Fighting.
Hold the new-born infant's arms tightly against its sides, and you witness a very peculiar reaction: the body stiffens, the breath may be held till the face is "red with anger"; the child begins to cry and then to scream; the legs are moved up and down, and the arms, if they can be got free, make striking or slashing movements. In somewhat older children, any sort of restraint or interference with free movement may give a similar picture, except that the motor response is more efficient, consisting in struggling, striking, kicking, and biting. It is not so much pain as interference that gives this reaction. You get it if you take away a toy the child is playing with, or if you forbid [{159}] the child to do something he is bent on doing. In animals, the fighting response is made to restraint, to being attacked, or to being interfered with in the course of feeding, or mating, or in the instinctive care of the young. The mother lioness, or dog or cat or hen, is proverbially dangerous; any interference with the young leads to an attack by the mother. The human mother is no exception to this rule. In human adults, the tendency to fight is awakened by any interference with one's enterprises, by being insulted or got the better of or in any way set down in one's self-esteem.
In general, the stimulus to fighting is restraint or interference. Let any reaction-tendency be first aroused and then interfered with, and pugnacious behavior is the instinctive result.
The stimulus may be an inanimate object. You may see a child kick the door viciously when unable to open it; and grown-ups will sometimes tear, break or throw down angrily any article which they cannot make do as they wish. A bad workman quarrels with his tools. Undoubtedly, however, interference from other persons is the most effective stimulus.
The impulse so aroused is directed primarily towards getting rid of the restraint or interference, but also towards inflicting damage on the opponent; and with this impulse often goes the stirred-up organic and emotional state of anger. As brought out in the chapter on emotion, the organic state in anger is nearly or quite identical with that in fear of the active type; and the two states of the individual differ in respect to impulse rather than in respect to emotion. In fear, the impulse is to get away from the adversary, in anger to get at him. The emotion of anger is not always aroused in fighting, for sometimes there is a cold-blooded desire to damage the adversary.
The motor response, instinctively consisting of struggling, kicking, etc., as already described, becomes modified [{160}] by learning, and may take the form of scientific fistwork, or the form of angry talk, favored by adults. Or, the adversary may be damaged in his business, in his possessions, in his reputation, or in other indirect ways. The fighting spirit, the most stimulating of the emotions, gives energy to many human enterprises, good as well as bad. The successful reformer must needs be something of a fighter.
Thus far we have said nothing to justify our placing fighting here among the play instincts. Fighting against attack has survival value, fighting to protect the young has survival value, and, in general, the defensive sort of fighting has survival value, even though interference with play activity is just as apt to give this response as interference with more serious activities.
But there is more than this to the fighting instinct. The stimulus of interference is not always required. Consider dogs. The mere presence of another dog is often enough to start a scrap, and a good fighting dog will sally forth in search of a fight, and return considerably mauled up, which does not improve his chances for survival, to say the least. Fighting of this aggressive sort is a luxury rather than a necessity. It has play value rather than survival value. There can be no manner of doubt that pugnacious individuals, dogs or men, get more solid satisfaction from a good fight than from any other amusement. You see people "itching for a fight", and actually "trying to pick a quarrel", by provoking some other person who is strictly minding his own business and not interfering in the least. A battle of words usually starts in some such way, with no real reason, and a battle of words often develops into a battle of tooth and nail. Two women were brought before the judge for fighting, and the judge asked Mrs. Smith to tell how it started. "Well, it was this way, your honor. I met Mrs. Brown carrying a basket on her arm, and I says [{161}] to her, 'What have ye got in that basket?' says I. 'Eggs', says she. 'No!' says I. 'Yes!' says she. 'Ye lie!' says I. 'Ye lie!' says she. And a 'Whoop!' says I, and a 'Whoop!' says she; and that's the way it began, sir."
We have, then, to recognize aggressive fighting, in addition to defensive, and the aggressive sort certainly belongs among the play instincts.
The instincts that by acting counter to fighting hold it in check are several: laughter--a good laugh together allays hostility; or the parental instinct--a parent will stand treatment from his child that he would quickly resent from any one else; or self-assertion--"Too proud to fight!" But the most direct checks are afforded by inertia--"What's the use?"--and especially by fear and caution.