Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind, and

Host: The night was thick with mist, the kind that turned every streetlight into a halo, every shadow into a ghost. The city lay half-awake, half-dreaming, as the rain whispered against the pavement. Through that silver curtain, a small bar glowed on the corner — its sign flickering, its door creaking every time someone sought shelter from the world outside.

Inside, the air was warm, heavy with the scent of whiskey and woodsmoke. A record player murmured some forgotten jazz tune, low and tired. At the far end of the counter, Jack sat with a half-empty glass, his grey eyes staring at the amber reflection. Jeeny entered quietly, her coat damp, her dark hair glistening with rain. She moved toward him with that same quiet certainty, as if the world around her was a soft, living thought.

Host: The bartender glanced once, then turned away. It was a night for unfinished sentences and unspoken truths.

Jeeny: “Do you remember Amos Bronson Alcott?” she asked softly, settling into the stool beside him. “He once said, ‘Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind, and finds the readiest response.’”

Jack: “Ah,” he muttered, swirling his drink, “one of those idealists who thought people had a divine compass. Instincts, Jeeny, are just animal impulses dressed in poetry. You can’t trust them. They built tribes, not civilizations.”

Jeeny: “But maybe,” she said, “it’s those instincts that kept civilization alive. Compassion. Fear. Desire. The instinct to protect, to love, to belong. Aren’t those the roots of everything that makes us human?”

Jack: “Instincts make us react, not reflect,” he countered. “A mob can be moved by instinct just as easily as by reason — maybe even more easily. Look at any war. Instinct made men follow flags instead of truth.”

Host: The light from the bar flickered across his face, cutting it into sharp angles — half illumined, half shadowed. Jeeny’s eyes, soft yet unflinching, held him like a mirror.

Jeeny: “But those men weren’t following their true instincts, Jack. They were following fear, pride, ego — instincts twisted by lies. Alcott spoke of the deepest instincts, not the loudest. The ones that tell us to hold a child, to reach for another’s hand, to flinch at cruelty. Those are the truths beneath reason.”

Jack: “You make instinct sound like morality. It’s not. It’s survival, Jeeny. Evolution’s leftover script — eat, mate, defend. Civilization exists because we learned to silence that inner animal.”

Jeeny: “Did we silence it?” she asked, her voice steady but soft. “Or just forget how to listen to it? You talk about survival, but isn’t empathy a survival tool too? How do you think we made it through ages of darkness — alone?”

Jack: “No,” he said, shaking his head. “We made it through with tools, not tears. With fire, not faith. The moment we started thinking beyond instinct, we became human.”

Jeeny: “And yet,” she said, leaning forward, “thinking alone didn’t save us. When the bomb fell on Hiroshima, it wasn’t instinct that dropped it — it was intellect without empathy. Instinct would’ve screamed: Don’t.”

Host: The jazz record skipped, then found its rhythm again, a low hum echoing through the room. Outside, the rain intensified — a steady rhythm, like the heartbeat of something ancient, waiting to be remembered.

Jack: “You’re confusing instinct with conscience,” he said. “Animals don’t have morality. They act. That’s all.”

Jeeny: “But that’s exactly the point,” she replied, her eyes glowing with conviction. “They act in harmony with life. They don’t destroy for pleasure. Their instincts keep the balance we’ve forgotten. Somewhere, we learned to think — and unlearned how to feel.”

Host: Jack took a slow breath, his fingers tapping the glass, a faint tremor betraying the storm inside.

Jack: “You really think instinct is truth? That the gut knows better than the mind?”

Jeeny: “Not better,” she said, “but deeper. Instinct is the first language — the one before words. You can’t explain why you trust someone, or why you know when something’s wrong — you just feel it. That’s the voice Alcott meant. The one beneath civilization’s noise.”

Jack: “And how do you tell it apart from delusion?” he asked. “From bias, fear, manipulation?”

Jeeny: “By listening longer,” she said. “By quieting the mind until what’s left is pure — the pulse beneath the argument. The same instinct that made Gandhi refuse to fight, that made Rosa Parks stay seated. Those weren’t impulses, Jack. They were instincts of truth.”

Host: Her words hung in the smoke-filled air, shimmering like the heat above a candle flame. Jack’s jaw tightened, his eyes flickering between resistance and awe.

Jack: “You think history’s saints were instinctual?” he said, a hint of irony in his voice. “They weren’t following their guts. They were following ideas — principles — logic wrapped in morality.”

Jeeny: “And where did those principles come from?” she asked quickly. “Do you think compassion was invented in a book? It rose from the same place as hunger and love — instinct. The knowing that another’s pain is your own.”

Host: A long pause followed. Jack’s hand hovered over his glass, then dropped to the bar. He looked down, the light glinting off the whiskey like molten gold.

Jack: “Maybe,” he said quietly, “but instincts also tell men to kill when they’re threatened. To dominate. To destroy what they fear. That’s in us too.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she admitted, “and that’s why reflection exists — not to erase instinct, but to guide it. The mind and the heart aren’t enemies, Jack. They’re halves of the same map. Reason without instinct is cold navigation. Instinct without reason is a storm. Together… they make direction.”

Host: The rain softened outside, falling now like silver threads, delicate and continuous. Inside, the bar’s lights dimmed, casting a kind of sacred stillness.

Jack: “So you think the soul listens through instinct?”

Jeeny: “I think the soul speaks through it,” she said. “Every act of art, every revolution, every prayer — all begin in instinct. The moment before reason, when something in you knows it must move.”

Jack: “And yet that same something has led people to ruin,” he murmured.

Jeeny: “Then maybe ruin is just what happens when we mistake fear for instinct,” she said softly. “Real instinct is love in motion.”

Host: A silence fell — not empty, but brimming, like the pause before dawn. Jack’s eyes met hers, and something in him shifted — not in belief, but in recognition.

Jack: “You always talk about love as if it’s a science,” he said, half-smiling.

Jeeny: “Maybe it is,” she replied. “Just one we’ve forgotten how to measure.”

Host: The record ended. The needle lifted with a faint click. The rain stopped, leaving behind the soft echo of dripping gutters and distant footsteps.

Jack looked toward the window, where the streetlight glow rippled across the wet glass.

Jack: “Maybe Alcott was right,” he said finally. “When you speak to instinct, you speak to what’s left when everything else has fallen away. That’s why people respond — because it’s the one language we all still understand.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said, her smile faint but warm, “and it’s the language we’re born fluent in — before the world teaches us to forget.”

Host: The lamplight swayed, brushing across their faces — one shadowed by doubt, the other lit by quiet faith. The bar clock ticked, slow and steady.

Outside, the clouds parted, revealing a pale moon trembling over the city, its light spilling across the puddles like liquid glass.

Host: And there, beneath that fragile, eternal glow, the world seemed to breathe again — instinctively, deeply, alive.