I. The Transforming of Instinctive into Conscious Impulses

GA 186/1918-12-13/p009 ·1918-12-13 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: unknown. How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.

Of course we must not make the objection: let us then rather go back to instinct! The conditions have changed and under the altered conditions instinct would no longer be the right thing. Mankind is in the course of evolution, and evolution consists in passing from instinct to conscious life with respect to all these things. The demand that we should return to the old instinct would be no wiser than if someone who had reached the age of fifty suddenly resolved to return to the age of twenty.

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Cite: GA 186/1918-12-13/p009 · edition English