第161章 SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL ART(17)

of various kinds, because he is a centre of wider interests than those of his own particular self.The action of a Japanese who throws himself upon the Russian bayonets at the word of command, of a doctor who inoculates himself with a deadly poison for the sake of science, the steady lifelong toil of millions of peasants growing the food supply for unknown millions of town-dwellers, are no longer 'disinterested' when they are looked at from the standpoint of the interests of humanity as a whole.This collective will and intelligence can never be considered wholly 'blind' when regarded from the collective standpoint.Every directive instinct of an organism, at any rate in the animal world, must be accredited with some related emotion,12and this emotion, regarded as a fact in consciousness, must be accredited with some measure of intelligence.The creature subject to the drive of an emotion must have some idea of what he is about, though the full psycho-biological 'purpose' of his action may be hidden from him.This organic standpoint gives an intelligible meaning to what we may call the 'natural wisdom of the people.' The herd, the tribe, the nation is endowed with instincts of self-protection and of growth.These instincts are accompanied by corresponding emotions which, according to the degree of intelligence they contain, impel it to a right or economical use of the physical and spiritual environment for survival and 'progress.' The instinctive and emotional stream of this common life becomes more 'rational' as the factors of intelligence accompanying the emotions become clearer, better coordinated and endowed with larger capacity of central direction.In the evolution of animal organisms this growth of rationality implies, and is compassed by, a decline of the special instincts with a consequent weakening of the special emotions attached to them, and the substitution of a flexible general instinct operating through a centralised nervous system and coordinating the special organic emotions and activities to serve a more clearly conceived organic purpose of the individual or the race.Reason, regarded as a motive power and not as a mere intellectual organ, must be considered as this general instinct of survival and growth, having its roots in the apparently separate instincts of hunger, procreation, shelter, pugnacity, flight, gregariousness, protection of young, curiosity, constructiveness, acquisitiveness and the like, and utilising the emotions proper to these several instincts for the economy of some more general plan of life.Reasoning, as an 'intellectual process,'

will probably derive its emotional food and impetus principally from the emotions carried by the instincts of flight and pursuit, which involve quick judgment in the use of means, and by the curiosity and constructiveness which impel the more reflective study and adaptation of material environment.

It is, however, no purpose of mine to enter into the particulars of this theory of the natural origins of reason.It is sufficient to recognise;first that prior to the dawn of 'reason' in organic evolution, the instincts carry and apply a wisdom of direction of their own; secondly that when reason takes over much of this directing power it operates by coordinating, not by creating, motive power.