"[11]
The reader may be earnestly counselled to acquaint himself with Dr.
McDougall's book, which, in the judgment of those best qualified,
definitely advances the science of psychology in its deepest and most
important aspects.
_The Transmutation of Instinct._--The last thing here meant by the
transmutation of instinct is that by any political alchemy it is
possible--to quote Herbert Spencer's celebrated aphorism--to get golden
conduct out of leaden instincts. But it is the mark of man, the
intelligent being, that in him the instincts are plastic, and even
capable of amazing transmutations. In the lower animals there is
instinct, but that instinct is an almost completely fixed, rigid, and
final thing. In ourselves there is a limitless capacity for the
development, the humanization of instinct along many lines, as when the
primitive infantile curiosity works out into the speculations of a
thinker. In other words, _we_ are educable, the lower animals are not,
or only within very narrow limits.
Yet in one respect the lower animals have the advantage over us. Their
instincts are often perfect. We cannot teach a cat anything about how to
look after a kitten; but parallel instincts amongst ourselves, though
not less numerous or potent, are not perfected, not sharp-cut. In the
cat there is no need for education; in woman there is eminent need for
it. Indeed it is the lack of education that is largely responsible for
our large infant mortality; not that woman is inferior to the cat, but
that, being not instinctive but intelligent, she requires education in
motherhood.
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