Passage-2
Throughout the ages of human development, men have been subject to miseries of two kinds: those imposed by external nature, and those that human beings misguidedly inflicted upon each other. In our own day, our bondage to external nature is fast diminishing as a result of the growth of scientific intelligence. Famines and pestilences still occur, but we know better, year by year, what should be done to prevent them. Hard work is still necessary, but only because we are unwise: given peace and cooperation, we could subsist on a very moderate amount of toil. With existing techniques, we can, whenever we choose to exercise wisdom, be free of many ancient forms of bondage to external nature. But the evils that men inflict upon each other have not diminished in the same degree. There are still wars, oppressions, and hideous cruelties, and greedy men still snatch wealth from those who are less skillful or less ruthless than themselves. Love of power still leads to vast tyrannies or to mere obstruction when its grosser forms are impossible. And fear—deep, scarcely conscious fear—is still the dominant motive in very many lives. We shall not create a good world by trying to make men tame and timid, but by encouraging them to be bold and adventurous and fearless except in inflicting injuries upon their fellow-men. In the world in which we find ourselves, the possibilities of good are almost limitless, and the possibilities of evil no less so. Our present predicament is due more than anything else to the fact that we have learned to understand and control to a terrifying extent the forces of nature outside us, but not those that are embodied in ourselves
According to the passage, what is the primary reason for the persistence of human-inflicted miseries?
