It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Instinct is intelligence incapable of self-consciousness.
Instinct is the nose of the mind.
We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts.
We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.
The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason.
Culture exists and evolves to relegate to habit categories of interactions the constant conscious reference to which would make human interaction impossible.
I don't believe civilization can do a lot more than educate a person's senses.
We inhabit a world where we're taught that we can have what we desire, and tend to act on it - the least we can do is admit to it when we succumb to our instincts.
Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.