All the evidence that we have indicates that it is reasonable to assume in practically every human being, and certainly in almost every newborn baby, that there is an active will toward health, an impulse towards growth, or towards the actualization.

This statement reflects Maslow’s mid‑century development of humanistic psychology, especially his argument that people are not driven only by deficits, pathology, or external conditioning but also by inherent “growth” tendencies. In his writings on motivation and personality, Maslow repeatedly contrasts the medical/clinical focus on illness with a “positive” psychology attentive to healthy development. The reference to newborns underscores his claim that the impulse toward growth is primary and observable early in life, and that later dysfunction often results from frustration of basic needs and environmental conditions that block this innate movement toward health and self-actualization.

Maslow is asserting a core humanistic-psychology premise: that people are not merely driven by deficits, pathology, or external conditioning, but possess an intrinsic, organismic tendency toward health and development. By emphasizing “almost every newborn baby,” he frames this tendency as primary and universal—something present before culture, trauma, or social learning can distort it. The phrase “actualization” links the claim to his broader theory of self-actualization: growth is not an optional luxury but a basic directional impulse of human nature. The quote’s significance lies in its optimistic, normative stance: psychological practice and social institutions should remove obstacles to growth rather than assume people must be coerced into well-being.