The Mind and Its Education

by George Herbert Betts

2. LAW OF THE APPEARANCE AND DISAPPEARANCE OF INSTINCTS

No child is born with all its instincts ripe and ready for action. Yet each individual contains within his own inner nature the law which determines the order and time of their development.

Instincts Appear in Succession as Required.—It is not well that we should be started on too many different lines of activity at once, hence our instincts do not all appear at the same time. Only as fast as we need additional activities do they ripen. Our very earliest activities are concerned chiefly with feeding, hence we first have the instincts which prompt us to take our food and to cry for it when we are hungry. Also we find useful such abbreviated instincts, called reflexes, as sneezing, snuffling, gagging, vomiting, starting, etc.; hence we have the instincts enabling us to do these things. Soon comes the time for teething, and, to help the matter along, the instinct of biting enters, and the rubber ring is in demand. The time approaches when we are to feed ourselves, so the instinct arises to carry everything to the mouth. Now we have grown strong and must assume an erect attitude, hence the instinct to sit up and then to stand. Locomotion comes next, and with it the instinct to creep and walk. Also a language must be learned, and we must take part in the busy life about us and do as other people do; so the instinct to imitate arises that we may learn things quickly and easily.

We need a spur to keep us up to our best effort, so the instinct of emulation emerges. We must defend ourselves, so the instinct of pugnacity is born. We need to be cautious, hence the instinct of fear. We need to be investigative, hence the instinct of curiosity. Much self-directed activity is necessary for our development, hence the play instinct. It is best that we should come to know and serve others, so the instincts of sociability and sympathy arise. We need to select a mate and care for offspring, hence the instinct of love for the other sex, and the parental instinct. This is far from a complete list of our instincts, and I have not tried to follow the order of their development, but I have given enough to show the origin of many of our life's most important activities.

Many Instincts Are Transitory.—Not only do instincts ripen by degrees, entering our experience one by one as they are needed, but they drop out when their work is done. Some, like the instinct of self-preservation, are needed our lifetime through, hence they remain to the end. Others, like the play instinct, serve their purpose and disappear or are modified into new forms in a few years, or a few months. The life of the instinct is always as transitory as is the necessity for the activity to which it gives rise. No instinct remains wholly unaltered in man, for it is constantly being made over in the light of each new experience. The instinct of self-preservation is modified by knowledge and experience, so that the defense of the man against threatened danger would be very different from that of the child; yet the instinct to protect oneself in some way remains. On the other hand, the instinct to romp and play is less permanent. It may last into adult life, but few middle-aged or old people care to race about as do children. Their activities are occupied in other lines, and they require less physical exertion.

Contrast with these two examples such instincts as sucking, creeping, and crying, which are much more fleeting than the play instinct, even. With dentition comes another mode of eating, and sucking is no more serviceable. Walking is a better mode of locomotion than creeping, so the instinct to creep soon dies. Speech is found a better way than crying to attract attention to distress, so this instinct drops out. Many of our instincts not only would fail to be serviceable in our later lives, but would be positively in the way. Each serves its day, and then passes over into so modified a form as not to be recognized, or else drops out of sight altogether.

Seemingly Useless Instincts.—Indeed it is difficult to see that some instincts serve a useful purpose at any time. The pugnacity and greediness of childhood, its foolish fears, the bashfulness of youth—these seem to be either useless or detrimental to development. In order to understand the workings of instinct, however, we must remember that it looks in two directions; into the future for its application, and into the past for its explanation. We should not be surprised if the experiences of a long past have left behind some tendencies which are not very useful under the vastly different conditions of today.

Nor should we be too sure that an activity whose precise function in relation to development we cannot discover has no use at all. Each instinct must be considered not alone in the light of what it means to its possessor today, but of what it means to all his future development. The tail of a polliwog seems a very useless appendage so far as the adult frog is concerned, yet if the polliwog's tail is cut off a perfect frog never develops.

Instincts to Be Utilized When They Appear.—A man may set the stream to turning his mill wheels today or wait for twenty years—the power is there ready for him when he wants it. Instincts must be utilized when they present themselves, else they disappear—never, in most cases, to return. Birds kept caged past the flying time never learn to fly well. The hunter must train his setter when the time is ripe, or the dog can never be depended upon. Ducks kept away from the water until full grown have almost as little inclination for it as chickens.

The child whom the pressure of circumstances or unwise authority of parents keeps from mingling with playmates and participating in their plays and games when the social instinct is strong upon him, will in later life find himself a hopeless recluse to whom social duties are a bore. The boy who does not hunt and fish and race and climb at the proper time for these things, will find his taste for them fade away, and he will become wedded to a sedentary life. The youth and maiden must be permitted to "dress up" when the impulse comes to them, or they are likely ever after to be careless in their attire.