Teachers?

From "Love and Literature" in Texts & Pretexts: An Anthology with Commentaries by Aldous Huxley.

[...] Isolate a new born rat, then, when it is mature, introduce it to another rat of the opposite sex. It will know exactly what to do — will behave as all other rats behave.

Not so an ape. Instinct does not tell it how to behave. Congenital ignorance is the condition of intelligence. The ape is intelligent, therefore knows fewer things by instinct than does the rat. It is not born with a knowledge of normal sex-behaviour, it must acquire this knowledge from its fellows.

Now if the simple sexuality of an ape is an affair of education, how much more so must be the complicated love-making of men and women ! Literature is their principal teacher. Even the most wildly passionate lovers have studied in that school.

Apart from literature there are exchanges that pass mouth to mouth, hand to hand ...

And so for day 460
17.03.2008