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Russell gives a very satisfactory reply to those who hold this

view.

One test of instinct is that it must be found throughout the human race. Some very primitive races appear not to know war in our sense at all, but only combats between individuals; this tends to prove that war is not wholly instinctive. But, apart from this argument, there is the fact that the operation of an instinct depends not only upon human nature, but also upon the existence of a stimulus. Every instinct in operation is the result of two factors, the predisposition and the stimulus. . . . Given an adequate stimulus war results from instinctive dispositions but there is no reason why an adequate stimulus should be given. Many nations have lived without war for long periods and have shown no sign that they were suffering from thwarted instinct. It may be admitted that energetic men love rivalry, and demand opportunities of contest; but politics and football provide outlets for this impulse. . . . Fears, rivalry, love of dominion, and love of excitement are the chief emotions which make the ordinary man not adverse to war. . . . When fear goes beyond a certain point, it prevents war, but when it falls below this point, it promotes it. . . . The passions which promote war clothe themselves in myths which are accepted by almost the whole of a belligerent nation.

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35. General Mental and Physical Activity [THORNDIKE, E. L., Principles of Teaching, pp. 25-26.

A. G. Seiler, 1916]

New York,

The instinct of general mental activity is the fountain head of human intellectual development and has been in the past the chief support of school education. Unlike almost all other animals, man thinks not only under the stress of some immediate practical need, but at all times and for the mere enjoyment of thinking,-thinks not only about the few particular objects that feed, warm, protect, or injure him, but about everything he experiences. . . . The child watches and listens to all sorts of objects even when they have no meaning for his bodily needs. For to the human being intellectual life is as truly a need as food or safety.

Children do not have to be enticed or forced to think and learn. They seek ideas as eagerly as food. Only when it involves restraint, monotony and futility, is thinking objectionable.

The teacher's problem is to preserve the force of the original instinct of mental activity by giving it exercise and by rewarding its exercise with satisfaction, and to guide the aimless, random thinking of children into useful and rational forms.

The instinct of general physical activity with its special form, the manipulation of objects, is the original source of sports, industries and arts, and is in childhood the prime ally of intellectual development. As children think for the sake of thinking, so also they move about and handle objects just for the love of action and of the new ideas which action brings. The dog does a few things to a small variety of objects and can become a hunter, eater, and carrier; the child does all sorts of things to almost everything and can become a talker, writer, carpenter, violinist and hundreds of things besides.

One aim of the school is to direct the force that makes children run, jump, tumble, dance, wriggle, poke each other, seize and throw, into play and work that shall be healthy for mind and body, and to direct the force that makes children play with utensils, toys and the like toward the arts and industries that have most educative value. Even where the action and manipulation are of no value in themselves, they may be desirable as means to intellectual or moral ends. We work against nature when we try to keep young children still. To learn by doing something is to learn with the full help of instinct. And we all know that it is for idle hands that Satan finds mischief.

36. Instinct of Manipulation and Constructiveness [JAMES, William, Talks to Teachers, pp. 146-148. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1899.]

Constructiveness is the instinct most active; and by the incessant hammering and sawing, and dressing and undressing dolls, putting of things together and taking them apart, the child not only trains the muscles to coördinate action, but accumulates a store of physical conceptions which are the basis of his knowledge of the material world through life. Objectteaching and manual training wisely extend the sphere of this order of acquisition. Clay, wood, metals, and the various kinds of tools are made to contribute to the store. A youth brought up with a sufficiently broad basis of this kind is always at home in the world. He stands within the pale. He is acquainted with Nature, and Nature in a certain sense is acquainted with him. Whereas the youth brought up alone at home, with no acquain

tance with anything but the printed page, is always afflicted with a certain remoteness from the material facts of life, and a correlative insecurity of consciousness which makes of him a kind of alien on the earth in which he ought to feel himself perfectly at home.

Moreover . . . how important for life,--for the moral tone of life, quite apart from definite practical pursuits,—is this sense of readiness for emergencies which a man gains through early familiarity and acquaintance with the world of material things. To have grown up on a farm, to have haunted a carpenter's and blacksmith's shop, to have handled horses and cows and boats and guns, and to have ideas and abilities connected with such objects are an inestimable part of youthful acquisitions. After adolescence it is rare to be able to get into familiar touch with any of these primitive things. The instinctive propensions have faded, and the habits are hard to acquire.

Accordingly, one of the best fruits of the 'child-study' movement has been to reinstate all these activities to their proper place in a sound system of education. Feed the growing human being, feed him with the sort of experience for which from year to year he shows a natural craving, and he will develop in adult life a sounder sort of mental tissue, even though he may seem to be 'wasting a great deal of his growing time, in the eyes of those for whom the only channels of learning are books and verbally communicated information.

37. Curiosity

[EARHART, Lida B., Teaching Children to Study, p. 11. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909.]

A prolific source of problems, whether in school or out of it, is curiosity. We wonder why, or how, or what, and reach out in other directions for more knowledge. This curiosity may be of an idle, fleeting kind, which, left to itself, would result in little effort and progress. It may be of a primitive nature, not being based upon previous knowledge. A teacher appeals to primitive curiosity when he leads his class to desire to hear a story they have never heard before, or to see something new. He arouses expectation and desire which are directed towards unknown objects. Rightly valued and employed, however, curiosity may be made a valuable agent in education.

Intelligent curiosity, which is based upon partial knowledge, which reaches out to some definite end, and which leads to some

adequate method of attainment of that end, cannot be overestimated as a means of development and training. Consequently the suppression of curiosity just because it is curiosity, or the rejection of a method just because it appeals to curiosity, is short-sighted. The appeal to curiosity is justifiable, but it should lead to some intelligent end, and not remain upon the level of mere idle wonder.

38. The Submissive Instinct

[THORNDIKE, E. L., Educational Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 34. New York, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1914.]

There is an original tendency to respond to the situation, 'the presence of a human being larger than oneself, of angry or mastering aspect' and to blows and restraint, by submissive behavior. When weak from wounds, sickness, or fatigue, the tendency is stronger. The man who is bigger, who can outyell and outstare us, who can hit us without our hitting him, and who can keep us from moving, does originally extort a crestfallen, abashed physique and mind. Women in general are thus by original nature submissive to men in general. Every human being thus tends by original nature to arrive at a status of mastery or submission toward every other human being, and even under the more intelligent customs of civilized life somewhat of the tendency persists in many men.

39. Display of Qualities of Leadership

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[MCDOUGALL, William, Introduction to Social Psychology, pp. 65-66. Boston, John W. Luce Co., 1923.]

The instinct of self-display is manifested by many of the higher social or gregarious animals. Perhaps among mammals the horse displays it most clearly. The muscles of all parts are strongly innervated, the creature holds himself erect, his neck is arched, his tail lifted, his motions become superfluously vigorous and extensive, he lifts his hoofs high in the air, as he parades before the eyes of his fellows.

Many children clearly exhibit this instinct of self-display; before they can walk or talk the impulse finds its satisfaction in the admiring gaze and plaudits of the family circle as each new acquirement is practiced; a little later it is still more clearly expressed by the frequently repeated command, "See me do this," or "See how well I can do so-and-so"; and for many a child

more than half the delight of riding a pony, or of wearing a new coat, consists in the satisfaction of this instinct, and vanishes if there be no spectators.

40. The Hunting Instinct

[THORNDIKE, E. L., Educational Psychology, Briefer Course, p. 19. New York, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1914.]

The presence of this tendency in man's nature under the conditions of civilized life gets him little food and much trouble. There being no wild animals to pursue, catch, and torment into submission or death, household pets, young and timid children, or even aunts, governesses or nursemaids, if sufficiently yielding, provoke the responses from the young. The older indulge the propensity at great cost of time and money in hunting beasts, or at still greater cost of manhood in hounding Quakers, abolitionists, Jews, Chinamen, scabs, prophets, or suffragettes of the non-militant variety. Teasing, bullying, cruelty, are thus in part the results of one of nature's means of providing self and family with food and what grew up as a pillar of human self-support has become so extravagant a luxury as to be almost a vice.

41. The Fighting Instinct and Its Importance [MCDOUGALL, William, Introduction to Social Psychology, pp. 285, 297-298. New York, John W. Luce Co., 1923.]

The instinct of pugnacity has played a part second to none in the evolution of social organization, and in the present age it. operates more powerfully than any other in producing demonstrations of collective emotion and action on a great scale. . . In addition to this important rule in the evolution of the moral qualities, the pugnacious instinct has exerted a more direct and hardly less important influence in the life of societies.

42. Sympathy

[JAMES, William, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 410-411, Henry Holt & Co., 1890.]

Some forms of sympathy, that of a mother with child, for example, are surely primitive, and not intelligent forecasts of board and lodging and other support to be reaped in old age. Danger to the child blindly and instantaneously stimulates the

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