Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, May 1885

by Various

II.

The old order of things was, however, hardly demolished before two distinct and menacing questions were raised upon its ruins—Nationality and Socialism. Let us begin with the first.

Since the country (patria), in the limited sense of the word, had disappeared—that is, the political unity which was represented by the dynasty or flag or even simply a steeple, the early symbol of the old societies—the sentiment of association took its concrete form in a fresh combination, more in harmony with the democratic tendencies of our times. It assumed the widest possible basis—to constitute a society which should unite all common interests, and should be governed in conformity with these. It is, indeed, not surprising that men who speak the same language, inhabit the same zone, who are alike in their customs and dispositions, who are, in short, what is now called a nation, should present all these characteristics, and should therefore become the new political unit both of the present and the future, thus replacing the earlier units formed by heredity or conquests without respect to the interests of all the component elements.

Nothing in nature is produced at one stroke; and some races had already advanced towards nationality, and especially France, which had laboriously constituted herself into a nation, before the word was used in its political meaning. But the country to which it was allotted to assert loudly and explicitly this new form of political life was Italy in 1859. The formula of nationality as the basis of right was first proposed by her and obtained acceptance by international jurisprudence, and this basis had scarcely been established before it led to the overthrow of six thrones which boasted of different origins, among which was the most ancient and most venerable of all—the temporal power of the Popes. The experiment was favorably received, and Germany lost no time in adopting it, since the old system had produced in that country the same conditions of divisions and of relative weakness which had occurred in Italy. The campaigns of 1866 and of 1870 served to contribute to the new theory the force which was necessary to convince European diplomacy.

Even those who most reluctantly accept modern ideas do not now speak of anything but nationality. It might be supposed that there had never been any other basis for politics, since this has in a very short time been so completely and universally accepted.

The production of these nationalities has, however, been accompanied by all the defects of the system which preceded them. They have brought with them all the rancours of ancient Europe. The rancours of Francis I. and of Charles V. have been transmuted into the deadly enmity which exists between French and Germans. The testament of Frederic II. has led to the programme of the German people, and the ambitious projects of Catherine II. have issued in the aspirations of the Slave race. So though the new era which began with nationality indicates a real progress in the internal constitution of the different States, and in the fundamental reasons for their several governments; still with respect to their international relations to universal justice and to general peace, in a word, with respect to the progress of the human race in morals, we find ourselves—to make use of the metaphor we employed at first—in a fresh spiral, equally limited in space, in which there is a relative progress, but it has only a slight influence on the general progress of humanity. And, to turn from abstract principles to the concrete limits of politics, the present state of things is not promising nor hopeful for the peace of Europe.

The first and most curious phenomenon which accompanied the affirmation of different nationalities as a guarantee of peace in Europe, has been compulsory service—a euphemism which implies that the whole male population of Europe is trained and educated for war; thus men are fashioned into as deadly instruments as were ever found in barbarous ages and during the warfare of the old system. Military education, both technical and gymnastic, is brought to such perfection that whole generations are trained like hounds for mortal conflict, and each man may on an average kill ten others in the course of a minute. Even in traversing Europe by the railway we may observe near the fortresses, and indeed in the great centres of population, arenas, gymnasia, drilling grounds, and young men clothed in the prescribed warlike uniform. This strange spectacle is unnoticed because it is concealed and confounded with the attractions of modern civilisation; but it must strike all who seek to penetrate its external phenomena: and certainly those who established the present civilisation did not anticipate such a result.

We must, however, leave the speculative side of the question to philosophers, since what concerns us in the interests of this same civilisation is to examine the practical results of the situation in Europe in its political aspect, with which we are at this moment occupied. Briefly, we wish to ascertain what is now the political situation of Europe, in consequence and in presence of the new basis on which European rights are established.

And primarily, since the application of these new rights, all nationalities, if they do not feel the present necessity, yet they have potentially a tendency to assimilate the elements which properly belong to them. And each forms a judgment of the situation in accordance with his standard and purpose.

Thus, for example, Russia, under the pretext of consisting for the most part of Slav peoples, begins to nourish in her bosom the ambition of uniting all the Slav races under the well-known name of Pan-Slavism. No matter that the Slavs of Poland and Bohemia differ widely from those of Russia proper in their language, religion, and habits, perhaps more widely than from those of another nationality. Panslavists extend to the race the privileges of the nation, and as it would be difficult to define logically where the one begins and the other ends, so among them, and especially among those who believe, perhaps rightly, that they speak in the name of Russia, the Slav nation consists of a third of Europe, reaching from the North Pole to the Adriatic. In order to unite it under Russian rule, it would be necessary to overthrow, or at any rate seriously to mutilate, the dominions of Turkey and of Austrian Hungary.

The demolition of the Turkish empire and the diminution of Austrian Hungary would be carried still further by the nationality of Greece, which requires for its proper development to absorb another portion of Turkey, and to deprive Austria of such access to the sea as the Slavs might leave to her.

The Italian nationality would also propose some modifications of the geography of Europe, less searching than the above, but not without their importance.

France and Spain are the countries which have least to ask in the way of expansion; the former because her territory was acquired before the enunciation of the principle was formulated, the latter because of her limited proportions, unless, following the interpretations of Russia, she should entertain the ambition, which up to this time is scarcely perceptible if it exists at all, of acquiring the whole Iberian peninsula.

If we continue our circuit of the continent we come to the two small nationalities of Flanders and Scandinavia. These two, although their populations are the least numerous, seem less sensible of the necessity of political reunion. It is certain that no one in Belgium and Holland has seriously formulated the idea of a fusion, nor yet among the Scandinavians. These States enjoy a certain ease of circumstances and unusual prosperity, without being tormented by the demon of aggrandisement; they allow the claims of nationality to remain dormant in order that they may enjoy in prosperity and contentment what they have acquired by political shrewdness and indefatigable labor; but it may be said that in these conditions they stand alone in Europe.

The circuit we have made from the extreme north to the centre of Europe includes the most complete, successful, and indisputable instance of a compact and homogeneous nationality in that of Germany. Twenty-five years ago this was hardly regarded as an ethnographical or historical designation, and it was certainly not political, since the tendencies and interests of the different States of Germany were quite dissimilar, even when, as in many of the most important questions, they were not altogether opposed to each other. Now that the nationality has arisen, has grown and reached maturity, and in two memorable campaigns has swept all obstacles from its path, it would be as useless to try to arrest its development and divert it from its path as to try and make the Rhine flow back to its source.

The German nation must absorb a few more States in order to constitute itself into a political unity, but since the most important would shake to its foundations the Austro-Hungarian empire, this last annexation will be deferred as long as possible. The fraction of Germans which remains to be absorbed into the empire would only augment the number of its constituents by some millions, and its territory by some provinces; meanwhile in its present condition it fulfils the mission of a colony detached from the parent nation, impressed with the same characteristics, and adhering to the same interests, and thus constituting a weighty instrument for carrying out the national views throughout the Austro-Hungarian empire, which, amidst the conflict of the different nationalities of which it consists, is clearly and irresistibly impelled towards that which is the nearest, the most energetic, and the most powerful. This state of things is too favorable to Germany to allow her to hasten to exchange her independent colonies in Austria into faithful subjects of the German Emperor. There remain other tendencies to assimilation on the side of Russia and of Switzerland. The first are so problematical that they may be regarded as a pretext rather than a claim. The second have not, up to this time, acquired any appearance of probability, since Switzerland has had the privilege of constituting an artificial and political nationality out of such as are truly geographical and ethnographical, and has gallantly resisted any encroachment, so that on this side also any assimilation must be regarded as immature. We must not, however, forget the homogeneity of race, if Germany should be for any cause impelled to approach or to cross the Alps. In such a case the effects of this homogeneity must make themselves felt.

These tendencies are not, however, all equally active, nor have they all the same intensity. Up to this time some of them are still latent, and give no sign of their existence, nor are they the only factors of the political state of Europe. Besides their tendencies to become complete, nationalities have certain other tendencies, objects, and ends, which may be said to be peculiar to each of them, since they correspond with their special needs, relate to certain conditions, and are in conformity with the mission which each State has, or thinks it has, in the political concert of nations.

Since, therefore, we are considering the subject from the political point of view, as it now exists, we shall only regard those tendencies which actually demand satisfaction, and which, therefore, constitute an element and a factor of contemporary politics. The more important tendencies may be reduced to few, intense in character, and wielding mighty forces. The others may be considered as depending by those which are greater and stronger, only differing in degree of intensity and power. They generally take an intermediate place, and receive their satisfaction second-hand, according to their position on the right or wrong side in the great conflict of interests. They usually follow the fortune of the conquered or conquering leaders.

Russia, the dominant Slav race of the north, in addition to the desire of assimilation with her brethren, tends towards the sun, in order to exert an influence over the temperate zone, in which the most vital interests of Europe are at issue. This is the popular tradition which goes by the name of the testament of Peter the Great. Russia has persistently and indefatigably extended her conquests in the direction of the East. If this movement appears to be at present less decided, it is because her want of success in the last war and last treaty has reacted on the constitution of the empire, which is thus weakened and hindered in its efforts at expansion. But as soon as this impulse of internal dissatisfaction is subdued, her activity abroad will be renewed. The man or the government which is able to lead Russia back into her old course will solve the enigma by which she is now agitated.

She advances towards the east from two sides—the north and west. In the former direction she is impelled by the force of circumstances. The only element of order amid the nomadic and barbarous peoples which overspread the country extending from the sides of the Caucasus to the interior of Asia, the endless controversies about frontiers enable her to advance stealthily and insensibly, owing, as we have said, to the very nature of things. On the western side she makes her way deliberately, and in spite of all the obstacles opposed to her. These are of two kinds—the resistance of the Ottoman empire; and that of the European Powers, which are either interested in maintaining it or desire to succeed to its territory. England stands first in the first category, Austria in the second, if, indeed, she is not alone in the desire to succeed to Turkey.

Russia would have overcome the first obstacle, in spite of the tenacity of the Ottoman policy and the bravery of the army, if it were not complicated by the second. The great and moribund empire of Turkey has still vitality enough to respond to the affectionate care of the more or less interested physicians who take charge of her.

But since 1870 the political attitude of Europe with respect to Turkey has completely changed. Each of the three Powers which with a somewhat elaborate disinterestedness assumed her defence in 1855 has modified its views. Italy, to whom it was hardly more than a pretext for inaugurating her political constitution, has attained her object and will no longer apply herself with the same tenacity of purpose to the maintenance of the Ottoman empire. France and England have abandoned their office of guardians, to assume the more profitable one of heirs—the one in Tunis, the other in Egypt. As for Russia, with which we are now occupied, her position is also different. Now that France has taken her share, she has no great interest in upholding the tottering giant against whom she has directed one of the most recent and most decisive blows; and, on the other hand, she is by no means interested in opposing the plans of Russia or in offending her, since she recognises in this Power the only hope of vengeance remaining to her in the present state of things.

England, on the other hand, who has taken her share of the succession, wishes, if possible, to prolong the existence of the dying man, especially since Russia is with more or less reason considered by a certain section of public opinion in England to menace her influence and even her possessions in the East, as well as in the West. The influences of Russia and England are so heterogeneous, one to the other, that whenever they come in contact, although it may be in the distant future, it must be a reciprocal source of danger. But now that England has secured Egypt, she has perhaps no longer the same intense interest in the preservation of the Turkish empire by which she was actuated in 1855.

From 1870 onwards, a new and very important actor appeared on the Oriental stage. Austria, repulsed by the different nationalities—by Italy in 1859, by Germany in 1866—for the very reason that she was the only European State which did not rely on nationality, that exclusive and jealous factor of modern politics, has been obliged to depend on one of those already in existence, and also to create for herself a scope and office which might justify her own existence. She has found these two objects fulfilled by the Oriental question.

Since the Hapsburg dynasty found itself placed on the confines of German nationality, and close to all the fractions of different nationalities which the storms of past ages had thrown on the shores of the Danube on one side, and on the Balkan peninsula on the other, it quickly took the part of ruling all these different nationalities, which, owing to their insignificance, could not aspire to form a political unit, and therefore relied on the great German nationality which was behind them. But, as we have said, this did not suffice; another object was presented to them, dictated by the nature of things—that is, to substitute the Mohammedans in the supremacy of Eastern Europe, as they were incompatible with European civilisation, and at the same time to prevent this, which is commonly called the key of Europe, from falling into the hands of a really numerous nationality, which would on many accounts have excited the fears of all European interests.

Through this act, dictated, as we have said, by the necessities of things, Austria has found herself inextricably bound to Germany and opposed to Russia, with whom she contests the two objects most dear to the latter—the acquisition of the Catholic Slav races which Austria jealously cherishes in her bosom, and her progress towards the sun, or towards whatever obstructs her advance to the East. The indissoluble bonds which unite the policy of Germany with that of the Austro-Hungarian empire enable the former country to enjoy the inestimable advantage of exerting a powerful influence on Eastern diplomacy without, however, showing the hand which she neither could nor would withdraw.

Consequently, Russia finds in the German nationality upon her western frontier a much more serious and permanent barrier than that which was raised by the political combinations of 1855. Her development in the East is opposed, as well as the expansion of her influence in Europe, which is still more important. We see these two great nationalities fatally opposed to each other by their most vital necessities, and in the objects they most ardently desire. The wise and prudent combinations of the statesmen of these two great countries are applied to smooth difficulties and distract attention from these fatal conditions; and owing to the calm temperament of these nations, and to the discipline still maintained by their Governments, they have been successful up to a certain point. The ancient alliance of the three emperors has, however, already become that of two. On the one side there is a true and serious alliance established between the two houses of Germany and Austria; on the other, a close, warm, and probably sincere friendship between the houses of Germany and Russia. But none such can be firmly established between the three; and as for the two most numerous and powerful nationalities of Europe, they may (and the God of Peace will reward them for it) dissimulate, soften, temporise—do everything in their power to avert too rapid or too violent a collision of the important interests of their subjects, but they cannot change the nature of things. The two great nationalities, Slav and German, are essentially rivals, both in geographical position and in their political aims.

These considerations naturally lead us to speak of the German nationality.

This nationality, like all those of recent origin, desires to feel itself secure. On the one side there is an instinctive fear of the possible conflagrations to which the influence of their powerful neighbor may give rise; on the other, it cannot lose sight of the strong antagonism between Germany and France which dates from 1870. It will for a long period be difficult to overcome this antagonism, since it is founded on the great frontier interests which have been contested on both sides. As long as France is deprived of her traditional frontier she will never feel herself secure, and if it were surrendered by Germany, she would lose all the fruits of her loss and bloodshed in 1870. Even if it were only a contest for influence and supremacy, it is not in the French nature to submit to defeat without feeling from time to time the desire for revenge. This impulse alone in so excitable a nation is enough to keep Germany watchful in this direction. Certainly such an occurrence is not at present either certain or threatening, but it is always possible that their two formidable neighbors may combine, and this would re-act also on the different nationalities which compose the Austro-Hungarian empire. It is this danger which keeps the German nation in an indefinite and indefinable state of uneasiness, to her own economical ruin, as well as to that of all the European States which are compelled to imitate her.

To this feeling of uneasiness must be referred the feverish activity of the Imperial Cabinet, who never ceases to make and unmake plans and combinations, dominated by the single idea which was cherished by the rival nationality of France from the time of Louis the Fourteenth to that of Thiers—namely, to keep all Europe in a divided state. This is not only in order to carry out the famous maxim, Divide et impera, but because among all the possible combinations, some might be, if not fatal, yet dangerous to the existence of Germany.

This possibly was foreseen in 1870, and it is known that lengthy negotiations secured the neutrality of Russia in that war. The concessions made to Russia in the East were part of the price of that neutrality, and chief among these was the revision of the Treaty of Paris.

It was readily believed that the opportunity of securing predominance in Europe, for which Germany had been so elaborately prepared, and which a chance unlikely to occur twice in the lifetime of peoples so liberally offered her, would not be let slip by the German Government. The war with France has been justly called a Punic War, or a deadly strife for supremacy in Europe. And therefore the second Punic War was looked for in a period in which it should not be possible for Russia to intervene. According to the plan by which the Roman Horatius fought with his rivals one by one, it seemed that the dominion, if not of the world, at any rate of Europe, was secured to Germany.

This opinion was confirmed, inasmuch as the first question which arose after 1870 was the Eastern question. The part taken by Germany is well known, and certainly the peace was concluded at Berlin, where the Treaty of San Stefano, which had secured to Russia the price of her action, was cancelled. Russia issued from the struggle seriously shaken, nor has she yet recovered from the shock. The Russian nation, deluded in its most cherished expectations, has been given up to a state of discontent which it is not necessary to study in its forms but in its essence. The people are conscious of having been misdirected in their course, and are displeased with whoever has failed to interpret their wishes.

It seemed as if this might have been the moment for a second war with France, and especially since it was unlikely that Russia would forget, when her strength returned, the auto da fé made at Berlin of the Treaty of San Stefano. To this end all the manœuvres of the Berlin Cabinet seem to have tended, as if the powerful hand of the German Chancellor had only been exerted to effect its conclusion.

The mountain did not, however, bring forth a mouse but a canard, for such it must appear to our calmer judgment, in the unexpected rumor of a Franco-German alliance. We are not now in a position to examine the reasons of this abortive birth. It only concerns us to show that when the hypothesis of this solution was overthrown by the power so ably and opportunely exerted, the question was reproduced to the German nation in its integrity. Placed between and in collision with the interests of two great nationalities, the one consisting of nearly sixty and the other of forty million inhabitants, Germany was still uneasy and insecure. Her people are, however, strictly disciplined, trained for conflict, and of a naturally brave temperament, and all means have been used to develop this quality in them. We know that when men conscious of strength are uncomfortable or of evil humor they soon try to mend their condition, and that they expend their wrath on some thing or person until they have regained security and calmness. This constitutes one of the most serious questions now presented to Europe, and whence issues much of the uncertainty and dangers which menace its peace.

The Chancellor, with the ability and diplomatic genius which no one can dispute that he possesses, involves this phantasm in all sorts of wrappings, with the double aim of appeasing it and of rendering it less alarming to Europe. He expends all the energy which was accumulated in the violent struggle in diplomatic combinations. Hence the friendly relations with Russia have continually become closer; hence the triple alliance again, the courteous treatment of Spain, the favorable recognition of the French occupation of Tunis, so acceptable to France, although received with dissatisfaction by Italy; hence also the English occupation of Egypt was not opposed by Germany from the first, while it was very displeasing to France. All this incessant activity of German diplomacy, which appeared to be ably directed, and very probably really was so directed, to procure the isolation of France, was on that account supposed to lead the way to a second Franco-German war. But at the present it should rather be regarded as a long succession of manœuvres and a complicated diplomatic strategy, which had lost sight of its immediate object and had for the time no other interests than those which the episodes of this grave question present to the curiosity of all Europe—a question of which the issue is so uncertain and indefinite that at the moment when the object in view appeared to be obtained in the complete isolation of France, we hear of a Franco-German alliance. Incredible as it may appear, this is the fact. The alliance is spoken of, and this is enough to show that everything is possible in the state of tension in which things are in Central Europe.

The sudden transition from a state of mortal war to that of an alliance might have been contemplated in the political exigencies of the times of Cardinal Richelieu—that is, when foreign politics were of a kind of sacerdotalism, only transacted by Cabinets, on which public opinion exercised little or no influence. But it is difficult to believe, in the present state and exigencies of public opinion, and especially in France, that it would be easy or possible to stifle in a diplomatic combination, however able and useful, the memories of Metz and Sedan, the loss of the Rhine Provinces and the occupation of Paris.

Such an opinion may be to some extent accepted by the victors, but not by those on whom the burden of the war of 1870 fell. We mean by this that when such combinations are contemplated and the attempt is made to carry them into effect, they will not change the actual state of things. The rivalry, incompatibility, and rancours produced by interests which are different and in many cases opposed to each other in two neighboring and powerful nations, may be subdued for a while, but they must sooner or later revive until the question is substantially resolved by the triumph of one side or the other. It is precisely because she has been unwilling or unable to resolve it, that Germany remains in this condition of profound disquietude—a condition which has taken no certain and definite direction, but which is pregnant with possible dangers for the rest of Europe.

We have said that the movement has not yet taken a definite direction, but not that its tendency does not begin to declare itself. While setting aside for a little and adjourning to a more or less distant future the question of its own safety, the German nation, in common with others, has certain objects in view beyond that of mere existence; it has natural aspirations which give a purpose to life. We have said that the Slav races of Russia are drawn towards the sun, and the Germans are as strongly attracted towards the sea.

The people of Germany are very poor, owing to the natural conditions of the soil and climate, poor also owing to compulsory military service, to which, however, they willingly submit for the sake of their national existence. If a strong people does not long tolerate an uneasy condition, neither can it tolerate poverty. One which is strong and poor is a dangerous neighbor to richer peoples. Now, from whatever side we cross the German frontier, we are struck by the prosperity and riches of the neighboring nations, whether agricultural, manufacturing, or mercantile. The only advertisement posted up in every German village is the name of the company, battalion, and regiment to which it belongs, instead of the numerous advertisements which we find in similar villages of Belgium, France, and Holland, announcing transactions of trade, commerce, and manufactures. When we see the poor and humble villages which are thus classified, we might say that the German nation is merely encamped in the midst of Europe.

In the present conditions of Europe, and precisely on account of the nationalities to which the credit must be given, territorial acquisitions among neighbors and the subjection of one people to another have become hardly possible except in a few limited cases which cannot enter the mind of any statesman as having any large significance in the political future. Since European nations can no longer, as of old, obtain expansion at the expense of one another, they now seek for it in distant lands, amid lower civilisations and in societies which are less firmly constituted. This is done not only by conquest, but by colonisation and commercial establishments of every kind, which assure influence, and still more riches and prosperity to their founders. For this end, it is important that a nation should have easy access to the sea. The German nation is eminently continental and has only an inconsiderable extent of seaboard. Hence Germany has need of the sea, and this tendency attracts her equally towards the north and east of Europe. This has probably influenced her policy in the late Eastern war, and this subsidiary necessity is the complement of the more important need of securing her own safety which has been the object of the policy of the German Chancellor in its varying transitions. It agrees with the colonising tendencies which have come openly to a head within the last few months.

We have thus briefly indicated the tendencies of two among the principal nationalities. France comes next in importance, and since she is in fact the most ancient, so that her customs and interests are firmly welded in spite of all her misfortunes, she need not greatly concern herself about the fact of her existence. It would be difficult to make any breach in the unity of France, since the traces of her ancient divisions no longer exist. Her external borders may be enlarged or restricted wherever the popular characteristics are less marked, or even ambiguous, so that their affections and interests may oscillate towards neighborly nations. But the great nucleus of the people has no fear of being other than it is, and this is not now the source of agitation in France. It is precisely because she has long been secure in the enjoyment and free exercise of all her faculties as a nation that her tendencies are more clearly and explicitly displayed.

Unfortunately these tendencies are towards domination and empire as the scope and means of her prosperity. As soon as France was constituted into a nation, or from the Revolution onwards, her history is only a history of aggressions which nothing but superior force from without and exhaustion within could arrest. The necessity of expansion by warlike means is so intense in the French nation that she is hardly subjected to foreign compulsion before there is an outbreak of internal disturbances. France, conquered in 1815, only remained quiet until she had recovered strength. The blood hardly begins to circulate in her veins when she either overthrows her Government or makes war on foreign Powers. The dilemma imposed like an incubus on all the rulers of France for the last hundred years issues in this—either war or revolution.

The present Government, instinctively conscious of this state of things, and not feeling strong enough to make war on its more powerful neighbors lest it should be ruined in its turn, has invented a diversion by transposing the problem—waging war in Asia and Africa, and carrying fire and flames into all parts of the world which could offer no resistance. The first idea of this policy must be ascribed to Louis Philippe, who owed the tranquillity of the early years of his reign to the conquest of Algeria. Other European nations have undertaken colonisation or conquest of distant lands with reference to their material prosperity, but conquest has been the primary object of France. Economic views take a secondary place, out of proportion with the scale of the enterprise, and are, indeed, rather a pretext. This constitutional restlessness of France, which is only arrested by force, has long constituted one of the gravest perils which threaten the peace of Europe.

Italy, as well as Germany, feels the need of security, and this common need has, since 1870, united the interests of the two countries. There are insuperable obstacles in the tendency natural to all nationalities to absorb unconsciously the congenial elements of other States. The only symptoms of this tendency have been displayed on the side of Austria, which is not herself a nation, but those who so improvidently in any respect promoted it were also perhaps not aware that behind Austria stands Germany, and that Trieste on the Adriatic corresponds to that nation’s tendency towards the sea. But as far as her own existence is concerned, Italy is irrevocably bound to all the combinations which may secure her, and is the irreconcilable enemy of all those who threaten her.

The path of Greece is equally barred by Austria and Russia, nor has she much hope of making way against these two great Powers, unless their antagonism can nourish such hopes.

We have reserved England to the last, because her political condition as it concerns her nationality is altogether distinct from those with which we have been hitherto occupied. If by nationality we mean homogeneous characteristics of race, a similarity in language, religion, and customs, the Anglo-Saxon nationality extends beyond the United Kingdom into both hemispheres. If, on the other hand, we regard the United Kingdom as an actual political unit, we find that it is composed of different races, in which are included the English, Scotch, and Irish, which have nothing in common with each other but their official language. And yet, while the English nation has for good reasons never posed, morally speaking, as the champion of nationalities, she presides over the most cultured, numerous, and energetic nationality in the world. But the Anglo-Saxon nationality does not need nor desire, and indeed is unable, to be a political unit. It may be said that the Anglo-Saxon race has passed through the historical period of a nationality without observing it. It has advanced beyond this period to attain to the ideal of a civilisation forming whole parts of the world, in which only one language is spoken, in which we find the same customs, interests, and religion, or, at any rate, the faculty of accepting, each man for himself, what seems good to him, without allowing this diversity to produce, either in theory or practice, a distinction which has any political efficacy.

In those parts of the world there are not five or six groups of men which look askance at each other with a hostile air, and which, because they speak a different language, have a different history and religion, believe themselves to be justified as a matter of duty and honor in exterminating each other two or three times in a century. Because a scrap of ground belongs to one set of people, does not that appear to be a sufficient reason to the others to maintain millions of armed men trained for their reciprocal destruction? Geographical degrees do not suffice to create different and conflicting interests which may justify them in mutual injuries, and in inflicting on one another the long series of small and great miseries which begin with protracted wars and fiscal duties and end in the imposition of quarantine.

This fact gives to the English people, which represents that nationality in Europe, an exceptional power and authority. The English people may become decadent as an European Power, but as a nationality it will be unmenaced, since it does not represent a limited political unit, but the half of the world. If the German nationality should ever be baffled in the political combination made since 1870, she would lose her political importance in the world. But if Britain were attacked and conquered, the Anglo-Saxon nationality would still remain the greatest political power in the universe. Hence this nationality or race is exalted above all the narrow sentiments which underlie the policy of the different European States; but England herself as a State and political unit is jealous of the power which has in less than two centuries produced the miraculous development of the Anglo-Saxon race to its present extent; but if this jealousy is shown by the legitimate defence of a greatness achieved by what was, comparatively speaking, a handful of men from a remote island in the Atlantic, it does not express itself in the palpitations of a whole people struggling for their existence, which is the case with continental nations.

It follows from her exceptional circumstances that the aims of England in Europe are few, and different from those of other States, and that her policy has gradually become more disinterested in the contests which divide continental Europe. She has witnessed the supremacy of France, as she now witnesses the supremacy of Germany; she has watched the rise of Italy and the decline of the Mussulman empire, to which she formerly appeared so warmly attached, and it has not affected her political position. The political vicissitudes of this half of the century have disturbed the balance of all the States of Europe, while England has during the same half century pursued her unalterable course through all these changes, not only without adopting compulsory service, but also without adopting conscription, and with an army which a continental Power would scarcely consider sufficient for a grand review. One point, however, England holds it necessary for her honor and interests to maintain—namely, her maritime supremacy and the free action of her eminently commercial people, in order to carry on her mission of civilisation, which is at once noble and lucrative. She will strive for this object with her last penny and with the last drop of her blood, and it is on this side only that the English nation takes its place as a great factor in European politics. She will strive for this object with her accumulated materials of character, power, and wealth, and at all events she will for a long time strive with the success and efficacy which no one can deny that she possesses. But with this exception her points of contact with Europe are few, and there is little probability of friction since her object is remote. Instead of striving for her nationality in Europe, she carries on without a conflict the advance of civilisation throughout the world.

But she cannot, we have said, be indifferent to any attacks on her maritime supremacy, nor to the serious rivalry with her colonial policy displayed by the European States. For this reason, and with a recollection of all which the continental blockade cost her, she regards with displeasure the excessive preponderance of any one of the great European Powers. England consists of a belly and brain nourished by scattered members which include in their manifold organism all parts of the world. If any one member is severed or paralysed, the blow is felt in the centre. The inclination to found colonies aroused in different European nationalities, which is, indeed, the necessary consequence of their development, naturally interests England in the highest degree, nor can the cases be rare when these new aspirations must be checked by the appearance of the British flag.

We have now indicated all the perils and difficulties which threaten the peace of Europe under the present political conditions that come from the principles established with so much difficulty by philosophers who were actuated by humanitarian motives, and who inscribed on the banner which floated above the ancient citadel of their cherished theories, the magic word “Fraternity.”

On their banner there was also inscribed “Equality,” which would lead me to speak of socialism, if space allowed it: as in Europe the progress in social questions has not been more fortunate. And just as monarchy had hardly been called in question before it was face to face with the republic, so the rights of property have hardly been discussed before riches and poverty are confronted, and the whole problem of the distribution of wealth rises again like a phantom before society. But this article has already reached such a length that I must postpone to a future occasion the treatment of that important and extensive subject. What I have said, however, is quite enough to show that if in Europe the present state of opinion on these subjects should not be modified, national wars as well as civil wars could eventually carry us at least through a temporary period of barbarism.

Yet we do not believe that we should lose confidence in progress, and repudiate it in order to revert to the old state of things, nor yet that the principles and ideas of which we have spoken are not really progressive. Progress is a law of humanity which, if it were not, as it undoubtedly is, beneficial, must be fatal to it; and it is certainly a mark of progress that community of language, customs, and tendencies is regarded as a reason for political union rather than certain arbitrary or fortuitous combinations of successions, treaties, conquests, and the like. Above all, it is well to have substituted the right of good government for that which is merely arbitrary. We must again regard as progressive some of the modifications introduced in the laws relating to property. I say some of them, since it was perhaps dangerous to shake prematurely the foundations of the systems by which it has been ordered up to this time, when those which are to replace them are still imperfect and untried.

But a long process of moral discipline is required, which may by instruction modify the ideas about the two great modern conceptions of politics and society.

Besides, and in the meantime as a compensation, our gentler customs, a real progress in the education of sentiments and general culture, greatly neutralise the effect of this violent state of things. After the Russian has made a long tirade on the future of the Slav race, he sets out for the Rhine or Paris, and forgets the mystical and obscure visions of Holy Russia in the genuine pleasures of civilisation. When the German lays aside his deadly arms in order to re-enter civic life, his prejudices against the Latin race often fade before the amenity of a Frenchman and the glorious sun of Italy. Undoubtedly the multiplicity, the facility and gentleness of intercourse produced by modern civilisation, are of great efficacy in paralysing the effects of national antagonism and of social hatreds, but our watchfulness must not therefore relax. But, notwithstanding all these considerations, we persist in believing that until European opinion is modified on these important subjects, European policy must always take account of them, constantly on the watch lest she should be surprised by wars and unforeseen catastrophes, which would compromise the long and laborious work of her refined civilisation.

As long as nationalities are compelled to be rivals, it is necessary to find some compensation for this rivalry. The ancient system of the balance and equilibrium of power, which has seemed to be old and disused armour, was perhaps never more opportune than now. If a general confederation after the American manner seems visionary, as opposed to the actual state of things in Europe, it might be practical and efficacious to substitute this system of equilibrium for partial alliance, and to establish the political balance of Europe in a normal position. But it is necessary that this work should be effected in time, before the preponderance of different Powers should become more marked, and especially before the ambitions and greed which are now upon the surface should strike deeply into the basis of international policy. A well-planned system of approximating those elements which are in any sense homogeneous or guided by common interests would tend to secure peace and strengthen governments, and would at the same time keep in check the social discontent which is nourished by political dissensions, gathers strength from the uncertainty and weakness of our present institutions, and triumphs in our misfortunes.

Here we must break off on the brink of conclusions and remedies. A few words will not suffice to sum up the moral of this long dissertation, nor was it our intention to do so either in few words or many. The question is too large for solution in the pages of a Review.

It simply appeared to be an opportune moment for pointing out the singular situation created by the progress of modern ideas, and to indicate the dangers involved in it.

We do not wish to exaggerate these dangers, and have ourselves pointed out that modern civilisation also includes their correctives, and that they do not imply the end of all things, nor that another flood of Deucalion is needed to renovate the human race from its very beginnings.

But precisely because European civilisation is so elaborate and complex, it would be an error to suppose that catastrophic causes are needed in order seriously to affect the conditions of our comparative civility. Feudal and tyrannical wars took place in barren lands, amid rude castles and squalid villages; those which are national and social must be fought out amidst gardens and the monuments of art and manufacture. The last wars recorded by history had Lombardy and Champagne as their theatre, or were fought in the streets of Paris. Any of the tendencies indicated by us in the foregoing considerations which should terminate in a conflict would take place under analogous conditions and in the same degree of civilisation which, while it might mitigate the modes of warfare, must make its effects more grievous. And the same ambition to possess distant countries which are more or less civilised may also be equally full of danger to commerce, international relations, the peace of Europe, and the interests of civilisation.

The privileged rules of the policy of the old world imposed upon themselves a limit to excessive power, and used the saying, Noblesse oblige. A new motto might be proposed to the builders and destroyers of Governments in our day, which would be equally noble and might be more fertile of results—Progrès oblige.—Nineteenth Century.

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[ORGANIC NATURE’S RIDDLE.]
BY ST. GEORGE MIVART.

Amongst the many sagacious sayings of the patient and profound thinkers of Germany, not the least noteworthy was Schelling’s affirmation that the phenomena of instinct are some of the most important of all phenomena, and capable of serving as a very touch-stone whereby the value of competing theories of the universe may be effectually tested. His prescience has been justified by our experience. The greatest scientific event of the present time is the wide acceptance of the theory of evolution, and its use as a weapon of offence and defence. It is used both against the belief that intelligent purpose is, as it were, incarnate in the living world about us, and also in favor of a merely mechanical theory of nature. Now it would be difficult to find a more searching test of that theory’s truth than is supplied by a careful study of instinct. The essence of that view of nature which is associated with the name of Professor Haeckel,[1] a negation of the doctrine of final causes and an assertion of what he calls “Dysteleology,” that is, the doctrine of the purposelessness of the organs and organisms which people a purposeless planet. That doctrine may be called the gospel of the irrationality of the universe, and it is a doctrine to which a proof of the real existence of such a thing as “instinct” must necessarily be fatal. Instinct has been defined[2] as a “special internal impulse, urging animals to the performance of certain actions which are useful to them or to their kind, but the use of which they do not themselves perceive, and their performance of which is a necessary consequence of their being placed in certain circumstances.” Such an impulse is always understood to be the result of sensations: actions which take place in response to unfelt stimuli being referred, not to instinct, but to what is termed reflex action. In such action it is commonly supposed that the mechanism of a living body occasions a prompt responsive muscular movement upon the occurrence of some unfelt stimulation of the nervous system. The nervous system, or total mass of nerve-stuff—which is technically called “nerve-tissue”—in the body of an animal, such as a beast, bird, reptile, or fish, is composed of two parts or divisions. One of these divisions consists of a voluminous and continuous mass—the brain and spinal cord (or spinal marrow), which form what is called the central part of the nervous system. The second division consists of a multitude of white threads or cords—the nerves, which form what is called the peripheral part of the nervous system. Of these nerves one set proceed forth from the central part of the nervous system to the different muscles, which they can cause to contract by a peculiar action they exert upon them, thus producing motion. Another set of nerves proceed inwards, from the skin to the central part of the nervous system, and by their peculiar action give rise to various sensations, according as different influences or stimulations are brought to bear upon the skin at, or in the vicinity of, their peripheral extremities. Under ordinary circumstances, different stimulations of the surface of the body convey an influence inwards, which produces sensation, and give rise to an outwardly proceeding influence to the muscles, resulting in definite and appropriate motions.

There are cases in which responsive actions take place under very abnormal conditions—as after a rupture of part of a man’s spinal cord, or the removal of the whole brain in lower animals, such as the frog. A man so injured may have utterly lost the power of feeling any stimulation—pricking, cutting, or burning—of his legs and feet, the injury preventing the conveyance upwards to the brain of the influence necessary to ordinary sensation, and stopping short at the spinal cord below the point of injury. Nevertheless, such a man may execute movements in response to stimuli just as if he did feel, and often in an exaggerated manner. He will withdraw his foot if tickled with a feather just as if he felt the tickling, which he is utterly incapable of feeling. Similarly a decapitated frog will make with his hind legs the most appropriate movements to remove any irritating object applied to the hinder part of its body. Such action is termed “reflex action,” on the supposition that the influence conveyed inwards by nerves going from the skin to the spinal cord is reflected back from that cord to the muscles by the other set of nerves without any intervention of sensation. This action of the frog may be carried to a very singular extreme. At the breeding season the male frog tightly grasps the female behind her arms, and to enable him the more securely to maintain his hold, a warty prominence is then developed on the inner side of each of his hands. Now if such a male frog be taken, and not only decapitated, but the whole hinder part of the body removed also, so that nothing remains but the fragment of the trunk from which the two arms with their nerves proceed, and if under these circumstances the warty prominences be touched, the two arms will immediately close together like a spring, thus affording a most perfect example of reflex action. It has been objected by the late Mr. G. H. Lewes and others that we cannot be sure but that the spinal cord itself “feels.” But there is often an ambiguity in the use of the term “to feel.” By it we ordinarily mean a “modification of consciousness;” but experiences such as those just adverted to, and others in ourselves to which I shall next advert, show clearly that surrounding agents may act upon our sense organs without the intervention of anything like consciousness, and yet produce effects otherwise similar to those which occur when they do arouse consciousness. Without, then, entering into any discussion as to whether “sentiency” may or may not be attributed to the spinal cord, it seems evident that some definite term is required to denote such affections or modifications of living beings as those just referred to. Inasmuch as they are affections of creatures possessing a nervous system, which is the essential organ of sensation, and as they resemble sensation in their causes and effects though feeling itself may be absent, they may be provisionally distinguished as “unfelt sensations.” Such are some of the actions with which instinct is contrasted, because, unlike instinct, they are not carried on by the aid of felt sensations, the highest of such insentient action being reflex action.

There are also a number of actions which constantly recur in ourselves, which more or less nearly approximate to reflex action. Thus the respiratory movements, the various muscular motions by the aid of which we breathe, are ordinarily performed by us without advertence, though we can, if we will, perform them with self-conscious deliberation. It is well also to note that when our mind is entirely directed upon some external object, or when we are almost in a state of somnolent unconsciousness, we have but a vague feeling of our existence—a feeling resulting from the unobserved synthesis of our sensations of all orders and degrees. This unintellectual sense of “self” may be conveniently distinguished from intellectual consciousness as “consentience.” We may also, as everybody knows, suddenly recollect sights or sounds which were quite unnoticed at the time we experienced them; yet our very recollection of them proves that they must, nevertheless, have affected our sensorium. Such unnoticed modifications of our sense organs may also be provisionally included in the category of those actions of the lower animals, before provisionally denominated “unfelt sensations.” It is not, however, with such inferior activities as reflex and other insentient actions that instinct is commonly contrasted, but with “reason.” Now “reasonable,” “consciously intelligent”conduct is understood by all men to mean conduct in which there is a more or less wise adaptation of means to ends—a conscious, deliberate adaptation, not one due to accident only. No one would call an act done blindly a reasonable or intelligent action on the part of him who did it, however fortunate might be its result. Instinctive actions, then, hold a middle place between (1) those which are rational, or truly intelligent, and (2) those in which sensation has no place. But a great variety of actions of different kinds occupy this intermediate position, and we must next proceed to separate off from the others, such actions as may be deemed truly instinctive.

M. Albert Lemoine, who has written the best treatise[3] known to us on instinct and habit, distinguishes instinctive actions as those which are neither due to mechanical or chemical causes, nor to intelligence, experience, or will. They are actions which take place with a general fixity and precision, are generally present in all the individuals of each species, and can be perfectly performed the very first time their action is called for, so that they cannot be due to habit. Instinct, he very truly says, is more than a want and less than a desire. Instinct is a certain felt internal stimulus to definite actions which has its foundation in a certain sense of want, but is not definite feeling of want of the particular end to be attained. Were that recognised, it would not be instinct, but desire. It is but a vague craving to exercise certain activities the exercise of which conduces to useful or needful, but unforeseen, end. Instinct often sets in motion organs quite different from those which feel the prick of want, and which do not (experience apart) seem to have relation with it. Hunger does not stimulate to action the organs of digestion which suffer from it, but excites the limbs and jaws to perform acts by which food may be obtained and eaten. In examining into instinct, we must be careful not to omit the consideration of it as it exists in man, since we can know no creature so well as we can, by the help of language and reflection, know ourselves and our own species. Nevertheless, it may be well to begin by calling attention to certain apparently undeniable cases of instinct in other animals, since in them instinct is much more apparent and complex than in man, in whom it is indeed reduced to a minimum. It might naturally be expected to be so reduced in him—if it is a power serving to bridge over the gulf which exists between such almost mechanical action as reflex action, and true intelligence—since in man acts of intelligence, or habits originated through intelligence, come so constantly into play. But before enumerating cases of animal instinct, a word should be said as to one character which M. Lemoine attributes to instinctive action, namely, “consciousness,” This term is an exceedingly ambiguous one, as it is often referred, not only to our distinct intellectual perception of our own being and acts, but also to every state of feeling however rudimentary it may be. I would therefore avoid the use of so equivocal a term, while fully admitting that no sensation in any animal is possible without some subjective psychical state analogous to what I have before denominated “consentience.” Now, as to the lower animals: birds unquestionably possess instinctive powers. Chickens, two minutes after they have left the egg,[4] will follow with their eyes the movements of crawling insects, and peck at them, judging distance and direction with almost infallible accuracy. They will instinctively appreciate sounds, readily running towards an invisible hen hidden in a box, when they hear her “call.” Some young birds, also, have an innate, instinctive horror of the sight of a hawk and of the sound of its voice. Swallows, titmice, tomtits, and wrens, after having been confined from birth, are capable of flying successfully at once, when liberated, on their wings having attained the necessary growth to render flight possible. The Duke of Argyll[5] relates some very interesting particulars about the instincts of birds, especially of the water ousel, the merganser, and the wild duck. Even as to the class of beasts I find recorded:[6] “Five young polecats were found comfortably embedded in dry withered grass; and in a side hole, of proper dimensions for such a larder, were forty frogs and two toads, all alive, but merely capable of sprawling a little. On examination the whole number, toads and all, proved to have been purposely and dexterously bitten through the brain.” Evidently the parent polecat had thus provided the young with food which could be kept perfectly fresh, because alive, and yet was rendered quite unable to escape. This singular instinct is like others which are yet more fully developed amongst insects—a class of animals the instincts of which are so numerous, wonderful, and notorious that it will be, probably, enough to refer to one or two examples. The female carpenter bee, in order to protect her eggs, excavates, in some piece of wood, a series of chambers, in special order with a view to a peculiar mode of exit for her young: but the young mother can have no conscious knowledge of the series of actions subsequently to ensue. The female of the wasp, sphex, affords another well-known but very remarkable example of a complex instinct closely related to that already mentioned in the case of the polecat. The female wasp has to provide fresh, living animal food for her progeny, which, when it quits its egg, quits it in the form of an almost helpless grub, utterly unable to catch, retain, or kill an active, struggling prey. Accordingly the mother insect has only to provide and place beside her eggs suitable living prey, but so to treat it that it may be a helpless, unresisting victim. That victim may be a mere caterpillar, or it may be a great, powerful grasshopper, or even that most fierce, active, and rapacious of insect tyrants, a fell and venomous spider. Whichever it may be, the wasp adroitly stings it at the spot which induces, or in the several spots which induce, complete paralysis as to motion, let us hope as to sensation also. This done, the wasp entombs the helpless being with its own egg, and leaves it for the support of the future grub. Another species feeds her young one from time to time with fresh food, visiting at suitable intervals the nest she has made and carefully covered and concealed with earth, which she removes and replaces, as far as necessary, at each visit. If the opening be made ready for her, this, instead of helping her to get at her young, altogether puzzles her, and she no longer seems to recognise her young, thus showing how thoroughly “instinctive” her proceedings are. Other instances of instinct, such as those of the stag-beetle and emperor moth, I will refer to presently. But most wonderful, perhaps, of all are the instincts of social insects, such as bees, where there are not only males and females, but a large population of practically neuter insects, the special instincts and peculiarities of which have of course to be transmitted, not directly by an antecedent set of neuter animals, but by females, the instincts and peculiarities of which are very different from those of the neutral portion of their progeny.

The instincts we have hitherto noticed, and, I may say briefly, the instincts of animals generally, are destined to subserve two functions, (1) the preservation and, mainly, the nutrition, of the individual, and (2) the reproduction of the species. Armed with the facts we have now noticed, let us turn to consider instinct as it displays itself in ourselves. As one example, there is the instinct action by which an infant first sucks the nipple, and then swallows the thence-extracted nourishment with which its mouth is filled. This action must be reckoned as instinctive, because it is done directly after birth, when there has been no time for learning to perform the action; it is one absolutely necessary for the life of the infant; it is an action which is definite and precise, similarly performed by all the individuals of the species, though effected by a very complex mechanism, and is effected prior to experience. Yet it is not as mechanical as reflex action, for not only sensation, but consentience, accompanies the act. Thus sucking in man is an instinctive action, while spitting, on the other hand, is an art. The latter is not necessary to life, and the power of performing it is slowly acquired by experience, as are also our powers of walking and feeding ourselves. But the action of sucking in an adult human being is of course not instinctive; and because the child learns to walk, it by no means follows that the insect learns to fly. It is thus plain that actions may be instinctive in one animal and not in another; or at one period of life in the same animal and not at another. In a child, however, sucking, deglutition, inspiration, and expiration are instinctive actions, as are also those by which the products of excretion are removed from the body. The second class of instincts, those which ensure the continuance of the race, show themselves of course, only much later. Yet, long before the little girl can represent to herself future tributes to her charms, she seeks to decorate her tiny body with the arts of infant coquetry. Still less does she look forward to the pains and pleasures of maternity when she begins to caress and chastise, to soothe and cherish, her first doll, and fondly presses it to that region whence her future offspring will draw its nourishment. Again, when the lapse of a few years having made her a young woman and the boy a youth, they first feel the influence of love, however ignorant they may be of the physiology of their race, they will none the less, circumstances permitting, be surely impelled towards the performance of very definite actions. In the more refined individuals of the highest races of mankind, the material, merely animal, consummation of sexual love is most certainly far from being the one great end distinctly looked forward to by each pair of lovers. Yet every incident of affectionate intercourse, every tender glance, every contact of hand or lip, infallibly leads on towards the one useful end, indispensable to the race, which nature has in view. Such actions fully merit to be called “instinctive.” Indeed the act of generation is ministered to in nature by the most manifold, imperious, general, and inexplicable of all the instincts, and its instinctive character is the most strongly marked of all. It has emphatically for its origin a rigorously determined and precise want, partly painful, partly pleasurable—a mixture of a feeling of privation with a sense of power. Its end is unknown to the agent, or if known is disregarded, and in almost all animals it demands the concurrent and reciprocal action of two diverse organisms. If anyone would deny that it is instinctive in man, I would advise him to study the sad phenomena connected therewith which may be observed in our asylums for the insane.

There are other human actions which are sometimes reckoned as instinctive, such as guarding the eye against injury by suddenly closing the eyelids. This action, however, appears to be an acquired art, though the habitual act of winking to keep clean the surface of the eye may be instinctive. Some other actions, however, not generally regarded as instinctive, I should be disposed so to regard. Such are the first active exercises of the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling (the first “looking,” the first “listening,” etc.) which the child performs at the very beginning of its learning to perform them. It would seem, then, as if no one could deny the existence of such a thing as instinct, and yet it has been denied, not only in recent times, but centuries ago. Thus Montaigne sought to explain instinct as but a form of intelligence, while Descartes taught that it was but mechanism. Condillac regarded it as the result of individual experience, and Lemarck considered it to be merely “habit” which had become hereditary. In our own day Darwin has sought to explain it as partly the result of accidental variations of activity, which variations have become naturally selected, and partly the result of intelligent, purposive action which has become habitual and inherited. Let us consider these attempts at explanation seriatim. First as to mechanism: This is an hypothesis no one at present entertains, as everyone now credits animals with sensitivity. Moreover, instincts are not absolutely invariable, but are modifiable according to the degree of “intelligence” which animals possess. They cannot, therefore, be due merely to a mechanism. The attempt to explain “Instinct” by mere “reflex action” is equivalent to an attempt to explain a phenomenon by omitting its most striking characteristic. In “reflex action” we have a sudden response to a stimulus, which response is more or less purposive as regards the time of its occurrence, but has no reference to future events to occur long after the faintest waves of the stimulating action have died out. The very essence of “instinct,” however, is to provide for a more or less distant future, often, as we have seen, the future of another generation. It is essentially telic, and directed to a future unforeseen, but generally useful, end. This explanation, then, is fundamentally and necessarily inadequate. It is like an explanation of the building of a house, by “bricks, mortar, bricklayers, and hodmen,” with the omission of all reference to any influence governing their motions and directing them towards a common and predetermined end which is not theirs. But though we cannot explain “instinct” by “reflex action,” there is none the less a certain obvious affinity between these two forms of animal activity, and it is in part my object to point out the nature of this very affinity.

Next we may pass in review the two hypotheses that instinct is but (1) a form of intelligence, or (2) individual experience. As to the first, I have already given instances of unquestionably instinctive actions performed by birds as soon as they quit the eggshell, and it would be but waste of time to argue against the view that the human infant is guided by intelligent purpose and conscious foresight in his very first acts of sucking, swallowing, and defecation. Actual intelligence, therefore, is a radically insufficient explanation, as also, for the very same reasons, is Condillac’s hypothesis as to individual experience. About “lapsed intelligence” I will speak later on. Lemarck’s hypothesis, that instinct is but inherited habit, is one which is much more worthy of careful consideration than any we have yet considered. For it may be admitted at once that habits may be inherited. There are many instances of such inheritance in human beings, and as regards the lower animals, the barking of dogs may be taken as an instance of a habit thus perpetuated. In fact “habit,” when inherited, so simulates instinct, that their confusion is far from surprising. There is, however, this radical difference between them: “habit” enables an agent to repeat with facility and precision an act which has been done before, but “instinct” determines with precision the first performance of such act. Referring instinct to habit, but temporarily relieves the difficulty of those who object to instinct, by putting it a step back. It is impossible to believe that any of the progenitors of an infant of to-day first acquired, during his or her lifetime, the habit of sucking, or that the habits of neuter insects thus arose. But after all, if we could explain “instinct” by “habit,” should we thereby make the phenomena less mysterious? “Habit” is due to an internal spontaneity of living things. A living thing no doubt requires some internal solicitation, in order that it should move, but when it does move that movement is its own. All living organisms tend to act. With them action is not only their nature, ’tis a want; and, within limits, their powers and energies increase with action, and diminish and finally perish through repose. The power of generating any “habits,” lies in the very first act of the kind an organism performs, and it is only the first act which owes nothing to habit. If such were not the case, an act might be performed a thousand times and yet not generate habit. It is this mysterious internal active tendency which distinguishes all living organisms from inorganic bodies. The latter tend simply to persist as they are, and have no relations with the past or the future. They have, therefore, no relations with time at all—for the actual present ever evades us. Organisms, on the other hand, which are permanently more or less changed, through habit, by every new motion and sensation, have their future prepared by their past, and thus, as it were, at every present moment they live both in the past and in the future, a mode of existence which attains its fullest development in the highest living organism—man, the creature looking before and after! Thus those who would do away with mystery in nature would gain little by explaining instinct through habit, though, as we have seen, the phenomena presented to us by the human infant and by neuter insects absolutely bar any such explanation. Moreover, the attempt to explain “instinct” through “inheritance” is a contradiction, since “inheritance” supposes something already obtained, otherwise it could not be transmitted. So far, then, from “hereditary transmission” explaining “instinct,” instinct, in whatever remote ancestor it first arose, must have been a violation of the law of hereditary transmission.

Now as to “lapsed intelligence:” This hypothesis assumes that a conscious deliberate, discriminating faculty must have once been exercised by wasps, bees, ants, and other much more lowly animals, in the performance of all those actions which are now instinctive. But could the adult female insect be supposed to foresee the future needs of her progeny, often so totally different from her own wants? It would surely be too much to ask us to believe that she could distinctly recollect all her past experience as a chrysalis and as a grub from the moment she first quitted the egg. Can we suppose that the generative acts of male insects, such as bees, could have been due to deliberate and rational choice, when every such act is necessarily fatal to him who performs it?

Nevertheless, persuaded as I am that “lapsed intelligence” will not explain “instinct” generally, I should be the last to deny that certain apparently instinctive actions may be so explained, and I fully admit that intelligent action in ourselves does tend to become practically though not really instinctive. It is, moreover, very fortunate for us that such is the case, as thereby we are saved great mental friction. Our intellect has first to be laboriously applied to learn what afterwards becomes almost automatic, as the actions of reading, writing, etc. Sensations and bodily actions having been duly kneaded together, the intellect becomes free to withdraw and apply itself to other work—fresh conquests of mere animality—leaving the organism to carry on automatically the new faculties thus acquired. Were it not for this power which we have of withdrawing our attention, our intellect would be absorbed and wasted in the merest routine work, instead of being set free to appropriate and render practically instinctive, a continually wider and more important range of deliberate purposive actions. We come now to the sixth and last attempt to explain instinct, namely, Mr. Darwin’s attempt. He has recognised the futility of seeking to explain many instinctive actions in any of the modes we have yet considered, and he has proposed, as before said, to explain such residual instinctive phenomena by the play of natural selection, i.e. of the destructive forces of nature upon small, accidental abnormalities of action on the part of individuals of a species; such abnormalities, when favorable to the existence of the individual, being preserved and perpetuated by the destruction of the other individuals of the same species who adhered to their ancestral tendencies. But this proposed explanation is not an explanation of the origin of instincts, but only of the changes and transformations of instincts already acquired. But putting back the date or modifying the form of the original instinct, in no way alters the essential nature of instincts or diminishes its mystery. Let us look at one or two strong cases of instinct, and see if it is credible that they should be due to mere accidental, haphazard, minute changes in habits already acquired. In the first place, there is the wonderful instinct of the duck, which feigns to have an injured wing, in order to entice a dog away from the pursuit of her ducklings. Is it conceivable that such an act was first done by pure accident, and that the descendants of her who so acted, having inherited the tendency, have been alone selected and preserved? Again, there is the case of the wasp, sphex, which stings spiders, caterpillars, and grasshoppers exactly in the spot, or spots, where their nervous ganglia lie, and so paralyses them. Even the strongest advocate of the intelligence of insects would not affirm that the mother sphex has a knowledge of the comparative anatomy of the nervous system of these very diversely formed insects. According to the doctrine of natural selection, either an ancestral wasp must have accidentally stung them each in the right places, and so our sphex of to-day is the naturally selected descendant of a line of insects which inherited this lucky tendency to sting different insects differently, but always in the exact situation of their nervous ganglia; or else the young of the ancestral sphex originally fed on dead food, but the offspring of some individuals who happened to sting their prey so as to paralyse but not kill them, were better nourished and so the habit grew. But the incredible supposition that the ancestor should accidentally have acquired the habit of stinging different insects differently, but always in the right spot, is not eliminated by the latter hypothesis.

There is, again, the case of neuter insects and the highly complex instincts of insects living in communities, such as bees, ants, and termites. The Darwinian theory has the great advantage of only needing for its support the suggestion of some possible utility in each case; and as all structures and functions in nature have their utility, the task is not a difficult one for an ingenious, patient, and accomplished thinker. Yet Mr. Darwin, with all his ingenuity, patience, and accomplishments, has been unable to suggest a rational explanation for the accidental origin of these insect communities with their marvellously complex instincts. I will confine myself to one more instance of a highly noteworthy instinct, which no one has in any way succeeded in explaining. The instance I refer to is that by which an animal, when an enemy approaches, lies quite quiescent and apparently helpless, an action often spoken of as “shamming death.” To evade the force of this remarkable case of instinct, it has been objected that the disposition of the limbs adopted by insects which thus act, is not the same as that which the limbs assume when such insects are really dead, and that all species are not when thus acting equally quiescent. The first observation, however, does not concern the matter really at issue. The remarkable thing is not that a helpless insect should assume the position of its own dead, but that such a creature, instead of trying to escape, should adopt a mode of procedure utterly hopeless unless the enemy’s attention is thereby effectually eluded. It is impossible that this instinct could have been gradually gained by the elimination of all those individuals who did not practice it, for if the quiescence, whether absolutely complete or not, were not sufficient at once to make the creature elude observation, its destruction would be only the more fully insured by such ineffectual quiescence. The same argument applies to birds which seem to feign lameness or other injury. Yet even if we could account for these cases, which as a fact are as yet entirely unaccounted for, it would not do away with the need of recognising the real existence and peculiar nature of instinct. It would not do so on account both of man’s highest and of man’s lowest instinctive powers. To speak first of the former: as instinct, such as we have hitherto discovered, is the appointed bridge between mere organic and intellectual animal life, so there is in man a further development of instinct, peculiar to him, and serving to bridge over the gulf between mere intelligent animal faculty and distinctly human reflective intellectual activity. Such special intellectual instinct is that which impels man to the external manifestation by voice or gesture of the mental abstractions which his intellect spontaneously forms, and which are not formed by the lower animals, which give no evidence of this power of abstraction. Language could never have been deliberately invented nor have arisen by a mere accidental individual variation, for vocal and gesture signs are essentially conventional, and require more or less comprehension on the part of those to whom they are addressed as well as on the part of those who use them. Analogous considerations apply to the first beginnings of what cannot be reckoned as merely instinctive activities, but the origins of which must have been akin to instincts. I refer to the beginnings of literature, art, science and politics, which were never deliberately invented. Even men who supposed they were inventing and constructing a certain new order of things with full purpose and much intelligence, have really been all the time so dominated by influences beyond their consciousness, that they really evolved something very different from what they supposed or intended. This fact has been most instructively shown by De Tocqueville and Taine with respect to the men who promoted and carried through the great French Revolution. So much, then, for man’s highest instinctive powers: but our argument has no need to refer to them, for a consideration of man’s lowest instinctive powers alone suffices to show that they cannot be due to “natural selection,” even when aided by “lapsed intelligence.” Can it be for a moment seriously maintained that such actions of the infant as those of the sucking, deglutition, and defecation, or the sexual instincts of later life, ever arose through the accidental conservation of haphazard variations of habit in ancestral animals? If it cannot be maintained, as I am confident it cannot, then it is absolutely impossible successfully to evade the difficulty of the existence of instinct. However far we may put back the beginnings of instinct, the question as to its origin (with its subsequent modifications) ever returns, and indeed with increased importunity. How did the first sentient creatures obtain and swallow their food? How did they first come to fecundate their ova or suitably to deposit them? How did they first effect such movements as might be necessary for their respiratory processes? Wherever such phenomena first manifested themselves in sentient organisms, we are compelled therein to recognise the manifest presence of instinct—the appointed means (as before said) of bridging over the interval between the purely vegetative functions and the intelligent activities of sentient animal life. “Natural selection” is manifestly impotent to account for the existence of such a faculty as that of “instinct.” We have already seen that the hypothesis of “lapsed intelligence” is also impotent to account for it. Thus the most recently attempted explanation falls altogether to the ground. Nevertheless the theory of evolution renders it necessary to assume that as new species of animals were from time to time evolved, so also were new and appropriate instincts. How then are we to account for the origin of such new instincts? That a certain mystery attends such origin cannot be denied, but a parallel mystery attends all other kinds of vital phenomena. What can be more mysterious than the purely organic functions of animals? Though not truly instinctive, they are full of unconscious purpose, and so are akin to instinct. Our nutrition is a process of self-generation by which the various bodies which constitute our food become transformed into our own substance. This process is effected by what is called assimilation, by which process the ultimate substance, or parenchyma, of our own body and of the bodies transforms part of what is immediately external to it, into the parenchyma itself. Again, the process of secretion is, as it were, parallel to the process of alimentation or nutrition. In secretion, the body extracts from the blood new substances (the secretions) which do not exist as such within it. In nutrition, the body extracts from the blood new substances (the various tissues) which do not exist as such within it. The blood is not the only source of our nutrition, since it has the power of replenishing itself. Thus the living particles which form the ultimate substance of our body exercise a certain power of choice with respect to the contents of the fluids which come in contact with them. Such particles are not passive bodies; they are active living agents, and their action no one has yet really explained. Here, then, are a set of activities which, if duly pondered over, will be found to be fully as mysterious and inexplicable in their unconscious teleology as any phenomena of instinct as ordinarily understood. But there is another class of organic vital actions which also seem to have a decided affinity both to reflex action and to instinct, though they are not to be regarded as actual instances of either of these faculties. The actions I refer to are those which bring about the repair of injuries and the reproduction of lost parts. They are like reflex action inasmuch as they take place in perfect unconsciousness and without the will having any power over them. They are like instinct inasmuch as they are directed towards a useful and unforeseen end. In the process of healing and repair of a wounded part of the body, a fluid, perfectly structureless substance, is secreted, or poured forth, from the parts about the wound. In this substance, cells arise and become abundant; so that the substance, at first structureless, becomes what is called cellular tissue. Then, by degrees, this structure transforms itself into vessels, tendons, nerves, bone, and membrane—into some or all of such parts—according to the circumstances of the case. In a case of broken bone, the two broken ends of the bone soften, the sharp edges thus disappearing. Then a soft substance is secreted, and this becomes at first gelatinous, often afterwards cartilaginous, and, finally, osseous or bony. But not only do these different kinds of substance—these distinct tissues—thus arise and develop themselves in this neutral or, as it is called, “undifferentiated” substance, but very complex structures, appropriately formed and nicely adjusted for the performance of complex functions, may also be developed. We see this in the production of admirably formed joints in parts which were at first devoid of anything of the kind. I may quote, as an example, the case of a railway guard, whose arm had been so injured that he had been compelled to have the elbow with its joint cut out, but who afterwards developed a new joint almost as good as the old one. In the uninjured condition the outer bone of the lower arm—the radius—ends above in a smooth-surfaced cup, which plays against part of the lower end of the bone of the upper arm, or humerus, while its side also plays against the side of the other bone of the lower arm, the ulna, with the interposition of a cartilaginous surface. The radius and ulna are united to the humerus by dense and strong membranes or ligaments, which pass between it and them, anteriorly, posteriorly, and on each side, and are attached to projecting processes, one on each side of the humerus. Such was the condition of the parts which were removed by the surgeon. Nine years after the operation the patient died, and Mr. Syme had the opportunity of dissecting the arm, which in the meantime had served the poor man perfectly well, he having been in the habit of swinging himself by it from one carriage to another, while the train was in motion, quite as easily and securely as with the other arm. On examination, Mr. Syme found that the amputated end of the radius had formed a fresh polished surface, and played both on the humerus and the ulna, a material something like cartilage being interposed. The ends of the bones of the forearm were locked in by two processes projecting downwards from the humerus, and also strong lateral and still stronger anterior and posterior ligaments again bound them fast to the last-named bone.[7] It would be easy to bring forward a number of more or less similar cases. The amount of reproduction of lost parts which may take place in many of the lower animals is astonishing. Thus the tails of lizards, if broken off, will grow again, and the limbs of newts will be reproduced, with their bones, muscles, blood-vessels, and nerves. Even the eye and the lower jaw have been seen to be reproduced in the last-named animals. If certain worms be cut in two, each half will become a perfect animal, the head producing a new tail, and the tail a new head; and a worm called a nais has been cut into as many as twenty-five parts with a like result. But the most remarkable animal for its power of repairing injuries is the fresh-water hydra, almost any fragment of which will, under favorable circumstances, grow into a new and entire fresh animal. It is also a notorious and very noteworthy fact that, in both man and the lower animals, the processes of repair take place the more readily the younger the age of the injured individual may be. But these unconscious but practically teleological processes of repair, are often preceded by actions which everyone would call instinctive.

There is yet another class of organic vital actions to which I must advert, which are at once utterly unconscious, while the fact that they are directed to a distinct end is indisputable; in fact they are purposive in the very highest degree that any unconscious actions can be purposive. They are the actions of true reproduction, and they come before us naturally here, since a consideration of the process of remedial reproduction in the individual, naturally leads us on to the consideration of the reproduction of the species itself. In the cases of the frog and the butterfly, everyone knows that the creature which comes forth from the egg is very different from the parent. Animals, in fact, mostly attain their adult condition by passing through a series of development changes; only as a rule that series is not abruptly interrupted by plainly marked pauses, as it is in the frog and butterfly, and, therefore, such changes, instead of being obvious, are only to be detected with difficulty and through patient research. Almost every animal thus goes through a series of very remarkable changes during its individual process of development or, as it is called, during its “ontogeny.” This process, in its perfect unconsciousness, is like reflex action, but it is far more wonderful, since in the earliest stages even nerve-tissue is absent and has itself to be formed. In the accuracy of its direction towards a useful end, it is the very counterpart of the most developed instinct; nor, if the impulses by which adult individuals are led to seek and to perform those processes which give rise to the embryo, are to be called instinctive, is it easy to see how the analogical use of the term “instinctive” can be refused to that impulse by which each developing embryo is led to go through those processes which give rise to the adult. The action of each organism during its individual development may be compared, and has evidently much affinity with, the processes of nutrition and the repair and reproduction of parts lost through some injury. These processes of nutrition and repair have also evidently a close relation to reflex action and reflex action has also a close affinity to instinctive action. Instead, however, of explaining “instinct” by “reflex action,” I would rather explain reflex action, processes of nutrition, processes of repair, processes of individual development, by instinct—using this term in a wide analogical sense. For we know the wonderful action and nature of instinct as it exists in our own human activity, standing, as it were, at the head of the various unconsciously intelligent vital processes. These processes seem to me to be all diverse manifestations of what is fundamentally one kind of activity. Of these manifestations, instinctive action is the best type, because by it we can, to a certain extent, understand the others, whereas none of the others enable us to understand instinct.—Fortnightly Review.

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