e incident to every living machine and are the
motor forces that impel the organism. They do not think. They act, and
act at once. All the mind can do is to place some restraint on such
instincts and emotions through experience, education and settled habits.
If the actions are never inhibited, the machine will tear itself to
pieces. If too easily inhibited, it will do no work. It is manifest that
the perfect machine does not exist.

Man is moved by his instinct of flight and his emotion of fear, which
are set in motion by apprehended dangers and by unaccustomed sights or
sounds. Terror sometimes becomes so intense that it prevents flight and
brings convulsions and death. It is idle to reason with one in terror.
It is idle to reason with a mob in terror or a nation in terror. One
might as well expect to calm a tempestuous sea with soft words.

The instinct of repulsion brings hatred and dislike and, combined with
the instinct of pugnacity, may lead to crimes of violence. When these
instincts are strong enough, the weak and superficial barriers cannot
stand against them. An electrical flash showing the scaffold with the
noose above it would have no force to stop an instinct and emotion fully
aroused. Through seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting or smelling, some
instinct is called into action. Many times several conflicting instincts
are aroused. The man is like a tree bent back and forth by the storm. If
the storm is hard enough, sooner or later it will break. Which way the
tree falls has nothing to do with the consciousness of the tree, but has
to do only with the direction of the prevailing and controlling force.

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