he only luminary, but
no evolution has taken place to adapt this instinct to the existence of
lamps. We may admit that every instinct had its use at the time when it
first came into existence. This may be true of the fighting instinct,
but it does not follow that the combative instinct is useful to man
to-day. Instinct is extremely conservative, and survives the
circumstances that produced it. For instance, the wolf, wishing to cover
up its tracks, buries its excrement; the dog, a town dweller, stupidly
scrapes the pavement. In the latter case instinct has become senseless,
purposeless.

Man has retained many rudimentary and functionless instincts. He is able
to modify them, but in his case the task is peculiarly complex. Man is
distinguished from other animals by his incomparably greater power of
modifying the natural environment to suit his own purposes. But this
being so, man should transform his instincts to adapt them to the
changed circumstances. Now these instincts are tenacious, and the
struggle is hard. All the more, therefore, is it necessary. Whole
species of lower animals became extinct because they were unable to
modify their instincts as the environment changed. "Is man also to die
out from want of the will to change his instincts? He can change them,
or he could if he would. Man alone has the power of choice, and
consequently can err. But this curse of the liability to error is the
necessary consequence of freedom, and it gives birth to the blessed
power man possesses to learn and to transform himself." Yet man makes
very little use of this power. He is still encumbered with archaic
instincts. He accepts them complacently. He has an excessive esteem for
what is old precisely because he is swayed by hereditary instincts which
he has unconsciously come to revere.

In the kingdom of the one-eyed, we ought not to make the blind man king.
Because we all have combative instincts, it does not follow that we
should give these instincts free rein. To-day, when we are realising
the advantages of world-wide organisation, it is assuredly time that
such instincts should be put under restraint. Nicolai, seeing his
contemporaries giving themselves up to their enthusiasm for war, is
reminded of dogs which persist in scraping the pavement after relieving
nature.

What, precisely, are the combative instincts? Are they essential
attributes of the human species? In Nicolai's opinion, they are nothing
of the sort. He incl