The direction in which benefit shall lie must be determined by irrational impulse, but the attainment of benefit consists in crowning that impulse with its ideal achievement.
 George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905). copy citation

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Author George Santayana
Source The Life of Reason
Topic achievement impulse
Date 1905
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15000/15000-h/15000-h.htm

Context

“Conscious interests first justify and moralise the mechanisms they express. Eventual satisfactions, while their form and possibility must be determined by animal tendencies, alone render these tendencies vehicles of the good. The direction in which benefit shall lie must be determined by irrational impulse, but the attainment of benefit consists in crowning that impulse with its ideal achievement. Nature dictates what men shall seek and prompts them to seek it; a possibility of happiness is thus generated and only its fulfilment would justify nature and man in their common venture.
It is the seat of value.
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