Further, how would man react if he did get rid of these instincts? Would all of his ambitions, his freedom, his forces, his imagination be gone? Or would they be better? Would he have more imagination and more freedom and more power and strength and better health if these instincts were gone? That question has to be answered too.
It is all very well to have a lot of theories. Theories are wonderful things. As long as you don’t have phenomena, you can have all the theories you want to. That is a rule in engineering. You get a theory and then you try to apply the thing, and if it doesn’t apply to the physical universe you throw it out and get another theory.
Unfortunately, the field of the mind has been able to accumulate a terrific number of theories without running into any phenomena to prove or disprove them.
If we have a theory about this brutal instinct, we had certainly better find out if it is a good theory or a bad theory; if it is provable, if the phenomena is there.
Unless you have phenomena to back this up, unless you can weigh and measure these things – and measure them accurately – they still remain in a big state of “up in the air.”15 Who has any authority to say what theory is valid? Nobody has any authority to say what theory is valid.
If man were found to be good and free when the instinct was lifted, and if he could reach inside of himself and lift this instinct to kill and to be brutal and savage, then you could solve the problem.
I hate such words as instincts because they are a big indefiniteness. Can you measure an instinct with amperes16 and watts?17 Can you feel one and see one? Yes, you can. We can now measure them in amperes and watts, look at them, sort them, tell you how long they are and how wide they are and how thick they are. Can we eradicate them from the mind? Yes, just like you would burn up a piece of cloth.
Continued...
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