Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/70

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INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR
53

other hand, a deficiency in this instinct is apt to make a child a milksop. Obstacles in his path will never call out the impulse to overcome them. He will tend to be intellectually weak and morally smug. (3) The immense value of curiosity in the development of science and religion has already been mentioned. But an abnormal degree of curiosity, or curiosity developed in a wrong direction, is simply inquisitiveness, which is a social nuisance. And a child devoid of all curiosity is apt to remain a cipher. He will have no interest in what he is made to learn, and throughout his life he will be content to take the line of least resistance. (4) The "just right" degree of the complementary instincts of self-assertiveness and self-abasement is socially valuable. At their "just right" degree these instincts become identical in their operation. Instinctive behaviour which shows the "just right" amount of self-assertiveness will also exhibit the "just right" degree of self-abasement. But we all know that excessive self-assertion is socially injurious, and so is excessive self-abasement. (5) The value of the gregarious instinct in its proper degree has already been referred to. Where it is lacking a man is apt to become a recluse and even a misanthrope. On the other hand, where it is unduly strong, it produces a pernicious love of the crowd. We see the operation of this instinct in an aggravated form (and compounded, no doubt, with other influences) in the herding of people into cities, in the love of perambulating busy streets, in attendance at crowded picture-palaces and football matches. (6) The instinct of acquisi-