the various social
evils--rather than let it spend its force in war between nations. Even
our sports may be offshoots of the fight-instinct, for McDougall holds
that the play-tendency has its root in the instinct of rivalry, a
modified form of pugnacity. Evidently fighting-blood is a useful
inheritance, even to-day, and rightly directed is a necessary part of
a complete and forceful personality.

This, then, completes the list of self-preservative instincts, those
which are commonly called egoistic and which have been given us for
the maintenance of our own individual personal lives. But our
endowment includes another set of impulses which are no less important
and which must be reckoned with if human conduct is to be understood.

CHAPTER IV

_In which we learn more about ourselves_

THE STORY OF THE INSTINCTS (Continued)

II. THE RACE-PRESERVATIVE INSTINCTS

=Looking beyond Ourselves.= We sometimes speak of self-preservation as
though it were the only law of life, while as a matter of fact it is
but half the story. Nature has seen to it that there shall be planted
in every living creature an innate urge toward the larger life of the
race. Although the creature may never give a conscious thought to the
welfare of the race, he still bears within himself a set of instincts
which have as their end and aim, not the individual at all, but
society as a whole, and the life of generations that are to come. He
is bigger than he knows. Although he may have no notion why he feels
and acts as he does, and although he may pervert the purpose for his
own selfish end, he is continually being moved by the mighty impulse
of the race-life, an impulse which often outrivals the desire I or his
own personal existence. The craving to reproduce ourselves and the
craving to cherish and protect our young are among the most dynamic
forces in life. The two desires are so closely bound together that
they are often spoken of as one under the name of the sex-instinct, or
the family instincts. Let us look first at that part of the yearning
which urges toward perpetuating our own life in offspring.

=Watching Nature Work.= It is wonderful, indeed, to watch Nature in
the long process of Evolution, as she adapts her methods to the
growing complexity of the organism. With a variety and ingenuity of
means, but always with the same steady purpose, she works from the
lowest levels,--where there is no true reproduction, only
multiplication