Stages of Human Nature

"the more profoundly a man thinks, the more tenderly he feels, the more highly he

rates himself, the greater the distance grows between him and the other animals- the

more he appears as the genius among the animals-the closer he will get to the true

nature of the world and to a knowledge of it: this he does in fact do through science."

~Friedrich Nietzsche1

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Stages of Human Nature

Throughout history, human beings have encountered many changes that have altered the way society has viewed them. The cruel hands of history, which constantly hold the foundation of the mind and the spirit, have shaped human nature. Knowledge is the tool by which these hands create different views and mold new beliefs. Human nature is the product of history and is always at the mercy of the fruits of knowledge, such as new philosophies and scientific discoveries. These ideologies have redefined social institutions and changed their methods of dealing with the individual person through new understanding. History has the power to enhance the nature of human beings, and to destroy it. In some instances, the good of the individual is stressed, while at other times, the individual nature is lost in the shuffle of politics, governments, and the selfish interests of the strong. Although human nature has been dragged through the mud of the past, it still gains from history a sense of itself and its environment. Human nature has gone through several different stages in the course of history, and it has been defined and redefined through different social institutions and selfish individuals in power. Karl Jaspers in a discussion on the philosopher Friedrich...

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...ated and changed throughout history.

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Works Cited

1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, trans. R.J. Hollingdale

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986),27

2 Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of his Philosophical

Activity, trans. Charles F. Wallraff and Frederick J. Schmitz (Tuscon: The University

of Arizona Press, 1965), 231

3 Perry M. Rogers, Aspects of Western Civilization Problems and Sources in History,

Third Edition, Volume II. (Uppersaddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992), 23

4 Rogers, Aspects of Western Civilization, 80

5 Rogers, Aspects of Western Civilization, 141

6 Rogers, Aspects of Western Civilization, 540

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