of birds and insects. Amongst 
 savage humanity it is a universal passion, leading 
 to the tattooing of the body, and to the most 
 absurd distortions of the ears, lips, and nostrils 
 by the insertion of ornaments into the flesh. It, 
 and not a desire for the useful, was, in all pro- 
 bability, the origin of clothes, which, as a matter 
 of fact, are hardly required for warmth over a 
 great part of the inhabited world. And in the 
 
ESTHETIC IMPULSES 85 
 
 northern latitudes of Europe and America, where 
 some body covering is needed, by far the greater 
 part of the expenditure that is incurred upon 
 dress goes to provide adornment for the body, 
 not protection. Dancing is a passion with many 
 birds : peacocks and cranes dance before their 
 mates, tame parrots will dance to a tune, the 
 movements in both cases resembling, not very 
 distantly, the jerky undulations of the Eastern 
 dancing girl, and the rhythmical spasms which 
 follow " rag time " music in Western ball-rooms. 
 It expresses an appreciation of rhythm which has 
 led to the invention of rhythmical instruments, 
 such as the drum, the tom-tom, and the castanets. 
 Singing is a wonderful and charming talent of 
 bird life : reptiles, the cousins of birds, are capable 
 of its rudiments, and many insects express their 
 joy in the sunlight by uttering sounds, which to 
 us may seem harsh, but are beyond a doubt 
 ecstatic. The Cicala gives up almost half its 
 body to the mechanism of its notes, and may be 
 likened to an animated musical box. Men and 
 women are, perhaps, inferior to birds in natural 
 capacity for singing ; but, finding in the instinct 
 a basis ror the artificial composition ol music and 
 the cultivation of the voice, they have elaborated 
 melodies, harmonies, and methods of execution 
 which appeal most touchingly to human feelings 
 and can work marvellous transformations in 
 human moods. Declamation, or recitation, is 
 allied to singing, and is the origin of poetry, 
 rhetoric, and style in prose. Prostration 1 is asso- 
 ciated with the emotions of wonder, admiration, 
 dread, and self-abnegation. Men share this 
 
 1 Some of the manifestations of the self-abandoning impulse may 
 hardly be distinguished from expressions of pleasure and pain, or 
 of the emotions the manifestations, that is to say, of reflected 
 impulses. But they are generally marked by greater definitiveness 
 of purpose. 
 
86 INSTINCTS 
 
 impulse with the dog ; and we may perhaps see 
 traces of it in the comical bows that are executed 
 by penguins when surprised by the apparition 
 of Antarctic explorers. Its most humiliating 
 forms are characteristic of savage communities: 
 it is a leading feature of all religions, and amongst 
 civilized nations it survives in the salutations of 
 everyday life. The curious habit of, apparently, 
 feigning death, practised in the face of danger by 
 some insects and higher animals, may be a mani- 
 festation of this impulse. Its origin can hardly 
 be explained by suppositions of evolutionary 
 utility, and we are quite likely to be incorrect in 
 imagining that it is of practical value. 
 
 The manifestations of the aesthetic impulses are 
 accompanied by a mental attitude of self-aban- 
 donment, an emotion of ecstasy, which is strongly 
 contrasted with the prim egotism of pelf -conscious 
 life. We may observe this emotion in the soaring 
 lark, and in the impassioned orator or artist. It 
 is a characteristic feature of earnest religious 
 experiences ; and the transfiguration of moods 
 that is compelled by its influence, affords the 
 intense relief which is felt by the " sick soul " 
 that is bathed in the deep waters of spiritual 
 self-abandonment. 
 
 ETHICAL IMPULSES. We now come to a set of 
 impulses which are popularly supposed to be a 
 splendid monopoly of mankind's. They are 
 characterized by self-control, or self-repression, 
 and they are essentially opposed to aesthetic 
 promptings. Some of them, such as justice, 
 honesty, and truth, benefit others as well as those 
 who act upon them : others, such as courage, 
 purity, patience, and asceticism, are almost wholly 
 self -regarding. So different are these impulses from 
 the instincts of practical life that their possession 
 
ETHICAL IMPULSES 87 
 
 by mankind has appeared to the religious- 
 minded to be a convincing proof of Divine inter- 
 vention. Evolutionist philosophers have felt 
 obliged to attribute their existence to the dis- 
 criminating power of the human intellect which 
 could perceive utilitarian reasons for the adoption 
 of behaviour that to the unenlightened appears to 
 be a foolish disregard of practical interests. But, 
 considered dispassionately, these impulses appear 
 to be undoubtedly instinctive. There is hardly 
 a man, however degraded, whose pulse is not 
 quickened by the display of self-sacrificing cour- 
 age, of self-denial, of undaunted chastity. No 
 reasoning calculations could have evoked so 
 useless, so painful a habit as the ascetic. Indeed, 
 the eccentricities of asceticism are sufficient to 
 prove that its foundations lie far below human 
 ingenuity or the human will. What social con- 
 ventions could have produced an emotion which 
 is capable of urging mankind to the unnatural 
 practice of celibacy, to the self-infliction of 
 torture, even to self-mutilation all supremely 
 useless, from a practical point of view, to society 
 and to themselves ? 
 
 Our search for the germs of these impulses 
 amongst the lower animals is impeded by our 
 inability to enter into their minds. But it is not 
 altogether fruitless. Many insects display self- 
 devotion in the cause of their community, and the 
 unresisting submissiveness of the males of certain 1 
 kinds to be eaten by the females excites our 
 astonishment. A cock will deny himself for his 
 family of hens ; both horses and dogs appear to 
 possess a sense of justice ; and we may perhaps 
 see in the practice of monogamy by many birds 
 and quadrupeds, some indication of a self-denying 
 
 1 Certain mantises and beetles. This curious self-devotion also 
 occurs amongst some scorpions and spiders. 
 
88 INSTINCTS 
 
 impulse. But, however this may be, if these im- 
 pulses are instinctive, their germs must be lying 
 dormant in the animals below us. And to deny 
 that they are instinctive is only possible for those 
 who hold that they have been breathed into man 
 by a special act of Providence. 
 
 These various impulses may be regarded as 
 Life's endowment, if not, indeed, as part of Life 
 itself. But all tribes of living creatures do not 
 possess the gift in its entirety. All animals must 
 be equipped with individualistic and reproductive 
 impulses if they are to preserve their own lives 
 and continue their species : all gregarious animals 
 must at least possess the social impulse of deference. 
 In most beasts and birds we can detect traces of 
 both cruelty and kindness. But the provident, 
 the aesthetic, and the ethical impulses are posses- 
 sed far less generally. Apart from man, provi- 
 dence is manifested most strikingly by insects ; 
 birds, it is true, construct nests, but these are 
 for their young, not for themselves, and we find 
 no trace of providence in its most elementary 
 form an impulse to store up food when it is 
 abundant against the time when it becomes 
 scarce. In quadrupeds, also, the provident in- 
 stinct is extraordinarily weak : few of them have 
 any notion of putting by for the future, or con- 
 struct a dwelling of any kind. The aesthetic 
 impulses are strongly developed in birds ; self- 
 abandonment can hardly be better illustrated 
 than by a bird in the ecstasy of its singing. Here 
 again quadrupeds are curiously deficient : man 
 appears to be the only mammal that takes pleasure 
 in dancing, whereas its delights are appreciated 
 by many birds. Outside mankind we can only 
 discover faint traces of the ethical impulse of 
 
ANOMALIES IN IMPULSES 89 
 
 self-restraint. Its fruit is generally negative : it 
 is represented by abstention rather than by action, 
 and can hardly be detected without a deeper 
 insight into the minds of animals than we possess. 
 We may, however, assume that its development 
 beyond a germinal stage is the peculiar stamp of 
 humanity. Man's other impulses have been 
 developed by various animals, some of which are 
 exceedingly remote from him. In providence he 
 is the heir of the insects ; in aesthetic feeling of 
 the birds. His own kin, the mammals, have had 
 little to bequeath to him. But certain of them 
 have transmitted what they could not develop, 
 and have passed on to him germs which, springing 
 into activity, have enabled him to outshine each 
 order of the animal kingdom in its peculiar 
 excellencies. 
 
 On a broad view we may conclude that each tribe 
 of animals is characterized by a general similarity 
 of impulses. But there are striking anomalies. 
 We are impressed by the industry of insects : 
 vast numbers, however, pass their lives in idleness. 
 Wasps that are closely related may be gregarious or 
 solitary in their habits. The crustaceans generally 
 protect themselves by secreting a horny covering ; 
 but the hermit-crab is imperfectly endowed with 
 this capacity, and must take refuge in deserted 
 shells. Nest-building is characteristic of birds ; 
 but the cuckoo lacks the impulse entirely. More- 
 over, we may discover such irregularities as these 
 within the ranks of the same species. What con- 
 trasts do we perceive between the characters of 
 different breeds of dogs and horses ! So, amongst 
 mankind, a general similarity of impulses is 
 broken by astonishing individual and racial differ- 
 ences. Some men appear to have little provi- 
 dence : in others kindness is altogether obscured 
 by cruelty : some are extraordinarily deficient in 
 
90 INSTINCTS 
 
 aesthetic sensibility, have no sympathy whatever 
 with tune or rhythm: in others any notions of 
 self-restraint appear to be altogether lacking. 
 
 The groups into which impulsive instincts have 
 been gathered, fall, it will be observed, into four 
 pairs of contraries individualistic and social, 
 reproductive and provident, cruel and kind, 
 self-abandoning (aesthetic) and self-restraining 
 (ethical). From this antagonism results the 
 extraordinary variety of human nature. For these 
 impulses, as we have seen, are not of uniform 
 strength in individuals : some men lack almost 
 entirely the hunting instinct, others are abnor- 
 mally affected by music, in some kindness, in 
 others cruelty seems to predominate. By an 
 abnormal development of the individualistic 
 impulse some men are happiest in solitude and 
 are restless and uneasy in the society of their 
 fellows. These peculiarities, 1 like peculiarities of 
 feature and complexion, sensibility and aptitude, 
 are in great measure hereditary, and we can under- 
 stand, then, how there comes about such diversity 
 between the characters of different individuals, 
 families, and races. But we have still to find an 
 explanation for the inconsistent behaviour of 
 individuals how a man may be at one time kind, 
 at another time cruel, at one time transported 
 by ecstatic passion, at other times restrained by 
 the sombrest asceticism. We have to remember 
 that impulses come upon us, not singly, but in 
 assortments : that they mingle with, or react 
 upon, one another, and are affected in particular 
 
 1 Similar inborn eccentricities of impulse oblige the Japanese 
 waltzing mouse to whirl its-elf when running, and the tumbler 
 pigeon to turn somersaults in flight. 
 
IMPULSES AND BEHAVIOUR 91 
 
 by the intrusion of self-consciousness. A hungry 
 man will moderate his appetite if he fears that 
 to his companions it will appear so large as to be 
 vulgar. The impulse to dance may be checked 
 by feelings of self-conscious vanity, or be rein- 
 forced by the emotion of love. The virtue of 
 courage may be rooted in self-control : this alone 
 will give us cold-blooded fortitude in the presence 
 of death ; but it may also draw strength from 
 self-abandonment, from cruelty or from self- 
 consciousness. The passion of love becomes an 
 enduring emotion when it is strengthened by the 
 social and kindly impulses. The powerful emotions 
 of pugnacity and love may arouse very remark- 
 able developments of kindness or of cruelty, of 
 aesthetic or of ethical feeling. Conditions of warfare 
 appear to force into flower the artistic talents of 
 a nation : the noblest productions of Greece, 
 the dramatic glories of the Elizabethan era are 
 illustrations in point. Under the influence of 
 love most men become poets. 
 
 Our behaviour upon any occasion will depend 
 upon the impulses which assail us and the im- 
 pulses which prevail. There may be differences 
 in both of these elements, even when the 
 circumstances that stimulate us are precisely 
 similar. For, in the first place, the impulses that 
 are called up by a sensory impression or a recollec- 
 tion depend very largely upon the impulses to 
 which we are subject at the time : if we are under 
 the influence of irritation our reason may fail to 
 control us and a trifling mistake on the part of 
 another will make us positively hate him. We 
 have seen, moreover, that certain impulses gain or 
 lose force with the passage of time : love may 
 lead a man astray after middle life, but not with 
 the blinding authority it exercises over the young. 
 Secondly, similar impressions do not at all 
 
92 INSTINCTS 
 
 times evoke the same recollections, and, if the 
 recollections differ, the impulses which are released 
 will also be different. The feelings with which we 
 meet an acquaintance will depend upon the 
 recollections that spring up of previous meetings. 
 Thirdl^, there is the difference which will result 
 from our exerting or not exerting our power of 
 will of deliberately choosing or deliberately 
 rejecting. There are, then, an indefinite number of 
 possibilities in a man's behaviour under any 
 stimulus, and human nature is accordingly very 
 uncertain and very inconsistent. 
 
 Are we, then, it may be asked, as fallen leaves, 
 set in a whirl by conflicting gusts of passion, and 
 finally driven this way or that by the strongest oi 
 them ? So, in a measure, may be represented the 
 ever-running drama of man's temptation. But 
 the impulses which we have been attempting to 
 catalogue do not possess the stage to themselves : 
 they are joined, in particular, by three others 
 reason, will, and habit which are of a different 
 character, which act as prompters to the company 
 and may give to one of them the accession of 
 energy that enables it to lead. Reason may be 
 improved by education : will may be invigorated 
 by practice. And by the acquisition of habits 
 through his will power and his imitative faculty 
 man may so facilitate the outwellings of some im- 
 pulses at the expense of others as apparently to 
 transform the character with which he was born. 
 By yielding to an impulse we, so to speak, widen 
 the outlet for it, and proportionately lessen the 
 stream of impulses which compete with it. By 
 working steadily we may enhance the influence of 
 the industrial impulse, as by indulging our 
 appetites we strengthen their hold over us. By 
 habit, then, as well as by will, a man may bring 
 unruly impulses under discipline. Yet his for- 
 
IMPULSES AND SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY 93 
 
 titude may be wasted, his habitudes may be 
 upset, should he chance to meet a woman who 
 disturbs the balance of his emotions by exciting 
 his love. 
 
 
 
 To many men an explanation of Life or of 
 Nature appears to be unsatisfactory unless it 
 resolves the complex into the simple, unless it 
 tends towards the conclusion that the various 
 links between happenings, which we term 
 " causes," are but manifestations of an ultimate 
 unity of purpose. They will condemn as retro- 
 gressive even as absurd an attempt to account 
 for human behaviour by attributing it to a num- 
 ber of inconsistent and antagonistic impulses. 
 Yet if we review the endeavours which have been 
 made by men of intellect during the past twenty- 
 five centuries to discover the foundations and 
 foresee the ultimate development of human 
 conduct and, in the theories of ethics and 
 political economy, to formulate the aspirations 
 that should guide it we shall conclude that their 
 ideals have been as numerous and as diverse as 
 the impulses which we have been cataloguing, and 
 may, indeed, be generally defined as the accept- 
 ance of one or other of these impulses as superior 
 in strength or desirability to all others. So 
 Epicureanism idealizes the individualistic im- 
 pulses, Altruism the social impulses, Stoicism 
 the ethical impulses of self-restraint, Hedonism 
 the aesthetic impulses of self-abandonment. We 
 may, in like fashion, conclude that kindliness is 
 the moral ideal of Christianity. Political Economy 
 is concerned with the methods in which the 
 provident impulses can be most effectively satis- 
 fied. Reason, which, as we shall see, may also 
 be classed as an impulse, is adopted by some 
 philosophers as the guiding star that will lead 
 
94 INSTINCTS 
 
 mankind towards a state of perfection. As the spirit 
 of utilitarianism, it takes note of the feelings of 
 pleasure and pain, of happiness and unhappiness, 
 which arise from our sensations and our impulses, 
 and pictures the pleasure or happiness of the indi- 
 vidual or the community as the goal towards 
 which conduct should strive. This theory, ac- 
 cepted nakedly as it stands, would sanctify all 
 sensations and impulses which afford pleasure or 
 happiness : but so stark a conclusion would be 
 practically demoralizing, and it has therefore 
 been limited by more or less artificial definitions 
 of pleasure and happiness. We may, then, take it 
 that the multiplicity and variety of the theories to 
 which philosophy has been driven in its search for 
 a science of living, strongly corroborate the view 
 that human nature is a compound of a number of 
 discordant elements. 
 
 The two impulses that remain for our considera- 
 tion do not suggest definite lines of activity, but 
 are compelling guides to general behaviour. They 
 are in the sharpest contrast Directive Instinct 
 and Reason and represent methods of shaping 
 external behaviour to environment that are 
 characteristic, respectively, of the lower and the 
 higher orders of the animal kingdom. 
 
 DIRECTIVE INSTINCT. In some of its manifes- 
 tations this may perhaps be described as a subtle 
 penetrating sympathy which gives a living crea- 
 ture instinctive knowledge of other living crea- 
 tures, or of substances, that subserve its nourish- 
 ment or its reproduction. 1 Such a mysterious 
 
 1 The experiments of M. Fabre have convinced him that the 
 females of some bees can not only lay male or female eggs accord- 
 ing as the provision for the larva (as controlled by experiment) is 
 large or small in cell capacity or food but can actually deter- 
 mine the sex of each egg as it is laid by them. 
 
DIRECTIVE INSTINCT 95 
 
 sympathy must also guide the internal organs of 
 our bodies : the heart and the lungs act with full 
 appreciation of each other's requirements, and the 
 stomach realizes what substances should be 
 accepted, and what rejected by it. But this 
 description is not sufficiently comprehensive. 
 Directive instinct is apparently the energy by 
 which living creatures grow from their initial to 
 their adult stages, and it must therefore include a 
 realization of purposes not merely of the ends to 
 which certain organisms and substances of the 
 environment should be applied, but of the final 
 development to which growth tends. And it must 
 also include a precise and detailed realization of 
 the means by which growth, nourishment, and 
 reproduction are effected. The characteristics of 
 this faculty have already been described. They 
 include independance of experience, inevitability 
 of sequence, and accuracy of execution. An 
 organism that is guided by it knows no doubt or 
 hesitation : it proceeds towards its aim with the 
 unfailing punctuality of clockwork. So appears 
 to us the undeviating regularity of a beehive, and 
 so would appear to us the working of our internal 
 organs could we realize its accurate complexity. 
 
 An accomplishment which simulates the pro- 
 cesses of directive instinct is that known as the 
 " ideo-motor," by which we are able to execute 
 elaborate series of movements, such as those of 
 walking, speaking, or playing the piano, without 
 any dependance upon the brain, each sensory 
 impression or recollection producing the appro- 
 priate muscular reaction by the independent 
 functioning of local nerve centres. But this 
 accomplishment is only acquired by deliberate 
 practice. Processes that are directed by instinct 
 need no practice whatever. A young caterpillar 
 on emerging from the egg is as efficient in its 
 
96 INSTINCTS 
 
 activities as when full grown. The inexplicable 
 acuteness of the Scolia wasp and its larva has 
 been already mentioned. The life histories of the 
 Yucca moth and the Sitaris beetle are not less 
 astonishing. The former takes a lump of pollen 
 from the anthers of one Yucca flower, lays its eggs 
 in the ovary of another flower, and, before flying 
 off, fertilizes this flower by depositing the lump of 
 pollen upon its stigma. The larvae feed upon the 
 ovules in the ovary, and would be short of 
 nourishment unless these were fertilized and grew 
 to maturity. But they do not consume all the 
 ovules : some are spared and form seed to carry 
 on the life of the plant in the next generation. 
 The transfer of pollen from one flower to another is, 
 then, necessary for the life both of the larvae and 
 the plant. But we are quite unable to understand 
 how these two distinct necessities come to be 
 linked through the impulses of the moth. The 
 Sitaris beetle lays its eggs at the mouth of the 
 burrow of the Anthophora mason bee : its young 
 are active little creatures with prehensile claws, 
 and leap on to the drones as they pass out of the 
 burrow on their nuptial flight. They transfer 
 themselves to the females during the process of 
 mating, are carried by the females to the nest, 
 and transfer themselves again on to the eggs, when 
 laid, living upon them and upon the store of 
 honey until the time comes for their metamor- 
 phosis into adult beetles. The larvae are endowed 
 with special organs and special impulses for their 
 threefold migration, the object of which is to 
 enable them to live, in a most complicated 
 fashion, upon the lives of others. 
 
 Directive instinct is absolutely unreasoning, and 
 will accept no guidance from inference. A mud- 
 wasp (Pelopoeus) will continue to provision its 
 nest-cell for its young after the egg which it has 
 
HUMAN APTITUDE 97 
 
 deposited has been removed: it does not per- 
 ceive that its labour has become objectless. When, 
 having completed its cell, having deposited its egg, 
 and stored provisions for the larva, it returns with 
 clay to cover the orifice, and finds that during its 
 absence the cell has been destroyed, it will not 
 appreciate the effect of this calamity, and will 
 carefully affix the clay on to the place where the 
 cell would be if undestroyed. It appears, as we 
 shall see, that insects are not altogether devoid 
 of reasoning powers. But, when acting under the 
 obsession of directive instinct, they seem generally 
 unable to make use of them. 
 
 All animals are dependent upon directive 
 instinct for their development, growth, and the 
 functioning of their internal organs. Inverte- 
 brate animals also rely upon it for the guidance of 
 most of their external activities. The communal 
 life of a bee-hive, or an ant's nest, is almost 
 wholly regulated by it, in complications of con- 
 structive art, social organisation, and even civil 
 government, the elaboration of which appears to 
 us to be inconceivable without the use of reasoning 
 intelligence. As we ascend the scale of verte- 
 brates, directive instinct loses its efficiency and 
 resigns its paramount authority, until in man it is 
 almost extinguished as a guiding force in beha- 
 viour. To hold tight and to suck are almost the 
 only innate accomplishments of a new-born baby. 
 
 But it would be extraordinary were so vigorous 
 a force to vanish entirely, and we may believe 
 that it survives in men, albeit with changed au- 
 thority. We may, perhaps, trace to its influence 
 our aptitudes for acquiring the accomplishments of 
 our kind. We are born in the utmost inefficiency 
 unable to walk, to speak, or to realize our im- 
 pressions : but the facility with which we learn 
 these ideo-motor processes seems to indicate that 
 
98 INSTINCTS 
 
 we are endowed with special aptitudes for them. 
 Directive instinct changes its role : when it no 
 longer instructs, it smooths the path of learning. 
 In man this change is almost complete : we may 
 observe it progressing in the animals below him. 
 The innate equipment of all the higher animals 
 appears to include aptitudes as well as ready- 
 made accomplishments. Some birds appear to 
 need lessons in flying from their parents : thrushes 
 may be seen instructing their young to break 
 snail shells. Aptitudes vary in individuals not 
 perhaps very greatly, when we consider how much 
 of them is common to all of us but the dif- 
 ferences are sufficient to distinguish talented from 
 untalented men. Some persons are endowed 
 with special aptitudes for games, others for 
 learning languages, others for literary expression, 
 others for mathematics. Their talents may not 
 be accompanied with strong impulses for using 
 them : we all know of talented but idle men. On 
 the other hand, impulses may be possessed without 
 special aptitudes : such is the case with tongue- 
 tied poets, with earnest but unsuccessful golfers. 
 When impulses are combined with special apti- 
 tudes we have the equipment of an able man. 
 
 If talent is nothing more than an addition to an 
 aptitude which is possessed by most men, and is 
 not an endowment peculiar in itself, we can 
 understand why it should so often appear unex- 
 pectedly in families : it is a thing not of kind, but 
 of degree, and would be liable to such variations 
 as bring about differences in colour of hair, or 
 complexion, between children of the same parents. 
 And just as these physical traits, however varying 
 in the individuals of a family, tend towards 
 uniformity within the family, so may we expect 
 special developments of aptitudes to be frequently 
 hereditary in particular families. 
 
REASON 
 
 99 
 
 REASON. In man, as already remarked, in- 
 stinctive machinery for the regulation of outward 
 conduct has become obsolete. In exchange he 
 is equipped with Reason far more generously than 
 any other animal. In attempting to define 
 this faculty we enter upon ground which is strewn 
 with the fragments of psychological discussion. It 
 may, perhaps, be described as a process by which 
 we weave our impressions and recollections into 
 a connected tissue, instead of leaving them as a 
 tangled mass of random happenings. To this 
 end we are, in the first place, impelled to link 
 together different impressions by their similarity 
 of appearance, or by their contiguity in space, or 
 in time that is to say, we associate impressions 
 that resemble one another, are related in space to 
 one another, and precede or follow one another. 
 We connect in this way one dog with another dog, 
 a dog w r ith its kennel, and a dog with a bite. In 
 the next place we are impelled to infer that like- 
 ness in appearance implies likeness in what pre- 
 cedes, accompanies, or follows. I have been 
 pricked by a bramble : I infer that if I touch that 
 bramble, or another similar bramble, I shall be 
 pricked again. I have, then, learnt to avoid what 
 an insect would have avoided instinctively. But 
 with my reasoning powers at this stage I have to 
 learn a separate lesson for each particular set of 
 objects. My learning gains in scope immensely 
 when my reasoning powers are completed by an 
 impulse to distinguish things by their properties, 
 instead of accepting them as indivisible wholes, 
 and to see in these properties the causes^ of hap- 
 penings. I observe that the bramble has the 
 property of thorniness, and, by attaching my 
 inference not to the plant, but to the property, I 
 
 1 To recognize, for instance, a soporific property in opium as the 
 cause of its inducing sleep. 
 
 H 
 
ioo INSTINCTS 
 
 learn to avoid all plants that may prick me. We 
 proceed to class as " properties " the similarities, 
 contiguities and sequences that were the funda- 
 mental points of attachment by which we first 
 linked our impressions together : similarity is 
 figured as relationship, connection in space as posi- 
 tion, sequence as cause and effect. I have learnt 
 when using a slate that a squeak is caused by (that 
 is to say, is preceded by) friction : I infer that the 
 squeaking of a tram-car is also caused by friction. 
 I suffered from headache when ascending a 
 mountain : I infer that a balloon ascent would 
 give me (that is to say, would be followed by) a 
 headache. Prodigious have been the consequences 
 to mankind, for evil as well as for good, of this 
 assumption that the links of inference are them- 
 selves properties. For, in discovering these links, 
 we are not assisted by instinct, but are left to our 
 powers of perception, and we are accordingly 
 liable to great error. I may confuse the dream of 
 a pain with an actual pain, and may wrongly infer 
 that I need medical treatment. I may perceive 
 the stars as lying close to one another, and may 
 imagine that they are " pattens of bright gold " 
 set in a crystal sphere. I may attribute an attack 
 of indigestion to lobster salad when it was really 
 caused by champagne. We are especially liable 
 to error when we see in happenings the property 
 of being causally connected with what precedes 
 them, since a happening is preceded not by a single 
 thing, but by a complicated tangle of things, out 
 of which we are liable to make a wrong selection, 
 and so to dignify as the "cause" of the happen- 
 ing a thing which had in reality no connection 
 with it. I may, for instance, infer that an old 
 woman is a witch because I felt queerly when I 
 passed her, and had read that witches, by the 
 evil eye, could affect malignantly those who 
 
REASON 
 
 approached them. Science is the diagnosis of 
 essential as opposed to accidental properties. 
 But science has come very slowly into the reason- 
 ing processes of mankind. 
 
 Reason differs radically from directive instinct 
 in that it is helpless without experience and 
 memory, and may be misled by them. The 
 action of directive instinct may be compared to a 
 machine that is devised to execute a particular 
 movement upon the playing of a particular chord 
 of music. Reason resolves the chord into its 
 component notes, which, by inferences from ex- 
 perience and memory, are brought into connec- 
 tion with opinion or behaviour. The experience 
 may be direct, or indirect that is to say, may 
 have been derived from the sensory impression 
 of an object or from information acquired from 
 others by means of gestures or words. A new-born 
 baby is helpless, since it lacks all but the very 
 rudiments of directive instinct and also lacks 
 experience and memory. 
 
 Reason is popularly supposed to be man's 
 prerogative, and even evolutionist speculation 
 is sometimes coloured by the assumption that 
 this capacity is a development peculiar to human- 
 ity. But if the doctrine of evolution is reliable 
 the germs of reason must be inherent in all crea- 
 tures, and an unprejudiced survey of the be- 
 haviour of the lower animals will find no lack of 
 evidence of some capacity for reasoning. Insects 
 which will pursue the routine of nest-making 
 and egg-laying in complete disregard of accidents 
 that render their labour useless and absurd, will 
 use careful discrimination in the preliminary tasks 
 of choosing a site for the nest and in selecting its 
 materials, showing a judgment that seems to 
 indicate that they can compare the merits of 
 different sites and substances, and can draw 
 
102 INSTINCTS 
 
 inferences in choosing one or other of them. There 
 are, in fact, occasions when they are free from the 
 dominating influence of directive instinct. In 
 some cases, indeed, reason appears to have actually 
 modified instinct. Caterpillars that have pro- 
 tected themselves by rolling up leaves have, 
 under different circumstances, taken to burrowing 
 within them : beetles that rolled up balls of dung 
 (for the deposit of their eggs) have taken advan- 
 tage of sheep droppings : a New Zealand parrot 
 (Pastor mutabilis) has within recent years become 
 carnivorous, and causes much loss to farmers by 
 wounding sheep. Birds and insects will occa- 
 sionally alter the customary form and situation of 
 their nests, and will make shift to economize 
 materials. A crucial case, quoted by Romanes, 
 is that of a flycatcher which nested in a conserva- 
 tory and, appreciating the heat maintained by 
 the furnace, left its eggs to hatch of themselves. 
 In all these cases there must have been some dis- 
 tinguishing of properties, and inferring from ex- 
 perience. A familiar illustration is that of a dog 
 which has been shut into a garden. At first he 
 will endeavour to scrape himself under the gate, 
 or through the bars, but if he fails to get past and 
 is an intelligent animal, he will attempt to jump 
 the gate. He notices that the gate has the pro- 
 perty of being surmounted by a jump, and infers 
 from past experience that he can leap over it. 
 He would not try to jump a high wall. Man 
 has been assisted in outdistancing the most 
 intelligent quadrupeds by his almost total loss 
 of directive instinct : he must rely upon his 
 reason, whereas the dog or the monkey is subject 
 to instinctive promptings which confuse its 
 reasoning faculties. Habit, it is true, similarly 
 enables man to dispense with his reason : but 
 habit is less imperious than instinct, and may 
 
REASON 103 
 
 be over-ridden by reason. The efficiency of reason 
 may be improved by education : by practice we 
 can extend our power of discerning properties 
 in things. But the gulf which separates man from 
 the brutes is formed not only by superiority in 
 reasoning powers, pure and simple, but also by 
 the far-reaching effects of language and in- 
 trospective consciousness. By language proper- 
 ties, once perceived, are clearly denned. By 
 introspective consciousness not only has the 
 appreciation of properties, and the accuracy 
 of inferences, become very greatly enhanced, but 
 properties themselves are subjected to analysis, 
 and are discovered to possess properties of their 
 own. So have originated the abstract sciences of 
 logic, numbers, and quantities. These all-impor- 
 tant developments will be further considered 
 in Chapter VII. 
 
 A word of explanation should be added. We 
 have brought together in this and the preceding 
 Chapters certain of our vital impulses and have 
 classed them as instinctive, because they are of a kind 
 to which the term "instinct" is generally applied. 
 But in their essential character as innate prompt- 
 ings to action they do not differ from the impulses 
 to which Chapters II, III, VI, VII, and VIII are 
 devoted that is to say, from the impulses of 
 changefulness, responsiveness to sensation, mem- 
 ory, habit, imitation, consciousness, and will. 
 These attributes of Life have been treated 
 separately because they are so general in their 
 character and so far-reaching in their effect. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 WE have grouped Memory, Habit, and Imitation 
 together because they are all repetitive influences 
 influences which may perhaps be ascribed to a 
 tendency of living tissue to repeat the results of 
 impulses. Memory is the repetition of mental, 
 or nervous experiences ; Habit, the repetition of 
 mental or muscular action ; Imitation, the repeti- 
 tion of mental impressions in mental or muscular 
 action. The physical world around us is pervaded 
 by the rhythmical repetitions, or vibrations, oj 
 light and sound ; and memory, habit, and 
 imitation appear to have more in common with 
 Matter than with the spontaneous irregularity 
 which is the chiefest characteristic of Life. Many 
 of the nervous reactions of living creatures dis- 
 play a sympathy with rhythm : such are the 
 regular pulsations of the jelly-fish (Medusa), the 
 timed movements that synchronously agitate 
 swarms of insects, and the human accomplish- 
 ments of music, poetry, and dancing. But neither 
 memory nor habit, so far as we can judge, is an 
 influence of paramount importance in the inferior 
 classes of the animal kingdom. Here the processes 
 of directive instinct maintain the regularity of life. 
 Higher up the scale, memory and habit become 
 controlling forces : they are tyrannical, but 
 infinitely less so than the almost inevitable regu- 
 larity which they displace. Imitation, on the 
 
 104 
 
MEMORY 105 
 
 other hand, appears to be an impelling force 
 throughout the animal kingdom, and may have 
 contributed to the spread of physical changes 
 from the individual to the species. 
 
 MEMORY. It may very well be that we forget 
 nothing, that we store up a recollection of every- 
 thing that has affected us. The great mass 
 of our impressions is collected subconsciously, 
 and will only recur to us when we are in a sub- 
 conscious condition, as, for instance, when we 
 are dreaming. The strange materials which enter 
 into our dreams are derived from impressions 
 which we have registered, but have not marked 
 in consciousness. There is a well-known case of 
 a Dutch maidservant who, when delirious in 
 hospital, declaimed passages from the Talmud. 
 It was ascertained that she had been in the service 
 of a Rabbi who was in the habit of reading the 
 Talmud aloud as he paced up and down the pas- 
 sage which led to the kitchen. His recitations had 
 subconsciously been registered in the girl's mem- 
 ory, and emerged from it when she was in a state 
 of subconsciousness. In conscious life she could 
 not remember a word. 
 
 A stream of recollections is flowing unceasingly 
 through our brains. It may perhaps be inter- 
 rupted during very deep sleep, or when we are 
 unconscious, as during a fainting fit. When 
 awaking from deep sleep we may experience a 
 strange feeling of not knowing where we are. 
 This may be due to an interruption of memory, 
 which has the same effect as the stoppage of the 
 heart during a fit of unconsciousness. Should 
 the stream of memory become blocked, our life, 
 our character, our personality is changed. Such 
 is the inference we may draw from the experience 
 
io6 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 of a young American clergyman, Mr. Hanna, 
 who suffered complete loss of memory owing to 
 a fall from his dog-cart. When he recovered con- 
 sciousness he was as helpless as a baby. His past 
 was a blank ; he had no perception of distance 
 or solidity ; he could neither eat, speak, nor walk. 
 It took some months' instruction to restore these 
 capacities, but, having recovered them, he remained 
 with an entirely new personality. Gradually old 
 memories surged up, at first in dreams, then dur- 
 ing waking moments ; and, after a strange conflict 
 between his two personalities, his original disposi- 
 tion slowly reasserted itself. 
 
 The ever-flowing current of recollections is for 
 the most part subconscious, and is not apprehended 
 by us in our conscious conditions. But it rises to 
 the surface from time to time, thrown upwards 
 by touching a feeling of pleasure or pain, an 
 emotion, or a resolution of the will. We are 
 suddenly aroused from a " brown study " by the 
 occurrence of a recollection that we have omitted 
 to post a letter. For a time it may be a long 
 time the stream will flow through the realms of 
 consciousness. It may take one of three courses, 
 which may, respectively, be compared to a river 
 which runs straight, to a river which meanders, 
 and to a river which is twisted by sharp deflec- 
 tions. Our recollections will be, in the first case, 
 a continuous reproduction of former impressions ; 
 in the second case, a recombination of impressions 
 linked by trivial coincidences ; in the third case, 
 such a recombination linked by emotional ex- 
 periences. 
 
 A good illustration of the first class of recollec- 
 tions is the repetition of a piece of poetry : word 
 succeeds word as originally learnt, and, the less 
 is the emotion aroused by the recital, the more 
 word-perfect it will be. Some boys will repeat 
 
THE MEMORY STREAM 107 
 
 a book of the ^Eneid after a few hours' study. 
 Did the poetry interest them they would be 
 less successful. In India Mohammedan children 
 will recite chapter after chapter of the Koran, 
 in a language (Arabic) with which they are 
 entirely unacquainted. 
 
 Recollections of the second class are connected 
 by points of contact, which arise out of purely 
 accidental properties, but are sufficiently strong, 
 in the case of trivial minds, to disarrange the 
 sequence in which the original impressions were 
 received. The recollections are linked (in the 
 language of psychology) by " contiguity." Memo- 
 ries which function in this manner are admirably 
 illustrated by the conversations of Mrs. Nickleby. 
 Persons who are afflicted with them are unable 
 to keep to the point, or leading interest, of an 
 anecdote, but wander from one side issue to another 
 in a manner which to listeners is intolerably boring. 
 
 Recollections of the third class are strung 
 together by resemblances that arouse emotional 
 interest. This process is termed " memory by 
 association." My attention is suddenly aroused 
 by an emotion of fear, which has been suggested 
 by the subconscious recollection of a fall from my 
 bicycle. Thence onward there pass before me 
 the church I was on my way to visit, my opinion 
 of its architecture, a tour in France in the course 
 of which I saw a church of similar style, an inter- 
 esting conversation with the cure of the parish, a 
 regret that I was not taught French more effi- 
 ciently at school, and a recollection of recent 
 correspondence in the newspapers regarding the 
 respective educational advantages of classical and 
 modern languages. Each recollection is connec- 
 ted with its predecessor by a link of emotional 
 interest : and the more emotional interests a man 
 possesses the more varied, the more suggestive, 
 
io8 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 the more imaginative will be his recollections. It is 
 mainly in the equipment of emotional interests 
 that lies the difference between the intelligent and 
 the stupid man. 
 
 An emotional impulse may not only deflect the 
 course of the memory stream, but may set up a 
 vortex in it which constantly brings the same set 
 of images before the consciousness. A lover's 
 thoughts can hardly stray from his mistress, and 
 the conversation of men who are given up to 
 racing or golf shows how little is presented to their 
 minds that is unconnected with their passion. 
 The eddy may grow into a whirlpool that engulfs 
 the memory stream altogether, but seizes hold 
 of a few recollections that are circulated incessantly 
 before the sufferer's attention. This is madness. 
 
 By investing an impression or a recollection 
 with an emotional interest, we endow it, so to 
 speak, with a magnetic attraction for other im- 
 pressions and recollections that have been touched 
 by the same emotion. Recollections that are so 
 connected tend to fly towards one another if the 
 regular subconscious course of the memory-stream 
 be disturbed by an emotion or an effort of will. 
 The fruit of these attractions is the faculty of 
 Imagination, which is one of the most sentimental 
 and most practical attributes of mental life. We 
 think of it as a creative faculty, and so it may be 
 regarded from one point of view. Yet, strictly 
 speaking, it can create nothing, and is absolutely 
 dependent upon the memory for the material with 
 which it builds up its fabrics, whether they be 
 artistic, mathematical, or castles in Spain. But 
 our memory can supply us abundantly with 
 materials that may be fashioned, combined, and 
 
RECOLLECTIONS SUMMONED BY THE WILL 109 
 
 recombined ; and there are almost infinite possi- 
 bilities for the activity of the imagination in 
 creating new forms out of pre-existing elements. 
 The imagination may be stimulated by the con- 
 scious establishment of a " field of volition," or 
 mental disposition towards a certain theme or 
 subject, as, for instance, the composition of a 
 landscape. This " field of volition " may, perhaps, 
 be likened to the magnetic field that is developed 
 round the poles of a magnet. It sets up an 
 activity that causes the memory-stream to present 
 to us recollections which are apposite to the 
 subject before us which are, that is to say, 
 attracted by the same emotional interest. The 
 fertility of the imagination the abundance of the 
 materials with which the artist can construct 
 depends upon the emotions that have been aroused 
 in him by the various features and phases of 
 actual landscapes that he has seen, and the links 
 which his emotions have established between 
 them. If he is of an emotional disposition that 
 is to say, an " imaginative " man from his 
 memory will surge up a flood of detail. If he is 
 of colder temperament, or his brain is not 
 functioning actively, he may have to cudgel his 
 memory for ideas. By a similar process the 
 poet is inspired with similitudes and rhythmical 
 expressions, the musician with sequences and 
 combinations of sounds, the mechanic with new 
 contrivances, and the mathematician, who can find 
 emotional interest in the properties of numbers, 
 quantities, and positions, can picture in a form 
 which hardly eludes his conception such unsub- 
 stantial possibilities as a fourth dimension. Crea- 
 tive art is the offspring of imagination ; so are the 
 theories of science, and the mechanical inventions 
 that have given a special character to modern 
 civilization. Occasionally, it may be objected, 
 
no MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 discoveries are made by accident. But it is 
 doubtful whether these accidents have occurred 
 to men who were not prepared to welcome them. 
 It may be objected again, that undue stress has 
 been laid upon the power of the will in the 
 assembling of the materials with which imagina- 
 tion fashions its designs. Every writer is well 
 aware of the assistance which he owes to sub- 
 conscious thought : ideas and sentences suddenly 
 present themselves to him, as the spontaneous 
 offerings of his brain, that are astonishingly 
 superior to those which he has been able to con- 
 jure up by the concentration of his will. Not a 
 few may confess to ideas that have come to them 
 during sleep, and did not vanish before they could 
 be recorded. It is said, indeed, that Coleridge 
 awoke one morning with Christabel ready com- 
 posed in his brain. But the theme to which these 
 suggestions contribute has previously been en- 
 shrined as the altar-piece of a mental disposition : 
 the memory has been reasserting its treasures 
 subconsciously, but under an impulse which it 
 received from conscious volition. Imagination 
 may, then, be denned as the assembling of memories 
 which have been reasserted by emotion under the 
 influence of the will. 
 
 The effect of a mental disposition, or " field of 
 volition," is familiar to many of us in the process 
 by which we call to mind a name that has escaped 
 us. We try to recollect it, but in vain ; we cease 
 to strive after it, when it suddenly presents 
 itself. Influenced by our desire, the memory- 
 stream has subconsciously delivered up the 
 symbol which would not obey the summons of 
 conscious effort. 
 
 By imagination we can repeat emotional ex- 
 periences of the past. Direct recollections of them 
 may be but pale, sentimental, reflections of the 
 
SYMBOLIC RECOLLECTIONS in 
 
 original passions. But if summoned indirectly, by 
 the imagining of the impressions which originally 
 evoked them, they may affect us as powerfully as 
 when they first arose. We owe to imagination 
 hope and despair two of the strongest emotions 
 of mankind. The one is the vision of satisfied, 
 the other of unsatisfied impulses. 
 
 
 
 Such are, so to speak, the dynamics of memory. 
 But it must also be considered as a static force 
 not as a stream but as a store-house of recollec- 
 tions. These, when assorted and, so to speak, 
 indexed by consciousness, constitute knowledge 
 a fund from which disbursements may be made at 
 the call of the will. Recollections may be direct 
 simple repetitions of former sensory impressions 
 or symbolic: we may have direct recollections of 
 St. Petersburg, presenting the place to us as we 
 have seen it ; or we may have recollections of 
 words, or symbols, describing the city, which, so 
 to speak, construct views of it by calling up 
 certain direct recollections (of rivers, streets, and 
 so on) which originally had no connection with 
 St. Petersburg, but are reasserted and recom- 
 bined in the process. 
 
 Direct recollections are clearest when they are 
 visualized, when, that is to say, the original 
 sensory impressions repeat themselves as a defi- 
 nite, detailed picture. In such a case one may be 
 able to catalogue a number of different objects 
 that have been presented only for a moment. 
 Readers of Kipling will remember Kim's en- 
 deavour to rival the jeweller's apprentice in this 
 accomplishment. Visualization can undoubtedly 
 be strengthened by practice. It is strongest in 
 children and in savages : it fades away as age 
 advances, and has been shown by investigation 
 to be at its weakest amongst men of science. 
 
ii2 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 Symbolic recollections are much more than 
 recollections of symbols : they involve the recol- 
 lection of the object which the symbol denotes, 
 and proceed from the capacity of the memory to 
 link together objects and symbols in correlative 
 pairs. Words are of course the principal symbols 
 in use, and our power of expressing ourselves is 
 entirely dependent upon the tenacity with which 
 a word and the thing or conception which it repre- 
 sents, cling together. Unless the word " rose " 
 is attached to the flower it would be impossible 
 to speak about roses. We know very well how 
 often, with foreign languages, this link between 
 symbol and object becomes broken : we say, 
 then, the word fails us. Amongst other symbols 
 are children's toys. Their attractiveness lies 
 entirely in their power of recalling the objects 
 for which they stand. In children, as already 
 observed, the faculty of visualization is exceed- 
 ingly efficient, and this explains the fact, so 
 commonly noticed, that a child will often prefer 
 a rough toy- symbol of its own to an elaborate 
 purchase at the toy-shop. 
 
 A third class of these, so to speak, static 
 recollections are those which enable us to adjust 
 our sensations by correcting them in the light 
 of experience by means of which we see as a 
 round object a table which is really presented to 
 our eye-sight as an oval. These subconscious 
 recollections enable us to convert crude sensory 
 impressions into "percepts"; lacking the faculty 
 of directive instinct, we should be entirely at sea 
 without them. 
 
 The links which bind together a pair of corre- 
 latives in the memory which unite an object 
 with its symbol weaken very greatly in the 
 case of new impressions, as age advances. Adults 
 learn languages with far more difficulty than 
 
HABIT 113 
 
 children : many of us know how hard it is to 
 memorize botanical terms which in boyhood 
 were instantly fixed in our memories. On the 
 other hand, with increasing years, we improve 
 in the faculty of appreciating the properties of 
 our impressions, and of detecting connections 
 between one impression and another which, 
 incidentally, enable us to illustrate our ideas 
 with greater fecundity. This is what is called 
 the " wisdom of the aged." 
 
 Some individuals are blessed with good, others 
 are afflicted with bad memories. But in mankind, 
 generally, the faculty of remembering is more 
 highly developed than in any of the lower animals. 
 We speak of the good memories of dogs and horses, 
 but should be surprised by an anecdote which 
 showed that recollections endured with them for so 
 long as ten years. Lower down the scale the scope 
 for memory diminishes with the growing usurpa- 
 tions of directive instinct. Recollections are vivid 
 during the performance of an instinctive task, 
 but, this completed, they fade away. Whilst an 
 egg-cell is under construction, it is ever-present 
 to the bee : once finished, it ceases to exist for 
 her. But the faculty seems to persist, however 
 little it may be developed : some insects recollect 
 occurrences that are unconnected with their 
 instinctive processes. 
 
 
 
 HABIT. Nervous tissue has a tendency to 
 repeat its reaction to a stimulus. Our hearts and 
 lungs illustrate this tendency by their regular 
 pulsations, and many of us know how rapidly 
 faults of style, in playing games or performing 
 upon instruments, become stereotyped. This 
 proclivity to repeat is strengthened by practice : 
 it is by practice that we attain the repetitive 
 facility that is needed for walking, speaking, and 
 
H4 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 for the daily tasks of dressing and undressing. 
 By practising these operations we " short circuit " 
 the chain of reactions that they represent, detach 
 it from the brain and permit it to pass subcon- 
 sciously along local (ideo-motor) nerve systems. 
 The force of Habit produces similar results, but 
 in a different fashion. It is concerned with im- 
 pulses as well as with processes, and its most 
 noticeable effect is to facilitate our response to the 
 promptings of particular instincts, memories, and 
 beliefs. We may imagine its action as wearing 
 by repetition the channel by which an impulse 
 frees itself, and so increasing the volume of the 
 impulsive current. 
 
 Thus by a life of enforced solitude, such as that 
 of a hunter or explorer, the individualistic im- 
 pulses may become so predominant as to render a 
 man unwilling to mix with his fellows and uneasy 
 in their society. Under different circumstances the 
 same man may become so dominated by social 
 impulses as to consider a day wasted if some hours 
 of it are not spent at his club. Feelings of respect 
 grow under the influence of respectful manners. 
 By the systematic practice of asceticism even in 
 the pettiest of matters the self-repressive im- 
 pulses may be stiffened until they form a moral 
 backbone that will enable one to confront with 
 courage tribulations before which those whose 
 wills are undisciplined fall prostrate in nervous 
 self-abandonment. In a life of industry the indus- 
 trial impulse may become as imperative as life 
 itself, so that death follows upon the heels of 
 release from toil. We may educate ourselves in 
 kindness by practising it. Our cruel feelings may 
 be stimulated by spectacles which use bloodshed 
 or inhumanity as instruments of excitement. 
 Should it pander to lust, the theatre strengthens 
 the tyranny of man's lustful passions. 
 
HABIT A CONTROLLING FORCE 115 
 
 Habit, then, tends to regularize our conduct 
 by canalizing the impulses that affect it. In 
 its results it may be compared to the directive 
 instincts that dominate the life of insects and give 
 their behaviour such undeviating precision. But, 
 below the channels which habit elaborates, the 
 innate impulses seethe, fundamentally unchanged: 
 so, indeed, we must conclude from the glimpses 
 of human nature which we obtain when habits 
 are shattered by strong excitement. In such 
 moments individuals and races display the traits 
 with which they were born, and we realize 
 that habit, which appearing to transform char- 
 acter, in fact merely drills it, and depends 
 very largely for its success upon the innate 
 strength or weakness of the impulses which it 
 endeavours to bring under discipline. The con- 
 flict between habit and character, and the in- 
 ability of habit radically to overcome the more 
 deeply seated impulses, is strikingly illustrated by 
 the inconsistencies which we so frequently observe 
 between the words and the conduct of individuals. 
 Habit may guide the current of smoothly-flowing 
 words, whilst the less plastic activities of practical 
 conduct remain under the control of the innate 
 impulses that constitute character. 
 
 A nervous reaction, once experienced, tends to 
 repeat itself, irrespective of feeling. We easily 
 contract subconscious habits. But its conscious 
 repetition may be assisted or checked by memories 
 of associated pleasure or pain ; and it is very 
 largely by their effect upon the formation of 
 habits that these feelings may powerfully in- 
 fluence our ideas and behaviour. Thus the 
 dangers and hardships of war have urged man 
 towards peaceful habits in opposition to the 
 promptings of his combative impulses ; and since 
 with increasing comfort the pain of wounds, of 
 
n6 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 hunger, and of exposure becomes more apparent, 
 man has become more peaceful as his civilization 
 has advanced. 
 
 Habit is the foundation of all that is conserva- 
 tive in our ideas and conduct. Representing, 
 as it does, a response to an impulse of life, 
 its action affords happiness, and it is accordingly 
 able to form inclinations out of conduct or pur- 
 suits which have been forced upon us by circum- 
 stances. In some of its forms labour must 
 be naturally distasteful. But by repetition 
 it may become a dominating passion. We may 
 wonder how mankind can tolerate such existences 
 as that of a fisherman afloat throughout the winter 
 on the North Sea, or that of a miner or a slaughterer. 
 But to those who earn their livelihood in these 
 fashions their lives have become habitual, and 
 are, therefore, not merely tolerable but even 
 pleasant. So is society supplied with willing 
 servants to minister in the utmost hardship to 
 its luxuries. Habit not a desire for gain is the 
 force which consolidates trades and professions. 
 To those who first enter them they are generally 
 not more attractive than is to young children 
 attendance at church. On the other hand habit 
 weakens the spontaneity to which we are urged 
 by our impulse towards change, and, since it 
 reinforces itself by repetition, it tends to become 
 the more powerful of the two, especially in adult 
 life. If accepted undeviatingly as a guide of 
 conduct it may render us altogether incapable of 
 independent thought or action. We may see 
 this tendency very clearly in the effects of such a 
 habitual routine as is imposed by military disci- 
 pline. It is notorious that soldiers who return 
 to civil life are deficient in resourcetulness, and it 
 
HABIT MAY ENSLAVE 117 
 
 may be a vague apprehension of this deteriora- 
 tion which has rendered the British generally 
 averse from military service. There are critics 
 of our public schools who maintain that the 
 discipline which they enforce, admirably calcu- 
 lated as it is for the training of efficient soldiers 
 and administrators, cramps the lively activity that 
 is needed for success in professions or callings 
 which are less sequestered from the stressful 
 competition of the struggle for life. Habit affects 
 our ideas as well as our behaviour. It increases 
 the effect of particular impressions, memories, and 
 beliefs. Our devotion to games grows as we play 
 them ; our opinions on such subjects as religion, 
 morality, and politics are hardened into prejudices 
 which argument is powerless to assail. These 
 prejudices are commonly miscalled " ideals." 
 To compromise a point in a political or social 
 dispute, may thus be stigmatized as the " aban- 
 donment of an ideal," and is rarely possible to 
 those who have not outgrown the leading-strings 
 of habit. 
 
 The obsession of a mental habit may spread 
 from an individual to a people which then becomes 
 overpowered by a fixed idea that may launch it 
 into a useless and unjustifiable war, or into such 
 comprehensive philanthropic resolutions as the 
 abolition of slavery. The crusades resulted from a 
 fixed idea which pervaded Europe during two cen- 
 turies. A fixed idea has the effect of a habit in 
 reinforcing the instinct which generates it, and the 
 Press, by encouraging its growth, may bring to a 
 bloody arbitrament such rivalry in progress as now 
 breeds suspicion between England and Germany. 
 
 The tyranny of fixed ideas is strengthened if 
 the reasoning impulse is completely satisfied by 
 the vision of an accepted cause for every happen- 
 ing of life if no blanks are left to be filled by 
 
n8 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 observation or enquiry. This is the condition of 
 a people who are completely dominated by the 
 authority of a religion, or superstition, which 
 provides a specious explanation for every inci- 
 dent of man's experience. Without scepticism 
 there can be no enquiry : science can make no 
 appeal to a mind which attributes every happen- 
 ing to the visioned intervention of Providence or 
 Fate. Such is, generally, the state of Oriental 
 peoples, and they owe to it that they are so in- 
 different to new impressions, so firmly addicted 
 to traditional practices. We may see in the 
 material progress of the Japanese the effect of 
 a strongly developed scepticism, which urges 
 them to receive new ideas with attention and 
 to investigate them carefully before rejecting 
 them. A Turk, a Persian, an Indian is politely 
 inattentive to suggestions for the improvement 
 of his agriculture or processes of manufacture. 
 A Japanese listens to them with the keenest 
 interest. 
 
 So far considered habit is the enemy of free- 
 dom. But, with the strange contrariety which 
 we may discern everywhere in life, it is also 
 a means of gaining freedom. It enables us 
 to redistribute the strain of the shackles with 
 which we are fettered from our birth. By facili- 
 tating the action of particular instinctive impulses, 
 it subjects us more strongly to their influence, and 
 proportionately weakens the influence of impulses 
 which compete with them. Often, indeed, the 
 result is harmful. The propensity to drink is 
 reinforced by indulgence : so may a child become 
 addicted to sucking its thumb, or biting its 
 nails proclivities which are outgrowths of the 
 instinctive actions of sucking and mastication. 
 
HABIT THE ROOT OF CULTURE 119 
 
 But generally it has been of inestimable benefit 
 to mankind. The impulses of charity, modesty, 
 and decency would fare badly in the struggling 
 crowd of emotions were they not assisted by 
 practice. Our instinctive impulses may, as we 
 have seen, be grouped in a series of pairs ; and 
 mankind has agreed that, of each pair, one is 
 more desirable than the other, so selecting the 
 social, provident, kindly, and self-restraining im- 
 pulses as of particular benefit to society. Im- 
 pulses of these classes, when strengthened by 
 habit, are the moral ideals, which, commended by 
 philosophy and sanctified by religion, have lit 
 up the path of human endeavour. Habit may 
 restrict the influence of religious reformers and 
 radical politicians ; but it affords civil govern- 
 ments some measure of stability, enables them to 
 forecast with some confidence the drift of public 
 opinion, preserves the decencies of civilized life, 
 and is the basis of the conventional morality 
 which makes people respectable. 
 
 
 
 Habit appears to influence the behaviour of all 
 living creatures. J In the lower ranges of the 
 animal kingdom it can find but little scope amidst 
 the imperious mandates of directive instinct. As 
 we ascend the scale, and the authority of instinct 
 becomes less widely embracing, habit plays a part 
 of increasing importance in regularizing behaviour. 
 And, since habit is the outcome of experience, 
 whereas instinct is a hereditary constraint, the field 
 for individuality in action gradually broadens. 
 Such conduct as in man is guided by acquired 
 habits, amongst the lower vertebrates is very 
 
 1 Plants show traces of memory or habit. They ordinarily 
 make their strongest growth during the dark hours. But if day 
 and night be reversed by the use of electric light, they will 
 continue for a time to grow by the clock. 
 
120 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 generally instinctive : it pursues the same 
 lines throughout all the individuals of the 
 species. All birds of a kind tend to build their 
 nests according to a common plan, and are ac- 
 tuated by similar home-staying or migratory im- 
 pulses. Wild animals that are caged continue to 
 act as if the earth were below and the sky above 
 them : squirrels will make believe to bury nuts : 
 mateless birds will collect nesting materials as 
 spring approaches. Domesticated animals, on the 
 other hand, appear to possess a special aptitude 
 for forming, individually, habits of their own : 
 horses become used to riding or driving, and 
 resent a change of service : dogs accommodate 
 themselves to the domestic arrangements of 
 their masters. It is, indeed, owing to this plas- 
 ticity that they have been domesticated at all. 
 Amongst wild animals behaviour which we speak 
 of as habitual is very frequently instinctive. A 
 tiger, after killing its prey, does not eat it forth- 
 with, but lies up, near by, for some hours before 
 commencing its meal conduct which assists 
 very greatly the sport of tiger shooting. This 
 peculiarity is instinctive not habitual : it runs 
 throughout the species. By instinct, not by 
 habit, birds put their heads under their wings 
 when sleeping: the penguin pretends to do so, 
 although its degenerate wings afford no cover. 
 A dog turning round before settling itself to sleep 
 is also acting instinctively, not by force of habit : 
 dogs, generally, preserve this survival from the 
 past. 
 
 Can habit produce changes which become 
 innate and hereditary? Has man radically im- 
 proved his nature by the practices of civilization ? 
 Are we born more decent, more orderly, more 
 
HEREDITARY INFLUENCE OF HABIT 121 
 
 industrious than our forefathers ? Could we 
 answer these questions in the affirmative we 
 might open before our eyes a vista of limitless 
 progress. But experience affords little founda- 
 tion for so encouraging a dream. 
 
 In respect to directive instinct we have, 
 perhaps, some grounds for believing that habit 
 may amplify the capabilities of this faculty by 
 grafting new processes upon it. We have seen 
 that it is impossible to attribute to experience 
 many of its subtler and more complicated work- 
 ings. But some instinctive processes, such as the 
 turning round of the dog, plainly appear to have 
 been generated by habit. The possibility of this 
 is, however, strenuously denied by an influential 
 school of biologists, who maintain that instinct 
 cannot be affected by experience, and owes its 
 multiform complexities to variations that occur 
 in the reproductive cells of parents, quite inde- 
 pendently of any new shifts to which they may 
 have been put in gaining their livelihood. Many 
 of the practices which appear to be habits that 
 have, so to speak, crystallized into instinct, are, 
 it is alleged, not innate but are learnt by imita- 
 tion of parents or companions. Imitation no 
 doubt accounts for more than may readily be 
 supposed, especially in the behaviour of gre- 
 garious creatures. It seems that the fear with 
 which wild birds regard man is not inborn but 
 is caught from their parents : it may be imitation 
 that leads the house-marten to build its nest under 
 the eaves of house-roofs, displaying what appears 
 to be an instinct that has been acquired since 
 man began to build houses. But imitation will 
 not account for the predilection of the mud- wasp 
 (Pelopoeus) for chimney-corners as sites for its 
 nest : it lives a solitary life ; it will build its nest 
 in other places, and, so far as experiment can 
 
 
122 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 throw light upon its propensities, it appears to 
 have no particular preference for the spot in 
 which it finds itself on emerging from the cocoon. 
 Yet it seeks very persistently a site for its nest 
 which has only become available for it since man 
 has constructed substantial habitations. The 
 American grey squirrel has the practice of burying 
 nuts in the ground : squirrels taken from the 
 nest when quite immature and reared in cap- 
 tivity will make believe to bury nuts in a carpet. 
 The practice is then inborn, not acquired by 
 imitation. Yet its beginnings may be more 
 reasonably ascribed to habit than to casual 
 varieties in a reproductive cell. We must remem- 
 ber that Life is not uniform in its methods, and 
 we should not conclude that habit has been the 
 origin of no instincts because we find that it 
 certainly has not been the origin of some of them. 
 When, however, we turn from the lower animals 
 to man we can hardly find the slenderest grounds 
 for believing that habits have become hereditary. 
 Lacking directive instinct he possesses no stock 
 upon which to graft them. But he possesses 
 aptitudes : might they not be strengthened by 
 habits by the culture of civilization ? We may 
 scarcely conclude so. We see that dexterity in 
 games is as innate in Indians who have never 
 played them as in Englishmen to whom they have 
 afforded a pastime for many generations. The 
 children of quite unlettered tribes, when brought 
 to school, may display astonishing proficiency in 
 learning arithmetic. Nor does it appear that 
 habits of refinement are innately stronger in a 
 civilized than in uncivilized races. How easily 
 in the past has the light of culture been extin- 
 guished ! How rapidly have civilized nations 
 relapsed into barbarism ! A child of European 
 parentage reared in the squalor of an Indian 
 
IMITATION 123 
 
 bazar, and transported to an orphanage, will not 
 learn cleanliness and decency more easily than 
 an Indian child under like circumstances. The 
 Fuegian children, whom Darwin brought to 
 England with him, rapidly acquired the externals 
 of civilized life, although they had behind them 
 centuries of primitive savagery. Habits of mind 
 appear to regulate impulses by wearing, so to 
 speak, larger outlets for some of them, and we 
 seem forced to the conclusion that each individual 
 in controlling his innate propensities must trust 
 to himself and is not assisted by the customs of 
 his ancestors. Nor need we regret that we are not 
 hereditarily affected by the habits of past ages : 
 else might we still be inclined towards cannibalism. 
 What hope should we have of progress were our 
 eyes blinded before birth by the errors of our 
 forefathers ? 
 
 IMITATION. We imitate when we repeat a 
 sensory impression by translating it into nervous 
 or muscular action. The sensory impression may 
 be actual or symbolic may be gathered by a 
 perception of (so to speak) the thing itself or by 
 means of signs or words. We may imitate 
 skating because we have watched a skater or 
 because we have studied a treatise on Alpine 
 sports. The impulse to imitate is one of the 
 strongest and most far-reaching of Life's mani- 
 festations. In animals of the higher orders it 
 compensates for the waning force of directive 
 instinct : it appears that some birds owe in a 
 measure the uniformity of their nest-building 
 and of their song to the example of their parents. 
 By mutual imitation the mental development of 
 young creatures is greatly stimulated : the intel- 
 ligence of a puppy suffers if it is brought up alone : 
 
124 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 street Arabs are markedly quick-witted. Imita- 
 tion governs imperiously the behaviour of children 
 and urges the young to acquire in a few years 
 the habits which represent long centuries of 
 endeavour on the part of their ancestors. 
 Memorizing apart, the process of education is in 
 fact a course of imitation : we carry out an 
 instruction by imitating in action the impressions 
 that we have acquired from it. In adult life imita- 
 tive activity is strongly bridled by the force of 
 habit. But it remains the chief stimulus to reform 
 the force which leads men from time to time to 
 alter their ideas and behaviour. We owe to 
 it, not only the transmission of our culture, from 
 generation to generation, but the halting steps 
 by which we have followed the lamp-bearers of 
 progress. 
 
 A habit may be acquired by an original exercise 
 of will, but in the vast majority of cases it is 
 established by mimicking others. Imitation may, 
 then, generally be described as the origin of 
 habit. But a habit tends to become stronger than 
 the impulse to imitate : it checks us from imita- 
 ting things that are novel : it represents, in fact, 
 the conservative propensity which is so strong in 
 man's and especially in woman's nature. The 
 history of mankind, considered in its broadest 
 aspect, may be figured as a conflict between imita- 
 tion and habit. Since the beginning of time men 
 of original, or eccentric, disposition have been 
 offering to their fellow-men novelties for adoption. 
 Their ideas have generally been rejected. Habit 
 has been too strong to admit of a reform, unless 
 there have been circumstances to reinforce the 
 impulse to imitate. 
 
 Amongst these reinforcing circumstances is 
 the frequency of the impressions we receive. 
 We rapidly pick up the accents or mannerisms 
 
STIMULI TO IMITATION 125 
 
 of those with whom we live ; we may indeed 
 begin to stammer if we associate with a stam- 
 merer, and are half-impelled to expectorate if 
 we travel in America. Advertisements move 
 us by their insistency. Personal influence receives 
 the homage of imitation, especially from those who 
 are not naturally self-assertive : one who is 
 hypnotized abandons himself entirely to the 
 suggestions of the hypnotist. Our imitative 
 impulse is strengthened by the social instincts 
 of veneration or sympathy. Children copy their 
 parents, scholars their teachers, servants their 
 masters : a hat, a necktie that is favoured by 
 royalty even a limp with which a royal person 
 may be afflicted is copied by loyal subjects. 
 The inventions, or novelties, the imitation of 
 which has gradually advanced civilization, have 
 owed their adoption rather to the influence of 
 authority than to their intrinsic merit. Religions 
 have spread very largely through the conversion 
 of princes; and the conquests of the past owe their 
 enduring interest to the impulse that has been 
 given by the authority, or prestige, of the con- 
 queror to the assimilation of a language, an idea, 
 or a custom. Sympathy, on the other hand, 
 urges us to imitate our own kind. If one dog 
 barks, or a jackal howls, the dogs and jackals 
 of the vicinity start barking or howling. Sym- 
 pathy breeds the respect for the crowd which 
 impels us to act according to the opinions of the 
 majority to imitate behaviour which we see 
 practised around us. A boy translated to a 
 school, a recruit incorporated in a regiment, imi- 
 tates a multitude of fashions, some of which may 
 be ludicrous, and none would have attracted him 
 in the environment of his home. 
 
 But habit also may be reinforced by feelings 
 of reverence or sympathy. Inventors may search 
 
126 MEMORY, HABIT, AND IMITATION 
 
 long for imitators when their ideas are opposed 
 to habits that are so strengthened. This was 
 Galileo's experience ; and it may be remarked 
 that the commanding authority of Newton and 
 Darwin has repressed, as well as stimulated, 
 original research. 
 
 : SI 
 
 The imitative impulse influences the external 
 actions of the body. May it not also affect its 
 physical development ? There is apparently no 
 reason why we should limit the powers of mimicry 
 to conscious behaviour : we may quite sub- 
 consciously acquire an alien accent. Many plants 
 and animals will change their colour some will 
 indeed change their form in a changed environ- 
 ment : many appear to have mimicked the colours 
 of other animals, the colour and even the shape 
 of the foliage amidst which they live. We search 
 for a useful purpose in these transformations, 
 and assume that they are protective. Some ol 
 them are : others are not. So also some flowers 
 that may be attractive to insects are fertilized by 
 insects : others, not less attractive in appearance, 
 fertilize themselves. It is the fashion to hold that 
 these "protective" devices are the relics of a multi- 
 tude of casual variations which owe their survival to 
 their incidental possession of some utility. On 
 this hypothesis variations that have become 
 innate owe nothing to the imitative impulse. 
 It is, however, difficult to believe that random 
 changes, however closely weeded by the struggle 
 for life, could have led to the mimicry of leaves 
 and twigs by certain insects, to the imitation 
 of snow by some Arctic animals during the 
 winter months. It may be urged that no instances 
 are forthcoming of the development of a trait 
 from its origin in individual mimicry to its 
 
MIMICRY 127 
 
 establishment in the breed. But, indeed, we could 
 not expect to discover them in the few years 
 which have been devoted to this enquiry. Many 
 centuries would doubtless be required before a 
 tendency to mimic evolves as a completed innate 
 peculiarity. If we require instances of completed 
 imitative action we have only to look about us 
 with an open mind. In the present uncertainty 
 of biological science we may take courage to 
 suppose that imitation has also contributed to 
 the spread of newly-arisen peculiarities from 
 one individual to countless others a marvel for 
 which, if the novel trait is not actively helpful, 
 the struggle for life affords no explanation. 
 Why, then, it may be asked, should living creatures 
 imitate some peculiarities and not others ? We 
 do not know. Children, it may be observed, copy 
 some, but not all, of the peculiarities of their 
 parents, and often select for their mimicry 
 very unimportant tricks of manner. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 IN Consciousness and Will in the faculties of 
 appreciating the points of a question and of 
 deciding upon them Life displays its supremest 
 manifestations. In shaping his behaviour, man 
 has left the instinctive automatism of the insects 
 far behind him. Instinct holds his hand, but is 
 blindfolded, urging rather than guiding him. 
 Habits may cling round him ; but they are of his 
 own making. For the rest he is free. It is pos- 
 sible to imagine a machine that would illustrate 
 the working of directive instinct, of sensation and 
 reaction even of reasoning inference. But no 
 mechanism can be imagined that could develop 
 consciousness, that could become aware of itself, 
 or that could spontaneously decide upon the 
 movements of its wheels. 
 
 The meaning of consciousness has been obscured 
 by the theories that have grown up around it. 
 We may translate it simply by the term " aware- 
 ness." In Chapter III we have found some reason 
 for believing that a nerve-cell not only receives 
 an impression and develops a muscular reaction 
 in response, but feels, or becomes aware, of what 
 has passed. The feelings of nerve-cells are no 
 doubt of the vaguest, most shadowy character. 
 But when concentrated in the nerve ganglia they 
 take more substance and definition, and produce 
 
 128 
 
SUBCONSCIOUSNESS 129 
 
 the floating, effortless feeling to which the term of 
 " subconsciousness " has of recent years been 
 applied. This may, apparently, arise in a diffused 
 or in a localized form may produce a mood in the 
 body as a whole, or may influence the behaviour 
 of single organs. We are subconscious when not 
 very deeply asleep, when indulging in day-dreams, 
 when under the influence of an intoxicant or a 
 violent passion ; and there is reason to believe 
 that impressions received, or emotions experi- 
 enced, in this condition are registered by us 
 separately from those which affect us in our 
 conscious states. The existence of a localized 
 subconsciousness of a feeling that is experienced 
 by an organ, or limb of the body may be hard to 
 believe ; but it is suggested by many very curious 
 phenomena in cases of hypnotism and anaesthesia. 
 From these vague states of subconsciousness the 
 concentrated and definite feeling of consciousness, 
 or awareness, is developed. This is primarily a 
 state of observation in which we mark the im- 
 pressions, memories, and emotions which affect 
 us : by a further development it becomes a state 
 of introspection in which we take note of the 
 actions of our various organs in response to stimuli ; 
 finally, by a still more elaborate outgrowth, it 
 blossoms into a realization of self as a whole, into 
 self-consciousness the introspective observation 
 of ourselves, under the influence of the various 
 stimuli that are upon us. So are we not only 
 aware of our impressions, memories, and emotions, 
 but are aware that we are aware of them : we 
 know that we are tempted, and we know that we 
 fall. This extraordinary faculty is localized in 
 the brain. When consciousness is acute the brain 
 arrogates to itself functions that are ordinarily 
 deputed to local nerve systems, such as the per- 
 formance of those accomplishments that are 
 
130 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 committed by practice to the ideo-motor mach- 
 inery, and not infrequently fails in executing 
 them. A fit of consciousness may unnerve the 
 fingers ot a skilled pianist, and make an orator 
 forget his sentences. But however deeply we 
 may probe it, however minutely we may analyse 
 it, consciousness remains an insoluble enigma. 
 We speak of it as an instrument. But does it not 
 appear to be ourselves ? It is from one point of 
 view the microscope, from another the micro- 
 scopist. It is aware of itself. To materialistic 
 philosophers it may appear to have sprung from 
 some strange fermentation in the vessel of Life ; 
 but it soars aloft, like the genius of the Arabian 
 tale, overshadows its vessel and critically examines 
 it. By many it has been identified with the 
 human soul. But the genius may be reimprisoned 
 by sleep, by intoxication or by a fit of passion : 
 it will vanish before a slight concussion of the 
 brain : hypnotic influence affects it strangely. It 
 has the powers of a magician ; but it is as unstable 
 as a dream. 
 
 
 
 If we can believe that each nerve-cell may 
 develop a rudimentary feeling or consciousness 
 of its own, we may arrive at some ^explanation, 
 indefinite though it be, of the power of the brain 
 to apprehend the memories and thoughts which 
 stream through it. How are these intangible 
 shadows brought within the grasp of conscious- 
 ness ? By, we may suppose, sympathetic and 
 reciprocal action of the " awareness " of the 
 nerve-cells, which communicates to one cell the 
 happenings in another without need of any special 
 transmitting machinery. And if nerve-cells, in 
 virtue of their inherent "awareness," can com- 
 municate with one another they can communicate 
 across space ; for within the cavity of the skull 
 
RECIPROCAL CELL-FEELING 131 
 
 they are separated, in some cases, by space that 
 is by no means inappreciable. If they are not 
 isolated from one another by space that is within 
 the body, neither need they necessarily be isolated 
 from one another by space that is outside the 
 body in fact, the nerve-cells of one body may 
 be able to communicate with the nerve-cells of 
 another body if their awareness is actively 
 reciprocal. In this thought we may find an 
 explanation of certain very curious manifesta- 
 tions of sympathy between different individuals 
 of intimacies which seem to lay bare the inner- 
 most moods, and even thoughts, of one friend 
 to another, and of the puzzling phenomena of 
 thought-reading, telepathy, and hypnotism. The 
 remarkable affection that binds dog to man may 
 be due to a certain innate responsiveness in the 
 attunement of their nerve cells which enables one 
 to sympathize with the other. Most lovers of 
 dogs will affirm that they can read the mind of a 
 dog as intimately as that of a human companion. 
 At night, in the tropics, the trees are haunted by 
 myriads of fire-flies, which flash their light some- 
 times independently, but at other times in most 
 exact 1 accord with one another, so as to illumine 
 the foliage as by a gleam of lightning. They 
 must time themselves by such a feeling of sym- 
 pathy as we have been considering : and we may, 
 indeed, hold that their simultaneous flashing- 
 illustrates the sudden processes which sweep 
 through our brains when we cogitate and form 
 conclusions. 
 
 If the faculty of consciousness is inherent in a 
 sensitive cell, it must be possessed, in however 
 rudimentary a form, by all living creatures. But 
 self-consciousness appears to be a refinement that 
 
 1 Similar concerted action commonly occurs in the insect world, 
 and is very noticeable in the accurate evolutions of a flight of 
 gregarious birds. 
 
132 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 is a monopoly of mankind's. We can, of course, 
 only judge of the mental states of the lower 
 animals by observing their behaviour. Dogs 
 may show some slight traces of self-conscious 
 bashfulness. Other animals do not appear to 
 experience this feeling. 
 
 We are surrounded with things that are inex- 
 plicable : self-consciousness is the nearest to us 
 of them all. It appears, from the phenomena of 
 hypnotism, to be a delicate outgrowth of conscious- 
 ness, which may, so to speak, be amputated without 
 depriving our conscious faculties of their acute- 
 ness, although their purposeful unity is withered 
 by the severance. The most striking, and 
 probably the essential, feature of the hypnotic 
 condition is the complete loss of self-conscious- 
 ness the indifference of the hypnotized person 
 to the figure which he may present to by- 
 standers, and his readiness to behave in a manner 
 which would ordinarily cost him agonies of shame. 
 There is no failing of awareness to externals : his 
 consciousness of impressions, and of the move- 
 ments of his own limbs, may indeed be abnormally 
 effective, enabling him to overcome difficulties 
 which would ordinarily baffle him. At the same 
 time he becomes exceedingly amenable to sug- 
 gestions : the imitative impulse completely dom- 
 inates him. He acts, it is true, only upon the 
 suggestions of the hypnotist, and this seems to 
 indicate that the imitative impulse is swayed by 
 an influence subtly exercised by the hypnotist's 
 mind. These conditions are not unparalleled in 
 ordinary life : the less self-conscious a man is 
 the less he is impressed with a sense of his own 
 individuality the more prone he will be to mould 
 his behaviour upon that of others ; and we are 
 
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 133 
 
 all disposed to copy those who influence us 
 through our feelings of admiration or respect. 
 The abnormal acuteness of the faculties when 
 under hypnotic influence is also illustrated by 
 common experience. Our energy and skill are 
 at their highest when evoked by an impulse that 
 is strong enough to make us forget ourselves : 
 there are few who have not suffered from the 
 paralysing effect of a fit of self-consciousness. 
 The hypnotic condition can be brought about in 
 various methods, and it is difficult to isolate the 
 actual cause. But it appears that in all cases the 
 attention of the person who is to be hypnotized 
 must be attracted and concentrated, and it may 
 be that he loses his consciousness of himself by 
 strengthening his consciousness of externals 
 that the concentration of his ordinary perceptive 
 awareness costs him the temporary atrophy of 
 those tender shoots which we have figured as 
 representing consciousness of self. So we all 
 know that self-consciousness vanishes when we 
 are engrossed in study, or in any pursuit which 
 absorbs the whole of our attention. 
 
 If our faculties are appraised by their practical 
 helpfulness in the struggle for life, self-conscious- 
 ness appears to be an injurious superfluity. If 
 acute it may interfere, not only with the exer- 
 cise of acquired dexterities but with the per- 
 formance of our instinctive bodily functions. 
 There is no more fruitful cause of " foozling " on 
 the links than self-conscious thoughts of our 
 style at the moment when our attention should 
 be concentrated upon the ball. If self-conscious- 
 ness is exceedingly acute the limbs may fail, 
 the articulation of speech become difficult, and 
 even the beating of the heart may be interrupted. 
 These are the terrors of a bashful man. But if 
 we consider the causes that have led to the ethical 
 
134 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 progress of mankind, there are none that have 
 been stronger, or more beneficial, than the appre- 
 ciation of oneself. Modesty and decency owe their 
 origin to it. Consciously valuing our own person- 
 ality, we come to respect the personality of others, 
 to regard them as, in some measure, our equals, 
 and entitled to our sympathy. Refined by such 
 ideas the instinct of kindness has carried us far 
 beyond the elemental impulses of indiscriminate 
 benevolence : our philanthropy is thoughtful as 
 well as generous, and our charity is dispensed in 
 such fashion as best to save the self-respect of 
 those who receive it. 
 
 Self-consciousness is self-assertive, and under 
 its influence a revolutionary change is taking 
 place in the feelings with which social and 
 political institutions are regarded. In former 
 days they were supported by the social im- 
 pulses of reverence, loyalty, and deference : 
 these do not appeal to self-consciousness : indi- 
 vidualistic (egotistic) impulses come uppermost 
 when we think of ourselves, and in this mental 
 condition loyalty of any kind would be hardly 
 possible could a basis not be found for it in our 
 self-esteem. If a government or an institution is 
 a credit to us we may reasonably adhere to it for 
 the most selfish of motives. In fact, whereas 
 formerly we were patriotic because we desired to 
 be a credit to our country, we are now patriotic 
 in order that our country may be a credit to our- 
 selves. To win our support a social or political 
 institution or ideal must gratify our self-esteem, 
 either by associating us with its activities or by 
 marking us with the distinction of an exclusive 
 peculiarity. To be popular, government must rest 
 upon the votes of the people. Dependent nation- 
 alities such as the Czechs, the Irish, and the Welsh, 
 fortify their self-respect by reviving their racial 
 
PERSONALITY 135 
 
 languages. These feelings may seem very petty 
 compared with the uncalculating loyalty of our 
 ancestors. But we must not hastily condemn 
 them. They certainly make for self -improve- 
 ment. And they probably will conduce to peace. 
 Those who love their country because it is of 
 advantage to them, are not so likely to shed their 
 blood for it as those who regard its welfare as an 
 object in itself. And if self -consciousness, by 
 increasing the influence of the individualistic 
 impulse of self-assertion, is weakening the social 
 impulses, and is, so far, loosening the bonds which 
 are the primordial mainstays of society, it is pro- 
 viding an antidote for this disintegration. By 
 accentuating the impulse of kindliness it is swell- 
 ing a force which will link mankind together as 
 effectively and upon a broader basis. 
 
 The fruit of self-consciousness is the idea of 
 personality, the notion that we are not part and 
 parcel of the Nature around us, not merely 
 members of a family or tribe, but are individuals, 
 each with a sphere of his own. The genesis of this 
 idea does not appear to lie very far back in the 
 development of mankind. We can discover signs 
 of its growth during the period of recorded his- 
 tory. It is hard to enter into the mind of a savage. 
 But from the completeness with which in savage 
 life the interests of the individual are submerged 
 below those of the family, or the tribe, we may 
 infer that a man is hardly conceived as an inde- 
 pendent personality : he is of consideration only 
 as a member of a group : it is the group which 
 has an independent existence and is responsible 
 for the conduct of each of its members. A similar 
 idea also pervaded ancient law, which hardly 
 recognized any rights or responsibilities that were 
 
136 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 not common to the family, the clan, or the neigh- 
 bourhood as a whole. In grammar the idea of 
 personality is expressed by the nominative case 
 of the first personal pronoun : in Sanskrit and 
 most European languages this differs radically 
 from the oblique cases a distinction which 
 perhaps marks the growth of a consciousness that 
 man, when he comes to the front of the stage, 
 should be distinguished from man when he stands 
 back with the rest of the company. Beyond a 
 doubt, go back as far as we may, the leaders and 
 rulers of the people have had a very clear idea 
 of their personal importance : the proclamations 
 of the kings of Egypt and Assyria were drafted 
 in a vein of most flamboyant self-conceit. But 
 their egotism was as naive as that of the patriarch 
 of a herd of antelope ; and they regarded them- 
 selves rather as instruments of the Divine than 
 as independent authorities. Amongst the com- 
 mon people, not a flicker appeared of inde- 
 pendance or self-respect. There were, in those 
 days, no popular revolutions : history was con- 
 cerned with the fortunes of dynasties. Indeed, 
 in classical days the condition of slavery was 
 accepted by white men with an apathetic con- 
 tentedness which to modern ideas appears very 
 strange. Self -consciousness appears to be a 
 faculty the authority of which has increased of 
 recent years, and is still increasing, under the 
 influence of egotistical habits of mind. 
 
 In consciousness, as in a mirror, we see re- 
 flected the drama of our inner lives, the impres- 
 sions and memories which guide and pay court to 
 us, the impulses which tempt, cajole, or admonish 
 us, the habits which constrain us, and the balan- 
 cing deliberations of our reason and will. We see 
 
THE MIRROR OF CONSCIOUSNESS 137 
 
 not only the forces which act upon us, but our 
 behaviour under their influence, and (to use a 
 homely comparison) the spectacle gives us such 
 assistance as we derive from a looking-glass 
 when dressing ourselves. 
 
 Consciousness marshals our perceptions and 
 recollections for reasoning analysis. It converts, 
 so to speak, a disorderly pile of literature into a 
 well-arranged library, classifying a store of desul- 
 tory information into definite knowledge, which 
 can be used to correct the instinctive propensity 
 to link together, as cause and effect, events that 
 are not essentially connected, merely because one 
 has followed the other in our experience. We owe 
 it to knowledge, for instance, that we can deny 
 that the state of the atmosphere upon St. Swithin's 
 day determines the course of the weather during 
 the forty days following. 
 
 Consciousness, further, sharpens the edge of the 
 reasoning faculty by which we appreciate the 
 properties of things. We perceive that a red flower 
 is not an indivisible whole to be taken as it 
 stands but is a flower that possesses the prop- 
 erty of redness. Our grasp of this property 
 is styled " conception " as opposed to our 
 " perception " of the flower as a whole. Con- 
 sciousness enables reason to go further and 
 to apprehend that properties may have prop- 
 erties of their own. Reason sees that a flight 
 of three birds has the property of " threeness " : 
 assisted by consciousness it sees that "threeness" 
 has the property of being number, and can be 
 classed with " fourness " and " fiveness " : so 
 also it can distinguish the property of shape in 
 roundness and squareness, of colour in redness 
 and blueness. Properties are, in fact, figured as 
 abstract ideas, and we gain such concepts as those 
 of sweetness, bitterness, virtue, and vice. Nor 
 
138 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 does the process of analysis stop here. In the 
 light of consciousness we perceive and regard as 
 properties the fundamental links between one im- 
 pression and another, by which we instinctively 
 weave our impressions together. These links 
 are idealized into relationships in space, in 
 number, in appearance, or in sequence : so we 
 obtain conceptions of geometry, of arithmetic, 
 of classification, of logic, and of cause and effect. 
 These conceptions, refined again and again by this 
 process of discrimination, yield us the materials 
 for the most abstract investigations of science 
 and philosophy. By this dissection of properties 
 we perceive, for instance, the relations which are 
 expressed by grammatical sentences : we analyse 
 an occurrence into agent (nominative) action 
 (verb), and affected (accusative), and apprehend 
 the various conditions, qualifications, and possi- 
 bilities that are expressed by varying the verb 
 in mood and tense, and by the use of adverbs, 
 prepositions, and conjunctions. We can trace 
 the process of this analysis by observing its im- 
 perfections amongst backward races. Some of 
 the indigenous tribes of South America have never 
 completed the dissection from which the verb 
 emerges : they have, for instance, a word for 
 washing clothes, but none for washing in the 
 abstract. 
 
 But man would have remained as dumb as 
 the brutes had conscious reason not brought 
 him to perceive the property of symbols, and 
 to understand that a thing may be represented 
 by a sound, a gesture, or a sign, which is not 
 inseparably connected with it, but can be dis- 
 sociated from it if we please. In primitive 
 stages of reason, symbol and object are merged 
 indissolubly together : to a terrier the word 
 " rats " is linked inseparably with the memory 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS AND REASON 139 
 
 of a rat hunt : an idol, to a savage, is the deity 
 itself. With the discovery that words could 
 be employed as transferable signs it became 
 possible to form a language. But men took 
 time to appreciate the usefulness of words as 
 representing objects. At a time when Rome had 
 long been founded, land could only be transferred 
 by handing over a clod from its surface. Without 
 the use of words the processes of reason could 
 never have outgrown their primitive stage, for 
 it is only by words that properties are distin- 
 guished are, so to speak, mounted for examina- 
 tion. How could we consider the intricacies of 
 logic if our ideas of them were only to be ex- 
 pressed by gestures ? 
 
 Not less momentous have been the conse- 
 quences of the discernment of properties upon the 
 material practical life of man. It has enabled 
 him to invent tools and machines. A stone, with 
 which he has killed an adversary, is perceived to 
 be of value not as a stone but as a missile, and 
 the way is open for discovering other missiles. 
 So have been invented the appliances which man 
 has turned against Nature to limit her tyranny, 
 converting her wildernesses into fields, and her 
 fibres and timber into clothing and houses : so 
 also the weapons which man has fashioned for the 
 destruction of his fellow-men. 
 
 In the light of consciousness our instincts also 
 become amenable to analysis. We can dissect 
 our emotions, and compare them, estimating, for 
 instance, how far our conduct is actuated by sel- 
 fish and how far by social motives. Our vague 
 aesthetic and ethical impulses are dissolved, 
 refined, and crystallized into systems of art and 
 morals. We can also observe and appraise our 
 habits. Consciousness, then, provides the will 
 with the material that it requires for the exercise 
 
140 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 of its powers of choice. It sets before the will the 
 impulses of instinct, the promptings of habit, 
 and the inferences of reason, so that the will has 
 before it, so to speak, a catalogue of the various 
 courses that are open for adoption. The cata- 
 logue is often exceedingly incomplete. The 
 suggestions of instinct and habit are faithfully 
 presented ; but the inferences of reason may be 
 a travesty of those at which a cultivated intelli- 
 gence would arrive. Thus the case for burning 
 a witch will give full weight to the instinct of 
 fear, and the habit of persecution, but will be 
 ludicrously inadequate in the inferences which 
 are marshalled to justify the act. 
 
 Consciousness has assuredly been the most 
 potent of the influences which have raised man 
 above the brutes. But it has led him into errors 
 and unhappiness with which the brutes are not 
 troubled. They are not distracted by the super- 
 stitions of magic and fetishism ; they do not 
 mutilate themselves, torture their fellows, or 
 endeavour to exterminate their own kind under 
 the impression that they are earning merit. 
 These, it may be said, are errors of reason, not of 
 consciousness. But reason is misled by mis- 
 apprehending happenings, or drawing wrong 
 inferences from happenings, with which it would 
 not concern itself were they not set before it by 
 consciousness. The reasoning powers of a monkey 
 are not exercised over the cause of a toothache, 
 or a plentiful crop of nuts, because it is not con- 
 scious that these events are causally connected 
 with anything that precedes them. And, beyond 
 doubt, consciousness has increased very materially 
 the tale of human unhappiness. It overshadows 
 us with the foreknowledge of death also, it 
 
EVILS OF CONSCIOUSNESS 141 
 
 should be added, disposes us to seek the con- 
 solations that are offered by religion. It deepens 
 into misery the irritation which proceeds from an 
 unsatisfied impulse : if we are moved to acquire 
 a thing, consciousness brings home to us the 
 bitterness of failure. And it afflicts us with the 
 anguish of repentance that feeling which arises 
 from the failure of the conscious will to hold its 
 own against the temptations of instinct. The 
 freedom of the brutes from these refinements of 
 trouble moved Walt Whitman to envy them : 
 
 They do not sweat and whine about their condition ; 
 They do not lie awake in the dark, and weep for their sins ; 
 They do not make me sick, discussing their duty to God ; 
 Not one is dissatisfied not one is demented with the 
 
 mania for owning things ; 
 Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived 
 
 thousands of years ago ; 
 Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole world. 
 
 I. Errors of apprehension. Before conscious- 
 ness are unrolled two sets of images the sensory 
 impressions, representing actualities, and the 
 recollections, or memorial visions, that are con- 
 jured up by the memory. The latter may be 
 exceedingly distinct, and are generally very 
 distinct during childhood and in persons who are 
 weakly endowed with critical powers. Their 
 verisimilitude is heightened by the faculty of 
 visualization or seeing an image in detail 
 which appears to be strongest when reason is 
 weakest. Children are easily disposed to see 
 ghosts in the dark, and savage life is overshadowed 
 by mysterious haunt ings. But the seeing of 
 visions is not confined to the young or the un- 
 cultured. Many men of intelligence have been 
 troubled by hallucinations of presences or of 
 voices whose unreality can hardly be established 
 
142 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 by the assurance of their friends. Dreams may 
 be so impressive as to leave some conviction of 
 reality : in early days they were, indeed, re- 
 garded as intimations of realities, and their inter- 
 pretation has influenced the course of history. In 
 savage communities they are still accepted as 
 communications of fact. A sensory impression 
 is shown by touch to be based upon reality. Can 
 a real foundation be denied to an insistent vision 
 which only critical thought could assign to 
 memory ? We see an object when our eyes are 
 open : we also see it when our eyes are closed. 
 If the first image was caused by the object itself, 
 the second must be caused by the object's 
 " double." By such an inference men easily 
 persuaded themselves of the duality of things, 
 and came to believe that the possession of both 
 body and soul as of substance and shadow was 
 the normal condition of the objects around them, 
 whether living or lifeless. This conclusion became 
 of poignant interest when applied to man, and 
 the deeper we go into ancient history or into 
 the practices of existing barbarism the stronger 
 conviction we find of the existence and persistence 
 of a human soul. A hill-people of Assam, when 
 burying a kinsman, fence the grave with a hedge 
 of thorns, in fear of which his tender spirit will 
 be content to remain in confinement under- 
 ground. The most elaborate and practical concep- 
 tions of the needs of the soul are perhaps to be 
 found in the religions of ancient Egypt and of 
 modern China. In Egypt the " double " or ka 
 of the deceased was provided with all the equip- 
 ment which would enable it to continue in shadow- 
 land the life of its earthly counterpart ; but since 
 the ka was a " double," the articles provided for 
 it might be " doubles " also, and could be supplied 
 in the form of effigies or symbols. Such meticulous 
 
ERRORS OF APPREHENSION 143 
 
 care for matters of practical detail is also a feature 
 of Chinese funerals : when the dead, as often 
 happens, are not buried for some time, and their 
 coffins are deposited in vaults round a " garden 
 of the dead," each vault is furnished for the soul's 
 enjoyment ; and, when the relatives periodically 
 assemble to do honour to the dead, a chair is left 
 vacant for the soul's accommodation. Similar 
 memorial services, marked by such concrete 
 acknowledgments of the soul's existence as the 
 offering of food, bound families together in Rome, 
 in Greece, and in India, and made a deep impres- 
 sion upon the national laws. 
 
 II. Errors of inference. We are instinctively 
 impelled to link together happenings which follow 
 one another in sequence. This is the basis of the 
 process of inference upon which we depend every 
 moment for the guidance of our behaviour. If 
 one wasp stings us we avoid another. The 
 connection of two events in sequence, seen in 
 the light of consciousness, appears to be that 
 of happening and consequence of cause and 
 effect and we conceive of causing and being 
 caused as inseparable properties of happenings, 
 just as we conceive of colour and of number as 
 essential properties of all things. Accordingly we 
 link every happening backwards and forwards 
 as being caused by another happening, or as 
 causing another happening and we are dis- 
 concerted if a cause is not evident for every 
 occurrence. Observation is an imperfect guide 
 where knowledge is elementary. In simple 
 matters it may guide us correctly enough. One 
 who touches fire is burned : the burn is justly 
 attributed to the fire. But the vast majority 
 of life's experiences are not simple : they 
 are preceded by a number of happenings, any 
 
144 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 one of which may be the cause. There is no 
 room in the mind of an uncultured man for the 
 idea of chance or accident : the acknowledge- 
 ment of ignorance is a sceptical refinement that 
 is out of accord with the first promptings of our 
 instinct to infer. Accordingly, where causes are 
 not discoverable by his observation, he is ready to 
 accept as such any ideas that are suggested to him 
 with a show of authority, although they may be 
 derived from visioned as opposed to observed 
 experiences are the fruit not of observation but 
 of imagination. So he may believe that rain is caused 
 by the performance of a magic ceremony. Thus 
 was opened a curious chapter in the history of man- 
 kind. Its last pages record the achievements of 
 science and philosophy : but, for the most part, it 
 is an account of extraordinary error. A concep- 
 tion of cause and effect has enabled man to put 
 the earth into a balance and to determine the 
 chemical constituents of the stars. For untold 
 generations it has led him to believe in the grossest 
 extravagances of magic and witchcraft. 
 
 Children display very instructively the begin- 
 nings of these delusions. They are insatiably 
 curious respecting the causes of things, but they 
 accept without question the answers that are 
 given them, whether as to the constitution of the 
 moon or of the origin of babies. So is the rapacity 
 of a dragon accepted in India and China as the 
 cause of an eclipse of the moon. Unending would 
 be a list of the errors to which man has been com- 
 mitted by an imperfect use of his reasoning facul- 
 ties. Fetishism, magic, witchcraft, and astrology : 
 belief in a fateful connection between man and 
 various animals, which are adopted as totems, 
 worshipped as protectors, dissected as a means of 
 discovering the future and eaten in the hope of 
 appropriating their qualities : the ascription of 
 
ERRORS OF INFERENCE 145 
 
 the forces of Nature to divine personalities, the 
 worship of the sun, of fire, and the upgrowth of 
 myths that appealed very strongly to the aesthetic 
 instinct : sacrifice as a means of propitiating evil 
 even human sacrifices to safeguard great under- 
 takings such as the opening of a campaign or the 
 building of a bridge : customs which plumb the 
 depth of absurdity, such as the couvade, which 
 obliges a father to take to his bed on the birth 
 of a child and eschew all food which would be 
 harmful to the infant. 
 
 Such are the errors which have sprung from the 
 first imperfect effects of consciousness. As this 
 faculty has gained strength it has gradually 
 dispelled them by the assistance of accumulated 
 knowledge, which sifts out, and rejects as causes, 
 such happenings, or properties, whether visioned 
 or imaginary, as are only accidentally connected 
 with the occurrence for which an origin is being 
 sought. Blanks in the chain of inference con- 
 fessions of ignorance are preferred to links which 
 will not bear examination, and we are content to 
 ascribe to chance or accident events that cannot 
 be explained by experience. These blanks have 
 opened a field for the entry of science : there was 
 no room for scientific inquiry when the inferring 
 impulse insisted upon being satisfied by the vision 
 of a cause for every occurrence. 
 
 In these modern days science is supported 
 by the close deduction of effects from causes, 
 and we are gratified to observe that its flights 
 are ever attaining higher altitudes. But there 
 are countless relics to remind us of our descent 
 from our ancestors. In Mediterranean countries 
 people commonly believe in the evil eye : nearer 
 home there are those who would not sit down 
 thirteen to table, who think it lucky to touch 
 wood, unlucky to spill salt, and put their trust 
 
146 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 in a mascot. Nay further, unreasonable in- 
 ferences may seriously affect the course of 
 politics : should prices rise there are multitudes 
 of voters who will hold the ministry in office to 
 blame. Nor is science itself quite free from the 
 illusion that happenings which transcend our 
 powers of conception can be strung together by 
 reason as cause and effect. 
 
 III. Unhappiness. We enter here upon the 
 workings of Conscience, that influence which, 
 through unhappiness or the threat of unhappi- 
 ness controls all but the most lawless of men. 
 Conscience appears to us in the guise of a judicial 
 authority which commends or reproves us accord- 
 ing as we obey or disobey certain rules of conduct 
 or laws it may be human, or divine. But no rule 
 or law affects our conscience unless it has been 
 adopted by our will, either as an original resolu- 
 tion of our own or on the authority of the society 
 to which we belong. A Mohammedan does not 
 repent of bigamy or a soldier of looting. The 
 prick of conscience which leads to repentance, 
 results, then, from a failure of the will to assert 
 itself a failure which our consciousness glaringly 
 portrays ; it is unhappiness that arises from the 
 dissatisfaction of the will, which resembles our 
 other impulses in causing us distress if its cravings 
 are unfulfilled. This feeling has reinforced very 
 potently the efforts of authorities, whether religi- 
 ous or civil, to restrain human conduct from 
 disorder which would break up society. But, 
 however useful to the community, repentance is 
 unhappiness to the individual: to one of sensi- 
 tive character it may indeed be torturing anguish. 
 
 Misery rather than unhappiness is the lot of 
 those who are afflicted with imperious impulses 
 that conscious will impels them not only to 
 
CONSCIENCE 147 
 
 restrain, but to conceal, even from themselves. 
 In such a case the satisfaction of the will is a poor 
 recompense for the denial of the stronger instinct : 
 the baffled impulse becomes an obsession, at 
 some times shaking the mind with fits of nervous 
 excitement and depression, at other times en- 
 gulfing it in the prof oundest religious melancholy, 
 occasionally even sweeping it away into the 
 whirlpool of insanity. No one whose ears have 
 not been filled with the rushing of these waters, 
 whose hands have not been thrown up in the help- 
 lessness of despair, can realize the words of the 
 Psalmist " Out of the depths have I called upon 
 Thee, O God." 
 
 The instinctive origin of this melancholy may 
 be traced in the symptoms that are manifested 
 in its extremest cases. Insanity that has devel- 
 oped out of profound depression is commonly 
 marked by a most surprising display of elemental 
 instinct. Patients exhibit impulses and know- 
 ledge which are in the most violent disaccord 
 with their former dispositions : their characters 
 appear to have been completely changed by their 
 disorder, indeed, they may seem to be possessed 
 by a diabolic spirit. In fact, the restraints of 
 consciousness having been withdrawn, instincts 
 have been freed which had been straitly confined 
 by the will. They may have been penned alto- 
 gether within the domain of subconciousness, so 
 that their existence was not apparent to the victim 
 whom they tortured. But they fed upon his 
 vitals, and distracted his moods, with the swayings 
 of a violent internal struggle. 
 
 Release from such an obsession will rarely be 
 obtained by any striving of the conscious will. 
 Instinct must be countered by instinct : depres- 
 sion will vanish before the impulses of hunting, 
 fighting, or drinking. But the completest and 
 
148 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 most abiding relief is to be found in that instinct 
 for self-abnegation which underlies our aesthetic 
 emotions. Accepted as a counsel of despair, self- 
 abandonment would only set free the demons ; 
 but, proceeding from the influence of the aesthetic 
 impulse, it is not merely the hopeless relinquish- 
 ment of a struggle ; it is an emotion that is 
 strengthened and illuminated by feelings of 
 adoration, trustfulness, and love which give the 
 beaten soul an assurance of victory. 
 
 Man's instinctive expectation of a cause for 
 every happening appears to be the origin of the 
 sense of injustice which has influenced incalcul- 
 ably the ideas of individuals and communities. 
 If I am industrious and of good conduct if, that 
 is to say, I act in accordance with the teaching I 
 receive I ought, on any reasonable view of 
 things, to be prosperous. Success is always held 
 out as, at all events, an incidental fruit of right- 
 eousness. But, as a matter of fact, this expecta- 
 tion is constantly belied. We see good men in 
 trouble and oppressed, the wicked flourishing in 
 prosperity, often, indeed, obtained by the oppres- 
 sion of the good. The crops of the religious are 
 blighted, whilst those of a blasphemer come to 
 harvest. This does violence to our reasoning 
 instinct our impulse to infer and renders us 
 dissatisfied and unhappy. Since first man became 
 conscious of his condition his cry has gone up 
 against life's injustice. He may, in some degree, 
 be reconciled to it by habit. And religion offers 
 him potent consolations. It urges that what 
 appears to be injustice is the consequence of sin, 
 is a discipline for the character, or the inscrutable 
 ordering of an All-wise Providence, to be accepted 
 without question in trusting self-abandonment. 
 
APPRECIATION OF INJUSTICE 149 
 
 The Psalms are inspired by these messages of 
 comfort : for centuries they have calmed the 
 distressed and strengthened the faint-hearted 
 amongst every denomination of Christians in 
 every country of Europe. Christianity offers a 
 more substantial solace : the wrongs of this life 
 will be redressed hereafter : even the injustices 
 of death are only passing. The doctrine of 
 Fatalism offers no hope, and is content to point 
 out that preordained fate is the cause of both 
 justice and injustice. Yet it has reconciled 
 millions of Orientals to tyranny, poverty, and 
 degradation. But these explanations are not 
 always convincing : at times men violently 
 reject them, and, inferring that their wrongs are 
 capable of being remedied, set their hands to 
 strikes, riots, and revolutions. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 VOLITION 
 
 IF we examine the processes by which we form 
 resolutions, or " make up our minds," we shall 
 find that it is only in a small proportion of cases 
 that we can claim to have acted spontaneously, 
 or by the exercise of free will. Our conclusions 
 are generally suggested to us by habit, by im- 
 pulses which we do not control, or by the people 
 around us. Thus, when I awake in the morning, 
 I am sensible of a struggle between a desire to 
 remain in bed and a desire to get up. I make up 
 my mind to get up, and do so. But in reality my 
 mind was made up for me by habit : I rise because 
 it is the usual hour for rising. I prove that this 
 is so by rising about the same hour every morning 
 a consistency of behaviour which could never 
 be expected did I exercise every morning an 
 unfettered spontaneity. On the other hand, at 
 times I appear to act entirely of my own accord, 
 and untrammelled by habit. I may suddenly 
 determine to rise an hour earlier than usual on 
 Midsummer Day, to take a stroll before breakfast. 
 We may then class our resolutions as of two 
 kinds suggested (or imitative) and original. I 
 may invest money in oil shares because I am 
 infected with the excitement of a " boom " in 
 oil : in this case my decision has been suggested 
 to me. Or I may invest after carefully examining 
 market reports, and comparing the prospects of 
 
 IfO 
 
ORIGINAL AND SUGGESTED RESOLUTIONS 151 
 
 oil with those of other enterprises : in this case 
 I have formed an original decision. 
 
 Resolutions that are suggested are formed very 
 easily indeed. But an effort is required to make 
 up our minds when there is no assisting suggestion. 
 The effort may be accompanied by a good deal 
 of mental perturbation. Many of us have 
 experienced the annoying perplexity that may be 
 occasioned by the necessity of making a spon- 
 taneous choice it may be in the purchase of a 
 necktie or a wedding present : we should feel 
 thankful were there only one article in stock 
 which could possibly be selected, and we hail with 
 relief any suggestion the shopman may make to 
 help us to a conclusion. We are sometimes even 
 impelled to go by the chance result of a " toss 
 up." To most men life would be unendurable 
 did it require them very frequently to form con- 
 clusions by spontaneous judgment : they are 
 content to be led by habit or suggestion. 
 
 When we act upon a suggested resolution we 
 cannot, of course, claim to have exercised spon- 
 taneity or free will. There is a large and influ- 
 ential school of thought which denies that our 
 behaviour is at any time spontaneous, asserting 
 that resolutions which bear all the appearance 
 of originality are in reality forced upon us, 
 and merely give effect to suggestions that can be 
 detected if we cast our eyes backward in search 
 of them. My determination to rise early was the 
 outcome of a casual glance at an almanac : my 
 preference for oil shares was prompted by a 
 remark which I chanced to overhear in a railway 
 carriage. It is impossible to disprove this theory. 
 The action of our brains is limited by experience ; 
 it is compelled to mould itself upon the past, and 
 
152 VOLITION 
 
 every decision that we form can without doubt be 
 connected with something that has occurred to 
 us. On the other hand, the theory appears to be 
 equally incapable of proof, for it cannot be shown 
 that the happenings to which it points as having 
 caused our action did not, in fact, merely have the 
 effect of conditioning it. I cannot eat unless I 
 have teeth : but I do not eat because I have teeth, 
 but because I wish to do so. A young man adopts 
 an Indian career after casually reading a book on 
 the Indian Services : if he had not chanced 
 upon the book, he might have lived his life in 
 England. But he goes to India not because he read 
 the book, but because he was disposed to try the 
 new. Had he not possessed this disposition, no 
 book would have moved him : possessing it he 
 is ready to receive from any source information 
 that enables him to see his way to a career to- 
 wards which his bent inclines him. It is, then, his 
 disposition, and not the reading of the book, that 
 is the true cause of his resolution : the latter is 
 merely a condition. 
 
 But, it will be objected, this argument merely 
 shifts the cause further back: it is his disposi- 
 tion, not a choice of free will, that sends him to 
 India. It is true that we can hardly escape from the 
 sway of our instinctive impulses : but in man these 
 impulses are so conflicting and of so general a 
 character that they leave ample scope for the 
 exercise of free choice in giving play to them. 
 That we possess a measure of independance is 
 shown very clearly by the process of " fixing our 
 attention." Our attention may be attracted 
 by an object subconsciously, in which case, 
 of course, no question of spontaneity arises. 
 But it may also be fixed by an effort of will. We 
 are conscious, very distinctly indeed, of possessing 
 the power of fixing it upon anything that we please ; 
 
DETERMINISM 153 
 
 and the effort which it costs us to do so seems to 
 prove that the process is actively original, and 
 is not the resultant of predetermining impressions. 
 The " determinist " theory, which denies the 
 existence of free will, is attractive to those who are 
 inclined to view Life as the result of mechanical 
 or chemical causes. If Life is simply a series of 
 reactions to external stimuli, there is no place in 
 it for either consciousness or free will. Free will 
 may be ruled out of existence, as an illusion, if 
 we dignify as the causes of our behaviour the 
 facts of our experience which necessarily condi- 
 tion it. The existence of consciousness cannot 
 possibly be denied. But it is regarded by this 
 school of thought as a functionless superfluity, to 
 be compared with the sparks that fly off from an 
 electrical machine, the shadow of a moving object, 
 or the humming of a top. Yet in spite of these 
 explanations we feel that we possess free will as 
 well as consciousness, and can use them for active 
 purposes. We can treat consciousness as an 
 accident and free will as an illusion only if we dis- 
 regard introspective observations which, in such a 
 matter as the appraisement of our mental facul- 
 ties, are an infinitely safer guide than inferences 
 that are based upon our experience of inanimate 
 things. The most materialistic of philosophers 
 does not venture to repudiate altogether the 
 promptings of these feelings. He will not deny 
 the existence of consciousness. But he distrusts 
 their revelations when they contradict the con- 
 clusions to which he is led by the inferences that 
 he draws from material happenings. We are, 
 however, compelled to trust to introspection for 
 most of the knowledge which we possess of our 
 mental processes, and it is unreasonable to discard 
 it, in one province of our enquiry, simply because 
 its promptings are out of accord with our experi- 
 
154 VOLITION 
 
 ence of material energies. If we place any trust in 
 our self-conscious powers of observation and ana- 
 lysis, we must arrive at the conclusion that spon- 
 taneity, or free will, guided by consciousness, is 
 not only a vital force, but that it is the highest and 
 most wonderful of the vital forces that are mani- 
 fest to us : it lies at the extremest limit r> of the 
 territory which Life has won in its struggle with 
 the Matter that fetters it ; and in its capricious 
 irregularity it presents the strongest contrast 
 to the uniform, calculable energies that are dis- 
 played by Matter when unallied with Life. Prac- 
 tically, of course, we know very well that human 
 nature introduces an unpredictable element into 
 our experiences. 
 
 And, if the majority of men are content to 
 regulate their lives by the suggestions of others, 
 or by habit, and make no original use of their wills 
 except to decide trifling questions of every day 
 routine, those who aspire to lead their fellows are 
 generally characterized by strong will-power, 
 which is, indeed, often their only title to ascend- 
 ancy. So also with the men who have led human 
 progress by their inventions, whether in forms of 
 art, or in standards of conduct, or in material 
 contrivances. Free will is distinct from the 
 inventive impulse : it is a disposition towards 
 choice, not a motive towards construction. But 
 it is obvious that an inventor must use it very 
 largely in selecting and combining the ideas that 
 occur to him. Man owes his moral and material 
 advancement, as well as his social organization, 
 to the exceptional powers of volition enjoyed 
 by some of his kind. He has risen above the 
 brutes, little by little, through the inventive 
 spontaneity of a few of his species, to whom it 
 has occurred to suggest changes of idea or of 
 habit. Some of these have been adopted through 
 
FREE- WILL IN CHOICE 155 
 
 the assimilating force of the imitative impulse. 
 Others have been derided, or neglected, and 
 forgotten. 
 
 
 
 There are, however, limits to the spontaneity 
 of the most eccentric of men. His wildest vagaries 
 are circumscribed by the range of his experience. 
 So also with the inventive impulse : the most 
 original designer merely expands or applies ideas 
 that have been gathered by him from outside, or 
 combines several of them together. Free will 
 cannot, then, open a new and original path of action 
 for itself : it can do no more than select one out 
 of the various paths that are offered by instinct, 
 by habit, by imitation, or by reasoned inference. 
 It is, in fact, concerned not with invention, but 
 with choice. The questions with which we are 
 confronted differ immensely in complexity accord- 
 ing as they are concerned with alternative 
 methods of satisfying a single impulse, or with 
 conflicting impulses. Influenced by the instinct 
 of benevolence, we may be doubtful of the 
 particular charities to which we should subscribe : 
 we may hesitate over the dishes wherewith to 
 satisfy our appetite, or, having determined upon 
 a visit to France, over the advantages of the 
 routes by Calais or Boulogne. These are only 
 questions of method; but if the alternatives are 
 very nearly balanced, neither scale being weighted 
 by any strong feeling on our part, a distinct 
 effort will be needed to decide upon one or the 
 other. 
 
 The strain upon the will is much greater when 
 the alternative that confronts it is not one of 
 methods, but of conflicting impulses, as, for 
 instance, between an impulse to show ill-temper 
 and an impulse to be kind, between an impulse 
 to take ease and an impulse to work. In such a 
 
156 VOLITION 
 
 case the will is tried very severely, often, many 
 of us have felt, beyond its strength. But, by 
 persistent effort, a man of character may gradu- 
 ally reinforce the weaker of the two impulses 
 until the tendency for which he strives becomes 
 a habit. Then the battle is won : the will has 
 triumphed. The will may be assisted in this 
 struggle by the infliction of punishment by the 
 association, that is to say, of pain with the 
 successful predominance of the impulse which 
 it is desired to subdue. Punishment, or penance, 
 may be self-inflicted, and may be used by the 
 will itself as an instrument to weaken a persis- 
 tent assailant. So St. Paul by " buffeting " his 
 body and " leading it about as a slave," accus- 
 tomed unruly impulses to live in servitude. 
 
 This is, however, a triumph which is reserved 
 for the strong. An impulse may be naturally so 
 forceful, or have been so encouraged by habit, 
 as to be irresistible : the will may choose the 
 better, but, however fortified by conscious reason, 
 cannot turn us from the worse, and our prayer 
 must be to be spared from the temptation. So a 
 drunkard or debauchee may be well aware that 
 he is ruining himself may wish in his heart that 
 he could resist his proclivities but is unable to 
 fight against them. The tempter may, however, 
 be subdued if the assistance of a rival impulse can 
 be enlisted against it. Drunkenness, which will 
 not yield to the reasoned counsels of moderation, 
 may be conquered by other impulses, if the alle- 
 giance that is given to them is complete. Fear 
 may be driven out by blood-thirstiness. Instinct 
 must be countered by instinct : but our will may 
 assist us to set up this antagonism. One who is 
 enslaved by a passion may, by an effort of 
 will, conjure into activity an impulse that is 
 derived from the aesthetic or from the ethical 
 
THE STRUGGLE OF TEMPTATION 157 
 
 instincts that are inherent in us all ; and, if he will 
 surrender himself completely, will make no reser- 
 vations, but will bind himself by vows to utter 
 obedience, he may develop force that will enable 
 him to outmaster his familiar demon. Here 
 again, punishment may be helpful in undermining 
 the control of the dominant impulse. In the 
 nature of the case it can hardly be self-imposed, 
 and is in many cases inflicted by the State. But 
 although it may weaken the unlawful propensities 
 of a criminal it cannot be trusted to reform him. 
 To establish such a change it is necessary to 
 awaken some dormant impulse which will give 
 him a new object in life. 
 
 fi| li 
 
 It will, perhaps, not be altogether fanciful if we 
 see some connection between the development 
 of spontaneity, or free will, and the individuality, 
 or separateness, of living creatures. Life does 
 not appear to pervade space ubiquitously, like 
 the energies of gravity or electricity : it is dis- 
 tributed amongst a number of isolated closed 
 vessels, for as such may be considered plants and 
 animals. Each of these is a separate centre of 
 energy. In dividing itself amongst millions of 
 different carriers Life has reserved possibilities 
 of activity which would have been lost were it 
 diffused through a continuous mass of living 
 plasma or tissue. A structureless living jelly 
 (Bathybius) appears to cover large areas of the 
 ocean floor : but, if the original type of living 
 matter was of this kind, it was abandoned for the 
 cell, the distinctive feature of which is separateness. 
 It is only in the lowest ranks of the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms that cells have fully preserved 
 this characteristic : higher up the scale they have 
 cohered into masses, exchanging their inde- 
 
158 VOLITION 
 
 pendence for co-partnership, and their vague 
 freedom of action for definite special duties. The 
 bodies of the higher plants and animals are com- 
 posed of countless thousands of such cells, which 
 have undergone great changes of form in order 
 to become fitted for their particular functions. 
 But by this sacrifice of individuality, a new 
 individuality has been created, that of the mass of 
 cells, or organism, as a whole. We may perceive 
 here a fresh illustration of Life's indifference to 
 the means by which it achieves its purposes. 
 Individuality begins with the cell, but pursues 
 its development in cell-masses, the units of which 
 may have lost it. 
 
 
 
 Below the limits of the sway of reason below, 
 that is to to say, the higher classes of the animal 
 kingdom volition is concerned with little else 
 than the control of movement, and it must have 
 become attenuated almost to extinction in those 
 organisms which have lost the power of moving 
 themselves. Plants, of course, illustrate most 
 typically this sacrifice of activity to convenience. 
 But there are multitudes of animals, notably of 
 the zoophyte class, which are also rooted in the 
 ground. At one stage in their lives, however, these 
 stationary animals and some portions of all plants 
 appear to manifest spontaneous movement. This 
 is during their embryonic growth, or in the process 
 of reproduction. The coral zoophyte and the 
 barnacle, during their larval stages, are free- 
 swimming and active : and the pollen grains of 
 flowers fertilize the ovules by developing a measure 
 of independent activity. So is kept alive the 
 impulse of mobility, which is one of Life's essen- 
 tial features, and is obscured, not extinguished, 
 even by so close an alliance with Matter as ties 
 the organism to the soil. 
 
VOLITION AMONGST THE BRUTES 159 
 
 But, it will be said, the behaviour of the lower 
 animals is regulated by directive instinct : what 
 scope can be left to them for spontaneous action ? 
 Their behaviour, indeed, approaches the mechani- 
 cal. But it does not exactly resemble clock- 
 work or the movements of iron filings in the 
 presence of a magnet. In the lower ranges of the 
 animal kingdom the promptings of instinct are 
 very peremptory and extraordinarily detailed. 
 But cases arise for which they do not provide, 
 and we may see ants, bees, and spiders hesitate 
 and make trials when confronted with unusual 
 difficulties. In fact the directions of instinct do 
 not cover the whole of the ground, and leave 
 some opportunities for the making of mistakes 
 and of attempts to rectify them. The behaviour 
 of insects is occasionally guided by trial and rejec- 
 tion, and in this differs altogether from the action 
 of machinery. You may see a line of ants checked 
 and apparently perturbed by an unusual obstacle : 
 one of them finds a way to circumvent it, and the 
 rest follow its spontaneous lead. Bees will vary 
 the shape of their cells in order to carry their 
 combs round an obstruction. Higher up the 
 scale, as the promptings of instinct become less 
 and less elaborate, the scope for experiment 
 for making choices widens : we have already 
 seen that birds, for instance, will on occasion 
 depart very considerably from their instinctive 
 procedure. In man the field for spontaneous 
 action is incomparably wider than in any of the 
 animals below him. But the field extends through- 
 out the province of Life, narrow though it be 
 when we reach its humblest regions. There is a 
 period in the life of each plant when certain of 
 its cells appear to be confronted with a choice. 
 And the lively activity that is displayed by the 
 minute unicellular organisms which flit across the 
 
160 VOLITION 
 
 stage of a microscope is scarcely to be explained 
 by the impact upon them of external forces. 
 Volition, like consciousness, has its roots in the 
 beginnings of Life, although we may hardly 
 compare the spasmodic capriciousness in which 
 it first becomes manifest, with the freedom that 
 is exercised, consciously and deliberately, by the 
 mind of man. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 RECAPITULATION 
 
 ACCORDING to the conclusions at which we have 
 arrived a living creature may be defined more 
 appropriately by its impulses than by its organs : 
 its organs are, in fact, the products of its impulses. 
 We do not see because we have eyes, but we have 
 eyes because we have an impulse to see. This 
 statement may appear paradoxical at first sight : 
 but on further consideration its truth becomes 
 self-evident : for how, indeed, could a minute 
 fragment of protoplasm develop an eye unless 
 there was within it an impulse to do so, or unless 
 it was constrained by an impulse from outside ? 
 An organ which is not animated by an impulse 
 degenerates into a useless survival, like the 
 rudiments of hind limbs in the whale or the muscles 
 by which man once moved his ears. But an im- 
 pulse needs no organ in order to manifest itself. 
 The primitive forms of life can appreciate light 
 without eyes, and can feel and recognize their 
 food without sensory organs ; and we have seen 
 that from less humble ranks of the animal 
 kingdom illustrations can be drawn of the dis- 
 charge of functions that ordinarily appertain 
 to special organs, by the unspecialized vitality 
 of the body as a whole. We must etherialize our 
 conceptions of Life as we have begun to etherialize 
 our conceptions of Matter : we must regard it, 
 not as a series of activities that are produced by 
 a particular type of substance or machinery, but 
 
 161 
 
162 RECAPITULATION 
 
 as a complicated energy of (it may be figured) in- 
 terlacing whirls, which animates the mechanism 
 of the body and is not caused by it. 
 
 But, it will be objected, if we lose our eyes we 
 cannot see : if an organ is diseased its activities 
 fail : if the machinery of our bodies is stopped, we 
 die. How can it be denied that our vital functions 
 are the product of the organs by which they are 
 discharged ? By broadening our view, it may 
 be replied, and taking into consideration not 
 only the higher forms of living creatures, but 
 the undifferentiated, unspecialized, unicellular 
 organisms in which living matter is at its simplest. 
 These possess functions without organs : nay 
 more, they do not appear to suffer death. In 
 reproducing their kind they divide themselves 
 up ; but nothing perishes : the whole of the 
 organism passes, so subdivided, into the next 
 generation. If they are cut into pieces, each 
 fragment becomes a new centre of vitality, which 
 rapidly grows into the typical form of its species. 
 May we not, then, surmise that death is the 
 penalty of differentiation the consequence of 
 separating out the functions of Life, and attaching 
 them to different arrangements of living tissue, 
 of breaking up, so to speak, the multitudinous cross- 
 whirls of instinct into a number of separate eddies ? 
 By this division of functions Life gains immensely in 
 efficiency. But it sacrifices itself. Its endurance 
 is weakened by its disintegration, and it is no 
 longer capable of resisting indefinitely the 
 clogging influence of the material elements with 
 which it is associated. We know, however, that an 
 impulse may for a time sustain vitality against 
 the effects of organic degeneration. Many men 
 are kept alive through illness or old age by their 
 interest in their work, and die as soon as they take 
 relief from industry. 
 
EVOLUTION CAUSED BY CHANGEFULNESS 163 
 
 
 
 Evolution may, then, be defined as the develop- 
 ment rather of impulses than of organs. Some of 
 these affect the body, others the character, and 
 in tracing the affinities of plants and animals, 
 and of races of mankind, we are as likely to find 
 clues in behaviour as in bodily features. The 
 evolution of species in the world of life has been 
 commonly attributed to natural or sexual selec- 
 tion. But this confuses a condition with a cause. 
 Evolution must proceed from a changefulness 
 that is inherent in living creatures, for, unless 
 changes occurred, there would, indeed, be nothing 
 for selection to act upon. It would be pleasing 
 to feel that this changefulness was systematically 
 directed towards the organism's benefit. But 
 against such a supposition there is an overwhelm- 
 ing mass of evidence. Variations occur in every 
 direction. Those that are harmful are eliminated 
 by the struggle for life : those that are beneficial, 
 or harmless, may survive. But we need not 
 assume, on the evidence that has been collected, 
 that variation is entirely uncontrolled that in 
 no case is it directed by outside influences. Facts 
 are very numerous which appear to indicate that 
 plants and animals may be stimulated to vary 
 their forms or dispositions by their environment, 
 by their habits, or by the imitative impulse ; 
 and in this case the variations would be generally 
 to their advantage. We cannot absolutely deny 
 that the giraffe may have been stimulated to vary, 
 so as to lengthen its neck, by continued striving 
 after higher foliage ; that the migration of swal- 
 lows is not impelled by an instinct which was 
 generated by habit, or that Arctic animals did 
 not gradually acquire the faculty of turning 
 white during winter by subconscious imitation of 
 the colour of snow, 
 
 M 
 
164 RECAPITULATION 
 
 In examining our own instincts we are assisted 
 by the emotions which some of them excite : to 
 the instincts of other persons, and of the lower 
 animals, we have no clue but their behaviour, 
 and our conclusions can merely be inferential. 
 The knowledge that we can gain by introspection 
 and inference is very incomplete. But it appears 
 to warrant us in attempting to classify instincts 
 according to their tendencies, and in making some 
 generalizations regarding the character and extent 
 of their influences. We may distinguish them as 
 impulsive and directive according as they simply 
 impel the organism to seek a certain end, or 
 elaborately direct it in the means of securing that 
 end according, for instance, as they impel an 
 insect to provide for its offspring, or direct it in 
 the detailed steps that are needed for such 
 provision. Impulsive instincts appear to be 
 uniform in general character throughout the 
 animal kingdom : directive instincts vary greatly 
 in different classes of animals. In the lower 
 ranges of the animal kingdom directive instincts 
 are exceedingly strong, and govern peremptorily 
 almost every detail of external behaviour, as 
 well as the processes of growth and the develop- 
 ment and functioning of the internal organs. 
 As we ascend the scale we find their authority 
 gradually withdrawn from the control of external 
 action, until in man they have altogether relin- 
 quished this domain. Their vestiges, however, 
 remain in our aptitudes for acquiring accomplish- 
 ments, and they continue to govern despotically 
 the functioning of our internal organs. Reason 
 is the development of an instinct which guides 
 us indirectly, and not seldom wrongly, by telling 
 us, not that which we require to know, but how 
 we should learn it. Consciousness assists reason 
 
IMPULSIVE FORCES 165 
 
 by directing its inferences from the accidental to 
 the essential ; also by extending immensely its 
 scope, and so enabling it to draw inferences not 
 merely from impressions or recollections of things, 
 but from conceptions of their properties. By 
 volition, or the exercise of will, we are able to 
 enforce the conclusions of reason, and we are thus 
 equipped with the means of guiding ourselves 
 through difficulties which, in the case of the lower 
 animals, are met by the injunctions of directive 
 instinct. But reason, consciousness, and will 
 share their authority over us with a multitude 
 of impulsive instincts selfish and social, repro- 
 ductive and provident, cruel and kind, aesthetic 
 and ethical which vary greatly in strength from 
 individual to individual, but can generally set 
 up from amongst their number, in each one of us, 
 some tyrant, or tyrants some " favourite " 
 propensity which our conscious reason and our 
 will are unable to coerce. But, if assisted by 
 habit, they may be able to prevail. Habits, 
 acquired sometimes by will power, more generally 
 by imitation, or education (a form of imitation) 
 may be employed to facilitate the outflow of 
 particular impulses that are commended by 
 reason, and, proportionately, to weaken the 
 influence of others of which reason disapproves. 
 But, if entrusted too confidingly with the direction 
 of our behaviour, habit may enslave us, and grow 
 into such a tyranny as we employed it to dethrone. 
 Our path is, indeed, strewn with pitfalls. We have 
 liberty such as is denied to the insects ; but it 
 leads us through dangers from which their lives 
 are free. 
 
 
 
 Features of the body vary from individual to 
 individual in size, shape or colour : so do in- 
 stinctive impulses vary in strength ; and, since 
 
i66 RECAPITULATION 
 
 they are very numerous and act in combina- 
 tions, the possibilities of diversity in human dis- 
 position are practically infinite. Individuals, 
 moreover, differ in their sensibility and in their 
 aptitudes for acquiring accomplishments, and 
 these unlikenesses introduce a further complica- 
 tion into the possibilities of human nature, so that 
 no two individuals are exactly alike. The impulses 
 that are aroused by a sensory impression or a 
 recollection may differ surprisingly on different 
 occasions : the associated set of recollections 
 can never be the same, and will arouse a novel 
 assortment of impulses : the relative strength 
 of impulses may be modified by habit, or in some 
 cases, influenced by the will : we are also affected 
 by the mood which governs us at the time. 
 Moreover, it seems that some impulses may rise 
 or fall at periodic intervals. Human nature is, 
 accordingly, not only very diverse from individual 
 to individual, but results in behaviour which 
 varies very greatly in the same individual. We 
 may, indeed, believe that human behaviour, if 
 purely impulsive, would be so eccentric as to be 
 irreducible to rule. But the outflowings of 
 impulse are controlled brought within sluice- 
 gates, so to speak by habit. To this regulation 
 of discharge individuals and communities owe the 
 regularity of their lives, their general uniformity 
 in dress, manners, and amusements, even the 
 ideas which direct their outlook upon life. Not 
 only is habit the foundation of conventional 
 morality : it guides our aspirations and fortifies 
 our conclusions upon religion and politics. 
 
 Pleasure and pain may be distinguished from 
 happiness and unhappiness. The former arise 
 from our sensations : the latter from our instinc- 
 
PLEASURE AND PAIN 167 
 
 tive impulses. Happiness is obtained by satis- 
 fying an impulse : unhappiness results from 
 inability to satisfy it. One who is devoid of 
 strong impulses cannot be happy : one whose 
 impulses are strong and are unsatisfied must be 
 miserable. Impulses may, within certain limits, 
 be modified in strength by habit, and we are 
 able in some measure to fashion our desires to our 
 opportunities. The happy man is he who makes 
 this correspondence complete. Pleasure and 
 happiness commonly lead to the virtuous and the 
 useful. But they may also be obtained by the 
 enjoyment of tastes and the satisfaction of desires 
 which are pernicious for the individual and for 
 society. 
 
 1112 rtiffiffiSi! 
 
 The impulses which have been classed as in- 
 stinctive, in the ordinary use of this term, are 
 extraordinarily contradictory. They fall into 
 groups of opposites. It may appear incredible 
 that Life should display itself by the ordering of 
 antagonisms. But each one of us may satisfy 
 himself by introspection that his character is in 
 fact a mass of contradictions, and that he often 
 acts in a way which he afterwards regrets. A 
 duality runs through us which appears to be 
 altogether inconsistent with such a simple ex- 
 planation of Life as is given by materialistic 
 hypotheses : we seem to be the resultants of two 
 rival forces, which may perhaps be contrasted as 
 Life and Matter. We are insatiably curious to 
 penetrate the veil behind which are concealed 
 the mysterious influences that have filled the 
 earth with its varied hosts of plants and animals, 
 that have brought some to honour, others to 
 dishonour, and that elevate and deprave the mind 
 of man. We are in no way assisted by the know- 
 
168 RECAPITULATION 
 
 ledge that comes to us through our senses. This 
 simply enables us to catalogue, symbolically, the 
 .effects that these influences produce. The word 
 " ocean " of itself affords no idea of the great 
 waters : it is merely a symbol which stands for 
 them in speech and writing. The impressions 
 which we gather of the ocean by sight, hearing, 
 and touch resemble it no more nearly than does 
 the word : they also are merely symbolic 
 sensations which give us, not veritable pictures, 
 but artificial signs. What can we know of the 
 essential disposition of Nature when her face is 
 shrouded from us ? What should we know of man 
 if we could see nothing but his material accom- 
 plishments his furniture and houses, his roads, 
 railways, and shipping ? The clues which Nature 
 vouchsafes to us are infinitely less instructive, 
 for what we judge to be her accomplishments are 
 but visionary symbols of things which we may 
 never hope to realize. 
 
 ' ' i - sisissiii 
 
 We are, then, deceived by our senses. And we 
 are misled by our reason. We watch its pro- 
 cesses in the mirror of our consciousness. They 
 rest entirely upon the assumption that like 
 happenings involve like consequences : we regard 
 this sequence as the result of the abstract pro- 
 perty of cause and effect, and are uneasy in our 
 minds unless we can assign a cause to every 
 happening. It seems particularly necessary to 
 assume that the circumstances upon which our 
 lives and happiness depend are ordered, and not 
 the result of purposeless change, and this assump- 
 tion has influenced the speculations of agnostic 
 philosophy quite as strongly as the meditations 
 of religious feeling. Evolutionists are incessantly 
 engaged in searching for utilities in the colours, 
 
MISGUIDING REASON 169 
 
 shapes and qualities with which plants and animals 
 are endowed ; and we all feel gratified when it is 
 shown, for instance, that an animal's particular 
 colour may assist it in evading danger or in 
 attracting a mate. But it must be confessed that 
 these explanations very often assume that birds 
 and beasts are easily deceived by superficial 
 resemblances, and that females are pleased by 
 eccentricities of appearance which, when they 
 first developed, would simply be deformities. In 
 the vast majority of cases peculiarities of shape 
 and colour are quite inexplicable on utilitarian 
 grounds, and appear to be merely the fruits of an 
 impulse for change. If harmful, they would 
 generally be weeded out in the struggle for 
 existence, which seems, however, to have spared 
 some of them, as, for instance, the monstrous 
 beak of the horn-bill. But, if harmless, they 
 would remain to testify to the irresponsible 
 activity of the impulse to vary. 
 
 An analysis of human character discloses 
 similar anomalies. There are instincts that are 
 useful in the struggle for life : there are instincts 
 that are useless from this point of view : there 
 are others that are harmful, such as the lust for 
 cruelty, the passion for intoxicants. If we turn 
 from ourselves to the course of the world around 
 us, we find much that is beautiful, much that is 
 repellent : there are smiling pastures, there are 
 desolate wildernesses : in some years the earth 
 brings forth her increase, in others millions of its 
 inhabitants are starved by famine. Life, the most 
 precious of treasures, is poured out wastefully 
 often with bitter dregs of misery. The mere fact 
 that animals eat one another shocks our sense of 
 morality and kindliness. If there be a purpose in 
 the course of Nature, we may hardly conclude that 
 it is in accord with our notions of justice or mercy. 
 
170 RECAPITULATION 
 
 There is an antithesis of good and evil an appar- 
 ent duality of control that has been frankly 
 recognised in many religions. Christians, indeed, 
 are taught to believe that " the devil, as a roaring 
 lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour." 
 To many men the idea of duality is unsatisfactory: 
 it is out of accord with the desire to simplify to 
 discover an ultimate unifying principle which 
 influences modern thought. But there is nothing 
 to show that this desire is well-founded : it may 
 be as misleading as the notions which led to 
 magic and witchcraft. We do not reject the 
 distinction between positive and negative elec- 
 tricity because we are unable to explain it. 
 
 From this mysterious confusion one fact emerges 
 clearly that in the animal world the course of 
 evolution has promoted the growth of individual 
 liberty. Instinct at first wields almost despotic 
 authority over both the aims and the methods of 
 existence : its impulses drive living organisms 
 along certain lines of conduct ; its directions 
 minutely prescribe their itinerary. It is gradually 
 displaced, so far as external behaviour is con- 
 cerned, by reason, consciousness, and will ; self- 
 government is, so to speak, substituted for a 
 tyranny. But it is left to us to discover how best 
 to use this new constitution in shaping our 
 behaviour to our instinctive impulses. An im- 
 mense variety of choice is opened to us, and we 
 should be distracted with this liberty did we 
 retain the whole of it. The generality of mankind 
 resign their privileges and are content to be ruled, 
 for the most part, by imitation (stimulated by 
 suggestion) or by habit. But others are less 
 apathetic, and their influence may be traced in 
 the gradual extension of ideas of freedom. During 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF LIBERTY 171 
 
 modern times notions of liberty have spread very 
 rapidly. To self -consciousness liberty can make a 
 special appeal. The recent revolutions in Turkey, 
 Persia, and China were inspired by a conscious 
 desire for self-assertion which was felt by large 
 numbers of the population. However ineffective, 
 it was at least a new element in the feelings of the 
 East. We still hold that children must obey their 
 parents, servants their masters, and that all are 
 constrained by the laws of their land ; but society 
 no longer supports the absolute power of the father 
 over his children, of the master over his slave, 
 of the despot over his subjects. Liberty, that is 
 to say, spontaneity of will, appears to be gradu- 
 ally weakening the chains of habit. And habit 
 itself, it must be remembered, is not an hereditary 
 despotism, differing in this respect from directive 
 instinct. Our habits are contracted by ourselves, 
 and it is possible for us to change them. By 
 habit, moreover, we can gain deliverance from, 
 so to speak, inherited enslavement. For by its 
 help we may control the impulsive instincts 
 which survive as the mainsprings of our actions 
 and emotions, and, by facilitating behaviour that 
 is good, strengthen ourselves to resist the tempta- 
 tions of evil. 
 
 With a great price man has obtained this 
 measure of freedom : he has paid for it in count- 
 less years of degrading error into which, in his 
 liberty, he has drifted. Mistaking images of the 
 memory for visions of the supernatural, he has 
 concluded that the material world has a spiritual, 
 or shadowy, counterpart, with which he is in 
 communication through the counterpart, or 
 " double," of himself. It seemed unreasonable 
 that either the substance or the shadow should be 
 subject to annihilation : death accordingly ap- 
 peared to be an unnatural termination of activity, 
 
172 RECAPITULATION 
 
 and was ascribed to the malign influence of an 
 enemy, exercised by magical powers. Each 
 death, then, involved at least one murder in 
 revenge ; and even in these days tribes are known 
 who are exterminating themselves by super- 
 stitious retaliations, because they consider them- 
 selves to be naturally immortal. Impelled to 
 seek a cause for everything that happens, they 
 are left to themselves to make the search; and they 
 connect together, as cause and effect, events which 
 have no relationship whatever to one another. 
 From similar errors of judgment have proceeded 
 the thousand superstitions that have not only 
 darkened man's intelligence and retarded his 
 progress, but have turned him in blind anger 
 against his fellows, and have made violence and 
 bloodshed the outstanding features of human 
 history. 
 
 But if the past is dark there is light before us. 
 Man can improve himself : he is not merely a 
 completed link in a chain of evolutionary meta- 
 morphoses. His reason may be trained to discover 
 more and more accurately the properties of things, 
 and the properties of properties : it may be assisted 
 immensely by the accumulation of knowledge. 
 His will may be strengthened by self-discipline. 
 Habits, of mind as well as of body, may be 
 changed for the better. His advancement has 
 proceeded in the main from the birth of men of 
 originality, or " supermen " sports in the 
 parterres of convention whose novel ideas are 
 gradually adopted, sometimes because they are 
 endorsed by reason, but more often through the 
 influence of the impulse to imitate. It is owing to 
 the possession of this impulse that man can be 
 educated : the education of the young is a special 
 application of its virtues, the usefulness of which 
 will be greater or less according as it is directed to 
 
ANTAGONISM OF IMPULSES 173 
 
 the training of the reason and will, and the ac- 
 quirement of useful habits, or is devoted to the 
 memorizing of symbolic knowledge. The imita- 
 tive faculty is powerfully assisted by self-con- 
 sciousness : this enables us to see ourselves and 
 compare ourselves with others, and the impression 
 which we gather may be a most efficient incentive 
 to improvement or reform. Habits of mind now 
 prevalent appear to be reinforcing the faculty of 
 self-consciousness : its influence has extended 
 very materially during recent centuries, especially 
 amongst the peoples of Northern Europe and 
 America. This reflection will assist us in ex- 
 plaining the acceleration of progress which is 
 undoubtedly to be seen during the period of 
 modern history. 
 
 SJSISE - i'Sill 
 
 Perhaps the most striking fact which has been 
 brought out by these analyses is the antagonistic 
 duality of our instinctive impulses : it is almost 
 incredibly strange, but it seems to be true, that 
 we live under the influence of contraries. We are 
 urged towards change : variety pleases us, 
 monotony fatigues us. But we have also a long- 
 ing to repeat our mental and bodily experiences, 
 and, if we give way to it, we become bond slaves 
 of custom. We are impelled to look solely to 
 ourselves, but also to neglect ourselves for the 
 benefit of others : blindly to devote ourselves to 
 the propagation of our kind, with foresight and 
 industry to make the most of Life's practical 
 opportunities. We are naturally cruel, and also 
 naturally kind. We are endowed with aesthetic 
 appreciations which are heightened by self- 
 abandonment : we are also endowed with ethical 
 aspirations of which the ground note is self- 
 control. Our vital organs are controlled by forces 
 
174 RECAPITULATION 
 
 that are hidden from our consciousness, but our 
 external behaviour can be influenced by the 
 conscious exercise of reason and will. Freedom 
 is the ideal of our will : slavery the result of our 
 habitudes. Through these series of opposites there 
 appears to run, like a double strand, two distinct 
 strains or tendencies, one which approximates in 
 some fashion to what we know of the working of 
 the physical lifeless world, the other in strong 
 contrast to it. Thus repetitive habit is closer to 
 the rhythmical vibrations of inorganic matter 
 than is changefulness : to be self-centred, to have 
 no object but the reproduction of the species, and 
 to be cruel may appear, not altogether fancifully, 
 to be more material, more accordant with the 
 unfeeling action of physical laws, than to be 
 sympathetic, provident, and kind-hearted. So 
 also with the impulses that have been classed as 
 aesthetic and ethical : the one trembles with the 
 thrills of light and sound with which Nature is 
 beautified, the other severely rejects her attrac- 
 tions. The influence of directive instinct closely 
 resembles the regular, unhesitating action of 
 physical laws : conscious reason and will appear 
 to be poles apart from it. 
 
 We appear, then, to be influenced by two an- 
 tagonistic tendencies, the one representing the 
 cramping mechanical energies of Matter, the other 
 proceeding from activities of a more spiritual 
 character which we may venture to identify 
 with Life itself. Life, as we know it, cannot 
 be manifested except in combination with Matter, 
 and the development of the living world has 
 proceeded from the clashing energies of these 
 linked antagonists. The impulses of Life may 
 appear to be supernatural when contrasted with 
 the mechanical activity of Matter. From them 
 we have kindled the beacons which we term our 
 
THE SPIRIT OF LIFE 175 
 
 " ideals." We idealize self-sacrifice not selfish- 
 ness, industry not lust, kindness not cruelty, 
 liberty not habit. We speak, it is true, of " artis- 
 tic ideals " ; but these are, in fact, hardly com- 
 parable with the ideals which have led human 
 society up the path of progress. We may reflect 
 upon the thought that these impulses are endorsed 
 very markedly by Christian doctrine may, in- 
 deed, be described as fundamental principles of 
 unsophisticated Christianity. There is not a 
 point in our contrast between Life and Matter 
 but is authoritatively endorsed by texts of 
 Scripture. To "do unto others as we would that 
 they should do unto us " is an ideal expression of 
 the social instinct. Upon the impulse to foresee 
 is grafted man's hope of immortality and of 
 the ultimate redress of this world's injustice ; 
 and, if no encouragement is given to the amassing 
 of wealth, industry is not dishonoured : laborare 
 est or are is a maxim of the Church. The heart of 
 Christ was aglow with kindness for all men, and 
 during the cruellest ages of Christendom some 
 reflections of this glow were caught by those who 
 turned their faces towards Him : ideas of kindness 
 inspired St. Paul with one of his sublimest ex- 
 hortations : unless they were instinct with kind- 
 ness, his zeal and eloquence, he confessed, were 
 " as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." And, 
 whatever be the opinion of modern divines, self- 
 restraint, hardening into actual asceticism, has 
 undoubtedly been sanctified by the example of 
 Christ and the teaching of His apostles. In the 
 character of our Lord the impulses of Life 
 irradiate humanity with supernatural lustre. His 
 face was set against the morality of habit, turned 
 towards the spontaneous flowerings of the conscious 
 will. He was vehemently opposed to the ordered 
 sanctimony of convinced self -righteousness, strong 
 
176 RECAPITULATION 
 
 in maintaining that sins could be forgiven if they 
 were judged sincerely by the reason of the sinner, 
 and condemned by him in resolutions of voluntary 
 repentance. He opposed no meticulous rules of 
 ethics or ceremonial to the changeful current of 
 man's social development : the principles which 
 He defined lie as deep as Life itself. The key-note 
 of His teaching was echoed by St. Paul " The 
 letter killeth, the spirit giveth life." No one 
 who believes in the spirit of Life but will accept 
 Jesus Christ as his Example and his Master. 
 
PART II 
 CONSTRAINING INFLUENCES 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 RACE 
 
 THE usefulness of a spaniel depends, firstly, upon 
 its breed, secondly, upon the circumstances in 
 which it is reared, and, thirdly, upon the training 
 that it receives. Unless it is well-bred we do not 
 expect it to display the qualities of a good 
 spaniel ; but these qualities may be ruined by 
 over-feeding or by unhealthy surroundings, and 
 they need education for their development. So 
 with a people of mankind. Their behaviour 
 appears to be the result partly of racial pecu- 
 liarities, partly of the climate and surroundings 
 in which they live, and partly of culture that is 
 to say, partly of inborn instincts, partly of the 
 pressure of the environment, and partly of the 
 habits that are engendered by the social, ethical, 
 artistic, and religious ideas of the community. 
 Differences between one people and another may 
 all be traced to the effects of these three influences 
 Race, Environment, and Culture. The difficulty 
 is to allot national characteristics between them, 
 to decide which of them is responsible for any 
 particular trait. Few will deny that gipsies have 
 a character of their own, and that they preserve 
 some traits of this character in every country of 
 their adoption. It is then hardly affected by a 
 change of environment. It may be racial ; but 
 it may also be the result of culture of religious 
 and social ideas which have been preserved from 
 obliteration. To distinguish between the effects 
 
 179 
 
i8o RACE 
 
 of race, environment, and culture, is exceedingly 
 difficult. But there are few problems which raise 
 questions of more practical interest in attempting 
 to explain, or to forecast, the history of mankind. 
 For a peculiarity that has become innate and 
 heritable cannot be eradicated except by a change 
 of breed or, perhaps, of environment whereas 
 one that is freshly implanted in each individual 
 may be modified by a change of culture. By 
 styling a peculiarity " racial " we imply that it 
 is heritable. Peculiarities that are derived from 
 culture are, we shall see, not heritable : those 
 that proceed from environment appear to be in 
 some cases heritable, in others not. 
 
 RACE. The racial peculiarities that force them- 
 selves upon attention are those which are mater- 
 ialized in distinctive bodily features, such as the 
 dark hair and complexion of tropical peoples, 
 the prominent jaws and woolly hair of negroes, 
 the oblique eyes, flattened and hairless faces and 
 high cheek-bones of the Mongols. According 
 to our theory these distinctions arise from peculi- 
 arities of impulse, of which, indeed, they are the 
 manifestations. Other peculiarities of impulse 
 affect the character : man's instinctive impulses 
 are so numerous that character may vary very 
 widely if some of them are innately stronger or 
 weaker than the average. Character may be 
 further modified by variation in the strength of 
 aptitudes. We all know that these differ con- 
 siderably from individual to individual : some 
 men have a peculiar aptitude for learning lan- 
 guages, others for mathematics or games of skill. 
 Individuals vary, moreover, in the delicacy of their 
 senses : some are unable to appreciate certain 
 shades of colour, are deaf to the charms of music ; 
 
RACIAL TRAITS 181 
 
 and we may believe that the " joy of life," which 
 in some persons is so exhilarating, proceeds from 
 keen sensibility as well as from strong aesthetic 
 impulses. But the difference in impulses, ap- 
 titudes, sensibility and physical traits between the 
 members of a family are generally less than those 
 between persons who belong to different families. 
 A race, as we shall see, may be likened to a 
 family, except in cases where interbreeding 
 between different sections of it is artificially 
 checked, and we may then expect to find such a 
 general similarity between the members of a race 
 as there is between members of a family. Traits 
 of character cannot be discerned directly : they 
 can only be inferred from behaviour, and in ex- 
 amining them we are confessedly upon ambiguous 
 ground, especially when dealing with large bodies 
 of mankind. But certain of them are unmistak- 
 ably plain. Such are the low reasoning powers of 
 savages, and the weakness of the impulse which 
 leads to industry. Others, equally undeniable, 
 may require closer observation or comparison to 
 be detected. No one will dispute that amongst 
 Mediterranean peoples, for instance, the aesthetic 
 impulses are unusually strong. 
 
 There is a school of thought which is reluctant 
 to admit that character is determined by race, 
 since in this case it cannot be radically changed 
 by education. But practical men of affairs, whose 
 success depends upon knowledge of racial charac- 
 ter such as commercial travellers or contractors 
 will ridicule the idea that differences in racial 
 disposition are only skin deep. When races are 
 marked by peculiar bodily features, it is only 
 reasonable to suppose that these distinctions are 
 accompanied by peculiarities of character. We 
 habitually recognize the association ot features 
 with character : thus we speak of a determined 
 
182 RACE 
 
 eye,fan intellectual forehead, a sensual mouth 
 connections which have been established by 
 practical experience. The Jews are generally 
 distinguished by a particular type of features : 
 they also possess a distinctive character which 
 they have preserved during centuries of vicissi- 
 tude. It may be urged that they have preserved 
 their national culture through these changes, 
 and that to the continuity of their culture should 
 be ascribed the endurance of their distinctive 
 disposition. In preserving, or modifying, tradi- 
 tional behaviour, culture exercises beyond doubt 
 an immense influence. Anglo-Saxons who have 
 settled down amongst lower races " squaw- 
 men " or " beach-combers " appear to sink 
 almost to the level of their associates. But there 
 is something in character that is independent of 
 cultured or uncultured habits. We feel that it is 
 absurd to attribute to culture alone the persistence 
 of British characteristics in the white population 
 of North America and Australia, and of Dutch 
 characteristics in the Boers of South Africa. 
 
 It is difficult, as has already been observed, 
 to isolate the effects of racial, or hereditary, 
 traits from those of artificial conventions that 
 are imposed upon man by the conditions of 
 his environment, or by his culture, especially 
 as there is reason to believe that some racial 
 traits owe their origin to conditions of environ- 
 ment. But in some cases we can make this analysis. 
 The in-and-in breeding of the Indian caste system 
 has established or preserved, on a hereditary 
 basis, some variations of the Asiatic physique 
 and temperament. The Bengali Kayasths, for 
 instance, possess a character and features of their 
 own : so do the Mahratta Brahmins (Chitpawans) 
 of the western coast, and the martial caste 
 (Rajputs) of Rajputana. These castes are, each, 
 
HEREDITARY CHARACTERISTICS 183 
 
 one of many in the areas which they inhabit, and 
 are subjected to no special influences of environ- 
 ment. Their physical peculiarities can hardly 
 be due to their culture, and, if these are innate, 
 their peculiarities of disposition may justly be 
 held to be innate also. The Armenians, the Jews, 
 the Basques of Northern Spain, the Parsees of 
 India, and the gipsies, all appear to possess traits 
 of character that are peculiar to them, and have 
 resisted for many generations a change of environ- 
 ment. In the case of the gipsies they have also 
 resisted a complete change of culture. The 
 negroes of the United States, of the Caribbean 
 Islands, and Brazil have for more than six 
 generations been living in a changed environ- 
 ment and under a changed culture. They have 
 been Christianized. But missionaries who have 
 spent a lifetime amongst them will admit that, 
 if the influence of white men was withdrawn, 
 they would rapidly deteriorate. The persistence 
 of racial character is illustrated even more 
 strikingly by the Moplahs of the Indian Malabar 
 coast. These men are the descendants of Arabs 
 who settled in the country over twenty-five 
 generations ago. In a moist enervating climate 
 they have preserved the fierceness of their 
 ancestors, and from time to time have risen in 
 disturbances which it has required the use of 
 regular troops, and much bloodshed, to quell. 
 They are Mohammedans amidst a population of 
 Hindus, and their character, it may be urged, 
 is the result of their religious culture and tradi- 
 tions. But the other Mohammedans of India are 
 not endowed with this peculiarity of disposition. 
 In truth, however, we hardly need these illustra- 
 tions to be convinced that racial character exists 
 as a thing in itself, quite apart from the influences 
 of culture and environment, and that for some 
 
i84 RACE 
 
 period, at all events, it can maintain its identity, 
 although culture and environment are completely 
 changed. 
 
 
 
 Character is the product of a multiplicity of im- 
 pulses, and is affected by any special strength or 
 weakness in any one of them. The resulting pecu- 
 liarities of disposition must make their mark upon 
 the genius and the development of a people. But 
 they may often lie hidden from observation 
 behind the veil of conventional behaviour. In 
 some cases, however, they are sufficiently apparent 
 amongst the generality of individuals to be recog- 
 nized as typical racial features. Thus we speak of 
 the fierce pride of the Arabs, the agreeable levity 
 of the Persians, the incurious introspective pessi- 
 mism of the Hindus, the placid industry of China- 
 men, and the energetic adaptability of the 
 Japanese. These, it may be objected, are merely 
 habits of mind, not innate peculiarities. May we 
 concede this ? Is there reason to believe that an 
 Arab, a Chinaman, or a Japanese, brought up from 
 infancy in a European family, would lose the tem- 
 perament of his race ? Experience shows, on the 
 contrary, that he preserves it, however thickly 
 overlaid by European conventions, and shows it 
 on occasions in his behaviour. His character, 
 must, then, be innately affected by some peculiar 
 strength or weakness of instinctive impulse. The 
 larger are the populations we contrast in this 
 fashion, the more evident become the differences 
 between them. Thus there is a gulf between 
 tropical peoples and those of temperate climates, 
 a breach between Asiatics and Europeans. In 
 Europe itself dissimilarities between race and 
 race, or nation and nation, are overlain by a 
 broader difference that which separates the 
 North from the South which distinguishes the 
 
RACIAL TRAITS : NORTH AND SOUTH 185 
 
 groups of peoples that respectively show their 
 typical features most strongly on the shores of the 
 Baltic and Mediterranean seas. 
 
 What are the traits which stand out most clearly 
 if we compare, say, an Italian with a Dane ? We 
 notice, in the first place, that the former is much 
 the more impulsive of the two that is to say, is 
 swayed more powerfully by the instinct of self- 
 abandonment than by that of self-control. He is 
 accordingly the more aesthetic, but the less 
 ethical ; he excels in artistic sensibility, but is 
 deficient in the sense of moral discipline from which 
 arose the puritanism of the north. 
 
 We may, further, observe a difference Jin the 
 relative strength of the individualistic and the 
 social instincts. The bent of the southerner 
 is strongly social : he cleaves to his family with 
 superstitious reverence ; he is happiest in a 
 crowd ; he possesses in a marked degree the 
 virtues of warm-heartedness, generosity, and 
 loyalty which cement mankind into a cheerful 
 society : he is also disposed to accept the arbitrary 
 management of the leaders of his community, 
 and to regard disobedience to their authority 
 as justly punishable with great severity. The 
 northman, on the contrary, has been distinguished 
 since the days of Tacitus by his individuality, 
 his independance ; he readily abandons his 
 family surroundings in search of profit or adven- 
 ture, and is not harassed in his exile by thoughts 
 of his motherland : his ideal of private life is not 
 a crowd, but a home : he will not readily suffer 
 a government or a religion in which his individual 
 existence is submerged. 
 
 Southerners are not troubled by the self-con- 
 sciousness which causes hesitation or awkwardness 
 of address : they are, consequently, expansive in 
 their manners and often very eloquent in their 
 
i86 RACE 
 
 speech, are not checked by themselves from naive 
 expressions of vanity, nor, it should be added, 
 safeguarded from the inconsistencies between 
 language and conduct which are detected by 
 an introspective mind. Nor are they sensitive in 
 regard to appearances indeed they are surpri- 
 singly unconscious of grotesqueness or untidiness 
 in dress and they accordingly are not steadied 
 by one of the surest foundations upon which 
 " respectability " can establish itself. 
 
 We may, also, notice amongst them a lack of 
 originality in will-power. All men are more 
 inclined to adopt opinions that are current than 
 to form them for themselves. But the Mediter- 
 ranean peoples seem to be peculiarly susceptible 
 to the catchwords of the day. The extraordinary 
 infatuation shown by the French over the Dreyfus 
 case is a striking illustration of this tendency. 
 
 It seems, moreover, that the impulse to change 
 is less forcible in the Mediterranean than further 
 north. The bonds of habit are stronger. If we 
 look below the surface of modern Italian and 
 Spanish l civilization we shall discover a surprising 
 continuity of ideas from the days of the Romans. 
 The style of domestic architecture has remained in 
 some measure unchanged : even so far afield as in 
 Buenos Ayres the houses of the Italian immigrants, 
 in their construction and decoration, offer more 
 than fanciful resemblances to those of Pompeii. 
 Christianity has become the religion of the 
 people ; but in its Mediterranean form it betrays 
 many connections with the cults of pagan times. 
 Pausanias the Baedeker of Greece eighteen 
 centuries ago was interested to notice black 
 statues of Artemis : there are black Madonnas 
 at the present day, and the cult of the Virgin 
 
 1 Marius, Sulla, or Catiline would feel quite at home in 
 present-day Mexico. 
 
LOVE AND INDUSTRY 187 
 
 in Spain appears to be tinged by traditions of the 
 worship of Diana (the moon-goddess) to which the 
 ancient Spaniards were particularly affected. The 
 Madonna is commonly represented in Spanish art 
 as standing upon the crescent moon. There is no 
 essential difference between a bull-fight and the 
 games of the Roman circus : now, as then, a 
 cruel spectacle touches the very heart of the 
 people. Northern manners, on the other hand, 
 have during the past ten centuries been so com- 
 pletely transformed as to present few material 
 traces of their former complexion. In the north, 
 Christianity has changed its character, and has 
 become a religion of morality rather than of 
 ceremonial. 
 
 And there appears to be a momentous difference 
 between the north and the south in the relative 
 strength of the two instincts which have been 
 described in Chapter IV as reproductive and provi- 
 dent. These are the mainsprings of the two leading 
 objects of life to perpetuate our kind, and, by 
 foresight and industry, to ameliorate our condi- 
 tions. The former is undoubtedly more insistent 
 amongst Mediterranean than amongst Baltic peo- 
 ples. In southern countries the young attain sexual 
 maturity earlier : this is a physical peculiarity 
 which can hardly leave character unaffected. 
 The passion of love, which in the north is an 
 episode, in the south is an abiding stimulus : 
 judging by their literature, it is hardly paradoxi- 
 cal to say that southerners think only of love, 
 whereas the people of the north have a thousand 
 interests. We may figure to ourselves the in- 
 fluence of this propensity upon the national 
 character if we recollect what it was to be in love 
 ourselves. So affected, we exhibited some of the 
 leading features of the Mediterranean tempera- 
 ment ; we were impulsive, little concerned with 
 
188 RACE 
 
 our own personality, inconsistent, not greatly 
 interested in our material surroundings, and 
 without any desire to improve them, except in so 
 far as the object of our affections was concerned. 
 Northmen, on the other hand, under ordinary 
 conditions, are distinguished by the practical 
 energy 1 with which they meet their surroundings: 
 they are continually impelled to improve them, 
 and, by altering them, they create novelties in 
 environment which reinforce the impulse for 
 further reform. A southerner accepts without 
 disgust conditions of life which in the north would 
 excite the strongest repulsion. The effect of these 
 two contrary proclivities the reproductive and 
 the provident is to be seen very clearly in the 
 position of woman. In the south she is treated 
 as a sexual appendage of man, to be guarded very 
 safely, as is the rest of man's property. In the 
 north, from the earliest historical times, she has 
 been man's companion and partner, and love for 
 her is clarified by sentiments of chivalry and 
 romance that is to say, by feelings which have 
 their origin not in self-abandonment, but in 
 self-control. 
 
 Our generalizations respecting the southern 
 temperament may be extended to the East. 
 There is much in common between the features 
 of the Mediterranean and the Eastern character. 
 Orientals are easily excited to impulsive self- 
 abandonment, are swayed by ambitions which 
 are rather social than individual, regard the 
 government under which they live as a force 
 apart from themselves, are not shocked by in- 
 consistencies between opinions and behaviour, 
 
 1 The number of spindles to which a mill hand can attend is a 
 very good indication of his practical efficiency. In English cotton 
 mills only three hands are employed for 1,000 spindles ; in Germany 
 (North and South) seven are needed; in Italy thirteen; and in 
 Bombay twenty-fix e. 
 
ORIGIN OF RACE 189 
 
 have allowed the spirit of changefulness to be 
 choked by habitudes, and regard woman as an 
 instrument for reproduction rather than as an 
 element of society. 
 
 The traits of character, which in this com- 
 parison are attributed to the Baltic races, beyond 
 doubt serve the development of the ideas, indus- 
 tries, and institutions which we regard as the 
 hall-marks of modern progress. But the southern 
 races have their compensations. The cultivation 
 of philosophy, artistic creativeness, and the clear- 
 sighted exercise of the logical faculty of the mind 
 are repressed rather than stimulated by the 
 material ideals of the north. And it is doubtful 
 whether these ideals make for such happiness 
 as is given by the aesthetic temperament, and 
 sociability of disposition impulses which can 
 be satisfied with very small means. These are 
 strongly developed in the Mediterranean and, 
 speaking generally, in Eastern peoples and offer 
 substantial compensations for lack of riches and 
 monotony of life. 
 
 
 
 It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the 
 various races of mankind are derived from a single 
 original type : in this case racial differences are 
 the outcome of variations, or " sports," which 
 occurred subsequently to man's first appearance. 
 It seems probable that many of these differences 
 are not the result of random variation, but of 
 variation which has been controlled and guided 
 in a particular direction by climate or other 
 conditions of environment. For we see that 
 certain racial distinctions are associated very 
 closely with certain environal influences. Peoples 
 of the tropics are dark-complexioned and dark- 
 haired, and are, moreover, distinguished by the 
 
RACE 
 
 early arrival of puberty. Hill men are generally 
 short of stature. The moulding influence of 
 environment will be discussed in the next chapter : 
 but we may refer here to the theory, held by some 
 high authorities, although repudiated by others, 
 that environal influences are responsible for some 
 notable changes which have occurred in human 
 features and character within the period that is 
 covered by historical records and archaeological 
 research. It is believed by Professor Ridgeway 
 that a short-skulled people have become long- 
 skulled by migration from the hills to the plains. 
 According to Professor Boas, under the conditions 
 of America, Anglo-Saxon immigrants are gra- 
 dually changing the shape of their heads ; and 
 it is not uncommonly admitted by Americans 
 that their features are becoming remodelled upon 
 lines that have a curious resemblance to those of 
 the native Indian stock. In the Mediterranean 
 climate of Australia, Anglo-Saxons appear to be 
 contracting the pleasure-loving gaiety of Medi- 
 terranean peoples. It seems probable, then, that 
 many racial peculiarities of features and character 
 are the outcome of environal influences, although, 
 once established, they will resist during many 
 generations such a change of environment as 
 is caused by migration. And this power of 
 resistance is, as will be shown, stronger in 
 southern than in northern characteristics, very 
 probably because they are the more ancient of 
 the two. 
 
 Variations that are stimulated or guided by 
 environment would promote uniformity among 
 the inhabitants of the same locality and would 
 tend to produce a racial type. But the change- 
 fulness of Life is constantly producing variations, 
 or " sports," in diverse directions, and these might 
 lead a race into very abnormal eccentricities were 
 
LEVELLING EFFECT OF MARRIAGE 191 
 
 they not controlled by the effects of marriage. 
 From one point of view, as we have seen, sexual 
 generation may be regarded as a cause of change, 
 since it results in the production of individuals 
 that differ from their predecessors, exactly re- 
 sembling neither of their parents. But from 
 another point of view it is a conservative influence, 
 since its effect is, so to speak, to dilute any 
 peculiarities possessed by either parent, and by 
 intermixture to produce offspring that diverge 
 less markedly from an average type. This 
 tendency has been formulated as the law of 
 " filial regression." Tallness in the father will 
 be represented in his sons, but in a less degree. 
 Galton found that in the families of 286 judges, 
 who sat on the bench between 1660 and 1865, 
 eminence was shown by 12.6 per cent, of their 
 sons, 3.7 per cent, of their grandsons, and only 
 0.5 per cent, of their great-grandsons. Their 
 talents fell rapidly to the normal in their offspring. 
 So also children tend towards the normal when 
 their parents are defective. It has been shown 
 by a large body of statistics that parents who are 
 both congenitally deaf may expect three out of 
 four of their children to be free from this defect ; 
 and when only one parent is deaf the chance of 
 deafness amongst the children is only one in eight. 
 The levelling effect of marriage is no doubt due 
 very largely to the fact that the sexes are not 
 systematically mated so as to bring together males 
 and females that agree in possessing some definite 
 peculiarity. By selective breeding on these lines 
 an immense variety has been produced amongst 
 cultivated plants and domesticated animals. But 
 if selection is relaxed, reversion to type follows. 
 And under normal conditions, whether of men or 
 the lower animals, there would be very little 
 chance that pairing would occur between two 
 
192 RACE 
 
 abnormal individuals whose peculiarities were 
 similar. This is the difficulty in accepting the 
 Mendelian hypothesis as an explanation of the 
 origin of fixed varieties or species. It may be 
 proved that certain peculiarities which arise as 
 " sports " are represented by certain elements in 
 the germ-cells that are not obliterated by inter- 
 breeding, although they may be concealed. A cross 
 that results from the interbreeding of such a 
 sport and a normal individual produces only a 
 certain proportion of reproductive-cells that 
 possess these new elements, so that if two such 
 crosses come together it would be necessary that 
 one of a particular number of sperm-cells from 
 the male should unite with one of a particular 
 number of germ-cells from the female, in order to 
 produce an individual in which the new character 
 would be fixed. This could only come about with 
 the closest in-and-in breeding, and from a 
 theoretical point of view the chances of the estab- 
 lishment of a new variety seem to be very remote. 
 But the fact remains that varieties have been estab- 
 lished : we owe to them the multiplicity of species 
 in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. They have 
 withstood the swamping effect of sexual interac- 
 tion. But it is clear, nevertheless, that marriage 
 has generally the effect of reducing eccentricity 
 to normality : we observe that relationship is 
 marked by resemblances of feature and character. 
 We also find this resemblance, although in a less 
 degree, within the circle of a nation, for, unless 
 interbreeding has been artificially checked, in the 
 course of few centuries the greater number of its 
 families have blood in common. 
 
 It is difficult to realize how extensive are the 
 bonds of collateral relationship. Misled by genea- 
 logical tables we picture the continuance of a race 
 in the similitude of a tree. This serves its purpose 
 
A RACE LIKE A FAMILY 193 
 
 when we are considering a few generations of a 
 single family. But it is fallacious in that it em- 
 phasizes direct succession, and conceals from us the 
 immense importance of collateral inter-connection. 
 We shall appreciate its deceptiveness if we consider 
 the course of reproduction with reference to direct 
 succession only. The number of our ancestors 
 doubles in each generation, and if we go back 
 twenty generations the forbears of each of us 
 must number a million. But the population of 
 that time would not have sufficed to provide 
 ancestors, in this number, for more than a few 
 persons now existing, and it is obvious that, owing 
 to extensive intermixture of lines, a vast number 
 of the present inhabitants of the British Isles 
 must have ancestors in common. Where free 
 intermarriage is checked by law or custom a line 
 propagates itself still more directly by the union 
 of blood relations. The ancestry of the German 
 Emperor might have included 4,096 individuals 
 during the last twelve generations : as a matter 
 of fact less than 550 persons within this period 
 contributed to his birth, in so many cases have 
 individuals filled several places in the genealogical 
 scheme, owing to the intermarriage of more or 
 less distant cousins. It is easy to comprehend 
 how in these circumstances family peculiarities 
 of strength or weakness would become accentuated. 
 But such restrictions upon intermarriage have 
 not been general ; and in the past there has, more- 
 over, been extensive intermixture of blood by 
 illegitimate connections. So it has come about 
 that, speaking generally, a race may be likened to 
 a family, in that its propagation tends to repress 
 divergences from a type or standard, and to pro- 
 duce a racial uniformity. 
 
194 RACE 
 
 
 
 We have, however, to remember that races have 
 very seldom remained undisturbed in their 
 marriage connections, but have usually suffered 
 admixture with other races which have migrated 
 amongst them. This introduces a factor of 
 immense importance. At the present day, 
 migration generally takes the form of peaceful 
 colonization ; but in the past the history of 
 mankind has been a continuous record of warlike 
 aggression. In some cases the conquerors appear 
 to have almost exterminated the people they 
 subdued : this seems to have been the ideal of 
 the Hebrews when they colonized Palestine, and 
 our Saxon forefathers do not appear to have left 
 very many of the native inhabitants of Eng- 
 land to adulterate their kind in future generations. 
 But in the great majority of cases the conquerors 
 have been content to reduce the natives to serfdom 
 or helotage, and have endeavoured to safeguard 
 the purity of their race by rigid restrictions upon 
 intermarriage. So the Aryan invaders of India 
 established a caste system ; the Spartans punished 
 unions between themselves and their helois by 
 degrading the offspring ; the patrician? of Rome 
 denied the jus connubii to the plebeians, and the 
 Americans of to-day visit with the severest social 
 penalties any sexual relations between their own 
 kind and those who possess even a few drops of 
 negro blood. But in the past these restrictions 
 have failed with the passage of time, and mixed 
 unions have generally brought the two races 
 together. 
 
 The effects of cross-breeding are many and 
 diverse. As is well known to breeders, a small 
 admixture of strong alien blood may increase very 
 greatly the strength and certain of the qualities 
 of a line. This is particularly the case when the 
 
ALIEN IMMIGRATION 195 
 
 individual whose blood is introduced is of pre- 
 potent reproductive fertility. The Paulistas of 
 Brazil illustrate very remarkably the stimulating 
 effect of a single alien strain. They are, perhaps, 
 the most forceful of the mixed races of South 
 America, and for many generations they exhibited, 
 in war and in slave hunting, a fierce energy which 
 made them the terror of their neighbours. It was, 
 indeed, their courage that preserved Southern 
 Brazil from Spanish domination. At the present 
 time their energy flows in more peaceful channels : 
 they grow the coffee which is the main staple of 
 Brazil and has so greatly enriched the province 
 of San Paolo. They claim descent from a 
 Portuguese sailor who was shipwrecked on the 
 coast early in the sixteenth century, and settled 
 amongst the Indians. When, thirty years later, 
 he was discovered by a party of explorers, he had 
 become the patriarch of a tribe of half-breeds. 
 
 In cases where cross-breeding takes the form of 
 a general intermixture of two or more races, there 
 is a tendency for that strain to prevail whose repre- 
 sentatives are most numerous, whose peculiarities 
 are most deeply seated, or whose features and 
 characters are most in accord with the environal 
 influences of the country. Circumstances are, 
 then, usually in favour of the native strain, 
 especially when the natives have been spared 
 from slaughter in considerable numbers, for 
 those who have been long established in a country 
 have developed in directions that are favoured by 
 its climate or other conditions. This is especially 
 the case with strains of southern blood, which 
 appear to be so tenacious of their qualities as to 
 overpower, in the course of time, any northern 
 blood that comes into mixture with them in less 
 than greatly preponderating quantities. 
 
 The gradual absorption of alien blood is no 
 
196 RACE 
 
 doubt assisted by the action of infertility. In a 
 population which is increasing in numbers but 
 slowly, fertility is almost balanced by infertility. 
 If we cast our eyes round the circle of our 
 acquaintances how many are the families we shall 
 find to be verging upon extinction, after perhaps 
 a transient burst of fecundity ! Infertility very 
 speedily disembarrasses a race of an admixture of 
 alien blood that is of lower reproductive vitality 
 or is unsuited to the local environment. The immi- 
 grant strain may for a time revolutionize society 
 by setting up an eddy of abnormal activity, or by 
 the introduction of new arts or ideas. The survival 
 of foreign elements may from time to time be 
 disclosed by the birth of exceptional individuals, 
 whose character approximates more closely to 
 that of other races than to that of their own. But 
 as time advances, the occurrence of these irregu- 
 larities will become rarer, until the blended race 
 settles down into homogeneity. These reflections 
 assist us in understanding how a race may retain 
 its peculiar character although it has interbred 
 with alien immigrants ; or may revert to its 
 ancient type after temporary bursts of eccen- 
 tricity caused by the admixture of alien blood. 
 
 Infertility, it may be added, contributes to the 
 levelling effect of marriage in preventing a race 
 from improving itself by the breeding of men of 
 talent or " supermen." Persons of exceptional 
 talents are not as a rule of prepotent reproductive 
 fertility, and it is upon less abnormal individuals 
 that the race depends for the continuity of its 
 existence. 
 
 
 
 The earliest of our historical records arc con- 
 cerned with little else than wars of invasion, and 
 there is no reason why we should believe that 
 these movements of population only commenced 
 
IMMIGRANT BLOOD 197 
 
 with the beginning of written history. They may, 
 indeed, be almost comparable in antiquity with 
 the annual flight of the swallows. They have 
 flowed in various directions, but the main current 
 has trended from north to south, since until recent 
 centuries the temptations of wealth and luxury 
 have lain southwards, where conditions of life have 
 been easier and more productive. India owes its 
 intellectual glories to tribes of northmen, gen- 
 erally styled the " Aryans," who some 3,500 
 years ago broke through its mountain barriers and 
 settled in the Indo-Gangetic plain. They intro- 
 duced into India the Sanskrit language. The 
 modern tongue which is most nearly akin to it 
 is the Lettish, which is spoken on the shores of the 
 Baltic ; and, from this fact and from references to 
 scenery which occur in ancient Sanskrit hymns, 
 we may assume without rashness that the 
 Aryans had their original home in Northern 
 Europe. It appears from their early literature 
 that their women were free, and were actually 
 permitted to choose their own husbands. But 
 most of the Aryan tribes took wives from amongst 
 the daughters of the Indian soil : the Indian 
 climate cannot have been congenial to them, and 
 by the beginning of our era they appear to have 
 lost their northern characteristics. They have 
 bequeathed to India a literature which may be 
 compared with that of classical Greece. But 
 within historical times their blood has not been 
 able to stir the habitual placidity of Oriental 
 thought. 
 
 The ancient civilizations of Egypt and Assyria 
 appear to have had much in common with the 
 conditions of modern China. The people were 
 fast bound by ties of family and religion : their 
 lives were directed by vivid conceptions of 
 existence after death. Their houses were small, 
 
198 RACE 
 
 single-storied, and unsubstantial, crowded closely 
 together, and their skill and expenditure upon 
 architecture were confined to temples and tombs. 
 To judge from the tales of Herodotus, there was 
 little or no sexual restraint. The people looked 
 to the government for despotic interference, 
 and were proud of a ruler who was capriciously 
 tyrannical. Dynastic revolutions were of frequent 
 occurrence, but were moved by personal jealou- 
 sies, not by political aspirations. Peace was 
 frequently interrupted by invasions and con- 
 quests, achieved not so much by hard fighting 
 as by the slaughter of armies that nervously 
 shrunk from the test of conflict, and, saving in 
 Persia, not bringing into racial admixture any 
 strains from Northern Europe. 
 
 The shores of the Mediterranean, on the other 
 hand, seem to have attracted invasion from North- 
 ern Europe from time immemorial. Greek and 
 Roman traditions and history abound with refer- 
 ences to attempted or successful invasions of north- 
 men : Gauls, Goths, Vandals, Germans, Lombards, 
 and Normans swept downwards in successive waves 
 of aggression, bringing their vigour to the conquest 
 of Mediterranean peoples, losing it, and becoming 
 absorbed by the races they subdued. The 
 weapons, vessels, and ornaments that have been 
 disinterred from ancient burial grounds show a 
 surprising connection between the manners and 
 customs of the early Greeks and Romans and those 
 of tribes which had their homes in Alpine Europe 
 or in the northern regions of the Balkan penin- 
 sula ; and we may find in Greek and Roman 
 psychology much to assure us that their ruling 
 classes were descended from invaders who gradu- 
 ally lost their northern attributes. There is a 
 gulf between the ideals of Homer and those of 
 later classical days. The heroes of the Iliad 
 
IMMIGRANT BLOOD 199 
 
 exhibit the traits which we associate with the 
 Norman crusaders : Richard Cceur - de - Lion 
 galloping his horse along the Saracen lines at 
 Jaffa might, indeed, have been a reincarnation 
 of Ajax from the fields of Troy. In the time of 
 Themistocles very different were the ideals of 
 manly conduct. The references to women in 
 both Iliad and Odyssey carry us far from the 
 ideas of a Mediterranean people. There is 
 nothing of the Levant in Hector's farewell to 
 Andromache, in the independence of Penelope, 
 in the punctilious reserve with which Ulysses 1 
 meets the naivetes of Nausicaa. We may 
 realize the change which came over Greek thought 
 if we compare a passage in the Odyssey with a 
 sentence from the funeral speech of Pericles. 
 According to the ideals of Ulysses a man of 
 many successes with women- 
 Naught beneath the sky 
 
 More sweet, more worthy is than firm consent 
 Of man and wife in household government : 
 It joys their wishers- well, their enemies wounds, 
 But to themselves the special good redounds. 
 
 Pericles held, on the contrary, that it was the high- 
 est glory of woman to be unknown outside her 
 house-door, for either good or evil. In the days 
 when Athens reached the summit of her glory, 
 woman had begun to fall into Oriental degradation. 
 The wife was man's slave, the courtesan was his 
 companion. Thence onward we may watch the 
 rapid orientalization of the Greeks until, during 
 the Byzantine empire, their ideas, their passions, 
 their government became those of an Asiatic 
 country. Constantinople would in all probability 
 have been captured by Islam four centuries earlier 
 
 1 Is not Ulysses represented in Odyssey vi. 23-2 as a yellow- 
 haired man? 
 
200 RACE 
 
 r'i 
 
 had it not been protected by the courage of a 
 regiment of northmen the Varangian guard, 
 which was recruited from the shores of the 
 Baltic. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion 
 that Greece, like India, was energized during some 
 centuries by streams of northern immigrants, 
 whose blood in the days of Homer retained its 
 physical vitality, in later centuries, as in India, 
 could produce an intellectual ferment, but finally 
 became too attenuated to give changeful vigour 
 to either mind or body. 
 
 We may observe similar features in the history 
 of Rome. The earlier Romans exhibited the 
 simplicity and reticent doggedness of a Germanic 
 race : their women were held in honour, were 
 even a force in politics, and female chastity was 
 an asset of society. Their ideals were of self- 
 control rather than of self-abandonment : the 
 stern endurance of patriotic self-sacrifice was in 
 higher esteem than artistic talents. They favoured 
 the government by council which is so universal 
 a sign of the individualistic ambitions of Northern 
 Europe. But these excellencies evaporated. The 
 republic was torn by personal jealousies : in 
 Rome, as in Greece, politics became a means of 
 securing personal profit. It finally degenerated 
 into Oriental despotism, under which the people 
 accepted without question the ruler who could 
 scheme his election to the throne. Sexual 
 restraint appears to have vanished, and women 
 lost all seriousness of esteem. In the Western 
 Empire an endeavour was actually made to 
 crystallize society upon a caste system. Could 
 we transport ourselves back to those days, 
 we should find ourselves in the conditions 
 which we term Asiatic. The streets and houses 
 of Pompeii recall in miniature those of Canton, 
 and Imperial Rome, with its crowded, servile 
 
CAUSE OF ROME'S DECLINE 201 
 
 population, its mystical religions, its open sexual 
 immorality, must have had much in common with 
 Memphis or Babylon. Intellectual force sur- 
 vived for some period the loss of physical vigour, 
 and we have in Roman law the last traces of the 
 energy which in Greece bore autumnal blossoms 
 of poetry and philosophy. But the scholastic 
 studies of the Romans degenerated into the 
 trivial, mechanical kind that are still favoured 
 at the Moslem university of El Azhar in Cairo. 
 In Rome, as in Greece, we appear to witness the 
 gradual exhaustion of an exotic stream of northern 
 vitality. 
 
 Many have been the explanations that have 
 been marshalled by historians to account for the 
 fall of the Roman Empire. The immediate cause 
 was the incursion of savage enemies. But 
 behind this lies, as the causa causans, the loss of 
 spontaneity of the spirit of change in paralys- 
 ing inclinations towards habitude. In the soften- 
 ing conditions of peace the people could not 
 retain the energy that might impel them to take 
 up arms and meet their enemies. They were 
 content to bribe them, or to enlist them. They 
 might even resort to such childish expedients 
 as were used by the Spaniards of Panama when 
 they attempted to head off the forces of the 
 Welsh freebooter, Morgan, by loosing a herd of 
 bulls upon them. The marauders shot the bulls, 
 dined off them, and were refreshed for a deter- 
 mined assault on the morrow. We may read in 
 the pages of Gibbon of the despairing artifices 
 which a people that had become inured to peace 
 attempted to substitute for the self-sacrifice of 
 war. Peace and prosperity are only consistent 
 with security when they leave unquenched in the 
 national spirit some sparks of spontaneous and 
 changeful energy which, touched by the wind of 
 
202 RACE 
 
 danger, may fire the people to throw aside un- 
 warlike habits when, in the words of Tennyson 
 
 The smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue will leap from 
 his counter and till 
 
 And strike, if it be but a blow with his cheating yard- 
 wand, home. 
 
 
 
 We may, then, conclude that the history of the 
 Mediterranean up to quite recent times has 
 been determined by successive floods of northern 
 blood, each of which left a stratum of novelty, 
 the relics of which are disinterred, like fossils, 
 by the spade of the archaeologist. There was a 
 similar current towards India which could not 
 be diverted even by the barrier of the Himalayas. 
 Ceaseless immigrations of Aryans, Scythians, and 
 Tartars are clearly to be discerned across the 
 misty backgrounds of Indian history. To an 
 uncivilized people the north offers little hope of 
 riches or leisure. Nature requires to be combated 
 with practised skill. The south allured them 
 with its easier opportunities, and they drifted 
 southwards, infusing accessions of vigour into 
 the southern races, but forfeiting in time their 
 own vitality. During recent centuries there has 
 been a change. The arts of civilization have 
 enabled the northmen to produce wealth at home ; 
 and America and Australia have offered fields for 
 colonization which promise to be less enervating 
 than those of the Mediterranean. 
 
 But migration has not always been from the 
 north to the south*. The Jews and the gipsies 
 are Asiatic peoples who have drifted northwards, 
 far afield from their homes. And it is to be re- 
 marked that they have preserved their charac- 
 teristics with a persistency which we cannot find 
 illustrated by any northern race which has been 
 
THE STRENGTH OF THE NORTH 203 
 
 attracted towards the tropics by the amenities 
 of the south. Observing the many peculiarities 
 in character and ancient custom which the 
 native peoples of Ireland and Wales share with 
 the races of the Mediterranean with some races 
 indeed of the East and their extraordinary 
 persistency, we may indulge in the speculation 
 that these peoples have also come from southern 
 latitudes, and are, in consequence, as remote in 
 their sympathies from the English, as the English 
 are from the inhabitants of Italy and Spain. 
 During the last few centuries northern countries 
 have increased immensely in wealth and have 
 attracted immigrants, who may in time change 
 very materially the character of their inhabitants. 
 The Irish have spread in large numbers to England 
 and America : the Italians and other Mediter- 
 ranean peoples have flocked to New York in 
 hundreds of thousands. Large seaports have 
 always attracted a foreign population : for gen- 
 erations Londoners have been receiving into their 
 houses strangers from all countries of the world, 
 and it may be held that traces of an intermixture 
 of southern blood may already be seen in their 
 features and character. There is certainly 
 great difference between them and the towns 
 population of northern England, which have 
 been affected less intimately by alien immigration. 
 Generally, however, the outstanding feature of 
 the ancient history of Europe has been the 
 periodic infusion of northern energy into the 
 productiveness of the south. Modern history 
 begins when the north became productive as well 
 as energetic. But the success of northern races 
 is won by their character not by their riches, and 
 it would be an evil day for the progress of mankind 
 were their traits to be obliterated by an influx of 
 alien blood. We might gain a wider development 
 
204 RACE 
 
 of aesthetic feeling, a clearer perception of the 
 chains by which logic leads us to true or, it 
 may be, to false conclusions, a finer lucidity of 
 expression ; but we should lose the industrious 
 spadework which is disputing with Nature the 
 conformation of the earth, and is establishing 
 conditions of comfort and cleanliness, not only for 
 a privileged few, but for the masses of the people. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 No one who has taken a trip to Brighton who 
 has fled from the exhausting heat of a London 
 August to the crisp air of the Alps, or the fresh 
 breezes of Scotland will deny for a moment 
 the exhilarating effect of the change in sur- 
 roundings. And no one who has visited a boys' 
 club in the East End of London but has been 
 struck with the effect of city life in sharpening the 
 features and paling the complexion. That en- 
 vironment affects men for good and evil is indis- 
 putable. It may affect their physical growth and 
 form : it may affect their character : it may affect 
 their habits. A tropical climate appears to stifle 
 the energy of European settlers : the extra- 
 ordinary development in means of locomotion, 
 which is one of the characteristic features of our 
 times, has beyond doubt stimulated a changeful 
 spirit in modern Europe. Do such influences as 
 these affect the race as well as the individual ? Do 
 they touch the reproductive cells from which new 
 individuals arise, so that they start in life with an 
 advantage or a handicap ? This question is of 
 immense importance. In so far as environment 
 affects individuals, its influence may be corrected 
 by a change of surroundings, or, perhaps, by a 
 change of culture. But if it affects the germs 
 which carry on the race, the peculiarities that it 
 causes become a heritage which may hardly be 
 
 205 
 
206 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 put off. We shall find reasons for concluding that 
 the effects of environment may become hereditary 
 in their influence upon physical features, or upon 
 the relative strength of the innate impulses which 
 constitute character ; but that, when they are 
 merely concerned with the formation of habits 
 although these habits may be the most important 
 element in civilization their influence does not 
 extend beyond the generation that is immediately 
 touched by it. An English baby is born with a 
 complexion and a character which it owes in some 
 measure to the country of its forefathers ; but it 
 is not innately more disposed towards the artificial 
 usages of civilization than the child of a family of 
 Esquimaux. 
 
 Environment and the individual 
 
 We frequently style ourselves " creatures of cir- 
 cumstances " ; if, speaking literally, circumstances 
 do not make us, it is assuredly true that they can 
 mar us entirely. We are absolutely dependent 
 upon supplies of food : if they are inadequate the 
 noblest genius may wither in fruitlessness, a 
 healthy people may be enfeebled, may, indeed, be 
 destroyed in millions, as during an Indian famine. 
 There is good evidence to show that food may 
 affect sex development : a bee may become a 
 female or a neuter worker according to the 
 food which it receives in its larval state. The 
 colour of canaries may be deepened into orange 
 by the admixture of some cayenne pepper with 
 their seed. We cannot endure extreme cold : 
 yet a certain chilliness of air undoubtedly has a 
 bracing effect upon our energy. A dry climate is 
 exhilarating ; a damp climate depressing. The 
 diseases, which are so masterful an element in 
 our environment, not only reduce the length of 
 human life, but mar the physique of those whose 
 
ENVIRONMENT AND THE INDIVIDUAL 207 
 
 lives escape them. Even our colour may be 
 affected by our surroundings. An Englishman 
 not only loses his ruddiness of complexion in the 
 tropics : his skin may be darkened, apart from 
 sunburn, by the development of a pigment which 
 has become an hereditary peculiarity of the 
 coloured races. Naturalists have collected many 
 instances of the changing of colour by environ- 
 ment. An Arctic fox, kept in a warm room, has 
 been known to resist its hereditary impulse to 
 turn its fur white during the winter months. 
 The chrysalides of some butterflies will reflect 
 the colour with which the caterpillars were 
 surrounded at the time of their metamorphosis. 
 Alpine plants transferred to the lowlands by the 
 botanist Nageli changed their habit of growth, 
 but reverted to their original type when retrans- 
 f erred to the mountains. The closeness of the 
 connection between an individual and its en- 
 vironment is shown by the exceedingly narrow 
 limits within which many plants and animals are 
 localized. Their haunts may not be distinguished 
 by any unusual abundance of food. This pecu- 
 liarity may be noticed amongst British butter- 
 flies : the Adonis blue will not stray beyond the 
 limits of a few favoured fields : the Lulworth 
 skipper only occurs at the place from which it 
 takes its name. 
 
 ' /..:;'- 
 
 With mankind, at all events, environment affects 
 mental disposition as well as physique. Some peo- 
 ples take an optimistic, others a pessimistic view of 
 life. There is a gulf between the active hopefulness 
 of the Englishman and the passive endurance of 
 the Hindu. We may ascribe this difference to pecu- 
 liarities of race or climate, but may find a contri- 
 buting factor in scenery, the effect of which is 
 
208 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 particularly apparent in the bent of the religious and 
 artistic emotions. The simplest religions mono- 
 theistic or dualistic have arisen amidst landscapes 
 which emphasize the impressiveness of simplicity 
 and uniformity : the most complicated vagaries of 
 polytheism occur where the darkness of forests, the 
 imminence of precipices, the rushing of torrents, 
 and the slow spread of floods display Nature as a 
 many-headed terror for mankind. It has been 
 held that the influence of hill scenery may be 
 detected in the architecture of a people. Archi- 
 tectural styles spread very rapidly by imitation, 
 and lose all connection with the region of their 
 birth. But we may gather from observation that 
 amidst mountains and pine trees buildings tend 
 to be more sharply roofed than in featureless 
 plains. Tall, far-spreading trees are a feature of 
 environment in Northern Europe : in the vaulted 
 aisle of a Gothic cathedral we feel as if over- 
 shadowed by their interlacing branches. Nor 
 need we doubt that the exquisite formulation of 
 artistic feeling which was the glory of classical 
 Greece was stimulated by impressions ot clear- 
 cut beauty in mountain, valley, and sea. Life 
 in a crowded city produces sharpness of character 
 as well as of features ; and amidst these sur- 
 roundings it is particularly true that " evil com- 
 munications corrupt good manners." Within 
 certain limits hardship strengthens, luxury 
 weakens the character. Some of us may remem- 
 ber Mr. Barlow's illustration of this truth in that 
 old nursery classic, Sandford and Merton how 
 cowardice and courage changed about between 
 two dogs which alternately became used to the 
 hearth-rug and the sheep fold. A muscle, or a 
 faculty, is generally strengthened by use, and 
 circumstances that compel its use are therefore 
 invigorating in respect to it. Energy is also 
 
ENVIRONMENT AND HISTORY 209 
 
 developed by opportunities of remunerative effort : 
 an English labourer or artisan is a different man 
 after a few months' experience of the stimulating 
 prospects of Canada. The consciousness of danger 
 may harden the endurance of a community as of 
 an individual. We may wonder whether Rome 
 would have been great had there not been before 
 her the fear of Carthage. In quite recent times 
 we have seen Australia drill herself under appre- 
 hensions of Japan, and South Africa draw herself 
 together to confront the menace of a large and 
 vigorous black population. 
 
 : RS 
 
 It is, then, indisputable that the influences 
 of environment have powerfully affected the 
 course of human history have encouraged or 
 retarded the steps by which man has slowly 
 emerged from the darkness of primaeval savagery. 
 We may give further illustrations. Unassisted by 
 art man cannot compete with dense vegetation : 
 forest-clad regions have never been the homes of 
 an original civilization. In tropical countries 
 races that dwell beneath the shadow of trees 
 become trammelled with a shyness or timidity 
 which is as incurable as the instinctive nervous- 
 ness of the lynx: they are enslaved by the gross- 
 est and cruellest forms of superstition, and by 
 habits which resist all changeful impulses. The 
 most savage and untamable of the native races 
 of America are those which inhabit the dark 
 forests of the Amazon : and of Africa and India 
 it may generally, though not universally, be 
 stated that humanity is least advanced where 
 foliage is densest. In the temperate regions a 
 forest life is less degrading ; but it appears to 
 blunt and depress human faculties, and it may be 
 doubted whether the German tribes which roamed 
 
210 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 the forests of Northern Europe, would ever have 
 emerged from barbarous simplicity had they 
 remained unaffected by outside influences. But 
 they possessed energy which could resist the 
 gloom of their environment, and, touched by the 
 glow of Roman civilization, they assimilated 
 knowledge and imitated accomplishments which 
 speedily gave them the command of Nature. 
 The birthplaces of agriculture, and of civilization, 
 have been treeless valleys. Such are Egypt and 
 Mesopotamia, the expanses of Northern India 
 and the densely inhabited portions of China. 
 Far away across the ocean there were two other 
 centres, the treeless upland valleys of Mexico 
 and Peru. In all these localities cultivation 
 reached a high pitch of efficiency. 
 
 But the regularity of an agricultural life 
 may fatally reinforce the growth of habits. 
 Agriculturists are generally conservative in their 
 opinions. Under a tropical sun, more espe- 
 cially, the spirit of changefulness cannot survive 
 the cramping effect of custom : the people 
 become so inured to the monotony of peace as 
 to be unable to rise to the exigencies of war, 
 and helplessly suffer their fields to be trampled 
 by the feet of restless invaders. Hordes of 
 these have been bred on the grazing lands which 
 lie along and across the valley horizons. Pasture 
 must be searched for over vast areas of country 
 at different seasons of the year, and a pastoral 
 life nourishes the spirit of adventure by its hard- 
 ships and its constant vicissitudes. The Hebrews 
 were trained for the conquest of Palestine by 
 their wanderings in the desert. Egypt has con- 
 stantly been overrun by Bedouin tribes, India 
 and China by Mongol races which have swept 
 eastwards and southwards from the steppes of 
 Tartary and Siberia. In our own time we have 
 
ENVIRONMENT AND CIVILIZATION 211 
 
 seen the civilization of Egypt seriously threatened 
 by a horde of cattle-keeping (Baggara) Arabs, 
 and, since the beginning of our era, nomadic 
 forces, whether Tartar, Arab or Teutonic, have 
 uprooted every civilization then existing except 
 that of China and Japan. Living in open pas- 
 tures, nomadic races may become so indifferent 
 to the beauty of foliage that when they settle 
 down, whether in Turkey or in China, they reck- 
 lessly destroy all the trees of the country. But 
 in return they infuse into it a spirit of active 
 vitality which may initiate some changes in 
 popular habits, may effloresce in such transient 
 glories as those of Khubla Khan or of the 
 Mogul emperors of Delhi. Agricultural and 
 pastoral conditions may, then, be regarded as, in 
 some ways, complementary factors in human 
 progress : the former has provided the mechanism, 
 the latter the energy, for advance. 
 
 
 
 Modern achievements in scientific discovery, and 
 in increasing the comfort and variety of life, stand 
 like a tower amongst the monuments of human 
 history : the difficult and tortuous path of pro- 
 gress seems to have been suddenly smoothed and 
 straightened. This rapid development may be 
 ascribed in great measure to the conditions of 
 modern environment. Facilities for travel, for 
 commerce, and for the dissemination of news have 
 drawn all the civilized nations of the world into a 
 partnership of enterprise and research, and have 
 enabled each of them to profit immediately by the 
 discoveries of others. Nor is this all. They have 
 quickened curiosity and the desire for novelty, 
 and have broken down the barriers which the con- 
 servative spirit opposes to reform. This trans- 
 formation of mental habit, once begun, progresses 
 
212 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 with increasing rapidity, since each of these multi- 
 form changes in environment acts as an incentive 
 towards further change. But in tracing the 
 origin of this revolution we must avoid the danger 
 of mistaking a condition for a cause. The com- 
 plexity of modern life has afforded energetic and 
 industrious peoples opportunities for developing 
 the resources of their disposition. But the pos- 
 session of energy and industry is essential. During 
 the last half century the conditions of India have 
 been revolutionized by the construction of i ail- 
 ways and the diffusion of education. Yet the 
 general effect upon the outlook of the people has 
 been disappointingly small. However forcibly 
 advertised in the environment, the material ideals 
 of Europe do not impress Asia, where leisure is 
 preferred to industry, and men show their appre- 
 ciation of wealth by burying it in the ground. 
 
 In human society the reproductive impulses 
 are very closely controlled by fashions, moral 
 rules and ambitions that conflict with them, and 
 it is exceedingly difficult to determine whether 
 variations in the birth-rate result from changes 
 in reproductive fertility or from various artificial 
 causes. Its very great fall amongst the peoples of 
 Western Europe, and of the Anglo-Saxon colonies, 
 may be due to the postponement of marriage 
 until long after the age that is indicated by 
 the arrival of puberty, or to the voluntary limi- 
 tation of families. But it is an accepted fact that 
 luxury in diet diminishes fertility. Indeed, under- 
 feeding appears to stimulate it : an Indian famine 
 is followed by a very extraordinary rise in the 
 birth-rate, amounting not infrequently to a third 
 above the normal. Families run large amongst 
 the thrifty Scotch, and the extraordinary fecun- 
 
ENVIRONMENT AND FERTILITY 213 
 
 dity of the very poor, even in countries where the 
 general birth-rate is declining, may be connected 
 with a sparseness, or irregularity, of diet which 
 brings into their life something of the conditions 
 of man's natural, or savage, state. The English 
 peerage may fairly be taken to represent condi- 
 tions of ease and luxury : few patents of nobility 
 outlast the course of three centuries. 
 
 It also seems to be true that idleness is prejudi- 
 cial to fecundity. Breeders are well aware of the 
 importance of keeping their stock well exercised. 
 But, in the case of women, labour must not be 
 too fatiguing : their employment in factories 
 appears to lessen their capacity for child-bearing. 
 And disease may, of course, severely check the 
 increase of a population : repeated attacks of 
 fever cause an enfeeblement of virility which 
 may end in impotence. For the rest, the causes 
 which at the present day are lowering the average 
 size of families appear to have more connection 
 with the culture than with the environment of 
 society. 
 
 Environment and the race 
 
 Scientific opinion is sharply divided as to the in- 
 heritance of acquired peculiarities. One school of 
 thought not only insists that peculiarities acquired 
 by the individual may become innate in the race, 
 but regards the acquirement of peculiarities as the 
 principal means by which plants and animals have 
 developed their multiform species. Another school 
 denies that acquired characters are heritable, 
 and is persuaded that the differences which 
 divide one species from another have their origin 
 in spontaneous mutations or variations. It 
 fortifies its conclusion by maintaining that the 
 reproductive tissue or germ-plasm is entirely 
 distinct from the sentient and active body, and 
 
214 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 cannot, then, be affected by peculiarities that are 
 acquired by the latter a contention which, it 
 must be admitted, lacks adequate proof. Each 
 school can adduce instances to show that acquired 
 characters have, and have not, been inherited. 
 In this uncertainty we may remember that Life 
 does not limit its activities by any consideration 
 for uniformity of procedure, and that, while in 
 some cases it may evolve changes of form spon- 
 taneously, in others it may utilize the experience 
 of individuals. Amongst those who most positively 
 deny that environment produces racial changes 
 by its action upon individuals are some who will 
 admit that its influences may predispose organisms 
 to vary in directions that are favoured by their 
 circumstances. And no one will dispute that 
 environment affects very potently the course of 
 racial development by eliminating any change 
 that would put an organism out of accord with its 
 surroundings. 
 
 There is, however, much to justify us in going 
 beyond this narrow conclusion and in ascribing 
 to environment an active part in originating 
 peculiarities that become hereditary. Size, for 
 instance, is a hereditary peculiarity: the dimen- 
 sions attained by either men or the lower animals 
 generally correspond with those of their pro- 
 genitors. But the size of their progenitors appears 
 in many cases undoubtedly to have been deter- 
 mined by their environment. The grey wolf and 
 the common fox of North America grow con- 
 siderably larger in the north than in the south, 
 the difference in size amounting to as much as a 
 fifth. Deer of the same species also increase 
 in size very materially towards the north. We 
 may notice a similar tendency in the peoples 
 of Europe. Life at a high elevation appears, on 
 the other hand, to lower the stature of men and 
 
ACQUISITION OF PERMANENT TRAITS 215 
 
 cattle. This is very noticeable as one ascends the 
 slopes of the Himalayas. A dwarfed condition 
 has become hereditary in Himalayan cattle and is 
 retained by them if transported to the plains. 
 Breeders of cattle are well aware that in estab- 
 lishing large or small varieties food is a factor 
 of importance. A liberal diet will enable young 
 stock to surpass the growth of their parents 
 and to acquire additional bulk which they transmit 
 to their descendants. Conversely, cattle may be 
 dwarfed by starvation, and when small Alderney 
 cows were in fashion the systematic under- 
 feeding of the calves was a recognized expedient 
 for reducing the size, not only of individuals, but 
 of the breed. To draw another illustration from 
 India : there is a surprisingly close correspon- 
 dence between the size of the village cattle and 
 the character of the fodder they receive. In the 
 rice districts of the eastern coast they are very 
 diminutive compared with those of the northern 
 and western regions, where they are fed on wheat 
 or millet straw. Rice straw is of very poor 
 nutritive value. It cannot, then, be denied that 
 the character of the food supply may hereditarily 
 affect the development of some animals. It 
 has been known since the days of Pliny that the 
 garden radish can be raised from the wild species 
 by intensive cultivation, and manure has been 
 of vital assistance to the nurseryman in breeding 
 new varieties of flowering plants and vegetables. 
 If we concede that from bodily nourishment may 
 arise peculiarities of form that are transmitted 
 to offspring, we cannot maintain that the sentient 
 and active body is isolated from the special tissue 
 which secretes the reproductive cells. 
 
 Colour also appears to be connected with 
 environment. Speaking generally the coloured 
 races of mankind are those that live under a 
 
216 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 tropical sun : their colour is a hereditary trait, 
 but it results from a pigment which (as already 
 mentioned) may be acquired in some degree by 
 a European who resides for many years in the 
 tropics. If we follow the representatives of the 
 Equidae that occur wild in Asia and Africa, we find 
 that colour markings become brighter and cover a 
 larger surface of the body as we approach the 
 equator from either north or south. The wild horses 
 of Mongolia and the Asiatic deserts are striped 
 indistinctly on the legs. In the ass of Nubia and 
 Abyssinia stripes are developed on the shoulders 
 as well as on the legs, and become more con- 
 spicuous. They cover the body of the tropical 
 zebras, but disappear from the legs and under 
 surface of the zebra (Chapman's) of the Orange 
 River, and were limited to part of the upper 
 surface of the (now extinct) quagga, still farther 
 south. Brilliancy is a conspicuous feature of 
 tropical insects and flowers. Tropical birds are 
 also generally distinguished by brightness of 
 colour, as well as by the length of their beaks 
 and tails. On the other hand, it is in the temperate 
 regions that birds develop their sweetness of 
 song. There is no obvious connection between 
 coolness and vocal capacity : nor is there 
 between aridity and the spiny growths that are 
 thrown out by plants and by some lizards in 
 widely separated 1 desert countries. Yet in both 
 cases we may feel sure that a connection exists. 
 Doctors are well aware that the recuperative 
 virtues of health resorts are frequently limited, 
 very unaccountably, within quite small areas. 
 The influence of environment, by promoting or 
 
 1 In similar environments the ostrich and the llama have 
 developed a curious similarity of form. Darwinists ascribe this to 
 the effect of similar selective influences. But it will corroborate 
 the existence of more subtle influences to those who have been led 
 by other coincidences to believe in them. 
 
EFFECTS OF ENVIRONAL PRESSURE 217 
 
 hindering the use of an organ, or a faculty, may 
 strengthen or weaken it : the resulting develop- 
 ment or degeneration may become fixed heredi- 
 tarily in the offspring. The eyes of a newt 
 (Proteus), which lives in the dark waters of the 
 Adelburg cave, have become quite rudimentary 
 and sightless. The horses of a mountain country 
 are born with hoofs that will stand the jarring 
 of hard rocks and city pavements much better 
 than those of lowland breeds. Physical changes 
 that are caused by mutilation are, as a general 
 rule, not inherited ; nor should we expect them 
 to be, since sudden modifications of an organ would 
 not affect the germ-plasm so strongly as modi- 
 fications which have resulted from gradual pres- 
 sure. But cases are numerous in which mutila- 
 tions have been passed on to offspring : in one 
 of the most curious, a cat with a broken tail 
 bore kink-tailed kittens, her tendency to transmit 
 her defect increasing with each successive litter 
 until not one of her kittens was born with a 
 straight tail. It has been demonstrated that 
 guinea pigs, which have become epileptic from 
 a surgical operation, may transmit an epileptic 
 tendency to their offspring. 
 
 A sudden change of environment appears to 
 stimulate the occurrence of mutations or "sports." 
 Under the artificial conditions of domestication 
 plants and animals sport much more freely than 
 in their natural wild state display, that is to say, 
 eccentricities of form which are heritable and are 
 seized upon by breeders as a means of developing 
 new varieties. The numerous breeds of dogs, 
 fowls and pigeons have for the most part sprung 
 from these sudden eccentricities ; to sports, 
 assisted by cross breeding and intensive cultiva- 
 tion, we owe a large proportion of our most 
 conspicuous garden flowers and our daintiest 
 
2i8 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 vegetables. Under artificial changes of environ- 
 ment the alteration of the proportion of salt in 
 the water in which it lives a shrimp (Artemia) 
 will become transformed by changes which would 
 suffice to distinguish not merely a new species, 
 but a new genus. Sponges and zoophytes which 
 have apparently migrated from the sea to a fresh- 
 water habitat, have changed the course of their 
 development : the organism emerges from the 
 egg in its adult form instead of as a free-swimming 
 larva. Breeds of English sheep transported to 
 the pampas of Argentina become endow r ed with 
 novel characters : the legs grow long at the 
 expense of the body : the wool turns coarse 
 and hairy. So substantial a distinction as that 
 between short-skulled and long-skulled races is 
 believed by some authorities to have resulted 
 merely from the differing influences of a moun- 
 tainous and a plains habitat ; and at the present 
 day an American environment appears to be 
 curiously modifying the Anglo-Saxon type in the 
 shape of the head, and in the modelling of the 
 features. If, as appears, changes of environment 
 are followed by hereditary modifications of form, 
 or stimulate the occurrence of hereditary muta- 
 tions, we may infer that migration has been a 
 powerful factor in the development of new species 
 of animals and races of mankind. 
 
 ,f| 
 
 There appears to be, then, good warranty for 
 the conclusion that the action of environment 
 may produce changes which become fixed in the 
 breed and are passed on from parents to offspring. 
 The character of these changes may often appear 
 to have no connection with any special features 
 of the environment : it is not clear, for instance, 
 why birds should develop their powers of song 
 
FEATURES AND HABITAT 219 
 
 most harmoniously in a temperate climate. In 
 the soil, surface features and climate of a locality 
 there may exist stimulating or directing elements 
 which are too subtle to be detected in the present 
 state of our knowledge. This supposition is 
 strengthened by the closeness with which some 
 species of plants and animals are localized 
 within their habitats, and, even more, by the 
 replacement of one species by a closely related 
 species on the further side of a geographical 
 boundary line. In India, for instance, the black 
 francolin of the northern alluvial districts gives 
 place on the peninsular plateau to the painted 
 francolin : there are three varieties of hares, 
 each confined to its particular region : the Indian 
 peacock is in Burma replaced by a species in 
 which the green colour is more predominant. 
 These species differ from one another by pecu- 
 liarities of marking or colour which cannot be 
 directly associated with any feature of the 
 environment. Yet it is difficult to believe that 
 environal influences did not contribute to the 
 spread of these distinctions until they became 
 universal throughout the species. 
 
 It follows that the features and characters of 
 the different races of mankind may, in great 
 measure, be the outcome of the environment in 
 which these races have lived during a long course 
 of generations : racial peculiarities that are now 
 innate and heritable may have been in the first 
 instance derived from soil, geographical features, 
 or climate. This theory will be strengthened if 
 we find that similar conditions, in widely separated 
 regions of the earth, are accompanied by similar 
 innate peculiarities of feature and disposition. 
 Around the globe a dark complexion is almost 
 invariably associated with a tropical sun. As a 
 rule it grows darker with approach to the equator, 
 
220 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 and, where exceptions occur, there are circum- 
 stances which entitle us reasonably to ascribe 
 them to the effects of immigration from the north. 
 The new-comers retain for many generations traces 
 of their original light complexion, and diffuse 
 them by intermarriage with the natives of the 
 soil. In India complexion darkens very notice- 
 ably from north to south : the southerners live 
 under a stronger sun : but it is also to be observed 
 that they have lain remote from the torrents of 
 invaders which, pouring across the passes of the 
 Himalayas, have infused a light complexion into 
 Northern India. The lowest castes of Northern 
 India may be presumed to consist of families 
 with which the immigrants did not intermarry. 
 They are almost as dark complexioned as the 
 people of the south. Africa has been protected 
 from invasion by the deserts which shut it off 
 from the Mediterranean, and it is in Africa that 
 we find colour in its darkest shades. It can, then, 
 hardly be disputed that complexion is a trait 
 which has been derived from environal influences, 
 and has become innate in the breed. 
 
 The early arrival of puberty is another physical 
 characteristic which is associated with a hot 
 climate, and has become hereditary. This is a 
 functional peculiarity which must have far- 
 reaching effects upon character. It lessens the 
 period during which the young can acquire useful 
 habits before their minds are preoccupied with 
 sexual feelings ; and it may not improbably be 
 connected with the relations between man and 
 woman which are to be observed throughout the 
 warmer countries of the world. Romantic love 
 is burnt up in lust ; women are regarded as the 
 slaves of men's appetites ; and polygamy is 
 generally practised. We have already considered 
 the influence which the predominance of sexual 
 
PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENT 221 
 
 feelings appears to have exerted upon the history 
 of southern races. 
 
 A mountainous environment is almost every- 
 where associated with shortness and sturdiness 
 of growth, and with an abnormally large develop- 
 ment of the muscles of the calf. This is of course 
 the result of hill climbing : but it has become a 
 hereditary trait of hill people. Some localities 
 are distinguished by the muscular strength of 
 their inhabitants : the fellahin of Egypt are 
 amazingly strong for an Oriental people. We are 
 tempted to assume some connection between 
 vigour and diet. Flesh-eating peoples are gene- 
 rally supposed to be more forceful than vege- 
 tarians, and in India those who subsist upon wheat 
 and millet are certainly hardier than the rice-eating 
 peoples of the eastern deltas. But the qualities 
 that are associated with a particular diet may 
 in reality be caused by the circumstances of soil 
 and climate which determine the character of the 
 food supply. In India flesh-eating Mohammedans 
 are scattered amongst a population of vegetarian 
 Hindus : speaking generally they are not more 
 vigorous than the Hindus, although they un- 
 doubtedly enjoy a higher birth-rate. And Japan 
 affords a very strong argument for vegetarian 
 enthusiasts. The diet of its people is rice : but 
 no one can deny their physical and mental force- 
 fulness. 
 
 
 
 Turning now more particularly to peculiarities 
 of character, we observe that a climate of moist 
 heat is almost invariably and very naturally 
 reflected in the physical inertness of the people 
 that are subjected to it. There is a marked con- 
 trast in India between the bodily inactivity of the 
 Bengalis and the vigour of the Panjabis or Mara- 
 thas who inhabit a region of lighter rainfall ; 
 
222 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 and Bengalis who change their domicile to drier 
 climates do not lose their quietism in one or two 
 generations. In Africa also the inhabitants of the 
 drier regions are more strenuous than the tribes 
 who live under a tropical rainfall. The men of 
 Northern Nigeria the Hausas make infinitely 
 better soldiers than the negroes of the south. We 
 need not labour this point, which we habitually 
 recognize by applying the term " enervating " to 
 a moist hot climate. Exceptions occur. But 
 immigration will account for them. The Moplahs 
 of Western India have already been mentioned as 
 having preserved through many generations the 
 courage of their Arab ancestors amidst enervating 
 surroundings. But the persistency of their traits 
 merely shows that environment may need time 
 to produce its effects. Dry heat, on the other 
 hand, develops restlessness and courage. We 
 need only instance the Turkomans and the Arabs. 
 The energy that is produced by cold is quite as 
 strenuous and is far more persevering. It will 
 apparently withstand for some centuries the 
 gradual effects of migration southwards. But if 
 suddenly exposed to tropical conditions it seems 
 to wilt more rapidly than the vigour that 
 is derived from desert surroundings. English 
 families which have settled in the tropics deterio- 
 rate more rapidly than the Moplahs of Malabar. 
 The energy and persistence of purpose which 
 characterize the Teutonic peoples of Northern 
 Europe are not relieved by the versatility of mind, 
 the expansiveness of heart, which we associate 
 with the Gallic and Mediterranean temperaments. 
 We habitually ascribe this emotional sensibility 
 to the effect of clearer skies and a warm climate. 
 In the native population of Wales and Ireland 
 it may be a relic of the south that has survived a 
 change to a less genial environment. 
 
ENVIRONMENT AND CHARACTER 223 
 
 The glimpses of local character which ancient 
 history affords us suggest that peculiar traits of 
 disposition have been curiously persistent in 
 certain localities, although the race of the in- 
 habitants has been greatly changed. The Athen- 
 ian character, for instance, has been closely 
 preserved by a people which retains very few 
 drops of Athenian blood. 
 
 
 
 We find, then, that certain human traits are so 
 closely associated with peculiarities of environ- 
 ment as to justify us in assuming that there is a 
 causal connection between them. In many cases 
 we may be quite unable to apprehend the links of 
 this connection to understand why certain facts 
 of environment should involve certain physical 
 and mental features. But it is permissible to 
 draw inferences from occurrences which are in 
 themselves unintelligible : science, has indeed, 
 won its victories by the use of such reasoning. 
 The effects of environment may be distinguished 
 according as they have modified physical features, 
 traits of character, or habits of mind and conduct. 
 The two former have become hereditary, and 
 innate, in the race which displays them. We may 
 hardly deny that strong developments of energy 
 or quietism, of susceptibility to passion, of 
 artistic sensibility and practical foresight, have 
 become as congenitally inherent in races of man- 
 kind as peculiarities of feature and complexion. 
 Habits of mind and conduct, on the other hand, 
 do not appear to have become ingrained in the 
 race ; they require to be acquired afresh by the 
 individual. Such are modesty, decency, and the 
 civic virtues. A European nurtured by savages 
 would not revolt against the practices of savagery. 
 In distinguishing between a trait of character and 
 
224 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 a habit we are on difficult ground : both affect 
 conduct and it is only by observing conduct that 
 we obtain any glimpses into character. But we 
 may define the former as an impulse which is 
 innately strong, the latter as an impulse which 
 has been reintorced artificially by the routine of 
 behaviour. The one proceeds directly from the 
 influences of the environment in what fashion 
 we may not be able to understand and becomes 
 implanted in the race ; the other is of man's own 
 cultivation, under the pressure of circumstances, 
 and needs to be sown afresh in each generation. 
 The influence of our surroundings has thus been 
 felt by us in two directions : it has modified the 
 race, and it has swayed very powerfully the 
 progress ot culture. 
 
 J||^||{:"; .,-:'" * ill - 
 
 There appears to be no reason in the nature of 
 things why environal influences should not affect 
 the reproductive capacity of a race and increase 
 or diminish its innate fertility. They certainly 
 may lessen the fecundity of individuals. There 
 are some facts to show that the reproductive func- 
 tions may be innately modified by locality. The 
 Eschscholtzia, for instance, in Brazil must be 
 cross-fertilized : flowers will not bear seed under 
 the influence of their own pollen. But in England 
 it becomes occasionally self-fertile, and self-ferti- 
 lized seed appears to produce stronger plants 
 than seed which has resulted from crossing. 
 When, however, we are dealing with mankind we 
 depend for evidence upon birth and death rates, 
 and these may be affected by such diverse causes 
 many of them quite unconnected with environ- 
 ment that we can hardly find material for con- 
 clusions which are not ambiguous. There is an 
 extraordinary difference between the birth-rates 
 
ENVIRONMENT AND FERTILITY 225 
 
 of Eastern and Western Europe. In Russia and 
 the Danubian countries they are 40 per mille or 
 over : in the United Kingdom the birth-rate is 
 only 24, in France it hardly exceeds 20. But this 
 difference is of quite recent date. At the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century the French birth- 
 rate was 34 : forty years ago that of the United 
 Kingdom was 35. The birth-rate of Germany is 
 now as high as was that of France a century ago ; 
 but it is falling. 
 
 We might be tempted to ascribe this general 
 decline of births in the most progressive countries 
 of Europe to some influences connected with the 
 density of population. But it may be imputed with 
 more probability to artificial causes, noticeable 
 amongst which is the postponement of marriage. 
 In India, with a very dense population, the birth- 
 rate approaches 40 per mille : marriage is there 
 generally contracted at the age of puberty. In the 
 United States, where we should imagine that a 
 rapid development of material resources would be 
 accompanied by a rapid growth of population, 
 birth-rates are no higher than in the United 
 Kingdom. In the Anglo-Saxon colonies of Aus- 
 tralasia they approximate to 30 per mille ; but 
 except in Tasmania, they have fallen very con- 
 siderably during the last 20 years. These facts 
 do not indicate any relationship between fertility 
 and environment ; indeed amongst the poorest 
 classes of our large cities the birth-rate is even 
 now as high as 40 per mille and families would 
 increase with great rapidity were it not that 
 deaths are abnormally numerous. The conditions 
 of town life are so far removed from those of 
 nature that one would be inclined to suspect that 
 they were unfavourable to fertility. There is an 
 idea that London families die out in two or three 
 generations. The population of London is main- 
 
226 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 tained very largely by new-comers : more than 
 a third have their birthplace elsewhere. But it 
 is difficult to establish a connection between 
 fertility and immigration : indeed we find the 
 highest birth-rates in districts of East London 
 where the immigrant population is comparatively 
 small. And, taking England as a whole, urban 
 life does not appear to be prejudicial to fertility. 
 The average birth-rate is actually lowered if we 
 exclude the 100 largest towns from our calcula- 
 tions. 
 
 It may be that the very high infantile death- 
 rate amongst the poorest classes of our towns 
 results from a form of infertility which denies 
 length of life to offspring although it may per- 
 mit them to be engendered. But this is only a 
 surmise ; and, generally, if we understand by 
 fertility reproductive capacity, there is little 
 to show that it is affected by surroundings that, 
 in fact, the English birth-rate would not rke very 
 greatly if celibacy fell into disrepute, child- 
 bearing became fashionable, and marriage was not 
 so long delayed after the attainment of the age of 
 puberty. 
 
 :jfiJ;|lt 
 
 If the physical features and characters of the 
 races of mankind are derived very largely from 
 environal influences we should expect to find them 
 modified where these influences are changed. 
 We have seen that this has very often occurred 
 even within the period of history. English fami- 
 lies lose their vigour in tropical countries : a like 
 change was suffered by the northern peoples who, 
 band after band, fought their way to the shores 
 of the Mediterranean, by the Aryan, Scythian, 
 and Tartar invaders of India, by the Arabs who 
 left their deserts for the amenities of Syria, North 
 
RACE-CHANGE BY ENVIRONMENT 227 
 
 Africa and Spain. It has often been noticed that 
 English families settled in Ireland become " more 
 Irish than the Irish." English colonists in South 
 Africa contract many resemblances with the 
 Boers. This may be ascribed to the effect of 
 intermarriages or imitation. But no such reason 
 can be given for the change which is taking place 
 in the North American type, and in the character 
 of the Anglo-Saxons who have settled under the 
 cheerful skies of Australia. 
 
 Southern traits are less mutable. The Jews, 
 the gipsies, have lived for generations in Northern 
 Europe, but have remained practically untouched 
 by its influences in feature or in character : the 
 Moplahs have resisted for eight centuries the 
 enervating climate of Malabar : negro character 
 has not been changed materially by a long exile 
 from Africa and by conversion to Christianity : 
 the Latin colonists in South America have re- 
 mained Spanish and Portuguese indeed the 
 distinctive traits of the Basques and Gallegos of 
 Northern Spain may still be traced in localities, 
 such as Costa Rica, where they formed a large 
 proportion of the colonists. America, indeed, 
 illustrates on a grand scale the contrast between 
 the compactness of southern and the fluidity of 
 northern attributes. The Anglo-Saxons, Germans 
 and Scandinavians who colonized North America 
 have developed some unmistakable distinctions in 
 their new environment, whilst Spanish or Portu- 
 guese from South America would pass for natives 
 of Madrid or Lisbon, and have infused many of 
 their leading characteristics into the native races 
 with whom they have interbred. But, it will be 
 urged, if southern traits are, alike with northern 
 traits, derived very largely from environal in- 
 fluences, they should also be modified by a change 
 of environment. If, however, as seems probable, 
 
228 ENVIRONMENT 
 
 they are by far the more ancient of the two, it is 
 only reasonable to suppose that they will be 
 more resistant to new influences. In the one case 
 time may act by centuries : in the other it may 
 be ineffective unless measured by thousands of 
 years. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 CULTURE 
 
 BY " culture " is meant the store of traditions, 
 ideas and habits which is passed on from genera- 
 tion to generation, not by way of inheritance, but 
 as a hand-to-hand gift. The term embraces all 
 that we understand by civilization almost all 
 that is included in our religious, moral, artistic 
 and industrial lives. Culture, like complexion, 
 has been acquired from our environment ; but from 
 an environment not only of things, but of men 
 of human society, as well as of material conditions. 
 Civilization has been developed by the successive 
 inventions of individual men, just as the multi- 
 formity of the animal and the vegetable kingdom 
 has sprung from the physical variations of indi- 
 vidual organisms. If we characterize as "natural" 
 the ordinary balancing of instincts which is to 
 be observed amongst the lower animals, culture 
 may be described as " artificial." It rests upon 
 the effects of habit in enhancing the influence 
 of certain instincts, and in diminishing corre- 
 spondingly the influence of others. The repro- 
 ductive instinct, for instance, prompts male and 
 female to come together at the age of puberty: 
 urged by the instinctive desire to make the most 
 of life, culture has postponed the date of marriage. 
 It has conducted man to a pinnacle far above the 
 station of the brutes ; but it has led him upwards 
 along devious paths of erroi. Undisciplined 
 
230 CULTURE 
 
 reason is a dangerous guide. By arguments 
 which accurate observation would have discre- 
 dited it has induced men to mutilate their bodies 
 by such practises as circumcision and foot- 
 binding, to kill their new-born children, their 
 aged parents, and to make unprovoked and 
 objectless wars upon their fellow men. Led by 
 directive instinct, the lower animals make no 
 such futile mistakes : if instinct has contrived 
 the hereditary mutilation of worker bees by the 
 loss of their sex, it has certainly benefited the hive 
 by their concentrated industry. 
 
 Man's extraordinary progress may in great mea- 
 sure be ascribed to a weakening of directive 
 instinct which has compelled him to rely upon 
 his reasoning capacity. The faculty of reason is 
 no monopoly of mankind's : we can detect its 
 working very far down the animal kingdom. But 
 when subjected to the rivalry of directive instinct 
 it is out-distanced by the straighter running of its 
 competitor. So, in the case of the lower animals, 
 instinct generally makes good its claim to leader- 
 ship, and we may observe its influence in a uni- 
 formity of conduct amongst the individuals, or 
 communities, that belong to the same species. 
 One troop of monkeys in an Indian jungle pre- 
 cisely resembles another in its manners and 
 habits. But the castes of an Indian village are 
 sharply distinguished by peculiarities of behaviour. 
 Man has gained incalculably in liberty of action 
 by the loss of a tyrannical faculty, which, however 
 safe a guide, tolerates no wandering on the part 
 of its followers. 
 
 What is discovered by reason is recorded by 
 memory, and since the records of memory do not 
 become hereditarily imprinted upon the mind, 
 each generation would start from the commence- 
 ment of the track were it not equipped, by means 
 
LANGUAGE 231 
 
 of language, with its predecessors' knowledge. 
 Without language there could be no progression 
 of culture. And, unsharpened by words, the 
 reasoning instinct would have remained very 
 ineffective, since causal connections, other than the 
 very simplest, can hardly be conceived until the 
 links are defined by means of symbols. It is diffi- 
 cult to imagine how we could think of heat as ex- 
 panding a gas, or of 3 as the cube-root of 27, unless 
 we possessed symbols in words and in figures to 
 denote each of the conceptions involved in these 
 ideas. Language has then assisted conscious rea- 
 son. But conscious reason has created language. 
 Directive instinct might suggest some means of 
 communication by signs or sounds, and it certainly 
 appears that many animals can give practical 
 information to others of their kind. The use of 
 language, however, goes far beyond this : it 
 enables men to share abstract ideas, and, above all 
 things, to instruct one another as to causes. It 
 has progressed by the detection and isolation of 
 qualities or properties, and by the attribution 
 to each quality of its distinctive effects. A 
 developed is distinguished from a rudimentary 
 tongue by the provision of separate words to 
 express stages of becoming or acting which are 
 not detected by the uncultured mind. The 
 embryonic stage of language has already been 
 illustrated from South America, where tribes have 
 not isolated, for instance, the idea of " washing," 
 and use separate single words to express washing 
 their bodies and washing their clothes. 
 
 Nor must we forget the effect of writing and 
 printing in spreading culture, and in securing it 
 against the accidents of time and human des- 
 tructiveness. In past ages how many buds have 
 been put forth by human aspiration only to be 
 frosted, overwhelmed, or deliberately cut back ! 
 
232 CULTURE 
 
 On fragments of horn and stone we have sketches 
 of reindeer and galloping horses which have been 
 disinterred from the beds of the interglacial 
 period, and carry us back across a period of, per- 
 haps, two thousand generations. They are roughly 
 scratched, but, in fidelity to life and in the ex- 
 pression of movement, they far surpass the artistic 
 efforts of early mediaeval Europe, and are indeed 
 superior to much that was produced by the 
 talents of Egypt, Assyria, India, and China. But 
 by war, pestilence, or natural catastrophes, the 
 culture that flowered in them was altogether 
 blotted out. Even the literature of such modern 
 nations as the Greeks and Romans has required to 
 be reconstructed from fragments which have been 
 recovered from the debris of barbarian conquests. 
 But, so numerous are the books in which our 
 knowledge and ideas are now recorded, that it 
 is inconceivable that they should pass away. 
 
 | / ; ' ; | 
 
 Reason, we have seen in Chapter V, consists in 
 the linking of results with causes in the inferring 
 of happenings from other happenings assisted 
 by an appreciation of the properties of things of 
 missibility as the property of a stone, of lightness, 
 invisibility, and elasticity as the properties of air. 
 An urgent practical problem of life is to discover 
 the causes of success or failure, why an arrow at 
 one time hits, at another time misses, why crops 
 may either grow or wither. We have learnt to 
 attribute misfortunes to our own mistakes, or to 
 unlucky accident. But there are hosts of illus- 
 trations to show us that these explanations are 
 not satisfactory to untrained reason. Many days 
 have not passed since misadventures which we 
 should in these times attribute to ill-luck were 
 regarded as manifestations of Divine interference. 
 
THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 233 
 
 This is the view which is still taken of them in 
 Asia, where, if the purposeful intervention of a 
 God is doubted, they are still ascribed to the work- 
 ings of Fate. In the early days of his mental 
 development man regards himself, not as an 
 independent agent, responsible for error, but as 
 a puppet in the hands of stronger forces. He 
 seems unable to conceive of such an undirected 
 existence as that of chance, and is persuaded that 
 there is an outside cause for everything. It may 
 appear extraordinary that the savage mind should 
 have so rigid an idea of causal connection. But 
 the voluminous records of beliefs and customs, 
 which have been collected by anthropologists, 
 testify very clearly to the existence of this 
 conception. Indeed there are tribes at the 
 present day who are convinced that man is 
 naturally immortal, and that death is always 
 the result of either violence, poison or witchcraft. 
 We may then believe that a search for causes was 
 an imperious propensity in primitive man. 
 
 Two sets of impressions make their mark upon 
 us firstly, those which are received by us through 
 our senses, and, secondly, those which are pre- 
 sented in memory. To us it seems impossible 
 that sensible objects should be confused with 
 imaginary visions : we have been taught from 
 childhood to distinguish the two. But an un- 
 cultured mind can hardly discriminate between 
 the visions of a dream and sensory perceptions : 
 the two impressions may doubtless appear to be 
 of different orders, but one seems to be as real as 
 the other. There are persons who are tortured 
 by the most deceptive hallucinations of sight or 
 hearing : most of us take time to lose the con- 
 viction of reality that is given by a very vivid 
 dream. The verisimilitude of a vision is greatly 
 increased if the memory is able to visualize clearly 
 
234 CULTURE 
 
 if it presents a picture in specious detail. This 
 faculty is possessed by us strongly during child- 
 hood : it weakens as age advances, but there is 
 reason to conclude that amongst savages it 
 endures more persistently. To them the world 
 resembles a cinematograph show, which presents 
 two moving films, passing before them side by 
 side, one of things observed, the other of things 
 visioned. There are, then, two sets of happenings 
 from which they can select causes, and, since the 
 boundary line between the two series of im- 
 pressions is not clearly defined, they may con- 
 fusedly see in one series a cause for something 
 that happens in the other. Their reasoning 
 accordingly proceeds along a double track one 
 line concerned with observed, the other with 
 visioned causes. We are ourselves not free from 
 this duality. We offer prayers for fine weather, 
 but do not neglect to take an umbrella or to 
 cock the hay when clouds are about. The 
 selection of causes, whether observed or visioned, 
 has often been exceedingly erroneous. An Indian 
 cultivator confidently believes that grain germi- 
 nates most freely when it is sown by a pregnant 
 woman, that the sprouting of sugar cane is 
 stimulated should a horseman ride into the field. 
 These are mistakes affecting observed causes. 
 Everywhere in the Indian fields we may find 
 illustrations of a belief in visioned causes. Sowing, 
 harvesting and threshing are attended by rites of 
 magic or worship that are supposed to control or 
 propitiate unseen influences. 
 
 Another conviction, of far reaching conse- 
 quences, resulted from the confusion of the seen 
 with the unseen. It was imagined that every 
 object possessed a double existence, one appear- 
 ing to observation, the other in visions, the former 
 transient, the latter everlasting. Such a con- 
 
THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 235 
 
 elusion may seem preposterous to educated 
 minds. But by an effort of introspection we may 
 conceive its possibility, and may understand how 
 our ancestors thought that they were haunted 
 by apparitions which were not phantasmal but 
 realities. It is only in this idea that an origin 
 can be found for the extraordinary fancies of 
 magic and witchcraft relics of our own history 
 that have been preserved by barbarous tribes. 
 
 Human society probably originated in small 
 troops which lived in constant dread of the 
 dangerous beasts that were so numerous, even in 
 Europe, at the commencement of the quaternary 
 epoch. The first cause of success, was obedience 
 to their chief, who was represented not only by 
 the living head of the troop, but by the visioned 
 spirits of departed ancestors. To revere the 
 unity and the headship of the little group may have 
 been the earliest beginning of religion : we can 
 find traces of this observance everywhere. It 
 is still the most popular cult of China : it is a 
 living force in India : it swayed the ideas and the 
 habits of the Greeks and Romans, and in modern 
 Europe is acknowledged by the crowds which 
 flock to the cemeteries on All Souls' Day. 
 
 In man's adventures with the brutes an observed 
 cause of success was the use of weapons : a visioned 
 cause was to capture or kill the spirits of the beasts 
 in a mimic hunt. Man made himself flint arrows 
 and axes, and drew pictures which would keep 
 before him the visions of his dreams. So, in domes- 
 ticating animals, practical skill in taming might be 
 assisted by visionary influences : man added their 
 images to his collection of idols. The cow appealed 
 to his admiration with particular impressiveness : 
 she typified the success that made men rich, and 
 
236 CULTURE 
 
 was used to measure the extent of his riches : 
 she was worshipped in Egypt, even by the 
 Hebrews under Sinai : she is worshipped in 
 India, and traces of this cult may be discovered in 
 Europe. Could not the forces of Nature be domes- 
 ticated also ? Fire was tamed by some remarkable 
 genius, whom some nations have deified and all 
 should revere. The sun, the rain, the winds of 
 heaven could at least be conciliated by worship. 
 With the increase of population wars arose, and 
 the victorious leader, or a foreign conqueror, was 
 remembered with the honours of a supernatural 
 hero. Around these definite conceptions of divi- 
 nity there upgrew a tangle of dreads and beliefs 
 erroneous connections of cause and effect 
 which darkened the mind with the degrading 
 superstitions of fetishism and magic. Yet we 
 must remember that from these fantastic imagin- 
 ings, this visionary logic, have been distilled 
 religions of spiritual faith and moral endeavour, 
 and that from them are descended our modern 
 ideas of art and ethics. 
 
 In the quest for causes our reasoning instinct has 
 taken the lead : but it has been closely attended by 
 our other instincts, which have at some times 
 prompted its suggestions, and have at all times 
 commended or opposed the ideas, visionary or 
 practical, to which it has pointed. Thus the 
 institution of slavery, which was declared by 
 reason to be a means of securing comfort and 
 leisure, was confidently approved by the selfish 
 instinct : the social instinct firmly consolidated 
 the respect for the family which co-ordinated its 
 efforts in the chase or in war. The reproductive 
 instinct confirmed polygamy, and might infuse 
 into religion conceptions which actually idealized 
 the obscene : the provident instinct sweetened 
 the industry which reason dictated as the means 
 
IMPULSES AND CULTURE 237 
 
 of livelihood. If reason advised the undertaking 
 of a war, cruelty prompted the extermination of 
 the enemy : kindness endorsed the emancipation 
 of slaves which might reasonably be expected to 
 encourage their honesty. Marvellous beyond all 
 have been the effects of the aesthetic and ethical 
 instincts of the impulses to self-abandonment 
 and self-restraint which are perhaps the most extra- 
 ordinary manifestations of Life, and may almost 
 plausibly be regarded as supernatural tendencies, 
 unconnected, as they are, with practical needs* 
 The former impelled man to prostration, dancing 
 and music as methods of testifying his veneration : 
 the latter to self-mutilation, asceticism and moral- 
 ity as means of conciliating the spirits of his 
 dreams. Painting and sculpture may have grown 
 out of the rock pictures which brought home to 
 the cave dwellers the spirits of animals that they 
 fought, hunted or domesticated. We may find 
 in the mimic hunt the prototype of the drama, 
 the first-fruits of the dramatic passion through 
 which the theatre appeals to us all. Side by side 
 with this life of visions grew up a life of practical 
 endeavour. It was discovered that bronze made 
 more effective weapons than flint, that stone was 
 more durable than timber for building purposes. 
 We are disposed to regard the harnessing of steam, 
 of electricity, of petrol, the elaboration of machin- 
 ery, as the greatest of man's practical inventions. 
 But can we see a less originality of intelligence in 
 the domestication of plants and animals, the 
 control and usage of fire, the discovery of the 
 loom, of the plough, of oars and sails, and of 
 the wheel ? 
 
 
 
 There is a tendency to believe that a community 
 progresses in concert, as a crop of wheat grows, 
 under the influence of an imagined " spirit of 
 
238 CULTURE 
 
 the age." But if we carefully observe the origin 
 and spread of modern inventions, we shall discover 
 no trace of the general development of an in- 
 ventive spirit. Novelties owe their birth to the 
 original talents of comparatively few individuals, 
 whose ideas are adopted or may be neglected 
 by the crowd. It is as though a crop grew by 
 imitating the size of a few precocious plants. An 
 impulse to change is inherent in all mankind ; 
 but generally it is strictly shackled by the chains 
 of habit, and only becomes effective in those 
 original, or eccentric, men who are endowed with 
 a special measure of spontaneity. Some of these 
 innovators are recollected and honoured ; others 
 have been forgotten in the mist of the past, 
 amidst the distraction of wars and migrations. 
 Whether as mystics, philosophers, artists, poets 
 or mechanics, they have brought messages to 
 mankind.- Their ideas have generally been dis- 
 regarded, and they themselves have been despised 
 often indeed, like the prophets of Israel, they 
 have been cast out and stoned. They have had 
 opposed to them the prejudice of consolidated 
 habit, and, when they have moved their fellows, 
 it has been rather by the assistance of a chieftain, 
 a priest, or an advertising agency, than by the 
 intrinsic value of their ideas. But we must not 
 forget that their notions have commonly been 
 erroneous, and that society would have perished 
 had it adopted them all. We owe to inventors 
 not merely the arts and industries that adorn 
 modern life, but the wild, degrading and cruel 
 superstitions which have distorted the path of our 
 progress into labyrinthine complexity, and still 
 misguide vast numbers of mankind.- How extra- 
 vagant are the cults which within recent times 
 have been accepted by the disciples of eccentric 
 enthusiasts ! 
 
PIONEERS OF CULTURE 239 
 
 It appears, nevertheless, that society owes to 
 individual inventors or reformers the whole of its 
 culture, whether moral, artistic or material that 
 progress has, in fact, been pioneered by invention 
 and accomplished by imitation. L Until recent 
 years the development of culture has been exceed- 
 ingly slow. For the innovator has the imitative 
 impulse against him as well as for him: imita- 
 tion is not only a dynamic but a static force : 
 it is, indeed, far more potent in consolidat- 
 ing habit than in introducing reform, and the 
 bonds of habit can seldom be loosened 
 unless the impulse to imitate is reinforced by 
 some more strenuous feeling. And when habit 
 has been strengthened by the emotions of respect 
 or sympathy, it becomes a settled custom, with 
 foundation^ so strong as to be almost unassailable 
 by reform. Loyalty to a church, or to a king, 
 will survive the greatest discouragements ; sym- 
 pathy between members of a caste, or a profession, 
 will resist to the utmost any suggestions for 
 change, even in so small a matter as in traditional 
 style of dress. The Indian costume has remained 
 practically unaltered for many generations : so 
 has village dress in remote corners of Europe ; 
 and it is only of recent years that any relaxation 
 has been tolerated in the customary dress of 
 Anglican clergymen. The conservative force of 
 habit is strikingly illustrated by the immobility 
 of the East. But, judging from the slowness with 
 which man has climbed upwards from the savagery 
 of palaeolithic days, custom everywhere froze his 
 endeavours and shackled his faculties during 
 uncounted centuries. 
 
 A change has come over modern Europe. 
 Amongst us, at the present day, inventive genius 
 has less prejudice to overcome. By travel, by 
 the dissemination of ideas in books and through 
 
240 CULTURE 
 
 the press, the bonds of habit have been loosened, 
 and inventors not infrequently see their ideas 
 accepted with much credit to themselves may, 
 indeed, amass large fortunes. Custom is no 
 longer firmly crystallized ; and it is interesting to 
 observe that its disintegration began amongst 
 the leisured classes whose habits were not hardened 
 by the unbending routine of daily work. It is 
 amongst the aristocracy of Europe that dress has 
 for centuries been exhibiting its protean changes : 
 it has been the upper classes that have introduced 
 tobacco, tea, and coffee to their immense import- 
 ance in modern economics : it has been amongst 
 them that the liberal ideas have arisen which have 
 revolutionized the tone of politics. These ideas 
 have insisted upon the fundamental equality of 
 man : they have spread to the masses and have 
 had the natural result of impelling the poor to 
 imitate the rich. Political power may be shared 
 by all : deference must be reciprocal, and respect 
 develops into mutual courtesy. However in- 
 expensively, the dress of the leisured is imitated 
 by the working classes ; and we may instructively 
 compare the fashionable garb of a Sunday crowd 
 on Hampstead Heath with the time-honoured 
 costumes still worn by the peasantry of a remote 
 Bavarian village. The inclination towards reform 
 the promptings of a questioning spirit have, 
 we may believe, been assisted very greatly by the 
 influence of self-consciousness, for which increas- 
 ing scope is afforded by modern habits of mind. 
 The more clearly we see ourselves the less 
 mechanical we are disposed to be in our behaviour. 
 But to affect the heart-strings, imitation must be 
 energized by the spirit of change stronger in 
 some individuals and races than in others, un- 
 nerved during countless generations by the 
 hostility of Nature, or pent beneath the weight of 
 
IMITATIVE CULTURE 241 
 
 traditional habit, but still alive, and, when once 
 emancipated, gaining new strength with every 
 reform that it produces. 
 
 Even in Western society it is only of recent 
 years that the desire for change has liberated itself 
 into forceful activity. In the past, innovators 
 could only overcome the prejudice of habit when 
 they could enlist the assistance of other impulses, 
 or could appeal to the pressure of changing circum- 
 stances. The most potent of these impulses has 
 probably been that of reverence or loyalty. Inno- 
 vations which are favoured by a king or a priest- 
 hood may spread very rapidly. In the remarkable 
 fluctuations of dogma which agitated the early 
 Christian Church, we may see the ebb and flow 
 of the ascendancy of particular bishops : the 
 crusades are a striking, if familiar, illustration of 
 the spread of a strange ideal that was favoured 
 by the Church. To the conversion of monarchs 
 Christianity and Islam have owed sudden and 
 wide extensions. The prestige of a conquering 
 race is a powerful stimulus : and war, however 
 bloody and destructive, has brought different 
 cultures into the same melting pot, so that each 
 could attract something from the other. The 
 conquests of Alexander spread Greek culture 
 throughout Western Asia. Even in distant India 
 the coins of Asiatic dynasties bore Greek inscrip- 
 tions during several centuries. A subject people 
 will imitate the language of its conquerors, how- 
 ever inconsiderable their numbers may be. How 
 much does not the English language owe to 
 Norman-French ! The people of Ireland and Wales 
 adopted the tongue of their English over-lords ; 
 and, if prospects remain unchanged, in another 
 century English will be the language of the Indian 
 continent. 
 
242 CULTURE 
 
 In one department of social life the faculty of 
 imitation must always be reinforced by feelings 
 of reverence. This is in the education of the 
 young, which is ultimately based upon the respect 
 which is felt for parents and teachers. Learning, 
 it may be objected, is acquired rather by obedience 
 than by imitation. But obedience is essentially 
 a form of imitation : it is the repetition of an 
 impression that is received under stress of 
 authority. Fortunately for the progress of man- 
 kind the imitative instincts of the young are not 
 encumbered with accretions of habit, and act so 
 effectively that in a few years' time the growing 
 generation can appropriate the acquirements of 
 many centuries. At the present day knowledge 
 has become so extensive and so diversified that it 
 is impossible that individuals should learn the 
 whole of it. Teaching is specialized, and par- 
 ticular branches of science are committed to 
 different classes of the community. But, taken 
 as a whole, each generation assimilates all that 
 its predecessors have gained. And the boys of a 
 village school are in possession of knowledge that 
 lay beyond the ken of Plato and Aristotle. 
 ' When the chains of custom have once been 
 unlocked, sympathy may assist the spread of 
 changes, instead of retarding it. This is illus- 
 trated by the vagaries of fashion, which directs 
 not merely our dress and manners, but our artistic 
 ideas. The appreciation of mountain scenery is a 
 modern taste. The Romans were not an uncultured 
 people : they crossed and recrossed the Alps, but 
 appear only to have formed impressions of diffi- 
 culty and discomfort. In Dr. Johnson's time there 
 was little admiration for Highland landscapes. 
 A fashion for Greek art led the Renaissance. In 
 modern painting and music strange tastes are 
 arising under the fashion of the day. During the 
 
STIMULI TO IMITATION 243 
 
 past generation fashion has changed the behaviour 
 of society by discouraging the use of alcoholic 
 drinks. It has accomplished what legislation 
 could hardly have attempted. 
 
 In cases where innovations appeal to strong 
 elemental impulses, or to the feelings of pleasure 
 and pain, they may gain currency without the 
 assistance of reverence or sympathy. Such 
 institutions as polygamy and slavery need no 
 endorsement but such as is given by human 
 passion. We may believe that the use of intoxi- 
 cants spread very rapidly. Trade appeals to the 
 acquisitive impulse, and international commerce 
 is of more ancient date than is commonly sup- 
 posed. Twenty centuries before the commence- 
 ment of our era merchants were tracking their 
 way through the forests of Germany to bring 
 amber from the Baltic to the Mediterranean ; and 
 the traffic in Cornish tin dates from almost as 
 remote an antiquity. Indeed, the farther we 
 look back into history the more surprise do we 
 experience at finding that in days which we picture 
 as barbarous, there was peaceful communication 
 between lands that are separated by the breadth 
 of continents. In the spread of culture from one 
 nation to another, trade may have been less 
 effective than war, but may justly be compared 
 to it. If a people is richly endowed with aesthetic 
 impulses, artistic craftsmanship may develop with- 
 out artificial encouragement. During an epoch 
 which is incalculably remote the cave dwellers of 
 the Dordogne valley attained very remarkable 
 skill in sketching from life ; and long before Rome 
 or Athens were founded even before Europe had 
 learnt the use of iron there were centres of 
 handicraft manufacture in Germany and Scan- 
 dinavia, at which stone and bronze were fashioned 
 into arms and decorations with originality of 
 
244 CULTURE 
 
 design and finish of execution. These artistic 
 upspringings were subsequently over-laid by 
 influences from the Mediterranean ; but they 
 rose again to the surface, and flowered in Gothic 
 architecture. 
 
 Individuals and communities have not un- 
 commonly followed a lead because they were pressed 
 from behind by circumstances. The migrations 
 which have influenced human history so pro- 
 foundly have often been urged by scarcity of land 
 or pasturage : customs and laws have perforce 
 been adapted to the complications that arise from 
 a growing population or material progress. It 
 was an argument for the abolition of slavery that 
 slave labour was ceasing to be profitable. In 
 these cases reason has played a part in the advance 
 of reform. But, generally, its authority has been 
 less compelling than it would please us to believe. 
 Even at the present day its vision is clouded by the 
 prejudice of habit. We may, indeed, be excused if 
 we distrust our reasoning faculties. On the most 
 burning political questions of the day we see men 
 of acute intellect divided in opinion and arrayed, 
 one side against the other, in opposing camps. It 
 is not, then, strange that we should be content 
 with the guidance that we receive from our 
 feelings and habits. We are astonished that, in 
 the East, improvements in economics or in man- 
 ners should spread so slowly. But our own 
 expenditure is regulated very largely by the 
 dictates of custom. It can hardly be said that 
 patent medicines generally deserve their wide 
 popularity. Political economy, in so far as it 
 assumes that conduct is determined by calcula- 
 tion, may justly be termed a visionary science. 
 The articles which we purchase, and the shops 
 at which we purchase them, are settled for us, in 
 great part, by habit and imitation. 
 
HABITS OF MIND 245 
 
 Nor must we belittle our imitative faculty by 
 supposing that it merely imposes upon us a 
 mechanical uniformity, or conducts us forward 
 by leading strings which simply affect our external 
 behaviour. By following the ideas or actions of 
 another we gradually strengthen in ourselves the 
 influence of the impulses which these express, and 
 equip ourselves not only, as it were, with new 
 machinery, but with new motive power. We 
 form new habits oi mind, or " ideals," which affect 
 us in spirit as well as in conduct. Thus the accept- 
 ance of Christianity leads not only to kindliness of 
 manners but to a more effective working of the 
 kindly impulse. So also conditions of warfare 
 subject us more strongly to feelings of cruelty ; 
 and democratic politics stimulate our impulse of 
 deference to the crowd. 
 
 And, although we may find that culture has been 
 won by steps that cheapen our ideas of human 
 dignity, we may well be proud of the actual results. 
 Man has so far outstripped the brutes as to deserve 
 a place for himself, above the ranks of the animal 
 kingdom. Between the chimpanzee and the 
 lowest savage there is such a gulf as divides no 
 other two classes of related animals. The one can 
 only progress by the slow-moving wheels of evo- 
 lutionary development : the other, able in some 
 measure to change himself, has invented and 
 adopted complications of behaviour which may 
 have added to misery, which may have hastened 
 death, but are the primaeval foundations of 
 modern culture. It is impossible to deny that 
 there has been progress that in manners and 
 ideas we surpass the Greeks and the Romans as 
 they surpassed the Egyptians and Babylonians. 
 It may be objected that so comforting a conclu- 
 sion might hardly be reached were our survey 
 made from a point in the Dark Ages of Europe. 
 
246 CULTURE 
 
 The tide of progress has flowed and ebbed. But, 
 even at that time, there was a breath in the air of 
 the spring of a new and more spontaneous 
 vitality. The evils of those days are tearfully 
 deplored by religious chroniclers. But it is 
 something that they were deplored. And we 
 must not forget that there is another side to the 
 picture that above the darkness of a confused 
 morality there uprose the splendour of Gothic 
 cathedrals. 
 
 How far can culture modify the innate charac- 
 ter of an individual or a race ? What are the 
 limits of the artificiality which it can impose ? 
 This is a question of immense importance. Upon 
 the answer to it depends our prospect of the 
 future of each people of mankind. We have 
 already seen reason to believe that there are 
 persistent and obdurate elements in individual 
 and racial character which cannot be modified by 
 culture, and will continue to underlie the veneer 
 which habits and conventions impose upon be- 
 haviour. If the children of a family, or the boys 
 of a school, exhibit strong individualities under 
 identical influences of training, we may feel sure 
 that races will similarly retain peculiarities of 
 disposition, however closely they may be com- 
 pressed by the levelling force of civilization. 
 Habit or culture effects miracles. We owe to 
 it our rise from conditions of barbarism. A 
 European child, brought up from infancy amongst 
 savages, will behave like a savage ; and each of us 
 repeats the development of the race in his progress 
 through culture, from savagery to civilization. 
 If culture can transform an individual, within 
 the space of a few years, from a barbarian into a 
 citizen of a civilized community, may it not be 
 
CULTURE AND CHARACTER 247 
 
 able to transform, for instance, the disposition 
 of a Dane to that of an Italian ? So far as present 
 knowledge goes we must reply in the negative. 
 With however much artistic training, Englishmen 
 will not catch the ecstatic abandon of the Mediter- 
 ranean temperament. In external behaviour 
 culture may produce striking resemblances be- 
 tween different individuals and races. But it 
 appears to leave the original character funda- 
 mentally unchanged. The force of habit has, in 
 fact, its limitations. It regularizes our impulses 
 not, it would seem, by modifying their innate 
 strength, but by facilitating their emergence into 
 action. If we imagine the various instincts of 
 humanity confined like the winds of ^Eolus, and 
 able to free themselves, each through an orifice 
 of its own, habits increase the influence of certain 
 of them by widening the outlets for their emer- 
 gence, and so augmenting the stream of their 
 activity. Within the receptacle their innate 
 strength, or potential, remains unchanged. So 
 we may observe that, under the influence of a 
 strong excitement, such as is occasioned by war, 
 love or acute emulation, the passions of the race 
 display themselves in their innate peculiarity. 
 When an impulse is innately weak, no enlargement 
 of outlet will avail to give it sufficient strength 
 to overcome competing impulses : when it is 
 innately strong, it does not need the assistance of 
 habit to flood the disposition with its activity. 
 
 But it has been the theme of this chapter to 
 explain that, although culture does not alter the 
 strength of man's heritable impulses, it regulates 
 their action upon his conduct, and works extra- 
 ordinary changes not only in behaviour but in 
 habits of mind, or ideals. If a further illustration 
 is required, we may find it in the lives of Christian 
 converts. Changes of religion undoubtedly leave 
 
248 CULTURE 
 
 much that is fundamental quite unaltered. But 
 he would be blind who could not see amongst the 
 negroes of the Carribbean, and the native races 
 of South America that Christian culture has 
 created new ideals, has ameliorated manners and 
 raised the standard of comfort, quite apart from 
 its spiritual effects. The same remark may be 
 made of the converts whom Christian missions 
 have gathered in other parts of the world. Those 
 who become Christians develop a new set of 
 sympathies : they become affiliated to the pro- 
 gressive societies of Europe, and are impelled 
 to imitate them, whereas the adherents of other 
 cults are opposed to Christian manners and cus- 
 toms by not unnatural feelings of loyalty to their 
 creed. In Eastern Europe the progressiveness 
 of Christian, and the stagnation of Mohammedan 
 peoples convincingly illustrates the effects of these 
 feelings. The Bulgarians are racially akin to the 
 Turks. They have profited very remarkably by 
 their inclusion within the pale of Christian fellow- 
 ship, although we may conclude from the incidents 
 of the late Balkan war that, when culture is 
 dissolved in the heat of conflict, there is little to 
 choose in malignant ferocity between the followers 
 of Mohammed and those of Christ. 
 
 
 
 From the physical point of view, culture is 
 working momentous changes in the conditions of 
 human society. By subordinating the interests 
 of reproduction to those of intelligent activity 
 it is reducing the procreation of children, and 
 actually threatens with extinction the most 
 cultured classes of mankind. Amongst the poorest 
 classes children are still born as plentifully as in 
 Russia or India ; but as the social scale rises, 
 the birth-rate diminishes, until, in the uppermost 
 
CULTURE AND BIRTH-RATES 249 
 
 levels, it hardly amounts to a quarter of what 
 Nature intends it to be. This fall is customarily 
 imputed to the deliberate use of preventives 
 against child-bearing, but we must hesitate to 
 conclude that an artificiality which has not in- 
 fluenced the continuity of the race throughout 
 countless centuries should, within a single genera- 
 tion, have become so widely adopted as to dimin- 
 ish the reproductiveness of a whole population 
 by as much as a third. Undoubtedly it has an 
 effect and a great effect in limiting the size 
 of families amongst certain classes of the com- 
 munity. But we must not forget that the falling 
 birth-rate has been accompanied by changes that 
 are of immense importance to reproductiveness 
 a fall in the proportionate number of marriages, 
 and a rise in the age at which marriage is con- 
 tracted. In England, within the last forty years 
 the proportion of marriageable women that are 
 married has fallen from 57 to 46 per cent. It has 
 been shown by elaborate statistical investigations 
 that woman's potential fertility her prospect of 
 bearing children which is at its maximum when 
 she is 18, diminishes exceedingly rapidly as her 
 age advances : indeed at 28 it has probably fallen 
 by almost 40 per cent. Moreover it seems that 
 a woman who is married in youth maintains her 
 potential fertility longer than one who is un- 
 married in fact, that a woman of 28 who was 
 married at 18 has a better chance of bearing off- 
 spring than a bride of 28. In a less degree man's 
 potential fertility also declines as his age advances 
 over 25. Since the English birth-rate first showed 
 signs of declining forty years ago the average 
 age of brides has risen by 2 years, and that of 
 bridegrooms by 3 years, and the proportion of 
 married women who are under 25 has fallen from 
 15 to 10 per cent. The effect of this change in 
 
250 CULTURE 
 
 custom will be evident if we compare the marriage 
 ages and birth-rates of different sections of the 
 population. In the classes who live by mining 
 and textile work, where the birth-rate is still 
 comparatively high, women are married, on an 
 average, 3 years, and men 7 years, earlier than in 
 the professional classes amongst which the 
 birth-rate is at its lowest. If we compare the 
 parishes of Bethnal Green and St. George in the 
 East with those of Mayfair and Belgravia, we find 
 that the percentages of married women who are 
 under 25 years of age, are respectively 20 and 
 7; and we may reasonably believe that the higher 
 birth-rate of the poorer parishes (37 per mille 
 against 16) results in a measure from the larger 
 proportion of young wives. The fall in the 
 general birth-rate which has occurred since 1871, 
 is, no doubt, too considerable to be accounted 
 for altogether by the avoidance or postponement 
 of marriage. The deliberate prevention of child- 
 bearing has been a contributing cause. But it 
 seems probable that if more women married and 
 at an earlier age, the birth-rate would recover 
 much of its former amplitude. 
 
 Generally, marriage is postponed for pruden- 
 tial motives, and where children are profitable 
 to their parents, as for instance in the colliery 
 districts of South Wales, young people marry 
 early and have large families. The attitude of 
 religion towards marriage has also been of im- 
 portance. In religions which make a strong 
 appeal to the aesthetic feelings, the reproductive 
 impulses of mankind are boldly accepted as a gift 
 from Providence ; but those which express man's 
 ethical aspirations avert their attention from 
 these instincts as, in some way, shameful. We 
 find, accordingly, that in the religions of Asia, 
 in the Jewish faith, and in Roman Catholic 
 
EUGENIST APPREHENSIONS 251 
 
 Christianity early marriages are accepted as a 
 desirable accomplishment of providential inten- 
 tions, whereas Protestant Christianity cannot 
 actively encourage what it is ashamed to discuss. 
 It certainly seems dangerous for the welfare of a 
 community that its most successful classes should 
 not subscribe effectually to the next generation. 
 Delay in marrying is due very generally to a 
 natural reluctance to lower the standard of 
 comfort, and this feeling might be counteracted 
 could social usages be so far altered as to render 
 it incumbent upon grandparents to contribute 
 liberally towards the up-bringing of their grand- 
 children. But the older generation cannot be 
 expected cheerfully to accept the prospect of, say, 
 putting down a motor-car in order to educate child- 
 ren's children : they are the custodians of the canons 
 of social morality, and in these individualistic days 
 they will hardly be persuaded to modify them to 
 their disadvantage for the sake of posterity. 
 
 There are, however, some consoling reflections. 
 It is by no means certain that the rich have any- 
 thing more to transmit in begetting descendants 
 than is possessed by the superior working classes, 
 and these are increasing in numbers as rapidly as 
 the very poor: their birth-rate is somewhat lower; 
 but so also is their death-rate. Experience offers 
 no ground for the belief that the culture of the 
 leisured classes is transmissible to their children by 
 inheritance. Would an Englishman, kidnapped by 
 savages in infancy, show any traces of civilized 
 polish in mind or in manners ? Are not children 
 born to most scrupulous parents endowed with 
 a propensity to lie and to steal ? Talents, or 
 aptitudes, may certainly be passed on by inherit- 
 ance, and the rich have often acquired their 
 wealth by abilities which in the interests of the 
 community might usefully be transmitted to the 
 
252 CULTURE 
 
 next generation. But in the interfusion of 
 marriage the qualities of the father very fre- 
 quently miss descending to the son ; and, judging 
 by the number of rich who rise from obscurity, 
 talents often take birth in the families of quite 
 humble folk. Moreover, we must remember that 
 our chief national indebtedness is to men not of 
 aptitude but of genius, who have generally risen 
 from the undistinguished crowd, and have contri- 
 buted, not children, but ideas to posterity. There 
 are illustrations to show that striking originality 
 may emerge even from negro parentage. In the 
 present uncertainty of our knowledge it appears 
 discreet to keep an open mind upon questions of 
 heredity. Degenerate parents will breed liability 
 to disease : by selective breeding size of stature, 
 strength of muscles, and beauty of features may 
 doubtless be promoted. But originality of genius 
 is a more subtle character : it seems unaccount- 
 ably to be allied with reproductive sterility. When 
 so much is doubtful, theories are hazardous. It 
 may be that, in their impulse to treat mankind 
 from the purely physical standpoint, eugenists are 
 leading us to such results as appear to have 
 attended the Indian caste system. We have 
 progressed by imitation ; but we have been led 
 by genius ; and no excellencies of body could 
 compensate for the loss of upspringings of 
 spontaneity. 
 
PART III 
 HUMAN ACHIEVEMENTS 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 To preserve itself, Life enjoins upon each genera- 
 tion the imperative task of producing a generation 
 to succeed it. Not a few creatures die as soon as 
 this task is accomplished. But, generally, time 
 remains for the care of oneself, as well as of 
 posterity ; and this may be spent by the indivi- 
 dual, not merely in the search for food, or in the 
 service of the herd, but in provident activities 
 which appropriate or rearrange the things around 
 it. In man, these activities have become so com- 
 plicated and widespread as to overshadow the 
 elementary interests of animal life : he owes to 
 them his elaborate civilization, the contrivances 
 by which he seems to command Nature in place 
 of obeying her. But they are shared, in some 
 degree, by lower animals, and appear to arise 
 from a special instinct that of providence 
 which prompts living creatures not to submit 
 themselves to their environment or slavishly to 
 adapt themselves to it but with active foresight 
 to mould it to their needs. The construction of 
 protective, and often very beautilul, shells is a dis- 
 tinctive feature in the life history of molluscs ; and 
 far below them, in the very lowest ranks of the 
 animal kingdom, organisms which are mere specks 
 of structureless jelly extract materials from the 
 lime or silica in the water around them, for 
 building shells, which, so small as to be invisible 
 
 255 
 
256 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 except under the microscope, are as complicated 
 in form as that of the nautilus, and are adorned 
 with elaborate markings that must be unseen in 
 the darkness of the ocean floor. These minute 
 organisms not only decorate themselves at the 
 cost of their environment, but effect marvellous 
 changes in it : they die, but their shells remain, 
 and, accumulated in the course of ages, form 
 deposits of immense thickness which, subse- 
 quently raised above sea-level, contribute largely 
 to the dry crust of the earth. The chalk of the 
 English downs is constituted in the main of these 
 tiny shell-cases. Corals support themselves upon 
 a stony framework which they build up from 
 materials that are dissolved in the sea: their 
 labours also have the effect of extending the earth's 
 land surface. Higher up the scale, the compli- 
 cated nests of insects and birds illustrate very 
 strikingly the action of a constructive instinct. To 
 these activities the reproductive impulse contri- 
 butes ; their architectural skill is directed to the 
 needs of their young. But there are cases, such as 
 that of the bower-bird, in which materials are 
 gathered and fashioned from the pure love of 
 fashioning, from an impulse akin to that which 
 prompts man to lay out a pleasure garden. 
 Amongst mammals the provident instinct is 
 singularly ineffective until we reach man. In 
 him it is very strongly developed, and is one 
 of the peculiarities which has enabled him so 
 greatly to outstrip all other animals. In its 
 simplest form it is the impulse to appropriate 
 that is illustrated by the thievish propensities 
 of a magpie. But when strengthened by a 
 desire for comfort, or the thousand other am- 
 bitions of humanity, it will not only compel 
 man to labour industriously ; it is a powerful 
 incentive to discovery and invention. 
 
THE USE OF FIRE 257 
 
 The domestication of fire is perhaps the most 
 eventful fact in human history. It completely 
 changed man's diet, and, since cooked food is 
 more easily assimilated than raw food, it may have 
 set free energy that was absorbed in digestion. 
 In metals it revealed a material for tools and 
 weapons that was infinitely more effective than 
 flint. And it opened out the earth's surface for 
 man's habitation : without means of warming 
 himself, he could never have migrated from the 
 tropics. How fire was brought into harness can 
 only be conjectured. Obviously its use must have 
 become evident before efforts were made to keep 
 it or kindle it ; and we may suppose, with Charles 
 Lamb, that its value first became apparent 
 through the accidental discovery of its service 
 in cooking. It is believed that the fires which 
 rush through the forests of India and other tropical 
 countries may be kindled by the friction of dry 
 branches under a persistent hot wind, or by 
 lightning : the bodies of animals that have been 
 overtaken by the flames may be found scorched 
 amongst the ashes ; and it is quite possible that 
 savage man, by chancing upon them, may have 
 been led to the idea of cooking for himself. This 
 would only be possible if brands from the forest 
 fire were carefully preserved and fed : once 
 extinguished they could not be rekindled, and we 
 can understand the reverence with which the 
 hearth was regarded, and the importance that 
 was attached to the continuity of its glow. In 
 the East the desolation of a village is picturesquely 
 described by the expression " its fire has gone out." 
 There followed the discovery that fire could be 
 kindled by fire-sticks, or by flint and steel. We 
 have grown too familiar with lucifer matches 
 
258 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 to realize what they mean to us. In India it is 
 not very long since a pedlar could attract a crowd 
 around him by striking a match. 
 
 The domestication of animals was another long 
 step in material progress. We may believe that 
 this was a development from the keeping of pets, 
 to which man is naturally inclined by his instinct 
 of kindness. Some species of birds and quad- 
 rupeds are curiously distinguished by the readi- 
 ness with which they become tame ; owing, it 
 appears, to some weakness of directive instinct 
 they can contract artificial habits more easily 
 than other species to which they may be closely 
 related. The intelligent, playful docility of the 
 sea-lion is an extraordinary " sport " a gem 
 which lies hidden in the ocean. A little bird of 
 Ecuador the chiroka (Icterus grace-annae) in 
 a few weeks will become quite habituated to 
 man's society, and will be frightened by no 
 noise or sight that it has once harmlessly ex- 
 perienced. The American grey squirrel fearlessly 
 accosts passers-by in the parks, and there is a 
 large Indian squirrel which will in a few days 
 become astonishingly intimate with its captor. 
 The tameness of the Indian mongoose is well 
 known. But the docility of these animals is 
 exceptional. Most birds, even although born in 
 captivity, never lose their instinctive timidity ; 
 and such near relatives of the dog as the wolf and 
 the jungle dog of India are quite untameable. We 
 may suppose that the animals that have been 
 domesticated by man were distinguished, as pets, 
 by the facility with which they could acquire new 
 habits : this peculiarity of disposition inured 
 them to slavery, when it was perceived that they 
 could serve man as well as amuse him. In the 
 tropical regions that were man's first habitat, his 
 first essays in domestication would be with the 
 
DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 259 
 
 dog, 1 the pig, and the fowl. Cattle may also have 
 been tamed from a stock which lived in tropical 
 forests, like the Indian bison and the buffalo of 
 the present day. To domesticate animals of such 
 large size was a great achievement : cattle not 
 only supplied man with milk and flesh, but lent 
 their strength to cultivate with the plough, and 
 we can understand how they came to be regarded 
 as wealth par excellence, and were accepted as the 
 symbols of private property. Sheep and goats 
 would be added by tribes which left the plains 
 for the mountains : the horse, the camel, and 
 the ass would be met by the wanderers as, in their 
 northward course, they emerged upon the plains 
 of Central Asia and spread towards Egypt. The 
 strange conditions of domesticated life stimulated 
 variations in these captive animals : peculiarities 
 that arose were fixed by breeding, so that in the 
 course of time they departed very widely from 
 their ancestors in colour, form, and size. But, 
 if permitted to regain their freedom, they will 
 still revert to their original type. 
 
 Not less momentous was the discovery that 
 man could intervene between Nature and her 
 plants, making them to grow in uniform crops 
 instead of sporadically, as in the jungle, and 
 improving the quality and quantity of their pro- 
 duce. So long a period has elapsed since the 
 principal food plants were reclaimed from the 
 wilderness that the ancestors of many of them 
 
 1 Upon the companionship of man and his brute associates 
 certain parasites have built up a very peculiar course of livelihood. 
 The tape-worm of man passes its embryonic stages, as a trichina, 
 in the tissues of the pig, whence it passes to man by the eating of 
 pig's flesh. It is disconcerting to learn that a tape- worm of the 
 dog's occurs as a trichina in human tissues. There are traditions 
 of peoples who maintained packs of hounds as cemeteries for the 
 disposal of their dead ; and we may conjecture that in the days of 
 primaeval darkness the dog was drawn to man by this gruesome 
 office. 
 
260 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 have disappeared from the wild flora of the earth. 
 No wild progenitors can be indicated with any 
 certitude for maize, the millets, wheat, barley, 
 rye, oats, beans, lentils, yams, sweet potatoes, 
 and sugar cane. On the other hand, rice, cotton, 
 potatoes, tobacco, and the various root-crops can 
 be traced to plants that still occur in a wild state. 
 When grain-yielding plants had been brought 
 under control the advantage would be perceived 
 of growing oilseeds to provide a relish in diet and 
 a means of lighting ; also of growing fibres, the 
 usefulness of which was enormously increased by 
 the invention of the loom as a substitute for 
 finger-plaiting. If diversity of crops may be taken 
 as an indication of antiquity, it was in sub-tropical 
 Asia that agriculture achieved its first develop- 
 ments. The principal cereals of European agri- 
 culture are exotics : wheat and barley were 
 originally Asiatic, and it was not until the Arab 
 conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries 
 that cotton and sugar cane became known in the 
 Mediterranean. Maize, potatoes, the haricot 
 bean, and tobacco are heritages from the culti- 
 vators 01 Mexico and Peru. But Europe has 
 specialities of its own root crops, in particular, 
 such as the turnip, the swede, and beet, which will 
 not flourish outside the temperate zone. 
 
 In the development of mechanical art European 
 civilization incomparably surpasses that of Asia. 
 There is no such difference in regard to agriculture. 
 The cultivation of Egypt, of Mesopotamia, China, 
 and India, reached a very high standard of 
 excellence : plants were differentiated into a vast 
 number of varieties indeed, over 700 kinds of 
 rice are grown in India : the value of manuring 
 and of rotations was fully appreciated. Modern 
 science has ascertained that leguminous plants, 
 through the agency of microbes which form 
 
AGRICULTURE 261 
 
 nodules on their roots, can enrich the soil by 
 fixing atmospheric nitrogen : for centuries the 
 cultivators of India have been aware of the 
 fact, although not of its explanation, and have 
 sown these plants in association with cereals. 
 Much is now made of the " dry farming " which is 
 to revolutionize the agriculture of South Africa. 
 This simply consists in maintaining a fine surface 
 tilth, and so checking evaporation from the sub- 
 soil. It is systematically practised by the ryots 
 of Upper India, who will not sow wheat until, by 
 repeated ploughings, the soil has been reduced 
 to the consistency of powder. Far away across 
 the ocean, on the treeless plateaux of Mexico and 
 Peru there were other centres of agricultural skill, 
 which followed lines that were curiously similar 
 to those of Asia. The plough which is used in the 
 uplands of Cuzco is the counterpart of one that 
 may be seen in India ; and the character of the 
 crops and the disposition of the fields vividly 
 recall the features of an Indian village. Modern 
 agriculture has generally been content to grow 
 crops that have been grown from time immemorial 
 although it has improved their quality very 
 greatly. It is only within the last century that 
 tea, coffee, and cocoa have revolutionized the 
 course of civilized diet. 
 
 To us it appears quite natural that individuals 
 should possess property of their own : we are 
 disposed to scout communistic theories as vision- 
 ary, and opposed to fundamental proclivities of 
 human nature. Yet, judging by the survivals of 
 antiquity that may be discovered in laws and 
 customs and in the practices of uncivilized races, 
 we must conclude that in early times property 
 belonged to the tribe, or the family, not to the in- 
 dividual, and that it was originally as unthinkable 
 that a man should appropriate things in private 
 
262 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ownership as that a hive-bee should maintain 
 a store of honey of its own. Man was of account 
 only as a member of a society, and it was out of the 
 question that he should hold anything in antagon- 
 ism to his fellows. At the present day in a typical 
 Hindu family there is no separate ownership : its 
 members remit their earnings to the head of the 
 family, and receive at his hands their fitting main- 
 tenance. There are still villages in India which 
 periodically " pool " their fields and redistribute 
 them by lot. 
 
 It seems probable that private ownership 
 in women, land, or other things arose out of 
 predatory conquest. Success in war could 
 hardly be expected unless the fighting men were 
 encouraged by the expectation of retaining for 
 themselves what they had won by their valour ; 
 and it is plausibly conjectured that marriage, 
 the exclusive possession of a woman by a man, 
 has its origin in the forcible capture of alien 
 women. This supposition would explain two 
 curious survivals the simulation of ill-temper 
 by the bride and her relatives, which is a common 
 feature of marriage ceremonies, and the very 
 general prejudice against taking a wife out of the 
 bridegroom's own clan. It may easily be believed 
 that the mastership of one man was less disagree- 
 able to women than the promiscuous intimacy 
 of the herd, and that they accordingly favoured 
 their own enslavement. Warriors who were per- 
 mitted to appropriate their plunder would, if 
 victorious, become owners of slaves and cattle ; 
 and, if the vanquished tribe was driven off its 
 land, they might also be rewarded by the grant 
 of allotments, which would be their own, exclus- 
 ively, and free of all demands for the benefit of 
 their fellows. War is now condemned by many as 
 one of the most destructive of evils : it may be 
 
MECHANICAL APPLIANCES 263 
 
 so, but, such are the anomalies of Life, that we 
 may owe to its influence our family relationships, 
 our homes, and the very idea of our possessions. 
 
 The gorilla builds a nest amidst branches, 
 and, prompted by a like impulse, man provided 
 himself with shelter on the ground. In the 
 tropics huts of grass or leaves would be his 
 first essays in home-building. In the colder 
 climate of Northern Europe he seems to have 
 commonly taken refuge in caves, the occupancy 
 of which he disputed with bears and hyenas. 
 With an increasing population a new danger 
 arose : inter-tribal wars became frequent and 
 buildings were desired for protection against 
 enemies. An earthern rampart might be thrown 
 up, or the safeguard of a moat might be secured 
 by building the village huts upon piles that were 
 surrounded with water. On this plan the ancient 
 lake villages of Switzerland were designed. With 
 the improvement of tools durable materials could 
 be handled : dwellings of more than one storey 
 might be erected : castles for defence, temples in 
 honour of the gods and monuments in honour of 
 the dead might be built so solidly as to resist the 
 corrosions of time during many centuries. But 
 it was long before designs were altered with 
 the change in materials ; and to this day the 
 bridges in Japan mimic in stone the beams and 
 joints of wooden structures. 
 
 Man has been defined as a " tool-using animal." 
 Without special appliances insects would be 
 unable to construct their elaborate fabrics : by 
 peculiar modifications of the jaw they are provided 
 with as varied an assortment of implements as 
 may be found in a mason's tool bag. Left to the 
 guidance of his reason man for countless genera- 
 tions possessed no such resources as this instinc- 
 tive equipment. His only tools were fragments of 
 
264 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 chipped flint. Fire, transported from the hearth 
 to the furnace, brought the metals into his service. 
 Copper, tin and zinc were blended into bronze and 
 brass : iron was not more refractory, but in Asia 
 and Europe was a later discovery. Carbonized iron 
 (steel) of good quality could be produced by simple 
 appliances if used with skill. To steel-edged tools 
 most materials are submissive : the blacksmith 
 could work in iron, the carpenter in wood, the 
 mason in stone, and could elaborate ornamental 
 embellishments which in some countries were 
 brought to a high pitch of artistic excellence. 
 But the motive power was man's own strength : 
 manufacture was by handicraft. Only a century 
 and a half has passed since the discovery was 
 made that by the burning of coal energy could 
 be evolved which could employ tools with 
 infinitely more efficiency than was attainable by 
 human muscle, so that man, having once harnessed 
 this power to his machinery, could stand aside 
 and watch the achievements of the jinn he had 
 enslaved. 
 
 Dress originated in an idea not of decency or 
 of warmth, but of ornament. It has accordingly 
 been the practice of almost all races of men par- 
 tially to undress themselves as a sign of respect. 
 Orientals uncover the feet ; Europeans the head. 
 It is related of the Sultan of Melli that he would 
 permit no women to enter his presence until they 
 had discarded all their clothing ; and ladies may 
 not be presented at the royal courts of Europe 
 unless they are clad in decollete fashion. Amongst 
 uncultured peoples beads are often more prized 
 than clothing, and their women are loaded with 
 necklaces when scarcely provided with a nether 
 garment. Civilized nations, under the prompt- 
 ings of reason, have discovered the protective 
 value of clothes : they have also strayed into 
 
THE ART OF WRITING 265 
 
 the most fanciful ideas of their connection 
 with decency. The history of dress throws an 
 interesting side-light upon human character. 
 Amongst the richer classes of Europe there has 
 been, during a thousand years and more, a desire 
 for change which has led to increasing alterations 
 of fashion. Until recently the poorer classes were 
 content to wear a customary dress. In India 
 fashions have hardly changed during many 
 centuries. 
 
 There are tribes, with some pretensions to 
 culture, and much skill in handicraft and agri- 
 culture, that have remained ignorant of the art 
 of writing until they learnt from Christian mis- 
 sionaries that they might express their language 
 in Roman characters. Yet pictorial writing 
 appears to be an obvious development of such 
 elementary acquaintance with drawing as is 
 possessed by most savages. It seems easy to 
 represent the idea of a house by a rough picture 
 of one, and it is surprising that the art of writing 
 pictorially or ideographically did not become 
 as widespread as the use of fire or of the loom. 
 It was the idea upon which Egyptian hierogly- 
 phics were elaborated : they were eventually 
 turned to express syllables or letters, but continued 
 to be used ideographically until classical days. 
 The cuneiform characters of Mesopotamia were 
 similarly of pictorial origin. The natives 1 of North 
 and South America were familiar with the use 
 of pictorial writing ; and in the Bolivian museum 
 at La Paz there is a parchment, of comparatively 
 recent date, on which Indian hands have repre- 
 sented pictographically so abstruse a subject as 
 the tenets of Christianity. Ideographs are still 
 used by the Chinese, and in a less degree by the 
 Japanese. They have one great advantage : 
 
 1 As also the inhabitants of Scandinavia during the Bronze age. 
 
266 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 expressing not words, but ideas, they can be used 
 between persons who speak different languages : 
 they are understood in Pekin and in Canton 
 although the languages of these places are quite 
 dissimilar. But they are cumbrous, and unless 
 complicated by many artificial conventions 
 such as, for instance, the addition of symbols to 
 signify sounds they are hardly capable of ex- 
 pressing abstract ideas or shades of meaning. 
 The nations of the world have generally come to 
 write phonographically, that is to say, to employ 
 symbols to denote not things, or the ideas of 
 things, but the sounds by which things or ideas 
 are denoted in speech. This improvement was 
 discovered very slowly. It must have been 
 difficult for unscientific minds to conceive of the 
 reproduction of a sound by a mark or symbol, 
 and the first dawnings of the idea may have 
 arisen out of punning by the employment, for 
 instance, of the picture of a post to signify a post- 
 office. In this case the picture actually recalls 
 not an object, but a sound, and is really phono- 
 graphic. The next step would be to use pictorial 
 symbols to denote the first syllable of the name of 
 the object that they represented : thus the picture 
 of a cabin might stand for the syllable " ca." The 
 analysis of syllables into letters, and the allot- 
 ment of abbreviated symbols to individual letters 
 was the final stage of the invention. But phono- 
 graphic writing could easily be misunderstood 
 and took time to gain confidence. In the hiero- 
 glyphic inscriptions of Egypt the phonographic 
 representation of an idea is commonly followed 
 by an ideographic picture known as the " deter- 
 minant " : as a child, after scrawling the word 
 " bullock," might add, for greater clearness, a 
 picture of the animal. 
 
 The most difficult step in the development of 
 
TRADE 267 
 
 writing was the analysis of syllables into letters : 
 this once accomplished, it was possible to express 
 the sound of each letter by an arrangement of 
 dots and dashes such as is used in the Ogham 
 alphabet of ancient Ireland and in the Morse 
 system of modern telegraphy. 
 
 
 
 By trade, or the exchanging ot articles, men 
 are able to obtain things which they cannot 
 produce or make for themselves or seize from 
 others. It has been attended by abuses which 
 have increased the tale of human misery. Slavery 
 has followed in its train, and the ruin of backward 
 races by spirituous liquors. But with a magnetic 
 attraction it is drawing together the different 
 races of mankind and is developing a practical 
 idea of human brotherhood in money-making if 
 not in sympathy. Less strong a bond than reli- 
 gion, it is infinitely more extensive. At first it 
 enclosed the village within its meshes of mutual 
 inter-dependance, uniting the cultivators with the 
 artisans upon whose industry they relied for their 
 implements, their furniture and their clothing. 
 From the village its tentacles spread to the 
 nation, to groups of nations, and finally have 
 embraced the whole world. Under its influence 
 civilized lands have been covered with a network 
 of railway lines and telegraph wires, along which 
 streams of travellers, letters and messages are 
 incessantly hurrying, regardless of the boundaries 
 which artificially separate communities of man- 
 kind. The financial reservoirs of cash and credit, 
 from which trade draws the streams of its activity, 
 have been internationalized, and the obligations 
 of different peoples are so closely interlaced that 
 an injury to the resources of one is felt by all. 
 Financially, it may then be urged, war is a 
 
268 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 mistake ; and there are enthusiasts who expect 
 that considerations of profit will gradually soften 
 men's fighting instincts and reconcile the civilized 
 world to unbroken peace. So high are the hopes 
 that may be built upon a system which is founded 
 upon the narrowest conceptions of self-interest. 
 
 International trade may, accordingly, be re- 
 garded as a flood which is spreading ideas and in- 
 ventions throughout the world, and does not permit 
 them to be monopolized by any particular nation. 
 But we must not forget that from the beginning of 
 human civilization there must have been a current, 
 however slow and intermittent, which maintained 
 some intercommunication between the races of 
 mankind. There is no tribe, however backward, 
 which is unacquainted with the use of fire : the 
 plough and the loom are known almost univer- 
 sally. We can hardly believe that these discoveries 
 and other surprising similarities between the 
 culture of widely separated peoples originated 
 independently at several centres ; and we must, 
 then, suppose that in the course of ages a know- 
 ledge of them filtered gradually around the 
 world. Trade routes have been respected by the 
 most barbarous nations : the blackmail that they 
 levied spared sufficiently high trading profits ; and 
 we find that amber from the Baltic was well- 
 known in Asia centuries before the Trojan war, 
 and that Greek ornaments and vases reached 
 Northern Europe when, to the people of the 
 Mediterranean, it was a land of terrifying fable. 
 Some inventions were so patently useful as to 
 command immediate adoption : the spread of 
 others would be impeded by the force of custom 
 until it was urged by some special pressure. 
 Such may have been exerted by rulers of intelli- 
 gence, or by religious priesthoods. But more 
 potent influences would be those of war and 
 
BALTIC IDEALS 269 
 
 intermarriage ; during the ages in which trade 
 brought nations into merely surface connection, 
 it was the ebb and flow of conquest and migration 
 that most effectually transported new ideas and 
 usages from land to land. Northern India was no 
 doubt desolated by the Aryan invaders, as subse- 
 quently by the Tartars and Moghals : but from 
 both it gathered some novelties of culture. The 
 Turkish conquest of Constantinople shattered the 
 last fragments of Greek civilization ; but refugees 
 from the catastrophe brought ideas into Western 
 Europe, which took root in eager but uncultured 
 minds and blossomed in the Renaissance. 
 
 
 
 Material civilization was late in spreading to 
 Northern Europe, but, once planted there, flour- 
 ished with a changeful vigour which speedily 
 gave it a character of its own. Amongst the 
 Baltic races the provident impulse of acquisitive- 
 ness is very strongly developed ; but until 
 modern times it was chiefly exercised in robbing 
 others, and their history exhibits a covetous 
 turbulence that contrasts very strongly with the 
 placidity with which the Mediterranean races 
 accepted the domination of Rome, and with the 
 acquiescence of the peoples of India in British 
 rule. The prospects of gain that were opened by 
 civilization diverted their energies into more 
 productive channels. Finding that riches and 
 comforts could be acquired by industry or by 
 commerce they have thrown themselves into these 
 pursuits with an aggressive activity which has 
 effected more change in material conditions than 
 had come about in many thousands of years pre- 
 ceding. They have cared little for the philosophi- 
 cal speculations which occupied the minds of the 
 Greeks, and still influence the opinions of Indians 
 
270 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 and Chinese, and have generally been content to 
 accept morality and religion as affairs ot law or of 
 habit. The aesthetic impulses which stir southern 
 races to self-abandoning ecstasy excited in them 
 much colder feelings. Their instincts sought more 
 practical activities and have been turned to the 
 improvement of their material surroundings. 
 Death, which by other peoples has been accepted 
 as decreed by fate, has by them been met in a 
 spirit of antagonism as an evil which man should 
 show his skill by averting. Cleanliness has 
 become accepted as a gospel message, and com- 
 fort as man's most rational desire. Surroundings 
 should not only be clean : they should be pretty ; 
 and, when travelling, we may learn from the 
 cottage gardens of the poor that we are under 
 Baltic not Mediterranean influences. The strong 
 individuality of these northern peoples is mani- 
 fested in their idealization of the home, and by 
 their desire to beautify it : this feeling influences 
 them even when in distant exile : the German 
 colonies in Brazil and Chile are markedly dis- 
 tinguished by neatness of houses and house- 
 surroundings from the cheerless villages of their 
 Latin neighbours. Religion and politics are 
 regarded from a practical standpoint. Their 
 religion has not been so much concerned with 
 technicalities of belief, or mysticism of ceremonial, 
 as with the construction of churches and cathe- 
 drals, with philanthropy and social improvement. 
 Even during the dark ages of Teutonic Christianity 
 the monastic life was esteemed more as an oppor- 
 tunity for industry and good work than for the 
 religious meditation which other races have 
 accepted as its crowning merit. Protestantism 
 sets a higher value upon moral behaviour than 
 upon niceties of belief. The personal issues which 
 everywhere give politics their most exciting 
 
MATERIAL INFLUENCE OF WOMEN 271 
 
 interest have in the north been linked with 
 practical considerations, and men's adherence to 
 one politician or another has to some extent been 
 guided by their opinion of the social effect of the 
 views that he professes, and has not been solely 
 determined by sentiment or jealousy. 
 
 The industry of these Baltic peoples has been 
 stimulated very greatly by the freedom of their 
 women. Swayed less masterfully than south- 
 erners by the reproductive instinct, they have, 
 from the beginnings of their history, prized woman 
 for her companionship as well as for her purely 
 sexual attributes, and have conceded to her a 
 substantial measure of liberty. The mediaeval 
 ideas of romance and chivalry manifest a self- 
 restraint in regard to her which seems strange, 
 if not ludicrous, to a Mediterranean. Her material 
 desires are treated with indulgence, and they 
 have been a most important factor in creating 
 the demand for dress and furniture which has 
 started the wheels of factories and has swelled 
 the current of trade. Man is generally content to 
 live in barbarous simplicity, or to share with other 
 men the comforts of a club. It is to woman that 
 we owe the multifarious demands of the home 
 the extravagances, if you will that attend the 
 establishment of a separate centre of life for each 
 family. Imagine the streets of London deserted 
 by women : nine-tenths of the shops would be 
 shut : the tramways and omnibuses would pay 
 no dividends. 
 
 
 
 It must be confessed that these material ambi- 
 tions are in themselves less respectable than the 
 ideas that may be evoked by introspective medi- 
 tation : the pursuit of comfort, of riches, can 
 hardly be ranked with the moral aspirations that 
 have been enshrined in all ages by religious and 
 
272 MATERIAL PROGRESS 
 
 philosophic thought. It is a truism that riches 
 do not give happiness : neither can they mitigate 
 the terrors of death : a wise man will surely prefer 
 to them the careful training of his own mind. 
 But it must be remembered that, although wealth 
 may in itself be vanity, its pursuit gratifies the 
 provident instinct and is therefore exceedingly 
 pleasurable. And from the desire for riches have 
 arisen new standards of ambition which may 
 at first blush appear sordid, but have in effect 
 conduced to human benefit. We are impressed 
 by wealth almost as much as by birth or breeding. 
 We are coming to respect success in industry or 
 in commerce more than the authority of a king or 
 the antiquity of an institution. The East still 
 admires the capricious despotism of a strong ruler; 
 but " Bluff King Hal " or " Good Queen Bess " 
 would, we feel, be unacceptable anachronisms 
 in England of the present day. We wonder what 
 the Somersetshire peasants can have seen in 
 Monmouth that they should have shed their 
 blood for him. The House of Lords, the Estab- 
 lished Church, are no longer secure in popular 
 veneration. Material ambitions may appear an 
 unworthy substitute for feelings of reverence and 
 loyalty. But they make for freedom, and the 
 spread of culture. In the pursuit of wealth 
 artificial class barriers are levelled : success is 
 open to the poorest, and the difference between 
 the lower and the upper classes of the people is 
 seen to be one of circumstances not of essence. The 
 poor may accordingly copy the rich in dress and 
 in manners : dress they must imitate in cheaper 
 materials, but in manners they may be and are 
 becoming of the finest. Culture is, then, be- 
 coming the heritage of all, not the privilege of a 
 few. 
 
 These feelings of emulation may bear bitter 
 
SPREAD OF BALTIC IDEALS 273 
 
 fruits : the current of industry is frequently 
 disturbed by strikes of workmen. But the 
 increasing similarity of interests and pursuits 
 tends to draw rich and poor together : kindliness 
 on the part of the well-to-do is the more appre- 
 ciated as it becomes more sympathetic and less 
 patronizing. Moreover, the activity which is 
 exercised upon material objects appears inciden- 
 tally to react upon the mind, weakening the 
 instinct of cruelty and strengthening that of 
 kindness. It certainly does not arouse such 
 jealousy that cruellest of emotions as is pro- 
 voked by struggles for social or political prece- 
 dence. So the Baltic races, in wrestling with 
 substance, have found more abiding visions of 
 the spirit than have been vouchsafed to peoples 
 of less practical instinct. They have led the 
 world in philanthropy as well as in industry, 
 illustrating the fable in which a man's heirs, by 
 digging for treasure in his orchard, find in the im- 
 provement of its produce the gold which his will 
 had promised them. Their wealth and prosperity 
 have drawn upon them the eyes of all other 
 peoples, and, by imitation, their cult of the 
 material and even their attitude towards women 
 have spread, and are spreading far and wide 
 amongst nations that fall within the pale of 
 Christendom. Outside this circle of religious kin- 
 ship the ideas of Northern Europe are adopted 
 much less eagerly : they can hardly be accepted 
 without some suspicion of disloyalty to creed, 
 some sacrifice of natural pride. So Turkey hesi- 
 tates to follow her Christian neighbours ; and India 
 lags, in her standard of comfort, behind the 
 humbler families of the British Isles. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 MAN is a gregarious animal, and it is, then, in the 
 herd, rather than in the family, that we should 
 search for the foundations of our social fabric. 
 We may perhaps discover some of its primaeval 
 features in the behaviour of a troop of monkeys. 
 Amongst them there is neither marriage nor 
 private property ; all things are in common, save 
 for the interference of superior strength or 
 courage. These qualities are respected, as also 
 is age. There is generally a leader of the troop 
 who must be strong and courageous : he must 
 also, it seems, be old, and he is generally ill- 
 tempered. 
 
 The first beginnings of exclusiveness were due, 
 we may believe, to the predilections of woman, 
 who, naturally disliking to be at any man's 
 disposal, reserved her attractions to certain 
 members of the herd. This introduces us to the 
 custom of polyandry, which is still a living force 
 in some respectable communities ; it has, for 
 instance, maintained itself amongst certain 
 peoples of India and Tibet. Woman took a 
 further step when, following the dictates of her 
 heart, she denied herself to more than one 
 man, whom she accepted, more as her custom- 
 ary lover than as her legal husband. Amongst 
 a very intelligent tribe of Assam, marriage is 
 still in this embryonic stage. A man does not 
 
 274 
 
ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE 275 
 
 live with his wife does not, indeed, take his 
 meals with her : he visits her, more or less 
 stealthily, at night, and has no concern with 
 the upbringing of the children. In these circum- 
 stances woman, not man, is the pivot of society, 
 and we have the conditions of the matriarchate. 
 Children belong to their mother's family ; women 
 are the titular holders of property, and succession 
 to property tends to go through the female line. 
 We find traces of the matriarchate, subsisting 
 throughout the world, in the cult of female 
 divinities. 
 
 Conditions of warfare introduced momentous 
 changes. Men who captured women in inter- 
 tribal conflicts could hardly be denied the 
 exclusive possession of them, and might retain 
 them as their particular share of the booty. Life 
 elaborates beauty from the humblest origins, and 
 we need not shrink from believing that marriage 
 has sprung from conditions of slavery. There are 
 (ao has already been mentioned) some curious 
 survivals in marriage customs which seem to 
 indicate that the wife was originally a captive 
 woman, who, belonging to an alien tribe, was not 
 subject to the claims of her captor's tribesmen. 
 A leading warrior might not content himself with 
 a single wife : to possess a number of wives might 
 indeed become a sign of dignity. The conditions 
 of peace were reversed, and a multiplicity of wives 
 took the place of a multiplicity of husbands. Man 
 became the pivot of society : the matriarchal 
 gave way to the patriarchal system, and the 
 foundation was laid for family life as we now 
 know it. 
 
 Woman's rule was, then, born of peace, man's 
 rule of war ; and it is amongst warlike races that 
 we find the most despotic developments of the 
 power of the husband and father. Marriage 
 
276 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 customs, like all other customs, spread by 
 imitation : unwarlike communities would tend 
 to copy the manners of their more forceful con- 
 querors or neighbours. Man's authority advanced ; 
 woman's declined, and we can trace the progress 
 of this revolution during the period of recorded 
 history. Succession through males is now almost 
 universal amongst races who have any pretension 
 to be civilized. But in legends and fairy tales 
 how often does it not come down to us that 
 anciently a young man might win a kingdom by 
 attracting the affections of a king's daughter! 
 
 But, it may be urged, if the patriarchal system 
 arose out of woman's slavery, how comes it that 
 woman has been so highly esteemed amongst some 
 races which have accentuated strongly the author- 
 ity of her husband ? She might be honoured or dis- 
 honoured under the mastership of man. In Asia the 
 patriarchate has commonly been polygamous. In 
 Northern Europe, under the impulse of peculiar in- 
 stincts, the subjection of the wife had the effect of 
 identifying her interests with those of her husband : 
 servitude grew into partnership, and the chastity 
 which she contributed to the common stock was 
 regarded as her most cherished possession. It 
 might be preserved in the face of whatever 
 temptation, and did not need to be safeguarded 
 by the bars of the harem. 
 
 We may, then, conclude that the family, which 
 appears to be the most natural element in the 
 constitution of society, is in reality an artificial 
 creation the composite result of various im- 
 pulses. Sexual attraction is its foundation ; but 
 this is transitory, and can fortunately be replaced 
 by feelings which spring from our impulses of 
 sociability, habit, and kindness. Selfishness 
 
FOUNDATIONS OF FAMILY LIFE 277 
 
 enters into its framework : the marriage tie is 
 reinforced by notions of exclusive possession, of 
 particularity, of service. Maternal love is its 
 cement ; for this imperious impulse finds in 
 family life the best means of expressing itself. 
 The affection of a mother is one of the most 
 beautiful impulses of life : the complete self- 
 abandonment of its promptings appeals very 
 powerfully to our aesthetic instincts, and we should 
 like to believe that it is directive that it leads a 
 mother infallibly to detect her children. Not so : 
 it is blind. A hen will bring up as her own the 
 chickens of another, will feel motherly love for 
 a brood of ducklings, has been known to adopt 
 a litter of ferrets in spite of the distress they 
 occasioned her in searching lor her teats. The 
 hedge-sparrow will labour incessantly to feed a 
 young cuckoo, although its large size should 
 repel her, and she may have seen it shoulder her 
 own young out of the nest. Cats will suckle 
 puppies even rats. A mother will cherish as 
 her own a baby that has been substituted, if she 
 is unaware of the substitution ; indeed, a foster 
 mother's love may show all the self-sacrifice of 
 the maternal instinct. When this instinct is not 
 satisfied by maternity it may be lavished upon a 
 pet dog. It wells up from the depths of a woman's 
 heart, but laves the object that is nearest to her. 
 Marriage that is monogamic makes a further 
 appeal to elementary human feelings. In its 
 intimacy -- its mutual confidence man and 
 woman enjoy the completest satisfaction of 
 that social instinct which makes it so hard 
 for the individual to stand alone. The mask 
 is thrown down that hides self from society : 
 each gives the other visions of reality, and it is 
 a blessed relief to be rid, during some hours of the 
 day, of the artificiality with which individuals 
 
278 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 protect themselves against the crowd that they 
 are compelled by their impulses to contemn and 
 to respect. It is often claimed for the monogamic 
 family that it provides a nursery and a class-room 
 for the next generation, and is essential to civiliza- 
 tion, if only on this account. It may certainly 
 enable children to profit to the utmost by a 
 mother's care, and by the expenditure which a 
 father is willing to incur upon those whose 
 interests he identifies with his own. But many 
 mothers are inefficient nurses : few parents are 
 inspiring teachers ; and from long time past, in 
 the upper classes of English society, mothers have 
 been content to leave their little sons to be 
 instructed by schoolmasters, and to be initiated 
 by other boys into the ways of life. The difference 
 between the ideal of family life and its actualities 
 has been recognized by the State, which during 
 the last generation has itself undertaken to 
 educate the children of the poorer classes, and 
 has even commenced to feed them. These 
 children generally regard the school house as their 
 home, and feel more respect for the school- 
 mistress than for their mothers. And this is no 
 matter for surprise. Family life loses its attrac- 
 tiveness in a single-roomed lodging and amidst 
 the recreations of the pavement. 
 
 If, marriage apart, we endeavour to analyse 
 the cement which consolidates human society, 
 we shall find, here again, a variety of elements. 
 Some relationships, such as that of master and 
 slave, are upheld by the narrowest impulses of 
 selfish interest : others, such as comradeship, 
 display the depth of our social, or unselfish, 
 sympathies. Sympathy may be warmed by 
 
SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS 279 
 
 kindliness : selfishness may be blunted by kindli- 
 ness or sharpened by cruelty. 
 
 Turning, in the first place, to the influence of the 
 social impulses in linking men together, we observe 
 that, like the maternal impulse, they are vague 
 and uninstructive until, focussed by propinquity, 
 they find their object in the persons whom we see 
 around us. We insensibly defer to our close com- 
 panions : friends may be more to us than relatives : 
 our charity is moved more strongly by sights than 
 by tales of distress. Men who have lived amongst 
 alien races and may criticize them severely will 
 defend them in case of need even against their 
 own kin. Anglo- Indian officials will champion 
 the cause of Indians against such belittlement as 
 is implied by the immigration policy of the South 
 African government. But the propinquity may 
 be ideal as well as actual : notions of it may be 
 evoked by conceptions that arise out of memories, 
 as well as by the impressions of our senses. The 
 idea that another is a blood relation predisposes 
 us towards him. So also do ideas of comradeship 
 in religion, in business, or in opinions. A Moham- 
 medan is drawn towards a Mohammedan, a sur- 
 geon towards a fellow-surgeon, a radical in politics 
 towards another radical. Ideas of closeness that 
 arise in this fashion have been of immense impor- 
 tance in human progress : they are, indeed, the 
 foundation upon which much of our social 
 structure rests. Sympathy that is born of sight 
 or touch may be stronger than can be generated 
 by ideas of fellowship. But obviously it can bind 
 only a small society ; and towns, countries, and 
 nations would lose all coherence were their 
 inhabitants not welded together by the wider 
 feelings which may be aroused by ideal concep- 
 tions of relationship. The history of the birth 
 of these conceptions whether religious, social, 
 
28o SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 or political is in fact the history of the develop- 
 ment of modern society. 
 
 The earliest of these conceptions is that of 
 blood brotherhood. This was the foundation of 
 the tribe. It was assumed that the members of a 
 tribe were descended from a common ancestor ; 
 outsiders might be admitted, but only by a formal 
 adoption ceremony which had the mystic effect 
 of a rebirth. From the tribe sympathy broad- 
 ened to the nation, or group of tribes, unified 
 by the possession of a single government, but 
 not effectually compacted until the right of 
 inter-marriage was generally conceded. Or, sym- 
 pathetic conceptions might take a different course 
 and collect around ideas, not of relationship but 
 of neighbourhood. Thus the village, the town, 
 the country became, so to speak, endowed with a 
 consciousness, a patriotism, of its own, which 
 might at times be in conflict with tribal sym- 
 pathies. Within the State men became collected 
 into groups by the notions of fellowship which 
 originated in similarity of occupation : the Indian 
 caste system, originally tribal, has been reinforced 
 by these notions : the solidarity of guilds, and 
 trade unions, illustrates their force ; indeed, 
 traders and artisans who follow the same line or 
 calling have tended to congregate together in the 
 same quarter of the town. Endless, indeed, are 
 the ideas which, like centres of magnetic 
 attraction, draw men into clusters within the 
 circle of the State. There is an esprit de corps of 
 the class, of the political party, ol the club, of the 
 regiment; and the community may be honey- 
 combed with secret societies, which to some races 
 are irresistibly fascinating. So attractive may be 
 these partisan interests that they may undermine 
 the sympathy of the nation as a whole. Patriotism 
 may be choked by them. This needs a unity of 
 
PATRIOTISM AND LOYALTY 281 
 
 interest, and we may learn from the marvellous 
 successes of the French revolutionary republic 
 that, when this is forthcoming, no feat of arms is 
 impossibly difficult. 
 
 Loyalty to a general or a king may take the 
 place of patriotism indeed, has often been its 
 predecessor in time. We intuitively reverence 
 the leaders of the herd. The institution of 
 monarchy probably originated in conditions of 
 war, in which a nation is greatly advantaged if 
 its forces are directed by a single authority. For 
 this reason the Jews desired a king ; and within 
 recent years a curious illustration has come from 
 the experiences of some hill tribes across the 
 Assam frontier. They sought British assistance 
 against a small immigrant tribe which they were 
 unable to withstand because, amidst democratic 
 communities, it was governed by a raja. But 
 feelings of loyalty must be supported by ideas of 
 kingly attributes, which in these intelligent days 
 will not long irradiate a monarch who does not 
 possess these qualities. 
 
 We need not insist upon the unifying effect of 
 religious beliefs. Their influence has been immense 
 in consolidating peoples and in disintegrating 
 them in raising the moral tone of a nation and 
 in hurling it blood thirstily against other nations. 
 Amidst the distractions of modern philosophy, 
 politics and pleasures, religion is losing its compel- 
 ling authority. But that it is still a living force may 
 not be doubted if we regard the present state of 
 Ireland, and of French Canada, the recent war in 
 the Balkans, the bitter animosities which occa- 
 sionally antagonize Mohammedans and Hindus. 
 
 A feature of present day conditions is the remark- 
 able development of the spirit of nationality. From 
 Ireland and Wales to China sections of the popula- 
 tions of empires and kingdoms are asserting claims 
 
282 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 to, so to speak, a national personality. These pre- 
 tensions are based upon notions of unity that are 
 derived from past history, and their advancement 
 may be attributed to the increasing attention that 
 is paid to historical studies. To corroborate them 
 by evidence of singularity, attempts may be made 
 to resuscitate languages that are actually dead. 
 
 So far for the ties between man and man which 
 rest upon the influence of the social instinct. But 
 these are not the only links in human society. 
 By the selfish, or individualistic, impulses, bonds 
 have been compacted which have drawn men 
 together as by hoops of iron. Many of them have 
 been forged in the smithy of war. Slavery is 
 technically dead ; but up to quite modern times it 
 was a vital element in the constitution of society, 
 and, from a practical point of view, it is still a 
 living institution in some Spanish and Portuguese 
 countries. It is not peculiar to mankind : some 
 species of ants have slaves, which appear to become 
 greatly attached to their masters and will fight 
 energetically on their behalf. Slaves might be 
 acquired by raiding : in this case their condition 
 generally became that of domestic servitude. 
 Or, when a country was conquered, the indigenous 
 population might be degraded to a position of 
 helotage, in which they might labour on their 
 fields, but for the conqueror's benefit, and were 
 carefully excluded from political privileges. As 
 time advanced, and their condition improved, 
 they have claimed freedom, and even political 
 equality, and they have generally made good their 
 claim except in cases where the ruling class has 
 rigidly maintained its vigour and exclusiveness. 
 The conflict between the patricians and plebeians 
 of Rome is a familiar illustration of this social 
 revolution ; and we have an instance nearer home 
 in the history of Ireland. 
 
 Since commerce has become a temptation 
 
CONQUESTS TO SECURE TRADE 283 
 
 for the world, countries have been conquered 
 in the interests, not of colonization, but of 
 trade. In these cases there has been little 
 interference with the activities of the subject 
 inhabitants ; indeed, they may be infinitely more 
 prosperous than they would have been under a 
 government of their own. So it is in the Asiatic 
 dependencies of Britain, France, and Holland. 
 It may be urged that under alien rule the native 
 peoples lose heart for self -improvement. It does 
 not follow, however, that they would have ad- 
 vanced more briskly under native rulers. The 
 peoples of India are decidedly more progressive 
 than those of Turkey, Persia, or China. Culture 
 has spread by imitation, and in the past civiliza- 
 tion has owed much to the lead of foreign con- 
 querors. But it is true that in these days self-con- 
 scious pride may hold men back from adopting 
 alien fashions. 
 
 Domestic slavery has given place to the rela- 
 tions of master and servant : predial slavery to 
 the relations of employer and employed. In 
 modern society these are, beyond all comparison, 
 the most important of the social links that are 
 formed, not by the social, but by the selfish 
 impulses of men. Servants and employees so far 
 resemble slaves in that they are obliged to work. 
 But they may choose their employers ; they may 
 combine, and may gradually compel the pay- 
 ment of higher wages. But large numbers of 
 them live in abject poverty, lacking even the 
 security of a slave's subsistence ; and it would 
 be idle to pretend that their indigence does 
 not prove that our social organization has its 
 signal failures. Their misery is in great measure 
 the result of their freedom : there are two exits 
 from the Temple of Liberty, one leading upwards, 
 the other down. 
 
284 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 
 
 Ideas of liberty are, indeed, always striving to 
 unloose the fastenings whether selfish or un- 
 selfish wherewith society is bound together. 
 According to the theory of human behaviour 
 which we are endeavouring to maintain, liberty 
 means little more than opportunities for change. 
 None the less is the desire for it a fundamental 
 impulse of human nature, which in the majority 
 of men is restrained by habits of mind or body, 
 but leads others violently to attack established 
 ideas and customs. Through the shrine of Liberty 
 one may pass sometimes to a promised land, 
 sometimes into the wilderness, often, indeed, 
 only from one walled labyrinth into another. The 
 soaring ideals of the French Revolution accepted 
 their accomplishment in a military despotism : 
 the liberty of combining so precious to workmen 
 reconciles them to such a tyranny, at the hands 
 of their union, as no monarch would dare to 
 impose. We may, in fact, conclude that, generally, 
 liberty means little more than freedom to choose 
 one's master. 
 
 Not infrequently, moreover, the ideas of enthu- 
 siasts may be demonstrably pernicious. Yet 
 they are none the less strongly urged against the 
 established bulwarks of society. What wonder, 
 then, that the guardians of these ramparts, 
 whether kings, priests or lawyers, should have 
 regarded reformers as the enemies of mankind, 
 and have striven to repress their propaganda by 
 ostracism, persecution, and martyrdom ! They 
 have erred erred cruelly but not altogether so 
 selfishly as is sometimes imagined. For, until 
 reason has been trained and knowledge dissemi- 
 nated, the quack has as great a vogue as the 
 qualified doctor, and it may reasonably appear 
 safer to stand still than to advance in complete 
 
IDEALS OF LIBERTY 285 
 
 uncertainty. None the less is it true that progress 
 is impossible without liberty to change; and it is 
 a striking proof of the advancing intelligence 
 of mankind that in western countries people may 
 be left almost unchecked to listen to exhortations 
 whether good or evil. 
 
 Freedom or choice be it only of a tyranny 
 is undoubtedly an ideal of growing influence. It 
 is the mainspring of modern democracy, and is 
 gradually revolutionizing society by disposing 
 mankind to dislike the routine of discipline. We 
 hear of strikes every day. Women are in revolt 
 against the dominance of men. Girls leave domes- 
 tic service for factory work : armies can hardly 
 be maintained by voluntary enlistment : work- 
 men repudiate the promises of their leaders. This 
 tendency is, naturally, deplored by those who 
 suffer from its consequences ; and we may un- 
 doubtedly discern in it threatenings of evil as 
 well as promises of good. It may even endanger 
 the existence of a State by disarming it in the 
 presence of enemies. But, if change is Life, we 
 must not hastily condemn the swaying of our 
 impulses. If civilized man is becoming less 
 amenable to discipline, he is at the same time 
 becoming more kindly in feeling, less inclined 
 to close his eyes to the interests of others. 
 
 A philosopher searching for the key-note of our 
 present culture might indeed find it not in know- 
 ledge, nor in wealth, nor in luxury, but in the 
 astonishing development of man's kindly feelings. 
 The emotion of kindliness is, as we have seen, 
 connected with the impulse to embrace or fondle, 
 which is manifested very clearly in the social life 
 of southern nations. In northern peoples the 
 impulse is not focussed so strongly upon flesh and 
 
286 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 blood, and, perhaps for this reason, can excite 
 emotions of more general sympathy. The Mediter- 
 ranean races are still very far from humane : their 
 descendants in Central and South America are 
 not infrequently obsessed by a maniacal lust 
 for cruelty. The Baltic races may claim with 
 some reason that they are less passionately 
 afflicted with a desire to torture, mutilate or 
 kill ; but their history abounds with illustrations 
 of the fierce over-mastery of cruel impulses. 
 Now, however, amongst them and especially in 
 England philanthropy has become a fashion of 
 the day. It is not merely that enormous sums are 
 dispensed in charity, or that the well-to-do 
 consent without much grumbling to be taxed in 
 order to educate and feed the children of the 
 poor, but that there is a desire to see and mix with 
 the poor, to visit them in their homes, and render 
 them personal service. Cynics may object that 
 these benevolent feelings are prompted by the 
 consciousness that the poor have votes. Not so : 
 they are also awakened by the ill-treatment of 
 animals ; and, indeed, there are many to whom 
 the overloading of a horse is more distressing than 
 the sight of a neglected and hungry child. In 
 Canada and the United States alms-giving is 
 hardly practised : if any need it, they would 
 resent the offer of it. But a spirit of mutual 
 helpfulness is manifest everywhere : it is good 
 to watch frock- coated doctors and lawyers, at a 
 suburban railway station on their way to town, 
 turn their hands to assist market-gardeners in 
 loading their boxes of fruit on to the train. In 
 both Europe and America this impulse of kindly 
 consideration for others is taking the place of 
 formal rules of morality. It can find excuses for 
 crime, which are mitigating the severity of the 
 penal laws. It may soften the struggle between 
 
THE KINDLY IMPULSE 287 
 
 capital and labour, and heal the social wounds 
 that are caused by their conflict. In countries 
 where this kindly feeling prevails, strikes leave 
 no great aftermath of bitterness : masters and 
 men can shake hands when their disputes are 
 settled, and bear no malice for the sternness oi 
 the fight. 
 
 Its effect may be seen in the desire to spread 
 culture amongst th$ masses. This is a distinctive 
 note of modern times. In ancient days culture 
 was the monopoly of the wealthy : the poor were 
 left in unenlightened ignorance, and the advance 
 of civilization can be measured by nothing more 
 significantly than by the increasing proportion of 
 the population who enjoy its amenities. In 
 England, for many centuries past, religious and 
 charitable foundations have afforded free education 
 to some children of the poor : during the last forty 
 years the State has undertaken to extend this 
 privilege to all of them. The fruits, it must be 
 confessed, hardly satisfy our hopes. So dispas- 
 sionate an observer as Mr. Charles Booth writes 
 of the " palpable failure to secure the results 
 anticipated," and recently several experts in 
 education have publicly criticized in a tone of 
 keen disappointment the effect of our schools in 
 raising popular intelligence. It is, nevertheless, 
 impossible to deny that their influence is plainly 
 to be discerned in the dress, manners and ideals of 
 the new generation. Intellectually the harvest 
 may fall short of anticipation ; but this may be 
 due to imperfections of method. Education is 
 still under the influence of mediaeval authorities 
 who believed that it was concerned with little 
 more than the acquisition of knowledge, and did 
 not perceive that it should be really the intro- 
 duction to a life of self -improvement. The sons 
 of the richer classes still spend much of their 
 
288 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 youth in learning Latin and Greek, although it is 
 certain that few of them will pursue in after life 
 the study of languages, which are not more 
 flexible or expressive than French and German, 
 and are of no practical usefulness to men of 
 affairs. So also, in the schooling of the masses, too 
 much stress has been laid upon the memorizing 
 of knowledge and too little upon the training of 
 the mental faculties. It is necessary to memo- 
 rize : an abundance of word-symbols is needed 
 for expression. But man has risen above the 
 brutes by his 1 discernment of properties, by the 
 exercise of his will, and by the possession of useful 
 habits, and if education were directed more fully 
 to the strengthening of these impulses, it might 
 have greater effect in raising the level of character 
 and intelligence. Habits, it should be explained, 
 include habits ot mind that is to say beliefs 
 and ideas : these affect very powerfully the drift 
 of society, and an agnostic philosopher may very 
 well believe that it would be an evil day for 
 England were religious instruction excluded from 
 the influences which shape the minds of the 
 young. 
 
 It is tempting to dilate upon the contrast be- 
 tween riches and poverty as an evil feature of 
 modern times ; it is indeed amazing that members 
 of the same social organism should, some, have 
 more than they can waste in the most extrava- 
 gant luxury, and others, less than they require 
 for the bare necessities of life. But this is as 
 ancient as human aggressiveness, and indeed 
 present day conditions are infinitely to be pre- 
 ferred to those of classical times when half the 
 population was bound in slavery. Speaking 
 
 1 The practising of volition is a leading feature of the Montessori 
 system of education. Children select their own tasks, and accord- 
 ingly guide their studies by choice, not by imitation. 
 
POVERTY 289 
 
 generally, poverty is the outcome of poverty 
 the result of a lack of advantages in possessions, 
 birth or character which may enable a man to 
 bargain advantageously with other men. His 
 helplessness is woefully increased should he be 
 constitutionally idle, should he be lacking, that 
 is to say, in the impulse to industry, or should he 
 be oppressed by the tyranny of other impulses, 
 such as the passion for drink or for gambling, 
 which fatally affect the impulse to industry. 
 The misery of helplessness reaches its climax in 
 unemployment : this (as will be seen in the 
 following chapter) may plausibly be ascribed to 
 a slacking, or interruption, in the current of ex- 
 change of the changing of goods for goods or 
 goods for services which, like a stream of 
 electricity, turns the wheels of modern economic 
 life. Such remedies as may be found for it must 
 have the effect of stimulating this current. 
 Poverty that is deepened by defects of impulse 
 demands remedies of greater complexity. 
 
 The enquiries of Booth and Rowntree have 
 shown that about one per cent, of the population 
 is composed of wastrels persons to whom work is 
 constitutionally repugnant. This is perhaps, not a 
 large proportion of infiuctuous buds on the tree of 
 life, and these degenerates, it may be remarked, 
 are born in all classes of society. How many sons 
 of the rich might we not find idling through their 
 summers in the London parks were they not 
 maintained by the charity of their relations ! 
 Men of this disposition will only work under 
 strict compulsion : so they may acquire habits of 
 industry, but these will rarely become so strong 
 as to survive in conditions of freedom. Far more 
 numerous are those who lack the comforts and 
 decencies of life because their impulse to industry 
 is clogged by the passions for drink or gambling. 
 
290 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 These may be reckoned, it appears, at something 
 more than a quarter of the town population. 
 Education may sober them by offering a wider 
 range of interests : much may also be done by 
 efforts of will artificially stimulated, it may be, 
 by the taking of pledges. So great is the evil that 
 the richer classes may not unreasonably be asked 
 to deny themselves for the benefit of the com- 
 munity, and to consent to the absolute prohibi- 
 tion of the sale of intoxicants. But men drink or 
 gamble to satisfy the inherent passion for change 
 or variety of mood, and the most effective method 
 of bridling this propensity is to offer them means 
 of excitement which are less expensive and less 
 degrading. From this point of view we may con- 
 template with satisfaction the growing popularity 
 of football matches, variety entertainments and 
 cinematograph shows. 
 
 More numerous again are those whose cir- 
 cumstances must be described as poor, but 
 suffice to provide them with sufficient subsis- 
 tence, and with some margin for the amenities 
 of civilization. They cannot afford domestic 
 servants : but they live in decent quarters and 
 have some money to spare for simple luxuries. 
 These are the conditions of about half our 
 population. It is easy to be too gloomy in 
 commiserating their lot. Happiness results from 
 the satisfaction of impulses: lacking strong im- 
 pulsesf onejcould not be happy : with impulses 
 unsatisfied one must be miserable. But the 
 impulse of ambition, for instance, may be satisfied 
 by small degrees of promotion : moods may be 
 changed with no large expenditure : children 
 play in the gutter as happily as in the nursery. 
 And the working man who takes a pride in his 
 work satisfies his provident impulses quite as 
 completely as the merchant or stockbroker who 
 
POVERTY AND HAPPINESS 291 
 
 deals in thousands of pounds. The impulses of 
 love may be satisfied by marriage more often, 
 it may well be, amongst the poor than amongst 
 the rich. Esthetic impulses may be gratified by 
 a street organ : and if they are developed more 
 abundantly by the rich, the poor have, as com- 
 pensation, ampler up-wellings of the ethical 
 aspirations that are manifested by the self-denial 
 of wives for their families and the astonishing 
 generosity of the working man. Poverty may 
 be unacquainted with the pleasures that are 
 derived from luxurious sensation may not be 
 tickled by the taste of truffles and champagne. 
 But happiness is more desirable than pleasure. 
 And the poor are, at all events, untroubled by the 
 pangs which are suffered by respectability in 
 maintaining appearances before the world. One 
 may, then, easily be too severe in condemning 
 modern society. Pessimistic criticism is very 
 attractive : indirectly it flatters one's own ideals. 
 It is probable, indeed, that the strictures of 
 moralists and divines have overrated considerably 
 the extravagances and miseries of the past ; and 
 in future centuries a student of our times may 
 be seriously misled by much that he may come 
 across in the accounts that we are giving of 
 ourselves in current literature. 1 
 
 Human society has, then, developed into its 
 present complexity by the progressive adoption 
 and abandonment of various ideals, or habits of 
 mind. Submissiveness to a patriarch or a tyrant 
 has given way before notions of deference to the 
 majority, of liberty and equality. The idea of 
 
 1 Is not there too much shadow in this opinion of Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison's? "Our present type of society is, in many respects, 
 one of the most horrible that has ever existed in the world's history 
 boundless luxury and self-indulgence at one end of the scale, and 
 at the other a condition of life as cruel as that of a Roman slave, 
 and more degraded than that of a South Sea Islander," 
 
292 SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 blood-brotherhood has widened into that of civic 
 relationship. Traditional custom has been shat- 
 tered by the expansion of industrial enterprise. 
 How, it may be asked, have these transformations 
 of feeling come about ? Partly, it would appear, 
 through the growing influence of self-conscious- 
 ness. But in greater measure through the imita- 
 tion of reformers, who have introduced new stand- 
 ards of conduct, and habits of mind, which, by 
 reinforcing the influence of particular impulses, 
 have profoundly modified man's valuations of 
 life. By the exercise of deference and kindness, 
 we subject ourselves more fully to our deferential 
 and kindly impulses, as by the practice of warfare 
 we have strengthened the authority of pugnacity, 
 cruelty and self-sacrifice. Have we, then, in reform- 
 ing zeal and the imitative propensity, a panacea for 
 everything that is injurious to human society, or 
 obstructs its development ? We may not take so 
 sanguine a view of human possibilities. The im- 
 pulses, with which we are born, subsist beneath the 
 grating which convention imposes upon them. 
 Habit, while, so to speak, regularizing their dis- 
 charges, leaves their essential strength unchanged. 
 We see that individual differs from individual, and 
 race from race, under similar conditions of culture. 
 An Englishman brought up from infancy amongst 
 savages would no doubt exhibit many fundamental 
 traits of Anglo-Saxon character : but we can 
 scarcely believe that he would be impelled or 
 restrained by any of the ideas which differentiate 
 the English from their barbarian forefathers. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 WEALTH is a means of procuring the satisfaction 
 of impuses ; and it may be defined as potential 
 satisfactions that are embodied in a material 
 form, and are therefore capable of being trans- 
 ferred from hand to hand, and of being pledged 
 as security for a loan. Immense is the importance 
 of this last quality. For our economic system 
 is based upon credit that is to say, upon the 
 anticipation of future receipts. The manufac- 
 turer pays his workmen because he expects to 
 sell the things that they make : his capital may 
 be provided by borrowing upon the security of 
 his buildings, machinery and stock of unsold 
 goods : the merchant raises money wherewith to 
 continue his business by hypothecating his 
 consignments before they are delivered. Money 
 itself may, indeed, be considered as a form of 
 credit that is insured against failure by its 
 intrinsic value. A sovereign is of use to us 
 because it represents a sovereign's worth of 
 future satisfactions. It is true that money may 
 be borrowed upon security that is not material : 
 a tradesman may borrow upon the goodwill of 
 his business, an artist may obtain credit upon the 
 money value of his talents. But security is 
 imperfect unless it is represented by a thing that 
 can be transferred from hand to hand before it 
 is finally appropriated. The pawnbroker is the 
 
 293 
 
294 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 poor man's friend : from no one else can he raise 
 money. 
 
 Wealth is produced by the action of our provi- 
 dent impulses those of foresight, industry and 
 a desire for possessions and comfort. But these 
 impulses are, as a rule, not sufficiently strong of 
 themselves to induce us to labour persistently. 
 They need to be reinforced by habits, and by 
 other impulses which can only be satisfied by the 
 products of industry that is to say, by wealth. 
 The desire for food or for luxuries, ambition and 
 the longing for social esteem, the love of children, 
 the passion for change which may be satisfied by 
 travel, by amusement, or by drink, our artistic 
 tastes, may all contribute to enhance the force- 
 fulness of our industrial impulses. The possession 
 of industrial or provident impulses is essential ; 
 they are the roots of our industrial activities : 
 failing them man w r ould remain as poverty-stricken 
 as the brutes. Where they are weak, wealth is not 
 produced. Indian labourers prefer their habits 
 and their leisure to a rise in wages ; and the large 
 amounts of coin and bullion which are annually 
 received by India in payment for raw produce, 
 are in great measure buried under ground. But 
 when the industrial impulses are at their strongest, 
 they still appear to need reinforcement before 
 they will urge mankind to continuous exertion. 
 
 Our economic development has then progressed 
 through the strengthening of our provident or 
 industrial inclinations, firstly, by the acquisition 
 of industrious habits, and secondly, by focussing 
 upon industry the stimuli that can be derived 
 from other propensities. Money is the lens by 
 which our various desires are concentrated. We 
 are told that money serves the community as a 
 standard and measure of value, and as a medium 
 of exchange. In truth it is something more. It 
 
MONEY 295 
 
 gives its possessor an option of acquiring whatever 
 he pleases that is within its value and is exposed 
 for sale. One who possesses a sovereign possesses 
 a sovereign's worth of choice, and, so far, has the 
 world at his disposal. Money, then, stimulates 
 our impulses by offering them every variety of 
 satisfaction. It gives full play to the desire for 
 liberty, for choice, which to a greater or less 
 degree is inherent in all men. Remuneration 
 that is offered in kind is far less stimulating, and 
 payment in food or in goods has passed out of 
 usage in all progressive communities. In some 
 parts of India a ploughman still works for thirty 
 bushels of grain, a blanket and a pair of shoes as 
 his yearly wages. There is nothing before him to 
 relieve the monotony of life, not even the chance 
 ot beggary. It is not surprising that the payment 
 of wages in truck that is to say, in goods, not in 
 money has been strenuously opposed by the 
 English working classes and has been prohibited 
 by law. Such a system starves the enjoyment of 
 life and the zest of industry. 
 
 If we search for a fundamental difference 
 between the economic conditions of the present 
 day, and those, let us say, of ancient Egypt, we 
 may find it in the stream of money which per- 
 meates our society, passing through such a 
 multiplicity of channels as conduct the blood to 
 every recess of the body. It is ever-flowing : 
 the humblest family makes its daily purchases. 
 It passes in broad channels through the homes of 
 the rich : the poor receive rivulets only. But there 
 are no members of the community, except those 
 in workhouses, asylums and prisons, who do not 
 at least dip their fingers in the current. It is 
 surprising that human inventiveness so long fell 
 short of the discovery of money. The earliest 
 known coins were struck by the Lydians some 
 
296 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 twenty-seven centuries ago. Tokens 1 in the form 
 of miniature hoes, axes, and other implements 
 were in use for some time previously. But we 
 may conclude that the monetary system that now 
 appears essential to social life, has come into 
 existence since the beginning of classical history. 
 
 The life of a community which subsists by 
 hunting, cultivation or the pasturing of cattle 
 is borne, as it were, upon a smooth-flowing 
 stream : when men forsook these pursuits for 
 the manufacture of things, they threw themselves 
 upon a whirlpool, and entrusted their lives to the 
 circulation of its current. Manufacture can con- 
 tinue only if goods are sold : selling and buying 
 must never cease. Political economy used to 
 teach us that a demand for commodities is not a 
 demand for labour : but if a demand for com- 
 modities did not exist, no manufacturing labour 
 would be employed at all. Industrial prosperity 
 depends upon the rapidity with which this current 
 circulates, as well as upon its volume. 
 
 Its rapidity is increased by improvements in 
 communications which lessen the time that is 
 required for the completion of a purchase. It is 
 also increased by the enterprise of retail dealers 
 who by bringing goods to the doors of the custo- 
 mers quicken the current of selling and buying. 
 If, from any cause, rapidity of transit is seriously 
 diminished, the industrial population is thrown 
 into such distress as results from the closing of a 
 market. It is kept alive by such a stream of ex- 
 changes as is supposed to be the nature of the 
 electric current, and its vitality suffers if the 
 
 1 Is it not possible that the miniature, or "pygmy," flint 
 weapons that are a puzzle to archaeologists were used for this 
 purpose ? 
 
THE WEALTH STREAM 297 
 
 stream is obstructed. This is one of the perils of 
 war. 
 
 The volume of the wealth current is maintained 
 or augmented by the action and interaction of a 
 large number of factors. First may be mentioned 
 the employment of credit. By credit all the 
 available goods of a community are drawn into 
 the market and used in purchasing. 1 A man may 
 have money, with no desire to expend it. But 
 he will rarely be unwilling to add to his potential 
 satisfactions by lending or investing it at interest, 
 and in this case he contributes to the fund that is 
 employed in purchase in the purchase of goods 
 that are exposed for sale, or in the purchase of 
 goods by an employer from his workmen that takes 
 the form of paying them wages. Credit is based 
 upon the transferability of wealth : but when 
 commercial confidence runs high, goods or land 
 may be pledged several times over, and the 
 industrial fund of the country may enormously 
 exceed the amount of the actual available wealth. 
 But when security is based, not upon wealth, but 
 upon trustfulness, its existence is precarious : 
 if a link is broken, the chain collapses, and such a 
 commercial panic ensues as periodically disorgan- 
 izes industry and throws workmen out of employ. 
 
 Cheapness also increases the volume of pro- 
 duction. There is always a reluctance to part 
 with money. This is lessened if its expenditure 
 will give a substantial return in satisfaction. 
 And the cheaper are goods the greater is the 
 surplus that remains, after procuring them, for 
 the purchase of other varieties of satisfaction. 
 Accordingly cheapness promotes variety of de- 
 mand and stimulates the establishment of new 
 
 1 " Purchase " is used throughout as including the payment of 
 wages by a manufacturer to his workmen in return for the goods 
 they create for him. 
 
298 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 industries. Why, then, it may be asked, is there 
 an impression that high prices are favourable to 
 trade ? High prices must necessarily restrict 
 the number of purchases upon which a limited 
 income can be spent. The manufacturers upon 
 whose goods its expenditure is concentrated will 
 no doubt be benefited. But this will be at the 
 expense of those whose goods are no longer pur- 
 chased because they are beyond the consumer's 
 means. If a country is considered as self-con- 
 tained, high prices redistribute profits and acti- 
 vities, but do not increase them. If, however, 
 they are realized from foreign consumers, they 
 may be an actual gain to the country of export, 
 for the counterbalancing retrenchment of pur- 
 chases in the importing country may affect goods 
 which the country of export does not supply. 
 High prices may, accordingly, stimulate certain 
 industries at the expense of others ; and, if the 
 industries that suffer are in foreign lands, high 
 prices may increase the total wealth of an ex- 
 porting country. But they do not produce the 
 effect of low prices in increasing the wealth of the 
 world as a whole. 
 
 If we look back to the early stages of human 
 society we shall find that the first step in increasing 
 the wealth of a community was the diversion of 
 labour from domestic employ, or feudal service, 
 to the more productive occupation of making 
 things. The ultimate fact upon which industrial 
 development is based is that a cultivator's labour 
 produces more than suffices for his support. He 
 has rarely been permitted to retain the surplus. 
 It has been taken from him as rent, and in days of 
 simplicity is mainly spent in the maintenance of 
 relatives, dependants, and retinues of servants. 
 Manufacture is limited to primitive conveniences, 
 and the craftsmen are commonly paid in produce. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF MANUFACTURE 299 
 
 These conditions are still typical of India, as 
 they were of Europe in mediaeval days. When 
 landlords conceived a desire for manufactured 
 luxuries they gratified it by reducing their 
 personal establishments. Labour was diverted to 
 handicrafts, and the industrial era began. 
 
 Industry stimulates industry. The making of 
 shoes incites men to buy them, and to make other 
 things in order to produce funds for the purchase. 
 Each new handicraft, then, created others. This 
 interaction is an accumulating force, and rapidly 
 extended the field of industry. 
 
 Handicrafts gave place to machinery. By 
 harnessing the energy of coal with himself, man 
 augmented immensely the effectiveness of his 
 labour. With the assistance of a machine, a few 
 factory hands are as effective as scores of handi- 
 craftsmen. Not only was the output largely 
 increased. Prices were lowered, and cheapness, 
 as we have seen, has a potent effect in increasing 
 demand. With each diminution of price the 
 market widened : by lowering prices a factory 
 encouraged the establishment of other factories. 
 The economic conditions of the present day are 
 based almost wholly upon the use of machines. 
 
 There followed the organization of factory 
 industry, and a development of skill in manage- 
 ment, engineering, prospecting, and in reading 
 the market, without which production on a large 
 scale would be impossible. A growing alertness 
 guided invention, and secured the prompt utiliza- 
 tion of its discoveries. And labour became more 
 effective as, with the spread of knowledge, it 
 became more intelligent. 
 
 Manufacture is supported by purchases, and 
 purchases are vastly stimulated by temptation. 
 Our eyes are everywhere assailed by advertise- 
 ments, which have indeed become a feature not 
 
300 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 only of town but of country scenery. Some of us 
 are not moved by their importunity, may indeed 
 rfesent it. But their general seductiveness may be 
 inferred from the fact that it pays to spend so 
 lavishly upon them. Customers are tempted by 
 the attractive display of shop windows, by the 
 blandishments of salesmen and even by appeals 
 to the gambling spirit. In some measure these 
 efforts merely divert purchasers from one firm 
 to another. But they also draw into the vortex 
 of trade money that might otherwise be hoarded, 
 or spent in procuring, not things, but services. 
 
 We must remember, however, that, failing the 
 security of property which is given by a strong 
 and trustworthy government, none of these 
 forces could have come into play. From an 
 economic standpoint one may easily comprehend 
 why the community is disposed to judge offences 
 against property more severely than brutal 
 assaults. They strike at the foundations of the 
 industrial fabric. We cannot, then, deny a high 
 industrial value to the State employees, whose 
 business it is to protect the community and to 
 preserve peace. So also with many other kinds 
 of professional service, and particularly with the 
 efforts of medical and sanitary experts. Health is 
 a necessary condition for effective labour. 
 
 So far, we have been considering a nation's 
 production of wealth by efforts which are confined 
 within the limits of its own territory. These 
 efforts are, however, gradually yielding in im- 
 portance to commercial and financial transactions 
 with other nations, by which the wealth-streams 
 of particular countries are becoming merged into 
 a wealth-stream for the world as a whole. The 
 advantages that result are in some cases one- 
 
INTERNATIONAL TRADE 301 
 
 sided, one country gaining at the expense of 
 another. In other cases the advantages are 
 mutual and increase the total resources of the 
 world. Generally, international trade has this 
 result. The merchants who conduct it make 
 their profits by appropriating wealth from which- 
 ever country is most in need of the exchange. 
 But, profits apart, the effect of both exporting 
 and importing is to increase the effectiveness of 
 industry. The export trade brings new markets 
 within reach and expands the demand : the 
 import trade assists manufacture by introducing 
 supplies of raw material, and lowers prices by 
 bringing goods and food upon the market more 
 cheaply than they could be produced at home. 
 Since a fall in prices stimulates production and 
 increases wealth, proposals to check importation 
 by the imposition of a protective tariff must jus- 
 tify themselves by their effect either in enabling 
 the country to enrich itself at the expense of 
 others, or in promoting developments which have 
 a social or political as opposed to an economic 
 effect. A protective tariff which raises prices, may 
 check the stream of foreign investment by increas- 
 ing the profits of some home factories; and it may 
 be that, by inducing capitalists to invest at home, 
 the wealth-stream would be swelled more abun- 
 dantly than by the expenditure of the interest 
 which foreign investments would yield. It may 
 be desirable for social reasons to encourage manu- 
 facture as opposed to agriculture ; or it may seem 
 politic to foster agriculture at the expense of 
 manufacture in order to secure that the country 
 should not become entirely dependent upon 
 others for its food supply. Or, stress may be laid 
 upon the advantage which results from the 
 power of retaliation in penal tariffs in compelling 
 other nations to moderate their customs demands. 
 
302 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 But, apart from such reasons, any measures 
 which would raise the prices of imports should 
 apparently be deprecated, whatever be the cus- 
 toms policy of other nations. 
 
 By investing money in other countries a 
 community alienates a means of increasing its 
 own productiveness ; but, by the interest that it 
 exacts, it levies a tax upon the resources of the 
 borrowing country which, if spent within its 
 own limits, may add very greatly to its wealth. 
 Moreover, if the loan is remitted in the form of 
 goods, its grant will at least benefit the lending 
 country by the single turnover of its amount. 
 And if the borrowing country is undeveloped, 
 and yields very liberally to the outlay of capital, 
 not only may the lending country make larger 
 profits than it could obtain from a home invest- 
 ment, but the riches of the world as a whole will 
 be increased. By her enormous foreign invest- 
 ments England levies a percentage upon the 
 produce of many countries. The Canadian farmer, 
 the Italian metayer of Argentina, the Indian ryot, 
 all render her a share of their crops. 
 
 The receipt of a loan by one country from 
 another increases its wealth-stream, and stimu- 
 lates the demand for local manufactures. If 
 received in the form of goods it is of course a 
 direct accession to resources. On the other hand, 
 there is interest to be paid, which involves a 
 transfer of resources to the lending country. 
 But borrowed money is exceedingly profitable 
 to lands that are undeveloped. Canada and 
 South America owe their astonishing progress 
 very largely to the assistance of English and 
 American capital, and it is not surprising that 
 they should leave nothing untried to advertise 
 their advantages to the investing public. 
 
 A war indemnity is in effect a loan without 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH 303 
 
 interest, and, whatever be urged by the advocates 
 of peace, must augment the resources of the 
 nation which exacts it. This is also the case 
 with tributes and subsidies, and money which 
 is expended by foreign travellers. The Swiss 
 have, indeed, built up their prosperity with the 
 money which has been attracted by the scenery 
 of their land. The wealth which England ob- 
 tained from her tropical dominions especially 
 from India and Jamaica was the stepping-stone 
 to her present riches and commanding commer- 
 cial position. How many families have been 
 founded, how many noble mansions built, with 
 the profits of indigo, tea, and sugar ! From the 
 whole world she levies contributions by her 
 earnings in the ocean carrying trade. 
 
 <: i 
 
 We turn now to the distribution of wealth 
 to the influences which determine its appropria- 
 tion by individuals, and result in the distinction 
 between rich and poor. The simplest and most 
 ancient of these influences is force. The criminal 
 classes still employ it. The levy of taxes by the 
 State, and, in many cases, the exaction of rent 
 by a landlord are ultimately secured by force. 
 A community settled upon land which it was the 
 first to colonize, would hardly appreciate the 
 meaning of rent : each cultivator would expect 
 to keep the whole of his produce. But, when 
 conquered by invaders, they would be forcibly 
 taught that the profits of agriculture leave some- 
 thing for a landlord to exact ; and that, indeed, 
 under the rule of force, the cultivator may con- 
 fidently expect to retain only so much of the 
 produce as will keep him from starvation. Rents 
 are now commonly regulated by competition, by 
 custom, by kindness, or by law, and their just 
 
304 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 amount is calculated by scientific formulae. But 
 originally they were as large as the landlord could 
 demand without fear of rebellion or of the death 
 of the tenant. Similar is the history of a manufac- 
 turer's profits. 1 They were originally so much of 
 the produce of a slave's industry as were not 
 required to keep him alive. They are now the 
 difference between the selling value of an article 
 and the price which is paid for it in the form of 
 wages to the workmen who make it. But they 
 no longer simply express the extorting power of 
 an employer. They include charges for skill 
 in superintendence, and for depreciation of 
 material, which are part of the necessary cost 
 of producing the output. They also include 
 interest charges on the capital cost of buildings 
 and machinery, and on the money advanced 
 in purchasing raw materials and in paying 
 wages. Those who believe in the possibility 
 of " collective ownership " will not admit that 
 these charges for interest are unavoidable, and 
 will view them as appropriating, and not as 
 producing wealth. But if, as may well be believed, 
 the community would be unable to raise the 
 necessary capital without borrowing at interest, 
 the capitalist may claim that his charges for 
 interest at the market rate are a necessary 
 condition for the effectiveness of labour, and are 
 part and parcel of the cost of production. No 
 such claim can, however, be made on behalf of 
 profits that are obtained by means of a ring, a 
 trust, or a monopoly. These simply represent 
 wealth that is appropriated from other members 
 of the community by the possession of a peculiar 
 artificial advantage. 
 
 Trade enriches the world by circulating the 
 produce of industry. But it retains a very large 
 
 1 Gross profits. 
 
DISTRIBUTING CHARGES 305 
 
 share of the produce for itself far more than it 
 could claim as the cost of its services. In some 
 cases its profits may actually double the price 
 of an article. There is nothing more remarkable 
 in our modern economic conditions than the extra- 
 ordinarily large number of retail shops. Their 
 multiplicity may be of assistance in inducing the 
 public to spend its money. But they are main- 
 tained very largely by the habits of their cus- 
 tomers, who, in defiance of the axioms of political 
 economy, support certain shops, not because 
 they expect better goods or lower prices than 
 elsewhere, but because they have contracted a 
 habit of dealing with them. When so many are 
 selling, individual profits cannot exceed a low 
 average : there is keen competition : this is apt 
 to deaden the appreciation of high morality ; 
 and trade may degenerate into a method of 
 " getting hold of other people's money without 
 getting taken up by the police." 
 
 The rendering of services of satisfactions, that 
 is to say, which do not take a material form are 
 the most obvious of the influences that enable 
 some individuals to appropriate money from 
 others. These are not included in a nation's 
 wealth ; but they comprise nearly all of its higher 
 activities the utilities which we derive from 
 letters, science and art, from religious and secular 
 instruction, from medical assistance everything, 
 in short, which raises life above sensuous enjoy- 
 ment or a struggle for gain. Lawyers and politi- 
 cians may complicate affairs which might be 
 simply transacted, may earn money and credit 
 by appealing to impulses that are not amongst the 
 proudest attributes of humanity ; but it is hardly 
 conceivable that a civilized community could 
 make shift without them. We must be rapidly 
 carried in railways and tramcars to maintain the 
 
306 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 stress of modern conditions. Amusements satisfy 
 an impulse for change which gives joy to life and 
 lightens the weight of advancing years. We owe 
 to domestic servants the comfort and orderliness 
 of our houses. 
 
 No shiftings of wealth that are confined to the 
 members of a community can lessen the com- 
 munity's total wealth, however disadvantageous 
 they may be from the moral or philanthropic 
 standpoint. The extravagance of the rich in the 
 end provides honest folk with food and lodging, 
 however unworthy be the hands to which the 
 money is first scattered. Expenditure upon 
 armaments is frequently deplored as a waste of 
 national resources ; but it passes on the wealth 
 current and provides subsistence for thousands 
 of men as effectively as expenditure upon school- 
 houses or motor-cars. The enormous cost of the 
 Panama Canal is no net loss to the United States : 
 the outlay has in the main passed through Ameri- 
 can hands, and is, so far, merely a transfer of 
 wealth from the body of tax-payers to some of its 
 members. 
 
 
 
 The wealth-stream flows past everyone's door. 
 Some receive profuse supplies from it : others 
 may scarcely enjoy a few drops. Industry may 
 help itself from the stream, but only by pannikins : 
 the plodding workman, the careful seamstress, 
 seldom earn more than a bare subsistence. If we 
 desire a more liberal measure we must obtain it 
 by influencing others by inducing them, so to 
 speak, to lower a bucket and draw for us if we, 
 in return, will satisfy an impulse which they 
 cannot conveniently satisfy themselves. So we 
 draw for shop-keepers in return for comforts and 
 
THE GAINING OF WEALTH 307 
 
 luxuries, for doctors in fear of ill-health, for 
 railway companies and theatres to gain change 
 and variety, for charities to satisfy the kindliness 
 of our hearts. To satisfy feelings of cruelty we 
 may patronize very barbarous entertainments. 
 What will men not pay for titles, for steps on the 
 social ladder which gratify their ambition or 
 vanity ! There are baser instincts which may be 
 worked upon by those who can exploit the depths 
 of human nature. So wealth is appropriated, and 
 men grow rich, by successful appeals to the desires 
 of others. But it does not follow that society is 
 corrupt. Excepting the passion for cruelty, there 
 is no class of impulses which are harmful in them- 
 selves : any injury which they may cause to 
 individuals, or to society, proceeds from the means 
 that are adopted for their satisfaction. We may rea- 
 sonably sympathize with a desire for variety whilst 
 strongly deprecating its satisfaction by drink. 
 
 Riches are, then, gained by the possession of 
 some special advantage which enables us to satisfy 
 the impulses of others. Industry itself is no such 
 advantage : it is possessed by thousands of work- 
 men who are, individually, of no particular value 
 to their employer, and are thus unable to demand 
 from him a full share of the proceeds of their 
 labour. In these days the greatest advantage is 
 wealth, and a cynic may take a gloomy view of our 
 relationships. For wealth attracts wealth, and 
 social inequalities must tend to increase unless 
 the process is checked by law. There are, of 
 course, other advantages. Skill and intelligence 
 will enable a workman to demand higher wages. 
 Birth gives advantages : less in the present time 
 than formerly. Talent is of service : so also are 
 high educational qualifications, but these are 
 obtained by the expenditure of money, and have 
 generally been unattainable except by the rich. 
 
3o8 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 Beauty may find a rich husband : strength and 
 activity give a money value to a professional 
 football player. The possession of land is a far- 
 reaching advantage : it may enable a landlord 
 to impose his own terms on his tenants and 
 labourers by threatening them with banishment 
 from their homes. But it generally goes with the 
 possession of money. Riches are the all-important 
 advantage. Through them satisfaction may be 
 offered to almost every impulse of humanity, and 
 money may be collected as if by magnetic 
 attraction. The poor have one advantage of their 
 own : they form by far the most numerous class 
 of the community. By a strike they can obtain 
 the advantage of a monopoly. And by their 
 voting power they can limit the tyranny of wealth 
 through protective labour laws. 
 
 But this despondent conclusion does not take 
 into account all the impulses of mankind. There 
 remain the promptings of kindness and self- 
 restraint, which are authoritatively impressed 
 upon us by religious teaching. These moderate 
 the fierceness of the struggle for life amongst 
 human beings. Their power is shown in the 
 liberal amounts subscribed in charity. They may 
 soften the relations between employer and em- 
 ployed, between landlord and tenant, uniting 
 interests which are naturally divergent, and sub- 
 stituting mutual consideration for mutual distrust. 
 The sympathy of Parliament has undoubtedly 
 been stimulated, in some measure, by the political 
 power of the masses. But kindly feelings have 
 also been effective : the richer classes show little 
 resentment when required by the law to contri- 
 bute to the assistance of the poor. Society ulti- 
 mately relies upon these feelings to preserve it 
 from being torn by dissension : and amongst the 
 habits of mind which should be pressed upon the 
 
RICHES AND POVERTY 309 
 
 young none are of more importance to the com- 
 munity than kindness and consideration for those 
 around them. The discipline to which boy-scouts 
 submit themselves has no more admirable 
 feature than the helpfulness with which they 
 learn to meet the needs of others. 
 
 The accumulation of riches may have benefits 
 in its train. It stimulates the aptitudes of man- 
 kind. The wealthy can afford to pay high prices 
 for meritorious industrial or artistic work. It may 
 be urged that genius is its own incentive : that 
 inventiveness or art do not need to be excited by 
 money rewards. This is true in a measure. But 
 we cannot trust the creative spirit always to urge 
 genius to exert itself. Judging by the anxiety of 
 inventors to protect their ideas by patents, their 
 originality is stimulated by hopes of gain. And 
 artists of eminence expect liberal fees if they are 
 to rise to the utmost height of their talents. 
 
 Are poverty and riches essential results of our 
 industrial civilization ? Could not the State, or 
 community, reconstruct society so as to maintain 
 the effectiveness of industry, while directing the 
 distribution of its fruits according to principles of 
 equity and kindness ? By labour legislation the 
 State is successfully checking the rich from 
 pressing to the utmost the advantages of their 
 wealth : moreover, it is taking a practical hand 
 in the economic life of the community, and man- 
 ages to distribute letters, to carry passengers, 
 efficiently and economically, while assuring to 
 its employees a living wage. But the aspirations 
 of Socialism soar far beyond this. The com- 
 munity, it is claimed, should itself undertake to 
 produce wealth and to distribute it ; or, at least, 
 should imperatively regulate its distribution so 
 
310 MODERN ECONOMICS 
 
 that no one should possess more than an equitable 
 share. That is to say, wealth should be distri- 
 buted without reference to the differences of 
 character and strength that exist between the 
 impulses of different individuals. One man 
 requires much, another little, to make him happy : 
 to one ambition is more than art, to another both 
 these are less than change : one finds change in 
 travel, another in games, a third in a novel. 
 Under a socialistic regime these varieties of taste 
 could not be considered in fixing the share of each 
 individual : passions would be eliminated as con- 
 tributory industrial forces, and industry would 
 need to be its own reward. The community 
 undoubtedly includes a large number of indivi- 
 duals in whom the industrial impulse is so strongly 
 developed as to urge them to work irrespective of 
 personal advantage. But, judging from the facts 
 of common experience, the greater proportion 
 will not work unless this impulse is reinforced by 
 selfish considerations, and there are not a few 
 who will not work except under the stress of 
 necessity or compulsion. A hive of bees displays 
 unselfish industry : but they are moved by 
 directive instinct, whereas the behaviour of man 
 is the product of a multiplicity of impulses. Can 
 we believe that his relations with other men might 
 be arranged so as to rest upon one of them only ? 
 In exceptional cases such a fabric can be built up : 
 the monastic system is based upon the ascetic 
 impulse : the Indians of Paraguay were discip- 
 lined in the minutest details of life by their 
 reverence for their Jesuit masters. But the con- 
 struction is essentially unstable, and cannot endure 
 unless human nature is, so to speak, emasculated. 
 Our hopes for the future must fall short of Utopia, 
 and we must be content with the less heroic 
 prospects of lessening evil and increasing good. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 THE vicissitudes of politics interest us so keenly 
 because they give play to so great a variety of 
 impulses. We admire our political leaders : were 
 an impulse to admire or respect not innate in us, 
 social life would have no centres around which to 
 gravitate. We are moved by the success or 
 failure of the party to which we have attached 
 ourselves, because, having identified ourselves 
 with it, we are excited by the feelings of emulation 
 which set man to race against man, horse against 
 horse, dog against dog. The daily changes in the 
 political barometer gratify our passion for variety. 
 We may be interested in the programme of under- 
 takings to which our party commits itself, because 
 it enlists the provident impulses that stimulate 
 us to use our reason to ameliorate the conditions 
 of the future : moreover, our kindly feelings may 
 be appeased by the assurance that these under- 
 takings will give happiness to persons or classes 
 that have attracted our sympathy. The bitterness 
 which is permissible in party politics affords a 
 canalized outlet for our unkindly feelings. Finally, 
 our self-conscious pride is soothed by the reflection 
 that, in however moderate a degree, we can assist 
 our party and its objects by our vote, and that 
 we are actors, and not merely spectators, in the 
 drama which each morning's newspaper unfolds 
 before us. 
 
 3" 
 
312 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 In early days the politics of the State afforded 
 no such variety of entertainment to its citizens. 
 Every herd must have a leader ; and the tyranny 
 of a chief, respected, it may be, for his age, his 
 strength, or his ill-nature, was no doubt the 
 primordial political institution of mankind, and 
 endured until it was confronted by the interests 
 of the family. With the development of the 
 patriarchal family the leader's absolute authority 
 was limited by the influence of the heads of 
 families, and in many cases was subverted by a 
 council of elders, or grandfathers, the prototype of 
 the senates of historical times. There are not a 
 few tribes of the present day whose government 
 is still in this stage of evolution. It is sometimes 
 figured as a democracy, but incorrectly, since it 
 allows no voice in public affairs to the mass of the 
 people, and is, in fact, the rule of age, experience 
 and long-standing custom. But, generally, amidst 
 the surges of war, the authority of a senate has 
 been overwhelmed by the prestige ot a general : 
 he has seized control as dictator or king, and the 
 form of government has reverted to the monarchi- 
 cal type. 
 
 The fortunes of kingship have depended upon 
 the temperament of the people. In the Baltic 
 races the impulse of veneration is constantly 
 assailed by a robust desire for freedom of indi- 
 vidual action and for change. Most other 
 races appear to need and will only obey an 
 authority that they can admire : they are im- 
 pressed by the irresponsibility oi absolute power, 
 which harmonizes with their conception of the 
 Divine ; and, since there are feelings in human 
 nature to which cruelty may appeal, a ruler may 
 actually gain admiration by the capricious in- 
 fliction of death or torture. Accordingly, over 
 the greater portion of the globe kingship has been 
 
MONARCHY AND ARISTOCRACY 313 
 
 invested with very arbitrary prerogatives. So 
 long as the ruling classes of Greece and Rome 
 retained some drops of northern blood, the in- 
 fluence of the general was limited by the subdi- 
 vision of his functions, and the senate could 
 maintain itself as the directing authority of the 
 State in every province of activity except upon 
 the battlefield. But with the passing of time the 
 dictator overshadowed the senate, and Rome and 
 Constantinople alike submitted to an oriental 
 despotism. In northern Europe, on the other 
 hand, kings have always been pressed to defend 
 their authority against encroachment. They have 
 been powerfully assisted by the influence of 
 religious feelings. A king who was deified was in 
 theory irresistible ; and no arguments for limiting 
 his authority could withstand a belief that he held 
 his office by Divine right. Indeed, it was very 
 probably the influence of religion that exalted 
 the successful general into a hereditary king. 
 Divinity which was instinct in the father would 
 naturally descend to his son. 
 
 But religion has not always contented itself 
 with the upholding of monarchy. The visioned 
 ideas to which it appeals may affect men as 
 strongly as the most serious or attractive of life's 
 practical contingencies, and may be as awe- 
 inspiring as the most absolute tyranny. When, at 
 the fall of the Roman empire, men lost confidence 
 in monarchy, the Church of Rome stepped into the 
 breach, and during many centuries attracted 
 more veneration than was accorded to the most 
 august of sovereigns. Its influence was least 
 impressive amongst the Scandinavian and Teu- 
 tonic peoples : the ideas of their preference were 
 practical, and it was first among them that 
 religion, unable to maintain its autocratic pre- 
 tensions, fell back to become a guard for the 
 
314 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 king's palace. But it has been unable to defend 
 monarchic authority against attacks that were 
 delivered, at the outset, by the independent 
 ambitions of the aristocratic families which were 
 represented by the senate, and, later on, by 
 the aspirations of the common people. It 
 may be argued that the commanding influence 
 of the German Emperor effectually contradicts 
 the assumption that the Teutonic peoples have 
 been consistently moved by a desire to limit 
 kingly prerogatives. But the conditions of Ger 
 many are peculiar : threatened upon one flank 
 by the spirit of revenge, and on the other by 
 the vague overshadowings of Slav ambition, she 
 imperatively needs a War Lord, and must subor- 
 dinate her aspirations to this necessity. And by 
 exceptional forcefulness of character a king can 
 always revive the respectful feelings to which the 
 institution of kingship owes its origin. 
 
 The Army and the Family, then, stand for 
 influences by which monarchy and aristocracy 
 have, respectively, been upraised. In Europe 
 these influences have been in perpetual conflict, 
 one or the other gaining strength as foreign or 
 domestic interests became most pressing. Before 
 the Eastern despot family authority has respect- 
 fully retreated within the circle of its own affairs, 
 and has rarely ventured to contest with him the 
 control of public business. We can hardly dignify 
 with the name of " senates " the oriental councils 
 (or darbars) that rather feed a prince's vanity 
 than moderate his caprices. In the West the 
 struggles of the political arena have been compli- 
 cated by a new force : the undistinguished masses 
 have appeared at its gates and have demanded 
 a part in the tournament. They might respect 
 a king ; and in the placid continuity of country 
 life loyalty might persist towards land-holding 
 
THE COMING OF DEMOCRACY 315 
 
 families. But in towns, populated in great 
 measure by those who had cut themselves adrift 
 from home and tradition, respect for the aris- 
 tocracy could hardly survive. Men to whom 
 family connections were a matter of indifference, 
 could not be expected to understand that dis- 
 tinctions of family were in themselves sufficient 
 to support the authority of a senate. Between 
 aristocracy and democracy a struggle commenced, 
 in which the king assisted sometimes one side, 
 sometimes the other, and was gradually shorn of 
 his authority by both antagonists. 
 
 The masses that now became a power in the 
 State generally represented a subject people that 
 had been conquered by the ancestors of the king 
 and the aristocracy. In southern Europe their 
 blood has been mainly that of a short-statured, 
 dark complexioned race l of keen sensibility and 
 high artistic talent which has been settled along 
 the northern shores of the Mediterranean since 
 the earliest days that the archaeologist's spade 
 has revealed to us. But in all probability they 
 also possessed some admixture of northern blood, 
 derived from waves of invasion which from time 
 immemorial had flowed over them. The ruling 
 classes which had established themselves in most 
 parts of Greece and in Upper Italy at the com- 
 mencement of classical history represented the 
 last of these invasions. The Dorians of Sparta, 
 and the patricians of Rome held in close subjec- 
 tion the helots and the plebeians; and early Roman 
 history is in great part occupied with the struggle 
 of the plebeians to secure social and political en- 
 franchisement. The characteristics of the French, 
 
 1 Known in classical times as Pelasgian in Greece, as Ligurian 
 in Italy and the south of France, and as Iberian in Spain-, 
 
3i6 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 the Welsh and the Irish afford us reason for 
 believing that these Mediterranean peoples ex- 
 tended up the west of Europe to the British Isles. 
 But here the admixture of northern or Baltic 
 blood was larger ; indeed it appears that in 
 England at the time of the Norman Conquest the 
 dark complexioned inhabitants had been dis- 
 placed very extensively indeed by Danes and 
 Saxons. With us, then, the conflict between the 
 people and the aristocracy (which has recently 
 eventuated in the withdrawal of the veto from 
 the House of Lords) has not been of so racial a 
 character or so bitter as, for instance, in France. 
 The nobles and the people have been in great 
 measure blood relations, and the classes who were 
 conquered have not been insulted by the physical 
 contempt which would have denied them the 
 right of intermarriage with the aristocracy. The 
 enfranchisement of the masses has accordingly 
 come about through gradual and peaceful stages. 
 In France it was obtained by an outpouring of the 
 hate of a rancorous helotage. The subject popu- 
 lations of Wales and Ireland have been unable to 
 accomplish so drastic a revolution. But they 
 have, nevertheless, been enfranchised, and have, 
 naturally, turned their votes to abate the pre- 
 tensions of their alien conquerors. 
 
 We must not, however, figure the advance of 
 democracy as the spreading of a slow, resistless 
 flood. When a people has become accustomed to 
 subjection, they accept their chains as the bonds 
 of habit, and will not rise to throw them off unless 
 they are encouraged by a popular leader. They 
 have become used to tyranny, they take no 
 interest in State affairs, and, if gross injustice 
 arouses them to spasmodic rioting, they are easily 
 quieted by disciplined forces. Leaders of energy 
 and intelligence are required, and they have very 
 
POPULAR LEADERS 317 
 
 frequently come to them from the ruling classes. 
 The motive of these revolutionaries may have 
 been in some cases sympathy for the oppressed. 
 But the student of character may not unfairly 
 conclude that it has more often been a desire for 
 personal distinction, or the imperious longing for 
 change which dominates some men especially 
 those whom the routine of industry has not 
 broken into habit. The Roman poor were 
 championed by members of the Roman nobility, 
 such as the Gracchi and Catiline. We may indeed 
 surmise that the French revolution would never 
 have come about had revolt not been led by birth 
 and intelligence by the fire of Mirabeau, the 
 vanity of Orleans, and the cultured philosophy of 
 the Girondins. A lawyer headed the League 
 which heartened the English working classes in 
 their struggle for the suffrage. The natives of 
 Ireland made their first successful move towards 
 independance under the Anglo-Saxon leadership 
 of Parnell. It is possible to be too cynical. In 
 some cases reformers have been sincerely im- 
 pressed with the justice of their ideas, and ready 
 to sacrifice themselves for their principles. But 
 they have found that argument is of no avail with 
 the conservatism of a king or an aristocracy; 
 and when they have not been killed, banished or 
 imprisoned, they have been ignored. It was 
 necessary to secure some external support, and 
 they might find this in the numbers of the masses 
 could these be roused into activity. For this 
 something more was required than well-balanced 
 reasoning : dispassionate exhortations would not 
 draw the poorer classes in their multitudes to 
 demonstrative meetings which could be used to 
 coerce the authorities. They could be electrified 
 only by appeals to their passions, and especially 
 to their jealousy or their self-esteem ; and the 
 
3i8 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 harangues of a demagogue must be frothy to be 
 convincing, however solid may be the convictions 
 that he cherishes in the background. And, 
 success being won by dramatic powers, not by 
 sincerity, it is no matter for surprise that many 
 demagogues have been simply actors, without any 
 earnestness of purpose behind their volubility. 
 But, whether inspired by principle or by ambition, 
 their success has been marvellous. Authority 
 which will not listen to argument will give way 
 before a mob, or a string of demonstrative out- 
 rages ; and in the end kings and aristocracies have 
 conceded to the common people a voting power 
 which outbalances their influence, and is, in 
 effect, transferring the government of the country 
 from the hands of the conquerors to those of the 
 conquered. Such a revolution would have thrown 
 the community into a state of never-ceasing 
 discord were it not confirmed by the impulse of 
 deference 1 to the majority. This may offer to a 
 democracy as strong a guarantee as may be 
 obtained by a monarchy or aristocracy from the 
 impulse of reverence. In many cases it has been 
 intrinsically too weak to give this security, and 
 republics have reverted to despotism in fact if 
 not in name. 
 
 But, it will be said, this is a sketch in mono- 
 chrome which inadequately pictures the struggle 
 for freedom : the triumphs by which liberty has 
 been won have been coloured by many phases 
 of activity : their history is not comprised in the 
 
 1 It is extraordinary, when one comes to think of it, that five 
 persons should acquiesce in conduct of which they disapprove, 
 because there are six persons who approve of it. Some peoples, 
 those of India for instance, appear to lack this instinctive respect 
 for number. But we may find traces of it in the earliest Germanic 
 institutions which historv reveals to us. 
 
DEMOCRACY AND VOTING 319 
 
 vision of a mob howling at the gates of a palace or 
 senate-house. This is true if we take into account 
 the gradual emancipation of particular classes 
 the securing of privileges by crafts or trades 
 guilds, of charters by the principal residents of 
 a town, of parliamentary assemblages of their 
 own by the clergy, or by such of the well-to-do 
 classes as lay just below the ranks of the aris- 
 tocracy. These have been obtained by many 
 expedients, by the granting or withholding of 
 money, by the influence of religion, and by the use 
 of armed force. But these communities were all of 
 the nature of aristocracies. Their privileges were 
 peculiar, and were maintained by a jealous con- 
 servatism. There is, indeed, little analogy between 
 the protection of a craft, or of a class, from arbi- 
 trary interference, and the concession of manhood 
 suffrage to the people as a whole. The one was 
 desired for definite practical objects and was 
 appreciated by reason of its fruits : the other 
 fulfilled aspirations which were indefinite and 
 emotional, representing conceptions, not of 
 material improvement, but of human dignity. 
 We should, then, readily understand why women 
 who can emancipate themselves from the chains 
 of habit are now clamorously demanding the 
 suffrage. They share men's confident ideas of 
 personal importance, and they conceive that, if 
 these ideas are gratified for one sex, they may 
 reasonably be gratified for the other sex also. 
 
 The suffrage having been won by the stimula- 
 ting effect of an appeal to self-conscious vanity, 
 the possession of a vote is of value in itself, quite 
 apart from the political opportunities which it 
 affords. It has, consequently, been a striking 
 feature of democracy that the people, having 
 secured the right to vote, can with difficulty be 
 persuaded to exercise it. A political issue, of how- 
 
320 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 ever great importance, if put to them in cold blood, 
 will not move large numbers of them to record 
 their opinions. Even in the democratic atmo- 
 sphere of the United States a referendum may not 
 elicit responses from four-fifths of the voters ; and 
 at English elections the voting power of the con- 
 stituency must be galvanized into activity by 
 emotional appeals to other impulses than that of 
 reasoning providence, and by the dignified con- 
 veyance of voters to the polls. The provident 
 impulse is, in fact, an inadequate stimulus, and it 
 is necessary to awaken other instincts. Many lie 
 at hand in the recesses of human nature, and skill 
 in selecting and in arousing them is the talent of 
 the successful politician. Admiration may be 
 enlisted by appeals to loyalty, and by such organ- 
 izations as that of the Primrose League : religious 
 prejudice is a declining force, but it may still turn 
 elections elsewhere than in Wales and Ireland : 
 jealousy can usually be aroused by denunciations 
 of the rich, and the orator can always fire the 
 sympathies of his audience by eloquence that 
 invokes the dignity of man. But the most potent 
 of these extraneous impulses is that of emulation. 
 This is the mainspring of the party spirit. Men 
 who care little for Liberal or Conservative princi- 
 ples are roused by the contest between blue and 
 buff. 
 
 Party spirit is indeed the driving force of present 
 day democracy. It was aroused on the day when 
 first a question was decided by voting, and it has 
 accordingly swayed the judgment of senates as 
 well as of popular assemblies. But it is by no 
 means peculiar to the political arena. Gibbon 
 with his remorseless pen has described the bloody 
 antagonisms which, aroused by a liking for one 
 or other of two companies of chariot drivers, or 
 for one or other of two benches of bishops, divided 
 
PARTY FEELING 321 
 
 Constantinople into Green and Blue, into Ortho- 
 dox or Arian. These were Mediterranean fruits 
 of the emulative impulse that in present day 
 England gives life to games, and makes football 
 matches so immensely attractive. Political 
 parties generally assume that their differences 
 represent some questions of importance: there 
 is, indeed, a natural rivalry between those who 
 possess and those who wish to possess ; and a 
 philosopher may distinguish Conservatives and 
 Liberals as actuated, respectively, by devotion to 
 habit and by the spirit of change. But party 
 feeling needs no solid nourishment. In Latin 
 countries the politicians who are in and who are 
 out of office have rarely represented anything but 
 themselves : it would distract most Americans 
 to define the difference between Republican and 
 Democrat : if Ireland secures Home Rule, the 
 Unionist party will change its name but not lose 
 its adherents. 
 
 But party feeling is not hastily to be con- 
 demned because its energizing impulses are profit- 
 less in themselves. It is of advantage to the 
 State that the ministry in office should work in the 
 light of jealous criticism. Periodical oscillations 
 in the drift of policy keep alive a healthy spirit 
 of change, afford hopeful prospects for those who 
 are discontented, and are an invaluable safeguard 
 against violent revolutions. It may, moreover, 
 be held that the emulative spirit, as the driving 
 force of a nation's development, has less harmful 
 possibilities than the spirit of self-interest which 
 would take its place were the voters enrolled, not 
 in one or other of two large political parties, but 
 amongst a number of groups, each of which 
 represented a separate class of the community. 
 It must, however, be admitted that for the procur- 
 ing of changes in social or political conditions as 
 
322 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 opposed to the maintenance of a respectable 
 regularity the group system is the more effective 
 of the two. The leaders of political groups move 
 along lines that, prescribed by self-interest, are 
 clear and definite. A group will generally be too 
 small to dominate of itself the political situation ; 
 but it can make terms with other groups, bar- 
 gaining for mutual assistance ; and the simplicity 
 of its purpose is of great advantage when opposed 
 to the kaleidoscopic ambitions of a political 
 party. So the group of Irish Nationalists has 
 brought Home Rule almost within their grasp, 
 the Welsh group has shaken the Established 
 Church in Wales to its foundations, and the 
 Labour group has forced legislation giving trades 
 unions such privileges as are enjoyed by no other 
 associations. 
 
 Political forecasts are very uncertain, and there 
 are peculiarities in the English character that 
 may divert our political evolution from the lines 
 that have been pursued by other nations. But 
 it seems probable that the two historical parties 
 will gradually be disintegrated out of existence by 
 a growing cleavage of the electorate into class 
 groups. As the working classes advance in in- 
 telligence and lose traditional habits of mind,they 
 will appreciate their wants with greater clearness, 
 and become less disposed to entrust their interests 
 to politicians who regard them merely as pieces 
 of more or less value to be played in the game of 
 party politics. Legislation will be urged frankly 
 by considerations of personal advantage that is 
 to say, in the interests of the class, instead of those 
 of the political party and it is probable that this 
 will infuse a bitterer note into political antagonism. 
 We must hope for a palliative in a growing respect 
 for public opinion, in increasing obedience to 
 that social impulse which leads us to defer to the 
 
WORKING-CLASS INFLUENCES 323 
 
 majority. No strike has been able to withstand 
 the rising waves of popular resentment. Nor does 
 it appear too optimistic to expect that the clash 
 of divergent interests will be softened by the 
 broadening influence of the spirit of kindliness. 
 If these peacemakers fail, society may be dis- 
 tracted by troubles for which an autocratic 
 dictatorship may be a welcome alternative. 
 
 So far, however, in England, the interests of the 
 group, although they may temporarily obscure 
 those of the party, have been unable to eclipse 
 them. The achievements of political groups 
 generally fall very far short of expectations, and, 
 with a revulsion of feeling, disappointed voters 
 have disregarded the promises held out to them 
 by their class leaders for the more exciting 
 prospects of a party contest. This tendency is 
 clearly to be observed in the fortunes of the 
 British Labour party. Did the voters segregate 
 themselves in groups according to their personal 
 interests every democratic country would be 
 ruled by a Labour ministry. For the working 
 classes by their preponderating numbers hold the 
 issues of the elections in their hands. 
 
 Their influence has, unfortunately, so far 
 prevailed as to infuse an unpatriotic note into 
 British politics. The national flag may not wave 
 over our school houses to symbolize to the young 
 the claims of their country. In extraordinary 
 contrast the citizens of the United States, and the 
 Canadians, lose no opportunity of displaying, and 
 saluting, their national emblem. They are not 
 divided by the ideas of class exclusiveness which 
 have come down to us from mediaeval days, and 
 lead the British working man to believe that 
 patriotism is a form of respect for the aristocracy. 
 But suspicion of the national flag does not imply 
 indifference to national pride ; when this is 
 
324 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 aroused the working classes forget all other 
 considerations and will vote for the political side 
 which voices most clearly their feelings of aggres- 
 siveness or indignation. 
 
 Generally the Liberal programme of changes 
 however indefinite should naturally be more 
 attractive to the poorer classes than the Con- 
 servative attitude of " let well alone." But both 
 parties represent wealth, and the privileges of 
 wealth, and that either of them should be vic- 
 torious indicates that the atmosphere of elections 
 has, so far, been charged by party spirit, by the 
 emulative impulse, rather than by hopes of 
 personal benefit. One class stands apart those 
 who are fired by an ardent desire to improve the 
 condition of their fellows, who view politics, not 
 as a play, but as a purposeful effort to raise ideals 
 and succour distress. These may give their 
 votes to whichever party promises them assis- 
 tance. But they are comparatively few in 
 number, and their influence is very much less 
 than their zeal. 
 
 Party government has merits of its own as a 
 system for administering home affairs. But in the 
 conduct of foreign affairs and in the control of 
 dependent peoples, it suffers from a great dis- 
 advantage. A State is conciliated or obeyed 
 according to the respect with which it is regarded. 
 It requires, however, a mind steeped in democratic 
 sympathies to feel respect for a government which 
 periodically appeals to the public not to turn it out 
 of office, and solicits the opinions of the masses 
 upon questions of State policy. In Europe 
 democratic sentiment is growing apace, and our 
 Foreign Secretary's difficulties are sympathetically 
 regarded by foreign ministers, few of them free 
 from similar difficulties of their own. No such 
 allowances may, however, be expected from depen- 
 
DEMOCRACY AND EMPIRE 325 
 
 dent nationalities : they are bound to the 
 Imperial Government, not by democratic feelings 
 but by respect, and if this be lost, their allegiance 
 is lost also, unless a motive can be found for it in 
 some other impulse. Germany possesses a stable 
 government, and it is possible to imagine Berlin 
 as the effective head of a large colonial empire. 
 For London no such prospect was conceivable, and 
 the British over-sea dominions have accordingly 
 been entirely emancipated from control. In 
 effect they are united to the British Isles by 
 nothing more substantial than an alliance, 
 warmed no doubt by sentimental and patriotic 
 ideas, but cemented by the advantages which 
 they derive from the investment of British 
 capital and the protection of the British fleet. 
 Since long time past the Irish have lost all 
 respect for the British Parliament : its vacilla- 
 tions of policy, which to Englishmen appear 
 natural, to them appear absurd, and they have 
 turned for discipline to the Church, to despotic 
 societies, or to autocratic leaders of their own 
 selection. There is a serious danger that India 
 may also lose all respect for British rule if its 
 vision, with growing acuteness, should pierce 
 through the ranks of the officials who have so far 
 represented consistency of purpose in the State 
 authority. 
 
 
 
 Political convictions are in great measure based 
 upon habit, and it is a matter for some surprise 
 that a party which is once secure in office should 
 ever be driven from it by a change of views that 
 cuts away its majority. Educated men, when 
 past the enthusiasms of youth, rarely shift their 
 allegiance : conversion is hardly respectable. 
 Indeed we take it for granted that Liberalism 
 and Conservatism run in families, and our 
 
 Y 2 
 
326 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 curiosity is aroused if brothers differ widely in 
 their politics. The transfer of votes which turns 
 out a government occurs for the most part amongst 
 the working classes, and in greatest measure, it 
 may be suspected, amongst the least intelligent of 
 their ranks. To these men party rivalries are of no 
 serious interest. It ^pleases them; to be on the 
 winning side, and they will vote for the party 
 which is shown by the trend of the contest to have 
 the best chance of victory. Moreover, they are 
 apt to be misled by an incorrect connection of 
 happenings as cause and effect, in the light of 
 which the party in office appears to blame for 
 anything that disturbs the regularity of life, 
 whether it be a rainy summer or a rise in prices. 
 There is, further, an instinctive desire for change 
 which gradually undermines the credit of a 
 government with those who are not bound to 
 it by feelings of allegiance. Accordingly, from 
 the day on which a ministry takes office a muti- 
 nous spirit begins to show itself amongst such of 
 its supporters as are not pledged to it by family 
 habit or by sentimental loyalty ; and these 
 people, when a general election comes round, are 
 ready to lay hold of any handle against it, unless 
 their affections have been reattached by definite 
 promises of personal advantage or by such a 
 passionate interest as is excited by any question 
 of national prestige. It follows then, that the com- 
 plexion of the British Government is determined 
 by the least intelligent of British citizens. No 
 system could be worse in theory. Yet in practice 
 it works passably well. 
 
 It is, then, a complicated assortment of 
 impulses which determines the voting of a par- 
 liamentary constituency. There is the respect 
 
HOPEFUL POSSIBILITIES 327 
 
 which men feel for their political leaders, the 
 impulse of emulation, the desire for change, the 
 hope of personal advantage, and, with much 
 feebler influence, some aspiration for the public 
 good. The balance of these forces may be en- 
 tirely overset by such a passionate interest in 
 national credit as was aroused, for instance, 
 during the South African War. To the mind of 
 a philosophical theorist the only one of these 
 impulses which can worthily determine the course 
 of government is that of provident anxiety for 
 the public welfare. If he finds that this is of no 
 great account amongst the mass of the voters, he 
 may console himself with the reflection that it 
 has generally weighed heavily with the leaders 
 of both parties. They have often been exceedingly 
 wrong in their views indeed, if there be such a 
 thing as a right decision, one of the two parties 
 must be wrong in cases where their opinions are 
 diametrically opposite. But they have as a rule 
 meant well for the State, and have not permitted 
 their private ambitions to eclipse altogether the 
 good of the public ; and this has enabled the 
 party system to bring forth fruit out of intrinsic 
 barrenness. 
 
 So long, however, as democracy is only a 
 means for enlisting in politics the combativeness, 
 jealousy, vanity or selfishness of the public, it 
 will give us but little of the fruit which it is 
 capable of bearing. The chief of its potential 
 merits is that it enables the community to profit 
 by the energy and talents of such of its members 
 as have a provident and kindly interest in the 
 fortunes of their fellow-citizens. So far, it enlists 
 these capacities very imperfectly indeed. Men 
 of this stamp are, and probably will always be, 
 an inconsiderable proportion of the electorate, 
 although they are increasing in numbers and in 
 
328 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 signs of activity. Few of them can gain entry to 
 Parliament : and there are comparatively few 
 members of Parliament who share their know- 
 ledge and enthusiasm. Nor are their views 
 satisfactorily represented in parliamentary dis- 
 cussions. One of the greatest evils of the party 
 system is that it closes the lips of those who, while 
 generally supporting the ministry in office, would 
 like to criticize measures which have been drafted 
 in the privacy of the Cabinet : they must vote 
 for them in tongue-tied silence. The Press does 
 not offer an adequate outlet for discussion, in as 
 much as most newspapers are controlled by in- 
 terests that are solidly committed to one party 
 or the other. These enthusiasts can, then, only 
 express themselves by the formation of societies 
 with active propagandas, which, if successful, may 
 compel the attention of the Government. The 
 many-sidedness and activity of these private 
 reformers may be inferred from the astonishingly 
 large number of societies that are on foot, with 
 optimistic programmes of the utmost diversity 
 from the feeding of school children to the pre- 
 servation of open spaces, from the closing down 
 of the liquor trade to the stopping of vaccination. 
 Their aims are sometimes admirable, sometimes 
 absurd ; but their upspringing is a genuine sign 
 of democratic vitality : they are unknown in 
 countries where the government is democratic 
 only in name. There is no place for them in the 
 party system. By vigorous canvassing they may 
 induce a Cabinet to adopt an idea. But their 
 influence is from outside : it is rather that of an 
 advocate than an adviser. 
 
 We may, however, assume with some reason that 
 they may gain a more direct influence in political 
 councils. If, as appears probable, we may read our 
 own future in the political conditions at which the 
 United States, untrammelled by precedent, have 
 
PHILANTHROPIC PROPAGANDA 329 
 
 already arrived, we may conclude that eventu- 
 ally the legislative programme of each party, 
 or group, will be settled more or less definitely 
 in unofficial convention, and that it will not 
 be open to political leaders to spring upon the 
 country measures which have been designed in 
 the secrecy of the Cabinet. When they enter 
 upon office the adopted programme will impera- 
 tively guide and limit their activities. Such a 
 system would give infinitely more importance to 
 philanthropic societies than they enjoy at present. 
 They would have access to the preliminary 
 conventions of groups or parties ; they could 
 urge their views at moments when politicians 
 were concerned, not with polemic activity or 
 destructive criticism, but with the construction 
 of a programme that would satisfy their con- 
 stituents, and might not infrequently be persuaded 
 to add 1 a new banner to their equipment of poli- 
 tical emblems. So assisted, enthusiastic idealists 
 may march to triumph in alliance with interests 
 that have no organic connection with their own. 
 This, it may be urged, is not a pleasing pros- 
 pect : it threatens us with the eccentricities of a 
 government by faddists. But we may condemn 
 as a fad a most useful ideal until we appreciate the 
 full scope of its importance. What aim can a 
 State possess that is finer or more fruitful than 
 to promote the healthfulness, intelligence, and 
 morality of the coming generation ? In the 
 United States this is a dominating political cult, 
 to which all vested interests must pay obeisance. 
 It ordains the ruthless elimination of city slums, 
 and the careful purification of popular enter- 
 tainments. Two generations ago it would have 
 seemed to English statesmen the vision of a 
 sentimental dream. In these days it has its 
 
 1 So the Labour Party has adopted the cries of " Votes for 
 Women " and " Justice for India." 
 
330 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 votaries, needless to say, in the British Parlia- 
 ment. But it is a persuasive not an imperative 
 force, and is often excluded from the balanced 
 considerations of practical politics. 
 
 With the increasing influence of unofficial 
 propaganda the status of politicians must in- 
 evitably decline. They will no longer be figured as 
 the anointed champions of the public ; they will 
 be its salaried employees. Across the Atlantic 
 this transformation is almost completed : with 
 us it has begun. In these circumstances the 
 public will not expect great nicety of manners in 
 its representatives, or be too curious as to the 
 sincerity of their convictions, so long as they 
 faithfully carry out its mandates. It may not 
 be greatly scandalized if they add indirectly to 
 their emoluments. In the Houses of Represen- 
 tatives at Washington and Ottawa the standard 
 of morality is lower than in the House of Commons. 
 We need not, however, assume that this laxity 
 of conduct is inevitable. It is hardly to be ob- 
 served in Australia and New Zealand. 
 
 But philanthropy is cold stuff to set before the 
 electorate : at present the issues which it raises 
 would not tempt the great majority of us to walk 
 to the polling station. If it is to awaken any 
 enthusiasm it must be served up with party rivalry 
 to season it. Is it, however, of profit to the State 
 that political issues should be dressed up in 
 meretricious colours in order that men who feel 
 no real interest in public affairs should be induced 
 to take a hand in them ? Our true concern is only 
 with the electors who wish for improvement, and 
 will take trouble to secure it, and these need no 
 party allurements to record their votes. We need 
 not fear that their efforts will be fruitless. The 
 comforts and conveniences which we owe to Town 
 and County Councils have been elaborated by 
 energies, that, outside London, have not been 
 
POLITICS CHANGED BY CHANGING IMPULSES 331 
 
 spurred by party rivalry. We refer, somewhat 
 slightingly, to the efforts of these bodies as merely 
 concerned with local government. But there are 
 few Acts of Parliament which affect our lives 
 more nearly than do their multitudinous activi- 
 ties. Their proceedings, it will be said, need no 
 party furbishing to attract attention because they 
 lie so near to the people's interests. This is true. 
 Our interest in public affairs depends upon the 
 closeness of our concern with them. This is 
 assuredly a good argument for the multiplication 
 of parliaments. Issues which affect forty-five 
 millions of people are stretched too widely to be 
 pointed. 
 
 
 
 In the drama of political development the 
 action has been sustained by a changing company 
 of impulses, each of which, strengthened by indul- 
 gence, has become, in its turn, a habit of mind or 
 leading idea. Reverence, paid to a king, a priest- 
 hood, or an aristocracy, is the primordial feeling 
 which consolidates a State. It is a conservative, 
 not a vivifying, force and tends to stereotype not 
 only the politics but the usages and ideas of those 
 who are affected by it. The individualistic 
 impulse of self-interest may compete with it ; and, 
 when reverential feelings are not naturally very 
 strong, may gradually undermine the allegiance 
 of the more intelligent and well-to-do classes, 
 prompting them to struggle for the establishment 
 of representative institutions which may secure 
 them from the caprices of despotic authority. 
 By appeals to self-respect, or to vanity, the masses 
 are led to assert their individuality : so democracy 
 is ushered on to the stage, and may hope to 
 remain there in cases where the impulse of 
 deference 1 to the majority is naturally so strong as 
 
 1 This impulse may be cultivated by the young at all events by 
 those of Anglo-Saxon parentage. Upon this fact are based some 
 novel departures in Reformatory organization. 
 
332 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 to be educated into an ideal of political life. But 
 the impulses which urged the masses to demand 
 the privilege of voting do not effectively incite 
 them to exercise it. Interest may be stimulated 
 by selfishness ; but, so far, the emulative spirit, 
 evoked by the antagonism of political parties, has 
 been the most effective agency for bringing voters 
 to the polls. Of recent years a new impulse has 
 come into the drama that of a provident desire 
 for human benefit. As yet it has secured but a 
 subordinate part ; but the future of civic develop- 
 ment depends upon its success in winning a place 
 in the foreground. 
 
 In these scenes of transformation what have 
 been the forces which have driven a dominant 
 impulse into retirement and brought another to 
 the front in its place ? Are we to attribute these 
 changes to the pressure of circumstances ? Has 
 monarchy been subverted, for instance, by ex- 
 perience of the injustice of kings, or of the failure 
 of heredity to transmit kingly qualities ? This 
 we may hardly affirm, seeing that in many parts 
 of the world monarchy still commands the whole- 
 hearted allegiance of intelligent men. Circum- 
 stances, beyond a doubt, contribute to change : 
 such are the increasing density of population, the 
 accumulation of wealth and of knowledge, the 
 extension of commerce, of manufacture and of 
 travel. But their bearings must be appreciated 
 to become effective, and, for this, certain peculari- 
 ties of disposition are needed, which are not 
 inherent in all men. Reform is impossible unless 
 there is a disposition towards change : freedom 
 is withered if the glow of reverence remains un- 
 dimmed : democracy cannot survive unless 
 fostered by ingrained notions of deference to the 
 majority : popular aspirations are nerveless unless 
 a growing self-consciousness supports them. When 
 these qualities are possessed by a people, and 
 
POLITICS AND RACIAL CHARACTER 333 
 
 circumstances call for their exercise, their develop- 
 ment still awaits the words and examples of 
 forceful leaders. If reformers can be suppressed, 
 the impulses to which they appeal will remain 
 undeveloped. If they are permitted liberty of 
 action, they may conjure dormant impulses into 
 habits of mind, or ideals, which will profoundly 
 affect the outlook and behaviour of their followers. 
 Thus Rousseau's doctrine of the equality of man- 
 kind found responsive echoes in the individualistic 
 impulses, and, reinforced by convictions of in- 
 justice and suffering, it produced a new ideal 
 which overpowered traditional notions of rever- 
 ence and loyalty. In the East, where these 
 notions are radically stronger, his creed would 
 have been scouted as abhorrent to common sense. 
 In France its effect was shortlived, and the people 
 soon realized that they were unable to obey 
 a government which they could not admire. 
 Amongst Anglo-Saxons convictions of equality 
 have taken deeper root, although cultivated with 
 less logical fervour. We may conclude that the 
 evolution of political life is conditioned, with 
 much strictness, by racial character. 
 
 We must not, however, ignore the power of the 
 imitative impulse. This may lead nations to copy 
 the institutions of other nations whom they 
 admire ; but, ii we look below the surface of 
 their politics, we shall find that, unless their 
 imitation is supported by other impulses, their 
 government abounds with inconsistencies, and is of 
 of such imperfect stability as to be shaken by trifles. 
 
 It is to be added that the exchanging of one 
 impulse for another as the basis of government 
 the substitution of one ideal for another must 
 be a gradual process, attended with much mental 
 uncertainty, unrest, 1 and it may be, with such a 
 
 1 Such as is now disturbing India, where the impulse of 
 veneration has begun to fail as a motive for submission to British 
 authority. 
 
334 MODERN POLITICS 
 
 moral decline as was suffered by England during 
 the eighteenth century, and by Europe when it 
 was shifting its allegiance from the Church of 
 Rome to national sovereigns. In this fact we 
 may find some explanation of the rising and falling 
 tides which history discloses in the fortunes of 
 nations. 
 
 
 
 The history of politics is an epitome of the 
 history of man. He is launched upon the sea of 
 life along with all other living creatures. Their 
 barks are fitted with sails and equipped with 
 rudders, so set as to carry them undeviatingly 
 across to the opposite coast. But man is cast 
 adrift in a rudderless boat, without mast or sails. 
 He painfully collects pieces of drift wood, awk- 
 wardly fashions oars for himself, and slowly 
 progresses with uncertain course, aware that he 
 can obtain guidance from the stars, but ignorant 
 of the stars which can properly direct him. He 
 learns through the perils of storms and shipwrecks 
 some points of the heavens which should draw his 
 attention, and boldly directs his prow towards the 
 open sea. The hope of the Promised Land is 
 before him. He may never arrive ; but in his 
 wanderings he passes amongst such isles of en- 
 chantment as other living creatures may not 
 behold. He may be tempted by the Sirens, and 
 linger with Calypso : he may fall a prisoner in the 
 hands of the Cyclops : he may be blown past 
 Scylla in the terror of death : he may even draw 
 near that mysterious shore to which the spirits of 
 his dead have been transported. But each new 
 adventure teaches him fresh lessons in what to 
 avoid, and strengthens his heart against future 
 perils. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Action Ideo-motor, 55, 56, 95, 114, 
 
 ISO- 
 Instinctive, 11-13, 54, 56, 58, 63, 
 
 66, 68, 70, 94-8, 164, 230. 
 Reflex, 17, 55, 65, 66. 
 
 Acquired peculiarities, Heritableness 
 . ?f, 3 6 > 37, 213-9. 
 
 Acquisitiveness, 81, 256, 269, 294. 
 
 Admiration, 78. 
 
 Adornment, 84, 264, 265. 
 
 Advertisements, 125, 299, 300. 
 
 /Esthetic impulses, 84-6, 88, 185, 237. 
 
 Affection, 84, 277. 
 
 Age, Respect for, 78, 274. 
 
 Agriculture, 210, 259-61. 
 
 Ambition, 77. 
 
 Anger, 77. 
 
 Anomalies of instinct, 89. 
 
 in Life's functioning, 20-2, 167. 
 
 Approbation, Desire for, 78. 
 
 Aptitudes, 97, 98, 164, 251. 
 
 Aristocracy Fortunes of, 313-4, 318, 
 
 3*9- 
 
 Origin of, 312. 
 Art, Origin of, 84-6, 237, 243, 244. 
 
 Baltic civilization, 269-71. 
 
 traits, 185, 189. 
 Beauty, Sense of, 84. 
 Behaviour, Inconsistencies of, 3, 90-3. 
 Birth-rate and culture, 248, 249. 
 
 and environment, 212, 213, 225, 
 
 226. 
 
 Blushes, 74. 
 Brotherhood, 280. 
 
 Causation Conception of, 99, 100, 
 140, 143-6, 148, 149, 168-70, 
 232-6. 
 Erroneous ideas of, 143-6, 168, 
 
 23> 233, 234. 
 Celibacy, 7, 87, 237. 
 Cell-sympathy, 130, 131. 
 Change, 24-45. 
 
 of mood, 24, 25, 41-5. 
 of physical constitution, 25, 26. 
 of social constitution, 26-9. 
 of species, 29-41. 
 
 Changefulness A human impulse, 24, 
 25, 41-5, 186, 238-41, 325, 326. 
 A vital impulse, 18, 34, 35. 
 affecting culture, 211, 212. 
 deadened by habit, 116-8, 201, 
 
 202, 238, 239. 
 
 Origin of evolution, 26-9, 35, 163, 
 190. 
 
 Character, Innate, 115, 179-89, 198, 
 202, 221-4, 246-8, 292. 
 
 in politics, 312, 313, 314, 316, 
 322, 333- 
 
 modified by environment, 1 98-202, 
 221-4. 
 
 unmodified by culture, 115, 246-8, 
 
 251, 292. 
 
 Charity, 83, 84, 286. 
 Chastity, 86. 
 
 Cheapness, Effect of, 297-9, 301. 
 Chivalry, 188. 
 
 Choice by free-will, 55, 152, 155. 
 Christian conversion, 183, 248. 
 
 ideals, 7, 175, 176,245,288. 
 Climate, Effect of, 221-3. 
 Colour, Protective and attractive, 34, 
 
 35, 126, 169. 
 Commerce, 267, 268, 296. 
 
 Foreign, 300-3. 
 Complexion, 219, 220. 
 Comradeship, 279. 
 Conception, 137, 138. 
 Conscience Origin, 146. 
 Consciousness, 128-49. 
 
 Errors resulting from, 141-6. 
 
 Effect upon action, 130, 133, 136, 
 
 !39- 
 
 Effect upon impulses, 134, 139, 
 140. 
 
 Effect upon reason, 137, 140, 164, 
 165. 
 
 focussed by language, 138, 139. 
 
 Origin, 13, 14, 58-60, 128, 131. 
 
 Unhappiness caused by, 146-9. 
 Constructiveness, 81, 255, 256, 263. 
 Courage, 86, 91. 
 Credit Effect upon industry, 293, 
 
 297. 
 
 Cruelty, 82, 83, 187, 237, 273, 286. 
 Culture, 229-52. 
 
 and character, 246-8. 
 
 and language, 230-1. 
 
 and imitation, 238-43, 273. 
 
 and impulse, 236, 237, 243. 
 
 and fertility, 248-52. 
 
 and reason, 232-6. 
 
 and writing, 231, 232. 
 
 Effect of circumstances upon, 244. 
 Curiosity, 77. 
 
 Dancing, 85, 88, 237. 
 Darwinism, 31-4, 38. 
 Death, 19, 162. 
 Deference, 78. 
 
 to a majority, 318, 332, 
 
 335 
 
336 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Democracy Actualities of, 319-27. 
 
 Its possibilities, 327-31. 
 
 Origin, 315, 318. 
 Design, Evidence of, 38, 39, 62, 75, 
 
 76, 163, 168-70. 
 Despair, 81, in. 
 Determinism, 15, 16, 151-5. 
 Directive instinct, n, 12 , 56-8, 66, 67, 
 94-7, 164, 230. 
 
 in internal organs, 12, 56, 95, 97, 
 164. 
 
 Survival in aptitudes, 97, 98. 
 Domestication of animals, 83, 258, 259. 
 Dramatic art Origin, 237. 
 Dreams, 105. 
 Dress Fashion in, 240. 
 
 Origin, 84, 264, 265. 
 Drunkenness, Pleasure of, 45. 
 Duality of Life's impulses, 170, 173-6. 
 
 Economics, Modern, 293-310. 
 
 Ecstasy, 86. 
 
 Education Effects of, 172, 173, 
 
 287, 
 
 Form of imitation, 123, 242. 
 Emotions Arousing of, 60. 69, 70. 
 
 Evidence of impulses, 69-71, 164. 
 
 Expression of, 73, 74. 
 
 pleasurable and painful, 60-2. 
 Emulation, 77, 311, 320-5, 330. 
 Empire for trade, 283. 
 Employment, 296, 297. 
 Environment, 205-28. 
 
 and character, 206, 221-4. 
 
 and fertility, 212, 213, 224-6. 
 
 and habits, 206, 207-12, 223, 224, 
 244. 
 
 and individuals, 206-13. 
 
 and physical development, IQO, 
 206, 207, 212-21, 223. 
 
 and the race, 189, 190, 213-28. 
 
 Change of in evolution, 22, 30. 
 
 Effect in spreading new species, 
 
 39-4- 
 
 Man's antagonism to, 6, 7. 
 stimulates variation, 35, 37, 163, 
 
 214,217,218. 
 
 Ethical impulses, 86-8, 185, 237. 
 Eugenics, 252. 
 Evolution and environment, 37, 163, 
 
 190, 214, 217, 218. 
 and habits, 120-3, 163, 246-8. 
 and imitation, 39-41, 126, 127, 
 
 163. 
 
 Course of, 29-41. 
 Design in, 38, 39, 62, 75, 76, 
 
 168-70. 
 
 of impulses, 58, 163, 221-4. 
 proves Life's originality, 22, 23, 34 
 
 Evolution Result of changefulness, 
 
 26-9, 35 163, 190. 
 Experience essential for inference, 
 
 IOI. 
 
 Family, Cult of, 235. 
 
 Family life, Origin, 276-8. 
 
 Fashions due to sympathy, 242, 243. 
 
 Fear, 77. 
 
 Feeling An attribute of Life, 58-60. 
 
 Fertility and culture, 248-52. 
 
 and environment, 212, 213, 225, 
 
 226. 
 
 Filial regression, Law of, 191. 
 Fire, Domestication of, 257. 
 Fetishism, 144, 172, 236. 
 Fluctuations, Darwinic, 31. 
 Food Effect upon race, 214, 215, 221. 
 Foresight, 80. 
 
 Free-will its existence, 15, 16, 150-5. 
 Future, Conception of, 80. 
 
 Gambling, Pleasure in, 44. 
 
 Games, Pleasure in, 45. 
 
 Generosity, 84. 
 
 Genius, Men of, 79, 154, 172, 238, 252. 
 
 Gratitude, 84. 
 
 Greeks, Northern blood in, 198-200. 
 
 Habit, 16, 104, 113-23. 
 
 A pleasurable impulse, 116, 117. 
 Arepetitiveinfluence,i6, 104, 1 13. 
 contrasted with instinct, 1 19, 120, 
 
 128, 164, 165, 258. 
 how acquired, 124, 125, 156. 
 influenced by pleasure and pain, 
 
 62,71, 115. 
 
 Its effects upon behaviour, 43, 
 114-6, r 1 8, 122, 123, 229, 246, 
 247. 
 
 Its effects upon impulses, 70, 114, 
 115, 118, 119, 165-7, 171, 173, 
 246, 247, 292, 333. 
 Its tyranny, 117-8, 239. 
 Origin of instincts, 120-3, 163. 
 Root of culture, 229, 246, 292. 
 Habits of mind (ideals), 1 14, 117, 175, 
 
 f 288, 291, 292, 333. 
 Happiness and unhappiness, 71, 72, 
 
 167. ( 
 
 expressions of, 73, 74. 
 Happiness and poverty, 290, 291. 
 Hate, 77, 84. 
 Helotage, 282. 
 Heredity (acquired characters), 36, 37, 
 
 213-9. 
 
 Honesty, 86. 
 Hope, 81, in. 
 Hunger and thirst, 76. 
 
INDEX 
 
 337 
 
 Hunting impulse, 76. 
 Hypnotism, 59-60, 131-3. 
 
 Ideals, nj, 175,245,279. 
 
 Material, 271, 272. 
 Ideas, New, 238, 239. 
 Ideo-motor action, 55, 56, 95, 114, 130. 
 Imagination, 108-11. 
 Imitation, 104, 123-7. 
 
 Effect in spreading new species, 
 39-41, 126, 127, 163. 
 
 Effect upon impulses, 245. 
 
 in politics, 333. 
 
 Its stimuli, 125. 
 
 Stimulus to action, 68. 
 
 spreads culture, 239-46, 273, 292. 
 
 Origin, 16, 104. 
 
 Origin of habits, 124. 
 Impulses Antagonism of, 7, 90, 93, 
 
 94, r 73, 174- 
 Anomalies of, 88, 89. 
 ^Esthetic, 84-6, 88, 185, 237. 
 and Philosophy, 93, 94. 
 aroused by imitation, 68. 
 by recollections, 18, 63, 64. 
 by sensations, 17, 54-6,63,68, 
 
 69. 
 
 periodically, 68, 69. 
 Cruel, 82, 83, 187, 273, 286. 
 Effect upon culture, 236, 237, 
 
 241-4. 
 
 Ethical, 86-8, 185, 237. 
 in politic*. 311, 320, 331-4. 
 Individualistic, 76,77,279, 282-3. 
 influencing reason, 140, 236, 237, 
 
 244. 
 
 Kindly, 83, 84, 285-7, 38, 309. 
 Origin of action, 63-6. 
 Origin of organs and features, 
 
 161-2, 188. 
 
 Provident. 3> 8o, 81, 88, 255, 294. 
 Reproductive, 79, 80, 255, 274-8. 
 Socialj 77-9, 278-82, 318. 
 Impulsive instincts, 13, 55, 65-7, 76-92. 
 Individualistic impulses, 76, 77, 279, 
 
 282-3. 
 
 Effect upon society, 282-3. 
 Industrial evolution Impulses assist- 
 ing, 294, 295. 
 History, 298-300. 
 
 Industrial impulse needs reinforce- 
 ment, 294, 295, 310. 
 Inference, 99-103, 164, 165. 
 
 in adjusting sensations, 51. 
 Infertility Racial effect, 196. 
 Ingenuity, 81. 
 Injustice, 148, 149. 
 Insanity, 108, 147. 
 Instincts, 11-13, 64-103. 
 
 Instincts Antagonism of, 7, 90, 93, 
 
 94, i?3 J 74- 
 
 Directive, 8-12, 56-8, 66, 164. 
 over internal organs, 56, 95. 
 Impulsive, 12, 13, 55. 65-7, 76-92, 
 
 . 164, 165. 
 
 Intoxication, Pleasure of, 45. 
 Introspection, 129, 130, 132-6, 164. 
 Inventions, 139, 154, 237, 238. 
 Investments, Foreign, 302. 
 
 Jealousy, 77, 84, 273. 
 Justice, 86, 148, 149. 
 
 Kindness, 83, 84, 135, 147, 273, 285-7, 
 
 308, 309. 
 Kingship, Fortunes of, 312-5. 
 
 Origin, 274, 281, 312. 
 Knowledge, in, 172. 
 
 Language, 78, 103, 138, 139, 230, 231. 
 Laughter, 44, 73. 
 
 Liberty, Extension of, 170, 171, 272, 
 284, 285. 
 
 Meaning of, 284, 285. 
 Life its anomalies, 20-2. 
 
 its attributes, 9-19. 
 
 its distinction from Matter, 16, 
 2-3, ^4, 167, 174, 175. 
 
 its energy, 9. 
 
 its imperceptibility, 8. 
 
 its purposes, 22. 
 Litigation, Pleasure in, 44, 45. 
 Love Maternal, 79, 277. 
 
 Romantic, 79, 80. 
 
 Sexual, 79, 80. 
 
 Loyalty, 239, 241, 242, 272, 281. 
 Ludicrous, Pleasure of, 24, 43, 44. 
 Lust, 79, 80, 187, 220. 
 
 Machines, Effect of, 263, 264, 299. 
 Magic, 144, 172, 236. 
 Marriage Age, 229,^249, 250. 
 
 checks eccentricity, 191, 192, 252. 
 
 consolidates racial traits, 193. 
 
 Origin, 262, 274-6. 
 Material progress, 255-273. 
 Maternal love, 79, 277. 
 Matriarchate, 275, 276. 
 Matter antagonistic to Life, 16, 20-3, 
 
 J 54, 167, 174, 175. 
 Mediterranean traits, 185-9. 
 Memories Stimuli to action, 63, 64. 
 
 67, 68. 
 Memory, 104-113. 
 
 and personality, 105, 106. 
 
 by contiguity and association, 
 107, 108. 
 
 in sensory adjustment, 52, 53. 
 
338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Memory, Subconscious, 105-7, IIQ - 
 
 Origin, 1 6, 52, 53. 
 Mendelism, 28, 33, 34, 38, 192. 
 Mercy, 84. 
 
 Migration Aryans into India, 197, 
 202. 
 
 Effect upon race, 194-6. 
 
 Northern into Mediterranean, 43, 
 198-202. 
 
 Southern to North, 202, 203. 
 
 spreads culture, 268. 
 Migratory impulse, 42, 43. 
 Mimicry, 41. 
 
 Protective, 34, 35, 126, 169. 
 Monarchy Fortunes of, 312-5. 
 
 Origin, 274,281,312. 
 Money, 294-296. 
 Monogamy, 277, 278. 
 Morality, Origin, 86-8, 236, 238. 
 Music, 85, 237. 
 
 Mutations of impulse, 58, 163, 223, 
 224, 258. 
 
 Physical, 31, 37, 58, 163, 189, 217, 
 
 2l8, 221. 
 
 Nationality, Ideas of, 171, 282. 
 Natural selection, 32, 35, 169, 214. 
 Nitrogen Assimilation from air, 10, 
 
 261. 
 Connection with Life, 10, 20. 
 
 Obedience, 78. 
 Oratory, 85. 
 
 Parliaments Origin, 318, 319. 
 
 Patience, 86. 
 
 Patriarchate Origin, 275, 276. 
 
 Patriotism, 281, 323. 
 
 Party spirit, 320-5. 
 
 Perception, 51, 52. 
 
 Periodicity Stimulus to Action, 68, 
 
 69, 1 66. 
 
 Personality, 135, 136. 
 Philanthropy, 134, 285-7, 324, 327-3 1 - 
 Playfulness, 77. 
 
 Pleasure and pain, 60-2, 71, 72, 115, 
 1 66, 167. 
 
 Expressions of, 73, 74. 
 
 form habits, 62, 72, 115. 
 
 not original stimuli, 62, 72. 
 Political evolution, 331-4. 
 Politicians Influence of, 316-8, 327, 
 
 c 333- 
 
 Status of, 330. 
 Politics Impulses affecting, 311, 320, 
 
 326, 327 331-4. 
 Influence of deference to majority, 
 
 Influence of imitation, 333. 
 
 Politics Influence of leaders, 311,316, 
 
 317,320,333. 
 Influence of race, 312, 313, 314, 
 
 3 l6 > 332, 333- 
 Influence of reverence, 312, 324, 
 
 325- 
 
 Modern, 31 1-24. 
 
 Provident impulse in, 324, 327-31. 
 
 Self-interest in, 321, 322. 
 
 The party pendulum, 325, 326. 
 Polyandry, 274. 
 Polygamy, 236, 243. 
 Poverty its compensations, 291. 
 
 its causes, 288-90, 306-8. 
 
 its extent, 289-91. 
 Private property Origin, 261, 262, 
 
 274. 
 Properties Discernment of, 99, 100, 
 
 i3> !37> J 38- 
 
 Practical effect of discerning, 139. 
 Protective mimicry and colouring, 34, 
 e 35, 126, 169. 
 rrostration, 85, 237. 
 rotoplasm, 20, 161. 
 Pubertv, Age of, 187, 220. 
 Pugnacity, 77. 
 Purity, 86. 
 
 Race, 179-204. 
 
 Racial traits affected by environ- 
 ment, 189, 190, 206, 219-24. 
 
 Baltic and Mediterranean, 185-9, 
 226-8. 
 
 Eastern, 188, 189. 
 
 Illustrations of, 181, 183-9. 
 
 Persistence of, 180-2, 190, 226-8. 
 Reason, 99-103, 164. 
 
 Assisted by consciousness, 137, 
 138. 
 
 Erroneous, 100, 141-6, 171, 172, 
 230-6, 244. 
 
 influenced by impulses, 236, 237. 
 Recollections, Direct, in. 
 
 Symbolic, I u, 1 12. 
 Reflex action, 17, 55, 65, 66. 
 Reformers their influence, 79, 154, 
 
 172, 252, 284, 285, 292, 333. 
 Religion early developments, 79, 
 141-6, 171, 172, 208, 233-7. 
 
 in politics, 313, 314. 
 
 its ideals, 174-6. 
 
 Social effect, 281. 
 Reproduction, Sexual, 21, 26-9. 
 Reproductive impulses, 79, 80. 
 
 Social effect, 274-8. 
 Revengefulness, 77, 84. 
 Reverence, 78, 241, 242. 
 
 in politics, 312, 313, 324, 325, 331. 
 
 promotes culture, 241. 
 
INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 Riches how acquired, 306-9. 
 Roman Empire Cause of fall, 201, 
 
 202. 
 
 Romans Northern blood, 198, 200, 
 
 201. 
 Romantic love, 80, 188. 
 
 Secretiveness, 77. 
 Self-abandoning impulses, 84-6. 
 Self-abandonment A relief, 86, 148. 
 Self-conceit, 77. 
 Self-consciousness, 129, 132-6, 186. 
 
 its growing influence, 171, 173, 
 
 240, 292, 333. 
 Selfish impulses, 76, 77. 
 
 Social effect, 282-3. 
 Selfishness, 77, 279. 
 Self-preservation, 76. 
 Self-restraining impulses, 86-9. 
 Senates Origin, 312. 
 Sensation, 46-62. 
 
 and perception, 51, 52, 112. 
 
 Instinctive reaction to, 17, 18, 54, 
 55- 
 
 without organs, 49, 161, 162. 
 Sensations, Fallibility of, 8, 17, 50, 168. 
 
 of ourselves, 53. 
 Senses, 47. 
 
 Sensory impressions Stimuli to ac- 
 tion, 67, 68. 
 Sensory organs, 48, 49. 
 Service Status of, 283. 
 Sexual generation, 26-29, r 9 2 > T 93- 
 
 instincts, 79, 80, 187, 188/197, 
 
 200, 271. 
 
 reproduction, 26-29. 
 anomalies in, 21, 28. 
 
 selection, 32, 35, 169. 
 Singing, 85. 
 Slavery, 236, 243, 282. 
 Social impulses, 77-79, 278-82, 318. 
 
 focussed by loyalty, 281. 
 by propinquity, 278-81. 
 by religion, 281. 
 
 Social institutions Origin, 274-83. 
 Social progress, 274-92. 
 Socialism, 309, 310. 
 Soul, Idea of, 142, 143. 
 Species newly arisen, 41. 
 
 Origin of, 31-7, 163, 217. 
 
 Spread of new, 37-41, 126, 127. 
 Spontaneity, 150-5. 
 
 in the lower animals, 158-60. 
 
 limited to choice, 155, 156. 
 
 Rudiments of, 14, 15, 158-60. 
 
 Origin of, 157, 158. 
 Sports, 31, 37, 58, 217, 189,258. 
 
 Subconsciousness, 60, 105, 129. 
 Suffrage Exercise of, 319, 320. 
 
 Grant of, 318. 
 
 Women's, 319. 
 Suggestion, 150-5. 
 Symbols, 53, 112, 138, 168. 
 Sympathy, ^78, 242, 243. 
 
 Stimuli of, 279-82. 
 
 Talent, Men of, 98, 251. 
 
 Tears, 75. 
 
 Telepathy, 131. 
 
 Temptation, 92, 155, 156, 165. 
 
 Tools, Invention of, 139, 263, 264. 
 
 Trade, Foreign, 300-3. 
 
 spreads culture, 267, 268. 
 
 Origin, 243. 
 
 Retail, 305. 
 Truth, 86. 
 
 Unemployment, 289, 296, 297. 
 
 Unhappiness, 71, 72, 146-9. 
 
 Unselfishness, 79. 
 
 Utilitarianism, 94. 
 
 Utility, in evolution, 34, 35, 75, 76, 1 26. 
 
 Vanity, 77. _ 
 
 Variations, in character, 58, 163, 223, 
 
 224, 258. 
 
 Physical, 31, 37, 58, 163, 189, 217, 
 218-21. 
 
 Visualization. 
 
 234. 
 
 Volition, 150-60, 165. 
 
 Choice of impulses, 155-7. 
 Choice of methods, 155. 
 in lower animals, 158-60. 
 its rudiments, 13-15, 157-60. 
 limited to choice, 155, 156. 
 
 War Effect upon race, 194-6. 
 
 for trade, 283. 
 
 Origin of kingship, 281. 
 
 Origin of marriage and property, 
 262, 275. 
 
 spreads culture, 243, 268. 
 Wealth defined, 293. 
 
 distribution of, 303-9. 
 
 Impulses producing, 297. 
 
 Respect for, 272. 
 
 spreads culture, 272. 
 Wealth-stream, 296, 297, 306-9. 
 
 Swelling of, 206-^0^. 
 Will, 150-60. 
 
 its reinforcement, 156, 157. 
 
 the origin of Conscience, 146. 
 Woman, Status of, 187, 188, 197, 199, 
 
 200,220,271,273,276. 
 Worship Its beginnings, 235, 236. 
 Writing, 231, 232, 265-7. 
 
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 "... just such a text-book of psychology as the experienced teacher 
 would be glad to place in the hands of his pupils. It compresses a great 
 deal of valuable information into a short space, and at the same time 
 encourages the beginner to think for himself ... is as sound a shillings- 
 worth as the philosophical bookmarket has to offer." Athenceum. 
 
 LONDON : 
 .- JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 
. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 R^C'D LD 
 
 SEP 71862 
 
 OEC2 1955 IB 
 
 REC'D LD 
 
 LD21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476* - 'k ' V IJUL 
 
Y C 30732 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY