Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/56

 III. THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT. BY HENEY EUTGEES MAESHALL. 1. In opening this article, I must beg to remind my reader of certain points which I have endeavoured to bring into clear relief in the two articles of the series that have preceded this. (1) We have seen that in all organic life we find two fundamental influences at work, the influence which tends to restrict organic variation within typical lines, and the influence which leads the organism to break free from the restraints thus presented. (2) We have noted that the tendency to variance is determined partly by the forcefulness of the stimulus affecting the element, and partly by the degree of integra- tion existing between the elements of the organism of which the affected element is a part : and we have seen this to be true in the higher development of the g?<si-organic social life which determines our social, our ethical, instincts. (3) We have seen that in order to account for the rise of instincts we must grant that in the past the variant tendency must on the whole have been held in check. 1 (4) We have noted that in order to account for the formation of the social instincts we must assume that the instincts of individualistic import, as subordinated to those instincts which relate to the persistence of species, must in their turn have become subordinated to the newly forming social instincts : so that in the long run the indi- vidual will, under normal conditions, come to react to protect himself indeed as an individual, in such ways as will also lead to the persistence of the species, but only in such manner as will lead to the stability of the social group to which he belongs. 1 Of the limitations of this view I speak in the closing section.