The Nomadic Alternative – Page 248

they are defenders who prevent other animals killing them. And in many cases the food animal, such as the polar bear is dangerous, particularly when trapped or wounded. As the hunters hunt, so they are hunted.

Consequently we are equipped with two quite distinctive innate mechanisms to manage both situations. One is for appetitive, the other for aversive killing, though the two overlap. Both mechanisms are fired by reactions of the central nervous system to 'stimulus situations' which activate the adrenal glands to secrete - noradren-alin for active hunting, adrenalin for passive defence. A man may enjoy the active stimulus of the hunt, but await with passive anxiety the attack of a predatory beast. Back-to-the-wall defence has the quality of desperation. "Wild beasts", said an ancient Chinese prince, Fu Ch'ai, "when at bay, fight desperately. How much more is this true of men. If they know there is no alternative, they will fight to the death."

On the assumption you cannot fight an enemy without some fore-knowledge of its tactics, the inner consciousness holds a bestiary of otherworldly creatures. Hairy, scaly, fanged, feathered, clawed, horned, tusked and creepy Things live an independent existence of their own in the mind. They haunt the imagination of the smallest infant, and owe nothing to its powers of observation. When a stranger approaches, the pages of the mind's Bestiary flick over and a mechanism in the brain grafts the grimace of a monster onto the smiling face of a family friend.

For Palaeozoology is within us. Unlike the Cave Lion, the monsters of the Infernal Zoological Garden of the Mind do not become extinct when we grow up. They survive as our dark, demonic side - what Plato called our "wild beast nature that peers out into sleep".

In fact these internal apparitions are not destructive at all, but intended as an Early Warning System to protect our lives from the unpredictable danger - especially when we roll about being fat, inattentive and lazy. Wishful thinking cannot make them disappear.

At least once in his life a man must face the Beast, internal or