the notion of self-awareness and individual achievement was , thus , an illusion necessary toward instinctive ends , which seemed mutually beneficial ( perhaps even essential ) , both to the individual entity and to nature itself , but which were , above all else , solely essential to nature ( the individual entity was , in actuality , manipulated by his instinctual drives in such a way as to consider his own ends to be unique and driven by his own personality , his initiative , his ego , his esteem , his principles , his passionbut in fact , he was just as mechanical as the mechanisms his existence served ) .