The instinct of gregariousness draws animals or men together into
communities and close relations. This is one of the strongest instincts
and not only preserves life but is fundamental to those human
associations that are the basis of civilization. Except for this,
animals would live a lonely life and probably perish from the earth.
Through this instinct, man builds his villages and cities and organizes
his states and nations. With the gregarious instinct and the parental
instinct drawing men together, and the instincts and emotions of flight,
fear and pugnacity, repelling and pushing them apart, conflict is
inevitable. All that can be done is to create and cultivate as strong
habits, customs and laws as possible to stand against the power of
instinct and emotion in time of need, and to remove the main inciting
causes so far as man has the intelligence and power to remove them. It
is evident that this can never be complete. There are too many weak
machines, too many defective nervous systems, too many badly organized
brains. Accidents are inevitable, and some accidents are called
"crimes." When the accident is international or world-wide, it means
war. Those who believe that there is any power to stop all the harmful
manifestations of man's instincts, either individually or _en masse_, do
not understand the fundamental nature of man.
Many and probably all instincts work both for good and ill. Flight,
pugnacity, repulsion, sex--all are life-preserving or life-destroying,
as the case may be. A certain degree of excitation brings life and
pleasure. A stronger or weaker may bring calamity and death. The
parental instinct, with the instinct of reproduction, is fundamental to
life. It is the basis of tenderness and sympathy, and is likewise the
foundation of jealousy and often of hatred and pugnacity. At one time it
may mean the deepest and most abiding pleasures of life, and at another
it may bring death. Life cannot exist without it, and yet, that it may
persist, Nature seriously overloads many machines with disastrous
results. History is replete with the helplessness of reason and judgment
in dealing with these emotions. Neither when they act for good nor for
ill can reason and judgment have the slightest weight when these
instincts and emotions are stirred to the depths.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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