A Record of Meetings held by P.D. Ouspensky - HolyBooks.com

MISS A . Would the higher type of man feel the need to express himselfin art forms?MR. O. It depends on many other things.MISS A . Would he preserve his instincts intact, or would they becomesublimated or would they fall away?MR. O. That depends what you call instincts. For a long time you havethought wrongly about this question of instincts. Will you explainwhat you mean by this word?MISS A . Well, self-preservation, the sexual instinct. . . .MR. O. That is too general What else?MISS A . Running away from danger, for instance.MR O. This is not instinct. That is why I wanted you to make it clearwhat you meant We call instinctive only the inner work of theorganism. Self-preservation as an instinct is more literature than actualfact. Particularly in man, there are many kinds of intellectual ideaswhich enter into it. About higher type of man we cannot say, as we arenot higher type of man, but we know anyway that we do not use allinstinctive centre as it can be used, so in higher development a manwill have more instincts than we have, not less.MISS A . I find it very hard to reconcile the existence of carnivora with'plan'.MR. O. In thinking about plan, we put too many of our own ideas intoit. Why are carnivora worse than other beings? Why do you mentionthem particularly?MISS A . I do not think they are worse, but I think the idea of creatingcarnivora is hard to understand. Why create one form of life if it is tobe preyed on by another?MR. O But why do you mention this particular form?MISS A . Because the point about life seems to be that it is living, notthat it should be eaten.MR. O The whole principle is that one form eats another, that nothingexists without eating something else.MISS A . But what about herbivora?MR. O. They eat plants. There is no difference. All things passing intoanother without interruption or change of plan.MISS A . But was it meant to be like that or is it a sort of distortion ofthe plan?MR O. We have no right to speak of distortion. We have to take it as