xt day some of
them had been admitted as members of the mixed community, and ere long
relations were permanently established on a peace footing. Not in a
single instance did the pratenses of the mixed community join with the
newcomers to attack the sanguineae. The alliance between pratenses and
sanguineae was stronger than the racial brotherhood of the pratenses;
the enmity between the two hostile species had been permanently
overcome.[82]

* * * * *

Such examples suffice to show how grave is the mistake of those who
believe that instincts are quasi-sacred, and who, after they have
included the fighting instinct in this category, regard it as imposed
by fate upon all living animals from the lowest to the highest. For, in
the first place, instinct varies greatly in its cogency. We find it to
be non-modifiable or modifiable, absolute or relative, permanent or
transient, not merely as we pass from one genus to another, but within
the same genus as we pass from species to species,[83] and within the
same species as we pass from group to group. Instinct is not a starting
point, but is itself a product of evolution. Like evolution in general,
it is progressive. The most ingrained instinct is merely an instinct of
great antiquity. The observations quoted above suffice to show that the
war-making instinct is less ingrained, less primitive, than people are
apt to suppose, for even among the most combative species of ants, it
can be resisted, modified, and restrained. If these humble insects are
able to react against it, if they can modify their natures, if they can
replace wars of conquest by peaceful cooperation, if they can substitute
allied states (or, yet more remarkable, mixed and united states) for
enemy states--should man be willing to avow himself more enslaved than
they by his worst instincts, and less able than they to master these
instincts? It is sometimes said that war lowers us to the level of
beasts. War reduces us below that level, if we show ourselves less
capable of freeing ourselves from the fighting spirit than are certain
animal societies. It would be rather humiliating to be compelled to
admit their superiority. Chi lo sa?... For my part I am far from certain
that man is, as he is said to be, the lord of creation; more often, man
is the destructive tyrant. I am sure that in many things he could learn
wisdom from these animal societies, older than his own and infinitely
dive