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^ARISTOTLE'S MORALS AND POLITICS 115
motive forces of human nature are the instincts. We have
instincts to behave in certain ways. We act in order to
satisfy our instincts! and, without the prompting of an
instinct seeking its satisfaction, we can neither act nor think*
"The instincts," says Professor McDougall, "are the
prime movers of all human activity; by the conative or
impulsive force of some instinct every train of thought,
however cold and passionless it may seem, is borne along
towards its end ... all the complex intellectual apparatus
of the most highly developed mind is but the instrument
by which these impulses
away these instinctive dispositions, with their powerful
mechanisms, and the organism would become incapable
of activity of any kind; it would be inert and motionless,
seek their satisfaction . . . Take
like a wonderful piece of clockwork whose mainspring
had been removed.'*
On this view, then, the instincts play a part analogous
to that of the unconscious in Freud's theory. Even if we
admit that there is in our mental make-up a separate,
independent something called the will, it remains in*
operative, unless the urge of instinct brings it into play.
Unless, therefore, we are impelled to use the will to suppress
an unruly desire, we cannot in fact suppress it. Now
the drive or impulsion to use the will for this purpose is,
like our other drives to action, an occurrence which is
fundamentally instinctive in character, and neither for
this occurrence nor for its strength when it occurs, can we
be held responsible.
What happens is that we are aware at the same time
of two different urges or promptings to action. The first
takes the form of an unruly self-regarding desire; the
second is a determination to suppress the xinruly desire
in the interests of the good of the whole. If the desire is
stronger than the determination, there will be a failure
in what we call will, and we shall be said in common
parlance to "give way to our desire". If the determination
as stronger than the desire, we shall perform what is called
an act of self-denial. This act of self-denial, however,