A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

272 THE COSMOS: THE MICROCOSM.existing experience, any new experience will be impossible,for there will be nothing to which to refer the new impression.So, if, as some of the European philosophers think, a childcomes into the world with what they call tabula rasa, sucha child will have to go out with a blank tablet, because hewill have nowhere to refer his knowledge. So we seeknowledge is impossible without a previously existing fundof knowledge. As such, we all have knowledge, nd allhave come, therefore, with funds of knowledge already.Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience ;there is no other way to know. If we have not experienced it here, we must have experiencedit elsewhere.How is it that this fear of death iseverywhere? A littlechicken just out of an egg ;an eagle comes, and the chickenflies in fear to its mother. Where did it learn that eaglesate chickens? There is an old explanation; (I shouldhardly dignify it by such a name). It was called instinct.What makes that little chicken just out of the egg afraid:to die ? How is it that, as soon as a duckling hatched bya hen comes near water itjumps into the water and swims.It never swam before, or see anybody swim. People sayit is instinct. It is a big word, but it leaves us where wewere. Let us study this phenomenon of instinct. We havemany instincts in ourselves, a hundred A sorts. lady beginsto play on a piano. At first she must pay attention to everykey she is fingering, and as she goes on and on for monthsand years,it becomes instinct ;it becomes involuntary. Thatwhich required the propulsion of the will does not requireconscious will at all,but can be done without any consciouswill, and this state is what is called instinct. It was firstwith will, and then comes down beneath will. This is notyet a comlete proof. One half remains. That half isthat almost all of these actions which are now instinctive