Even since I was old enough to read books on philosophy, I have been intrigued by the discussions on the nature of man. The philosophers have been debating for years about whether man is primarily good or primarily evil, whether he is primarily altruistic or selfish, co-operative orpetitive, gregarious or self-centered, whether he enjoys free will or whether everything is predetermined.
As far back as the Socratic dialogues in Plato, and even before that, man has been baffled about himself. He knows he is capable of great and noble deeds, but then he is oppressed with the evidence of great wrongdoing.
And so he wonders. I don’t presume to be able to resolve the contradictions. In fact I don’t think we have to. It seems to me that the debate over good and evil in man, over free will and determinism, and over all the other contradictions—that this debate is a futile one. For man is a creature of dualism. He is both good and evil, both altruistic and selfish. He enjoys free will to the extent that he can make decisions in life, but he can’t change his chemistry or his relatives or his physical endowments—all o