/lit/ - Literature

But it follows from what has been said that consciousness and conflict with oneself are inextricably bound up together. This conclusion, which sounds somewhat paradoxical to ordinary thought, may be easily verified by reference to the utterances of the wisest men of all nations and ages; that is to the unanimous opinion of those individuals whose lives—within that brief flash of time which we can survey—have represented the most powerful chisel-strokes upon the human form, and who therefore, if our idea is right, will have borne the lion’s share of that conflict, that resistance of the inherited form to its transformation.

As a typical example, in which we can see particularly clearly that self-control means the conquest of inherited ancestral characteristics, I will remind the reader of the passage in chapter VI which describes the reactions of a civilised man to an insult, and I suggest that it should be read again at this point. Notice particularly the condition of exceptionally intense consciousness—usually called excitement—which accompanies the process, and which quite obviously connects with the fact that an inner conflict is taking place. For the man who is so fortunate in his temperament as not to have this atavistic tension at his throat will get much less excited on such an occasion—but so will the man who follows the ancestral advice without more ado and simply knocks his opponent flat.