If the entire human species were a single individual, that person would long ago have been declared mad. The insanity would not lie in the {{U}}(1) {{/U}} of the human mind—though it can be a black and raging place indeed. And it certainly wouldn't lie in the {{U}}(2) {{/U}}. The madness would lie instead in the fact that both of those qualities, the savage and the splendid, can exist in one creature, one person, {{U}}(3) {{/U}}.
We're a species that is capable of almost dumbfounding kindness. We nurse one another, {{U}}(4) {{/U}}, weep for one another. Ever since science taught us how, we willingly tear the {{U}}(5) {{/U}} and give them to one another. And at the same time, we {{U}}(6) {{/U}}. The past 15 years of human history are {{U}}(7) {{/U}} of those subatomic particles that are created in accelerators and {{U}}(8) {{/U}}, but in that fleeting instant, we've visited untold horrors on ourselves. As the {{U}}(9) {{/U}} species the planet has produced, we're also the lowest, cruelest, most blood-drenched species. That's {{U}}(10) {{/U}}.
What does, or ought to, separate human beings with other species is our highly developed {{U}}(11) {{/U}}, a primal understanding of good and bad, of right and wrong, of what it means to suffer not only our own pain, but also the pain of others. That quality is {{U}}(12) {{/U}} of what it means to be human. Why it's an essence that so often spoils, no one can say.
Morality may be a hard concept to grasp, but {{U}}(13) {{/U}}. Psychologists believe even kids can feel the difference between a matter of morality and one of {{U}}(14) {{/U}} innately. Of course, the fact is that a child will sometimes hit and won't feel particularly bad about it either—unless he's caught. The same is true {{U}}(15) {{/U}} or despots who slaughter. The rules we know, even the ones we intuitively feel, are by no means {{U}}(16) {{/U}}.
Where do those intuitions come from? And {{U}}(17) {{/U}} about following where they lead us? Scientists can't yet answer those questions, but that hasn't {{U}}(18) {{/U}}. Brain scans are providing clues. Animal studies are providing more. {{U}}(19) {{/U}} are providing still more. None of this research may make us behave better, not right away at least. But all of it can help us understand ourselves— {{U}}(20) {{/U}} perhaps, but an important one.