=Back of Our Dispositions.= What is it that makes the baby jump at a noise? What energizes a man when you tell him he is a liar? What makes a young girl blush when you look at her, or a youth begin to take pains with his necktie? What makes men go to war or build tunnels or found hospitals or make love or save for a home? What makes a woman slave for her children, or give her life for them if need be? "Instinct" you say, and rightly. Back of every one of these well-known human tendencies is a specific instinct or group of instincts. The story of the life of man and the story of the mind of man must begin with the instincts. Indeed, any intelligent approach to human life, whether it be that of the mother, the teacher, the preacher, the social worker or the neurologist, leads back inevitably to the instincts as the starting-point of understanding. But what is instinct? We are apt to be a bit hazy on that point, as we are on any fundamental thing with which we intimately live. We reckon on these instinctive tendencies every hour of the day, but as we are not used to labeling them, it may help in the very beginning of our discussion to have a list before our eyes. Here, then, is a list of the fundamental tendencies of the human race and the emotions which drive them to fulfilment. THE SPECIFIC INSTINCTS AND THEIR EMOTIONS (AFTER MCDOUGALL) _Instinct_ _Emotion_ Nutritive Instinct Hunger Flight Fear Repulsion Disgust Curiosity Wonder Self-assertion Positive Self-feeling (Elation) Self-abasement Negative Self-feeling (Subjection) Gregariousness Emotion unnamed Acquisition Love of Possession Construction Emotion unnamed Pugnacity Anger Reproductive Instinct Emotion unnamed Parental Instinct Tender Emotion These are the fundamental tendencies or dispositions with which every human being is endowed as he comes into the world. Differing in degree in different individuals, they unite in varying proportions to form various kinds of dispositions, but are in greater or less degree the common property of us all.