MS 1343 (1902) - Of the Classification of the Sciences

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beings to be regarded as a good in itself? Many moralists say it is the summum bonum; but then these are men who regard mere gratification, as such, as a good in itself;—a doctrine not easily matched for its bald logical absurdity. Let us prefer the apparent opinion of Nature in her evolution. Very well; if Darwin is right the whole aim of biological evolution is to produce fecundity. For he makes the whole quasi-purpose to be the perpetuation of the stock, which depends almost entirely upon reproduction, prolescence (or prolificity) and subolescence. But Darwin's hypothesis requires too much time. Somehow, the process of adaptation of the type to its environment must be a swift one; and there are other facts that seem to show that it is so. Besides, the higher animals are not so extraordinarily prolific. Let us glance through all Creation and ask ourselves what, in a word, it would seem to have been at, What has it been accomplishing? Is it not on the whole, the vitalization of ideas, the rationabilitation of things? Or, let us ask our own hearts what

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if anything makes the human race worthy of preservation. The answer would seem to be, its promise of ultimately developing ideas and of rendering the arrangements of its sphere of influence reasonable. Are not the words 'worthy' and 'reasonable,' in the perfect sense of each, synonyms? If so, the third group of instincts will be those that concern ideas; so that the division of Instincts will be into the Suicultural, the Civicultural, and the Specicultural.

Before the author had recognized this division he had drawn up a list of twelve instincts, which fall into the three groups as shown in the following table:

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Accurately descriptive designations would have been far too cumbrous. What was most desirable, therefore, was that the names should not be understood as descriptive. They are merely key-words referring to the following definitions.

The Gambol Instinct is the general instinct (for some instincts are more general and rational than others) for exercizing body and mind. It prompts to athletic exercizes, dancing, games,* and active amusements, and also to the preservation of health, to cleanliness, and to general personal well-being.

The Gust Instinct is the instinct which causes us to take pleasure in sensations, such as agreeable eating and drinking, smoking, and other sensual gratification.

The Getting Instinct is the instinct which causes men to amass treasures, whether of money, books not to be read, cancelled postage stamps, and other equally worthless objects, to engage in business, to speculate and gamble, and generally to pursue self-interest with earnestness and energy. It seems to have two well-mined varieties, the hoarding and the gaining kinds.

*Major Powell regards games of chance and calculation as having their origin in the Ghost-instinct; but his own data are against this conclusion.

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The Gentleman Instinct is the instinct of reasonable suiculture. One wishes to enjoy one's grandeur. One feels that a gentleman so great and good, so generous, so gracious, so genteel, with so genuine a genealogy would not be properly honored without fine surroundings, a stately house, garnished from garret to ground, an ancient garden, a cemetery full of glorious grandsires, a park of immemorial oaks, with a breed of deer elsewhere extinct, lawn and gravelled avenues, a porter's lodge behind a gateway gorgeous with heraldic scutcheon, and all that.

The Govern Instinct is the general instinct for ordering one's neighbors, and of holding up to them a good example. One wishes to see everybody behave with propriety, to organize, to regularize, to govern, to bring honor to one's city or country, to reward the virtuous, to arm the law against the criminal, to arm society against the bohemian and the boor, to do justice between man and man.

The Ghost Instinct is that ingredient of human nature that brings the emotions to the service of society. It has impressive rites, and clings to scraps of primeval philosophy which

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have outlived their rationability and which the rationalist would throw upon the garbage-heap of exploded superstitions, if this instinct did not rescue them and turn them to the service of society.

The Gore Instinct, the instinct of combat and ruthless destruction, is the most strenuous of all the instincts. It has much affinity with the Getting instinct and like that has two varieties, the adventurous, glorious variety, mostly aggressive, notwithstand[ing] Marathon, Thermopylae, and other splendid gests, and its self-controlled butchering variety. Irascibility, captiousness, contrariness are effects of the Gore instinct.

The Gamic instinct is the instinct which causes the production, rearing, and training of children and other pets. It is the most elevated of the Civicultural instincts.

The Grouping Instinct is the general intellectual instinct, which causes all association and associational suggestion, all generalization, classification, grouping, and systematization, all imitation of oneself or of others, all habit-forming and habitual action, all ardor of pursuit,