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THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT. 47 those impulses which tell of Instinct ; and leading thus to a subversion of the order of instinct efficiency which has become established in us. But, as we have already seen, the development of the higher life, so far as we can judge, is on the whole de- termined by a reverse process, viz. : by the subordination of the individual variant influences in Reason to the racial influences in Instinct ; and by the emphasis of the order of instinct efficiency above referred to. For, as we have noted above, it is difficult to conceive how any instinct can have been fixed in a race unless we suppose that the individual of the species acquiring the instinct has been better adapted to existence in his environ- ment as the result of following this instinct than he would have been had he allowed variations to prevail. And in reference to the higher, the social instincts, which we are here especially considering, it is still more difficult to con- ceive how they can have been fixed in the race unless we suppose that on the whole the individual is indirectly better adapted to exist in his environment, and to perpetuate his kind, as a member of a social group, than would have been the case had he not acted as a part of a social group by the subordination of his instincts in the definite order we have already described. If all this be true, then I think it is clear that perfection of racial life would seem to demand the evolution in the race of a governing instinct ; of an instinct of a new and higher order, which would be regulative of reason in its relation to instinct, which would tend to suppress the variant principle and to emphasise the force of instinctive appeal, producing emphasis of instincts as a class and subor- dinating processes of ratiocination to impulse, and tending to establish the order of instinct efficiency which we find developed in us. It remains for us to inquire whether there be any evidence of the formation of such a governing instinct, and to this inquiry we shall now turn. II. 8. In the sections which have preceded this we have noted certain influences and conditions which are likely to occasion the disadvantageous subordination of the social, the ethical, impulses to those of lower orders, notably to those which have only individualistic significance : and tendencies to such subordination we find appearing in our complex