Boltzmann on reason and passion

Read what have to say great scientists, historical figures or artists on contemporary problems, popular culture or on the little things in life can be either worrisome, such as the recent comment by the co-discoverer of DNA saying that black people are less intelligent, or charming such as L. Boltzmann, the great scientist from the late 19th century, commenting on our everyday struggle between reason and passion.

Far from defending a pure rational behavior, L. Boltzmann not only accepts the human weakness of reacting instinctively but also recognizes that at times instinct can very much enlight people's life. L. Boltzmann writes:

"How far removed we are from pure rational grounds being the motives of all our actions! The innermost impulses to action mostly still arise from innate drives and passions, that is from instincts germinating within us without our concurrence, which do indeed become harmful and reprehensible if dominating the intellect, but nevertheless are necessary to lend our actions liveliness and our character its peculiar colouring. The machinery of the world maintains itself, as Schiller says, «today, as ever, by hunger and love, and the time is as yet far off when philosophy will hold the universal circuit together»."

Ludwig Boltzmann, On the principles of mechanics, in Theoretical physics and philosophical problems

Such observation has been made over and over during History. For instance, during the Thirty Years War, Sweden chancellor expressed it as followed:

"Nesci, mi fili, quantilla ratione mundus regatur"
"you don't know, my dear boy, with what little reason the world is governed"

cited by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in General system theory.