The functions of body, on which life is founded, do not depend upon reason. The heart begins to beat before birth; it continues to beat until the end of life. The reason has nothing to do with the heart performing its function. Man goes to sleep at night confident that it will still be beating in the morning. The blood circulates in the veins independent of the thoughts of man. The digestive processes go on whether he sleeps or is awake. Many of his muscles never rest from birth to death. Life could not be preserved through the intellectual processes.
Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion. These instincts and emotions are incident to every living machine and are the motor forces that impel the organism. They do not think. They act, and act at once. All the mind can do is to place some restraint on such instincts and emotions through experience, education and settled habits. If the actions are never inhibited, the machine will tear itself to pieces. If too easily inhibited, it will do no work. It is manifest that the perfect machine does not exist.
Man is moved by his instinct of flight and his emotion of fear, which are set in motion by apprehended dangers and by unaccustomed sights or sounds. Terror sometimes becomes so intense that it prevents flight and brings convulsions and death. It is idle to reason with one in terror. It is idle to reason with a mob in terror or a nation in terror. One might as well expect to calm a tempestuous sea with soft words.
The instinct of repulsion brings hatred and dislike and, combined with the instinct of pugnacity, may lead to crimes of violence. When these instincts are strong enough, the weak and superficial barriers cannot stand against them. An electrical flash showing the scaffold with the noose above it would have no force to stop an instinct and emotion fully aroused. Through seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting or smelling, some instinct is called into action. Many times several conflicting instincts are aroused. The man is like a tree bent back and forth by the storm. If the storm is hard enough, sooner or later it will break. Which way the tree falls has nothing to do with the consciousness of the tree, but has to do only with the direction of the prevailing and controlling force.