Sick and weak members, as we have seen, while subject to some
ill-treatment from their companions (only because they can be
ill-treated with impunity), do not rouse the herd to a deadly animosity;
the violent and fatal attack is often as not made on a member in perfect
health and vigour and unwoundecl, although, owing to some accident, in
great distress, and perhaps danger, at the moment.
The instinct is, then, not only useless but actually detrimental; and,
this being so, the action of the herd in destroying one of its members
is not even to be regarded as an instinct proper, but rather as an
aberration of an instinct, a blunder, into which animals sometimes fall
when excited to action in unusual circumstances.
The first thing that strikes us is that in these wild abnormal moments
of social animals, they are acting in violent contradiction to the whole
tenor of their lives; that in turning against a distressed fellow they
oppose themselves to the law of their being, to the whole body of
instincts, primary and secondary, and habits, which have made it
possible for them to exist together in communities. It is, I think, by
reflecting on the abnormal character of such an action that we are led
to a true interpretation of this "dark saying of Nature."
Every one is familiar with Bacon's famous passage about the dog, and the
noble courage which that animal puts on when "maintained by a man; who
is to him in place of a God, or _melior natura;_ which courage is
manifestly such as that creature, without the confidence of a better
nature than its own, could never attain.
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