Human aggression
Sir: Christopher Booker's funda- mentalist review of Dr Storr's Hu- man Aggression, which would be more suitable for the pages of The Voice of Prophecy, begins with the myth of Cain and Abel as estab- lished fact and takes the author to task for the proposition that we need our aggression. Of course we
need our aggression as much as the Church needs the Devil. Aggres- sion, as a manifestation of the will, is the motivating factor in the history of evolution from the kill- ing of the sabre-toothed tiger to the assault with antibiotics on other forms of life. Aggression becomes something else when it is self- destructive.
The only harmony not governed by the ego is when the ego is nega- ted, or to use a Christian quotation 'Not my will but Thine be done', which takes us into the realms of quietism, always an -uneasy place for Soldiers of the Cross.
Thomas Spiers 7 Harmsworth Street, Kennington Park, London sE17
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