It is the body's slave and mouthpiece. And once again it is
best and safest for the animal that it should be so.
And these appetites are at first comparatively feeble. There is but
little muscle or nerve and but little food is required. But these
continually strengthen and spur the will harder and more frequently.
And the will stirs up the weary and flagging muscles. The will may
be a poor slave and the appetites hard taskmasters. But under their
stern discipline it is growing stronger and more completely
subjugating the body. Better slavery to hard taskmasters than
rottenness from inertia. The first requirement is power, activity,
and then this power can be directed to ever higher ends. You cannot
steer the vessel until she has sails or an engine; with no "way on"
she will not mind the helm, she only drifts. But the condition of
the animal at this stage certainly looks very unpromising. Can the
will emancipate itself from appetite and control it? Or is it to
remain the slave of the body?
In time an emotion appears which marks the influence not directly of
the body but of the individual consciousness. This is fear; it is
for the body, but not, like hunger, directly of it. It arises in the
mind. It results from experience and memory. The first animal which
feared took a long step upward.
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