each other on the head during peace; but our civilisation is based on
cut-throat competition; our favourite games are mimic battles, which I
suppose effect for us a 'purgation of the emotions' similar to that
which Aristotle attributed to witnessing the performance of a tragedy:
and, when the fit seizes us, we are ready to engage in wars which cannot
fail to be disastrous to both combatants. Mr. McDougall does not regret
this disposition, irrational though it is. He thinks that it tends to
the survival of the fittest, and that, if we substitute emulation for
pugnacity, which on other grounds might seem an unmixed advantage, we
shall have to call in the science of eugenics to save us from becoming
as sheeplike as the Chinese. There is, however, another side to this
question, as we shall see presently.

Another instinct which has supplied fuel to patriotism of the baser sort
is that of acquisitiveness. This tendency, without which even the most
rudimentary civilisation would be impossible, began when the female of
the species, instead of carrying her baby on her back and following the
male to his hunting-grounds, made some sort of a lair for herself and
her family, where primitive implements and stores of food could be kept.
There are still tribes in Brazil which have not reached this first step
towards humanisation. But the instinct of hoarding, like all other
instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the
institution of private property comes another institution--that of
plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at
present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which, unlike
most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough
when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then. The
acquisition and possession of land satisfies this desire in a high
degree, since land is a visible and indestructible form of property.
Consequently, as soon as the instincts of the individual are transferred