into the multitude of habits of using toys and common household objects.

Akin to the naturalist's error of neglecting vague and variable instincts is the psychologist's error of neglecting general tendencies. The tendency of children to do all sorts of things to objects,—e.g., to pull, turn, drop, pick up, roll, put in the mouth, bite, pull out and rub a new toy, -is as truly due to inborn make-up as are their tendencies to sneeze, laugh or creep. The instincts of the most importance to mental growth and education are those general tendencies to react in certain ways to large classes of experiences which we call curiosity, emulation and physical play.

Instincts, then, may be delayed, gradual in appearing, and transitory; they are modifiable, hardening into habits or becoming abolished by disuse or inhibition; they are often indefinite and general.

Human Instincts.-Too little is known about the extent to which human behavior is based upon instincts to allow their enumeration. But even with our present lack of knowledge the list of demonstrated instincts is a long one. It takes Professor James thirty-seven pages to list and describe them. Probably the list will grow with further study, since many actions which common sense credits to acquisition are really the gift of nature. E.g., standing alone, walking and retrieving (getting an object and bringing it back) appear in babies who are given no incitement or assistance. The manifestations of grief, puckering the lips, drawing down the face and a prolonged wail,-appear in babies at the stimulus of harsh speech or ugly looks, although such speech or looks have never been followed by any unpleasant consequence. The more carefully mental development is investigated,

the more we find human life everywhere rooted in instincts.

Especially noteworthy in human instinctive equipment is the tendency which I shall call multiple reaction to a single stimulus. The reason for this name will appear from the following illustrations: The baby confronted by a small novel object, not only reaches and takes it; he also, as has already been noted, puts it in his mouth, takes it out, turns it over, drops it, picks it up, rolls it around, rubs it against his nose, looks at it in one way, then in another, holds it up, holds it down, and so on. Again the baby makes not a few distinct cries as does the dog or cat, but a rich variety of prattle, containing all sorts of combinations of sounds. By means of these multiple reactions to single stimuli the field of experimentation with things is far greater in man than in any other animal. Man, who does so many things to so many things, has the opportunity to develop a far wider range of habits. Out of the fumbling and prattle of the baby grow the play and speech of the child, and later the work and invention and thought of the man.

§ 32. Capacities

The Attributes of Capacities.-All the characteristics of instincts summarized in § 31 belong also to the subtler possibilities of mental life which are called capacities. For instance, the capacity for managing men is delayed in comparison with that for acting or literary production. Apparently the capacity for seeing blue develops later than that for seeing other colors. Capacities of motor control and of sense perception have been proved to mature gradually. It is a common and likely belief that the capacity for rote-memorizing is transitory,

weakening somewhat in spite of the tremendous amount of training which it receives. The capacity to adopt new points of view seems to be very often lost by the age of twenty-five. When their exercise is attended by pleasant results, capacities harden into actual powers, just as instincts harden into habits. The child with musical capacity, wisely trained, thus becomes capable of actual achievement in music. But disuse will as surely destroy the capacity, and the fact of a capacity positively stamped out by unpleasant results is one of the commonest facts in human life. Many men would have been great generals had there been wars enough. Most men could have been first rate bullies and vagabonds, most women could have been first-rate coquettes, had not the capacities been stifled from childhood.

It is fortunately true that useful capacities are not likely to be inhibited even when home and school offer them little encouragement. For the capacity itself begets interest, and mere achievement is often its sufficient reward. Sooner or later the boy or girl who has a capacity which the world needs will probably transform it into actual power and achievement. It is risky to console oneself for lack of success by the claim that one had as much capacity as anyone else but was not encouraged. There are, however, some sad cases of noble capacities starved and beaten to death.

The Specialization of Capacities. Like instincts, capacities are often indefinite and generalized. Men are not born with the capacity to learn English or German, but to learn a language. Common belief, and many psychologists, however, make here an error just the reverse of that made concerning the same feature of instincts. In the latter case they overestimate the definiteness and specialization of inborn nature; in the case of

capacities they overestimate the indefiniteness and generalization. These instincts of possibility are much more specialized than we commonly think or than the older books on psychology acknowledge. One may have the capacity to appreciate music without the capacity to appreciate other forms of art; one may be a most expert calculator with numerical problems and nearly an idiot in other fields of knowledge; a most gifted reasoner in mathematics was easily deceived by a spiritualist's tricks; the hardest-headed men of business are often silly in their superstitions; a most gifted and inventive scholar may be hopelessly stupid about the simplest bit of machinery.

§ 33. Further Attributes of Original Tendencies Individual Differences in Inborn Nature.-Nature does not provide each human being with the same capital of instincts and capacities. Men are no more created alike in their mental constitutions than they are treated alike by their surroundings. Any instinct is possessed by different individuals in different degrees of strength. One is gentle, one harsh, one cruel, one a Nero. One strikes back only when teased for an hour, another at the least offense. Indeed there is probably no instinct which is not entirely lacking in some individuals. Even that one which is the first necessity for living, the suckling instinct, does not always appear. So also any capacity is possessed by different individuals in different degrees of strength, the variation here being even greater than in the case of instincts. Some men are born to be intellectual giants, some to be idiots. This is universally recognized only in such obvious cases as the capacities for music and poetry, but it is equally true of the capacity to add or to multiply, to read or to spell, to succeed in science or in affairs. Wherever measurements have been

made of mental capacities, individual differences are the rule. In the keenness of the senses, in the quickness and accuracy of perception, in the vividness of imagery, in the permanence of memories, in the appreciation of relations, -everywhere men are by nature different. It is true that when thought of in comparison with other animals, men seem closely alike,-that amongst all men there is a general family resemblance. The differences amongst men seem small in comparison with the much greater difference between men and animals. But they exist, and in sufficient amount to explain a great part of the differences in human achievements.

The original mental equipment of any human individual is thus to be regarded as the result of two factors; (1) a fund of instincts and capacities which he has in common with other members of the human species, and which belongs to him as one of that species, and (2) an additional fund which belongs to him alone as an individual. It is most convenient to regard as the common fund, that which the ordinary, average, common man possesses and to regard any individual's special share as being either plus or minus. The common fund is then, not that possessed by all, but that possessed by the general type of the species. From this type an individual may deviate in either direction.

The Source of Original Nature.-So far the inborn equipment of instincts and capacities has been attributed to the constitution of the nervous system as determined by nature. We have now to ask what laws of nature control its distribution. These are the law of heredity and its supplement, the law of variation.

The mental constitution given by nature to any man is that of his ancestors plus many or few of the variations which occur in all living things. The special share