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A Diagram of Animal Nature

For clarity and brevity, the conclusions reached in this chapter are summarized in the accompanying diagram, which includes ourselves, who share so many attributes with animals and in whom some of the tendencies of animal life reach their most revealing expressions. At the center of the diagram is the primary nature of organisms, which in humans has been called the central self. A product of life's formative agent, harmonization, the expression of which in living things is growth, this primary nature is the same in all of them, plants as well as animals, and is everywhere creative and pacific. This is most clearly evident in green plants able to synthesize their own food from elements present in air, water, and soil, an achievement that exempts them from the necessity to

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A DIAGRAM OF ANIMAL NATURE

(including humans)

The central circle represents the primary nature of all animals, including humans.

This is surrounded by a ring representing their secondary nature, which in turn is

enclosed by a ring representing their tertiary or socialized nature. At the bottom

of the circle and each of the rings are some of the attributes corresponding to

each nature, most of which will be manifest only at higher psychic levels. Arrows

pointing outward indicate that elements from one sphere enter enclosing spheres,

modifying their character; or they transcend the external ring, as when the pacific

primary nature rises above a belligerent society, or when, at the opposite extreme,

the aggressiveness of the secondary nature escapes social restraints to make outlaws.

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exploit other creatures. The primary nature of the higher animals is expressed by friendly or loving attitudes, cooperation, caring, and creating. Animals start with a handicap. Unable to synthesize their own food, they must exploit other living things and often struggle stubbornly with them to survive. This conflict has developed their secondary nature, which surrounds their primary nature like an armature and is represented by a ring around the central circle. Their secondary nature is, in varying degrees in different species and individuals, aggressive-defensive, belligerent, suspicious, selfish, irascible, fearful, and lustful.

Animals in which the secondary nature is highly developed and untamed are unfit for social life. To live in societies, this rude secondary nature must be mitigated, suppressed, or somehow controlled, so that elements of the primary nature may break through itthe process of socialization. Many animals appear to have become innately socialized as their societies evolved, but a measure of training or the example of their elders may be needed to finish the process. Ornithologists have noticed that Florida Scrub jays, Arabian Babblers, and Jungle Babblers of India, often disorderly and quarrelsome when young, become as they mature well-behaved members of their pacific cooperative breeding groups. Young humans are socialized by discipline, example, and education during their prolonged immaturity. The result of this process is the tertiary nature of social animals, represented by a ring around the secondary nature. The attributes of this tertiary nature are an unstable mixture of primary and secondary elements, in proportions determined by the innate quality of the individual and the character of its society.

The rings around the primary nature are not impenetrable barriers. In socialization, attributes of the primary nature penetrate the secondary nature to become manifest in the tertiary nature, as is indicated by arrows extending from the central circle to the outer ring. Occasionally in other social animals, and all too frequently in people, attributes of the secondary nature break through the social restraints, as is suggested by arrows passing from the armature to below the outermost circle. When this happens,

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animals become aggressive and destructive members of their societies; humans become