"There are--so to speak--checks and balances--compensations--counterinstincts. That's the idea embodied in Chinese philosophy. In Taoism, for example. That's the concept symbolized by the yin and the yang. It's the idea embodied in Toynbee's theory of history, too--right up till the present, when his own ego confuses its own description of instinct with history. At that point, Toynbee decided that the Church of England--his personal patternization of instinct--might salvage civilization. Which, of course, is pathetic. But let's drag this bundle a little bit further before we drop it and go back to you. If all animals have a proper pattern of instinct--man has. But man is to some extent conscious--and therefore to some degree able to separate out a personal identity of himself--an ego--from the older, more powerful compulsions and countercompulsions of his instinct. And he has used his consciousness--largely--not to maintain and enhance the liaison between his ego and the forces that drive him statistically forever--but to swell up his ego and to conceal from it those fundamental forces." "I don't understand that." "Well--man tries to deny he's an animal. Or to hide the fact. To call everything that is animal subhuman. To call every success he makes his own achievement. To call every disaster no fault of his own. Because he is conscious--he has slowly learned to extend the physical capacities of every kind of animal--for his own, immediate benefits. He has telescope-microscope-X-ray eyes. He has atomic energy muscles. Brighter light at night than the fireflies. He can fly faster than any bird--speed through the water faster than any fish--store food for decades when a ruminant or a pelican can store it only for days. He has even developed quite a few techniques that have no good animal correlative, though most of man's inventions were made ages before even apes appeared on the planet. Man has merely learned. But he tells himself he discovered and invented. It gives him a preposterous arrogance. And that's largely what he has used consciousness to swell up." "We just skip his ideals--and philosophies--?"