ay best suited to avoid
danger or to secure nourishment. We are a long way from the intelligent
regulation of conduct by a general principle, but we still find action
adapted to the requirements of organic life.

When we come to human society we find the basis for a social
organization of life already laid in the animal nature of man. Like
others of the higher animals, man is a gregarious beast. His interests
lie in his relations to his fellows, in his love for wife and children,
in his companionship, possibly in his rivalry and striving with his
fellow-men. His loves and hates, his joys and sorrows, his pride, his
wrath, his gentleness, his boldness, his timidity--all these permanent
qualities, which run through humanity and vary only in degree, belong to
his inherited structure. Broadly speaking, they are of the nature of
instincts, but instincts which have become highly plastic in their mode
of operation and which need the stimulus of experience to call them
forth and give them definite shape.

The mechanical methods of reaction which are so prominent low down in
the animal scale fill quite a minor place in human life. The ordinary
operations of the body, indeed, go upon their way mechanically enough.
In walking or in running, in saving ourselves from a fall, in coughing,
sneezing, or swallowing, we react as mechanically as do the lower
animals; but in the distinctly human modes of behavior, the place taken
by the inherited structure is very different. Hunger and thirst no doubt
are of the nature of instincts, but the methods of satisfying hunger and
thirst are acquired by experience or by teaching. Love and the whole
family life have an instinctive basis, that is to say, they rest upon
tendencies inherited with the brain and nerve structure; but everything
that has to do with the satisfaction of these impulses is determined by
the experience of the individual, the laws and customs of the society in
which he lives, the woman whom he meets, the accidents of their
intercourse, and so forth. Instinct, already plastic and modifiable in
the higher animals, becomes in man a basis of character which determines
how he will take his experience, but without experience is a mere blank
form upon which nothing is yet written.

For example, it is an ingrained tendency of average human nature to be
moved by the opinion of our neighbors. This is a powerful motive in
conduct, but the kind of conduct to which it will incite clearly