If you would understand what human beings are born for, you first must understand what they're born as, and this is what I have dedicated myself to, to attempt to show that we are borne with the capacity to love. Look at any textbook on the nature of human nature and you won't find any mention of them. These are the need for love, about which we know very little, the need for creativity, the need for sensitivity, the need for learning, the need for the acquisition of knowledge, the need for play, for song, for dance, for curiosity, for imagination.Īll these are basic behavior needs, which are as much a part of our genetic system as the physical needs.

The extraordinary thing is that we're also born with basic behavioral needs.

These must be satisfied if we are to survive physically. We know that we're all born with physical needs, like the need for oxygen, for liquid, for rest, activity, sleep, and so on. We share a great many traits with other animals, yes, but those, which are exclusively human, we have to learn from others.

We have to learn everything we come to know as human beings. To be born human is to be in great danger because you are free of the instincts which largely determine the behavior of other animals. When you put intelligence and confusion together you really don't get intelligence, you get a terrible mess. 'Homo-Sap' is the appropriate definition at the present time, because he has become so confused as a creature, at the same time being the most intelligent. The species characteristic of homosapiens, which by the way is the most officiously arrogant and primitive definition ever self-bestowed by a species. All that early experience determined what I would become by way of solving this question, 'what are human beings born for?'

At the same time, I studied cultural anthropology and the history of science and medicine. I studied anatomy, embryology and zoology and the science of heredity. Trying to understand why women and men were as they were led to my book, The Natural Superiority of Women, why education wasn't what it should be led to my book Education and Human Nature in the Direction of Human Development, why aging isn't what it should be led to Growing Young, and so on. It always puzzled me - why human beings were the way they were.

Touching by Ashley Montagu