The Courtship of Animals (Classic Reprint)

The purely physical phenomena Of life, to be rightly appreciated, must always be considered in relation to the psychical phenomena which are the soul of life. These subtle and intangible forces cannot be experimented with in the laboratory, or expressed in formulae; we cannot denote their strength in horse-power. Just as the physi cal manifestations of life begin with lowly types, so the psychical begin, and they gather strength and complexity with the bodies they pervade. These mani festations we call behaviour, and in their more intense developments, emotions. These emotions present an infinite range of variety in the higher animals, and they attain their maximum of intensity wherever the reproductive activities are con cerned. The part which these act1v1t1es play in con trolling behaviour is by no means always apparent, and is commonly not even suspected. Even man himself is subject to this control. And it is this fact which lifts the Courtship of the lower animals out of the category of merely curious phenomena. For the springs of his conduct, his behaviour and emotions under varying circumstances, can only be understood, and even then but imperfectly, by comparison with other creatures lower in the scale, so far, of course, as comparison is possible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.