" No matter how you civilised it, the body remained somewhat wild, or savage, or natural. It had to keep up its animal functions, or die. It could never be fully tamed, fully controlled. Even plants, Luis learned from listening to Hsing’s father, however manipulated to serve their symbiotic functions, were not totally predictable or obedient; and the bacteria populations came up constantly with “wild” breeds, possibly dangerous mutations. The only things that could be perfectly controlled were inanimate, the matter of the world, the elements and compounds, solid, liquid, or gas, and the artifacts made from them.
What about the controller, the civiliser itself, the mind? Was it civilised? Did it control itself? "
― Ursula K. Le Guin , The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (Hainish Cycle, #9)
