18th Century
"When barely out of college, John Adama declared to a friend that to understand human behavior one had to comprehend "the passions, appetites, and affections in nature" that drove humankind.
"An intimate knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral is the sole foundation of which a stable structure of knowledge can be erected."
The great lesson that Adamas derived from such knowledge was that humankind was given to corruption.
He came to see the species as driven by insatiable desires that led each person to search endlessly, selfishly, for happiness.
Adama believed that the forces of reason and emotion warred within the breast of each person.
Passion, greed, ambition, vanity, envy, and hatred stirred in every heart.
The first urge of humankind, he thought, was to ask how each act and every occurrence would "affect my Humour, my Interest, my....Designs."
Since the transgressions of Adam in the Garden of Eden he said, "Mankind in general has been given up to Strong Delusions, vile Affections, sordid Lusts, and brutal Appetites."
Yet he also acknowledged a brighter side to human nature.
Most persons cherished sociability and played out their lives seeking an equilibrium between the natural, competitive urges.
The struggle was never easy, for selfish egoism was insatiable."
(588)
