he animal was compelled to hunt for his food--to prey upon
other forms, and to avoid being preyed upon by others. He was compelled
to struggle for the unfoldment of latent powers of his mind that would
give him means to play his part in the scheme of life. He was compelled
to do certain things in order to live and reproduce his kind. And he
demanded not in vain. For there came to him slowly an unfolding knowledge
of the things necessary for the requirements of his life. We call this
Instinct. But, pray remember, by Instinct we do not mean the still higher
something that is really rudimentary Intellect that we notice in the
higher animals. We are speaking now of the unreasoning instinct observed
in the lower animals, and to a certain degree in man. This Instinctive
plane of mentality causes the bird to build its nest before its eggs are
laid, which instructs the animal mother how to care for its young when
born, and after birth; which teaches the bee to construct its cell and to
store up its honey. These and countless other things in animal life, and
in the higher form of plant life, are manifestations of Instinct--that
great plane of the mind. In fact, the greater part of the life of the
animal is instinctive although the higher forms of animals have developed
something like rudimentary Intellect or Reason, which enables them to
meet new conditions where Intellect alone fails them.

And man has this plane of mind within him, below consciousness. In fact
the lower forms of human life manifest but little Intellect, and live
almost altogether according to their Instinctive impulses and desires.

Every man has this Instinctive mental region within him and from it are
constantly arising impulses and desires to perplex and annoy him, as well
as to serve him occasionally. The whole secret consists in whether the
man has Mastery of his lower self or not.

From this plane of the mind arise the hereditary impulses coming down
from generations of ancestors, reaching back to the cavemen, and still
further back into the animal kingdom. A queer storehouse is this.
Animal instincts--passions, appetites, desires, feelings, sensations,
emotions, etc., are there. Hate, envy, jealousy, revenge, the lust of the
animal seeking the gratification of his sexual impulses, etc., etc., are
there, and are constantly intruding upon our attention until we have
asserted our mastery. And often the failure to assert this mastery comes
from an ignoranc