ABSTRACT
In the light of the well-founded conclusions of the foregoing chapter we may try to define concisely the native endowment of man. Our comparative survey suggests the guiding principle that the innate propensities of man are those common to all the higher mammals, together with some few that are peculiar to him or are so slightly developed in other species as to be not surely recognizable. Thirty years of wrestling with the empirical evidence have convinced me that it bears out this suggestion, this deductively reached hypothesis. The following list does not claim to be exhaustive or beyond improvement; it is, rather, tentative and approximate. We recognize in the human species the following innate propensities. 1
To seek (and perhaps to store) food (food-seeking propensity).
To reject and avoid certain noxious substances (disgust propensity).
To court and mate (sex propensity).
To flee to cover in response to violent impressions that inflict or threaten pain or injury (fear propensity).
To explore strange places and things (curiosity propensity).
To feed, protect and shelter the young (protective or parental propensity).
To remain in company with fellows and, if isolated, to seek that company (gregarious propensity).
To domineer, to lead, to assert oneself over, or display oneself before, one’s fellows (self-assertive propensity).
To defer, to obey, to follow, to submit in the presence of others who display superior powers (submissive propensity).
To resent and forcibly to break down any thwarting or resistance offered to the free exercise of any other tendency (anger propensity).
To cry aloud for assistance when our efforts are utterly baffled (appeal propensity).
To construct shelters and implements (constructive propensity).
To acquire, possess, and defend whatever is found useful or otherwise attractive (acquisitive propensity).
To laugh at the defects and failures of our fellowcreatures (laughter propensity).
To remove, or to remove oneself from, whatever produces discomfort, as by scratching or by change of position and location (comfort propensity).
To lie down, rest and sleep when tired (rest or sleep propensity).
To wander to new scenes (migratory propensity).
A group of very simple propensities subserving bodily needs, such as coughing, sneezing, breathing, evacuation.
