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It is a fair guess that the average person holds one, or both, of two beliefs about hate. One is the moral view that it is a wrong which can be suppressed in favor of more altruistic impulse. And that failure, again and again, simply means that one has not tried religiously enough. I mention this view because it is so pervasive as to require at least psychological consideration. I venture that most psychologists pay it some tribute in their own lives, not wholly integrated with a quite different belief.
The other belief frankly accepts hate for normal and inevitable, either inherently or by virtue of environmental circumstances over which the individual has little or no control. The “inherent” theory sees hate as the working of an instinct to destroy which arises from the very roots of organic existence. This has been recognized, psychologically, to imply that it is useless to try to extirpate such an innate tendency; that we can only try to outsmart it into socially acceptable outlets. Since we cannot exorcise the demon we trick him into some civilized work. Butchery or surgery, for example, instead of chopping off heads.
The “environmental” theory sees hate as a natural defense reaction to a frustration of the hater's natural wants by some part of the environment, notably other human beings. I suppose the most optimistic environmentalist would concede that on this ever more crowded planet we shall be lucky if we do not keep on, increasingly, with such frustration. At least our effort to abate it is but remedial, with little better prognosis than if hating were inherent.
There is no doubt that each of these accounts, moral and psychological, yields returns up to a certain point.
Nevertheless we already know the limit of the more conscious moral approach. Sooner or later, any individual with psychic vitality is almost sure to have hate that he cannot suppress by effort or prayer. Certainly it will not be extinguished from the unconscious. It will crop up again as a stil