What dose this sentence mean?

[ghqiuyun]

I'm reading "The picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde and there's a sentence I don't understand:

"The mutilation of the savage has it's tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives."

I'll give you some context:

"I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream - I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal - to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has it's tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mins, and poisons us."

Could anyone help me?

[KenW]

"The mutilation of the savage has it's tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives."

This is talking about the violent behavior of primitive, uncivilized man. Over many years, as primitive man became modern and civilized, these undesirable violent traits changed form into self-denial, which the speaker views as equally damaging.