The choice of a mate.

  • Anthony Ludovici
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details
    34/546 (page 4)
    certain stimuli. When, however, she waits to cross a road until I say, “ Go ! ” she is obeying an acquired or “ secondary ” instinct, implanted in her by training. Thus, although all instinct is, at bottom, of the same order as a reflex, we must distinguish those reflexes which are conditioned by our nature, as handed down to us by our ancestors, from those which are subsequently conditioned by the disciplines and circumstances of our lives. The first we may call “ naturally- conditioned reflexes ” (or primary instincts), the second “ arti ficially-conditioned reflexes ” (or secondary instincts). But the proper and automatic working of a reflex, whether naturally- or artificially-conditioned, presupposes an environment similar to that in which the reflex was reared. A rodent’s primary instinct to gnaw cannot function in a glass or granite box. Neither can my bitch’s secondary instinct to cross roads only on hearing my word “ Go ! ” function on a moor. And, if she were kept always on a moor, this secondary instinct would certainly be lost. Among our standardized domestic animals only the naturally- conditioned reflexes are similar ; the artificially-conditioned will tend to be dissimilar. For instance, although my bitch, like all bitches, disposes of her offsprings’ excreta orally during lactation, only one registered wire-haired bitch in England has the arti ficially-conditioned reflex to answer to the name of “ Sukie ”. In modern civilized man, however, at least as far as our present problem, Mating, is concerned, we have a creature in regard to whom primary instinct, secondary instinct and environment are inconstant and incalculable. It is unlikely that he has more than one, or at most two, overpowering naturally-conditioned reflexes causing him to react sexually in a way advantageous to himself or the species, and he has few artificially-conditioned reflexes adjusted to the same end. Moreover, his environment cannot possibly be similar to that in which his naturally- or artificially-conditioned sexual reflexes were reared, even if he possessed such uniformly with other men. 1 Modern man, in fact, is a creature differentiated often con 1 See E. R. Jaensch’s Eidetic Imagery (London, 1930, p. 24): “ Primitive organisms can always respond to their environmental influences with the same reactions as their ancestors, since these influences remain to a very wide extent constant for them. But for higher organisms, particularly for man, the changing environmental conditions that arise in the course of a generation become an important factor.”