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OSMANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Call No. V^ 2 - 1 & G ?- H Accession No. jfc. I V V
Author V3<ndUl9UA. K\>xt
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Title J^-"Uvv v (>Ar*^xIu/><i .
This book should be returned on *r before the date last marked below.
THE WILLIAM JAMES LECTURES
DELIVERED AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
1938-1939
HUMAN NATURE
IN THE LIGHT OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
BY
KURT GOLDSTEIN
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1951
COPYRIGHT, 1940
BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE
THIRD PRINTING
Distributed in Great Britain by
CLOFFRhY CUMBERLEGK
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRKSS
LONDON
PRINThI) IN 1HK UNITKD STAIKb OF AMKRK'A
To
EVA R.-G.
Was kann ich wissen?
Was soil ich tun?
Was darf ich hoffen?
Was ist der Mensch?
KANT
PREFACE
MEDICAL experience in the past ten years has pointed
very clearly to the fact that disease cannot be conn
sidered simply a localized disturbance in the function
of circumscribed parts of the organism. More and
more evidence of the involvement of the entire organ-
ism has been found, and most physicians are now
well aware of the importance of changes of person-
ality to be found in sick people. Through my own
experience with patients with brain injuries I have
come to see that not merely therapy but diagnosis as
well demands a preliminary consideration of the
patient's personality and the changes in it as a result
of disease. The readjustment required by those who
have brain diseases, which must be set in motion by
the therapist, is possible only on the basis of a study
of the afflicted individual as a whole. But this study
cannot be limited to the individual proper. The
individual has to live in and adapt himself to a milieu
constituted by other human beings. In consequence,
even in pathology, one is forced to reflect upon the
fundamentals of social relationship. This means, in
principle, that the problem of human nature has to
enter the scope of the physician and that the thought-
ful doctor can scarcely avoid drawing conclusions
concerning the nature of man. The invitation to
deliver the William James Lectures in 1938-39 gave
viii PREFACE
me a welcome opportunity to survey anew the much-
scattered data on this subject, bring them together,
and find for them a more systematic evaluation. This
book is the outcome of those lectures. In another
book of mine, The Organism, I endeavored to de-
velop the basic methodology for studying organismic
behavior, and there I made use of facts drawn from
my experience chiefly as illustrations of the method
proposed. Here, however, what I am striving for is
a systematic interpretation of all these facts with
reference to a conception of the nature of man.
The publication of these lectures permits me to
express once more my deep appreciation and grati-
tude for the honor and privilege which the Division
of Philosophy and Psychology at Harvard Univer-
sity bestowed upon me in inviting me to deliver
them. The hospitality and friendship with which
the Department of Psychology received me made
the time I spent in Emerson Hall an unforgettable
one, especially to be cherished in these times of
intolerance and disintegration.
I should like to thank Miss Bella Sack for her
careful typing of the manuscript, the Harvard Uni-
versity Press for the care and thought given to
improving the English and making it more readable,
and my co-worker, Dr. Martin Scheerer, for his
untiring assistance to me in the elaboration of the
lectures.
K. G.
JANUARY, 1940
CONTENTS
I. THE HOLISTIC APPROACH AND THE AN-
ALYTIC METHOD IN SCIENCE ... 3
William James and the modern approach. The
increasing interest in the problem of the nature
of man. The holistic approach. The nervous
system and its functioning. "Isolation" in ex-
periment and in pathology. The problem of
cognition in biology.
II. PATHOLOGY AND THE NATURE OF MAN . 34
The abstract attitude in patients with lesions of
the brain cortex.
III. THE ABSTRACT ATTITUDE AND SPEECH . 69
Amnesic aphasia and the problem of the meaning
of words.
IV. ORDERED AND CATASTROPHIC BEHAVIOR!
ANXIETY AND FEAR 85
V. COMING TO TERMS WITH THE WORLD . I2O
Adaptation of abnormal persons to defects. Or-
dered and disordered behavior. The catastrophic
situation and the phenomenon of anxiety. Pro-
tection against catastrophic situations. The en-
suing shrinkage of the world of the abnormal
person. The role of anxiety in normal life.
VI. ON THE MOTIVES ACTUATING HUMAN
BEHAVIOR ISO
Reflexes, instincts, drives. Psychoanalysis and
the holistic approach. Consciousness and non-
conscious phenomena.
x CONTENTS
VII. ON THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY .
Preferred performances: the constants of person-
ality. Personality, experience, and milieu.
VIII. THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS . . . 2OI
Self-actualization, self-restriction, and aggres-
sion The individual and the "we." The indi-
vidual and society. Habits, customs, institutions.
Pseudo-social organization and the sickness of
society.
IX. THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION 77 IN SOCIAL
PHILOSOPHY 224
Effect of hypostatization of an isolated trait of
human nature. Skepticism, hedonism, egoism.
The biologist and the physical scientist. The
physician and the educator. The holistic ap-
proach and civilization.
NOTES 241
INDEX 251
HUMAN NATURE
IN THE LIGHT OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH AND THE
ANALYTIC METHOD IN SCIENCE
PERHAPS the most distinctive feature of the nine-
teenth century is the amazing increase during that
period of detailed scientific knowledge in various
fields, acquired through an admirable use of what
we may call the "atomistic" method.* The accumu-
lation of so many thousands of facts brought an im-
mense enrichment and refinement into the organiza-
tion of the world, and in many ways made life easier,
but it was followed by appalling complications in
human existence. Along with the immense speciali-
zation of the sciences there occurred a marked dis-
integration of the life of the individual. Increasing
rationalization and systematization produced a cha-
otic state which forced the human being into an
existence that became more and more unsuited to his
nature. The high development of science and tech-
nology was, of course, only the expression of a certain
stage of cultural and economic development, but it
was a very characteristic expression and in its turn
* This term is intended to designate any method which uses a
dissecting procedure* and tries to derive laws from the parts studied.
The term "atomistic" will be used interchangeably with "analytic"
and "dissecting."
4 HUMAN NATURE
exerted a strong influence on cultural and economic
conditions.
Among those who early recognized the fatal con-
sequences of the scientific approach to human living
was William James, and his entire thinking was
directed toward finding a more satisfactory basis for
the conduct of life. Throughout his philosophical
work the question of the relation between life and
knowledge was fundamental. Concerning the an-
swer, he had no doubt. Knowledge for him had
meaning only if a better practical life could be based
upon it./ That he considered mind as something that
has use and that can be defined only from this point
of view is very characteristic of his approach to
thinking.
From such a point of view, he analyzed the process
of knowledge and came to stress the importance of
"belief," in addition to scientific reasoning, as a
special source from which truth may arise. As Ralph
Barton Perry has clearly shown in his book, In the
Spirit of William James (New Haven, 1938), James
realized that scientific knowledge is based ulti-
mately on some creed, a creed which is the more
significant because it eventually provides the basis
upon which all action can be predicated. And the
rationale of practical action was, for James, the
final goal of 'knowledge.
This is not the place to evaluate the conclusions
James drew from his appraisal of belief. We cer-
tainlv cannot follow him in all his inferences as.
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 5
for example, when he was induced to give a special
account of the phenomena of what is called psychic
research. We must pay homage, however, to the
fact that he tried both to sefluiowledge free and to
free human existence from the strait-jacket of merely
analyzing, anatomizing, and rationalizing, by which
science and life were governed in his time. He
threw into relief(jthe holistic point of view from
which alone he found human life understandable,
and thus disclosed the whole complexity of concrete
human existence./ In this respect he stands in line
with philosophers like Dilthey, Bergson, Whitehead,
and Dewey. In his aim of concreteness, and in his
emphasis on the holistic point of view, he was a
forerunner of the Gestalt psychologists, of such biolo-
gists as Child, Coghill, Herrick, and Lashley, of
psychiatrists like Adolf Meyer and Trigant Burrow,
and finally of that approach through which I myself
have attempted to treat medicine, psychology, and
biology. 1
To the physician, the need for emphasis upon the
practical is clearly evident. Even in his theoretical
considerations, it is natural for him to be drawn in a
practical direction, because the problem of healing
is the very heart of his activity. In the_apprpach
toward healing^
^ .
witlfthe innumerable single phenomena , in disease;
weToiow t^]Sese_phenomena are not Jlie essentials
)f the disease. More and more we approach the con-
/ictionfthatThe essential element of disease is the
6 HUMAN NATURE
shock to the existence ofjthe individual caused by
the^Stobance^oTthe well-regulated^functioning ol
tl^^rganj^mjbj^ disease. 'iTTestorattofflTbut of the
question ,(the only goaTof tjiejphysidan is to provide
tEe patient with theTpossibility of existing in spite
pf his defect. 2 ] Tojo this one has to consider each
single symptom in termsjrfjts funcHonaT significance
fqiTftie total personality of the patient. ThusTit is
Dbviouslyjiecgssary for thejphysician to know the
organism as a whole, the^ total personality^ jTHs
he change which this
_ through disease.jJThe whole or-
ganism, the individual human being, becomes the
:enter of interest.
Naturally one cannot fail to observe that a true
insight into the condition of the individual is to bg
gained jmlyjfj[di^ part
}f the wholejpf natur^particularly of the humaii
socie^lto which it belongsPMany manifesfatiras of
Ssease can be ui^erstood^niyTn^the light of their
social origin antTcan^be eliminated ^mljTby consider-
ing tKis ommTSuch a view leads to the study of the
.j-^-- -- - s-^~/~"^ S\^~ --- - ' - " ^ ' *^ ' ^-*~*^~ --- ^~-
interrelationships between the individual and society,
he differences betwecnjjations aji^peopl^s, ami the
/anatfons in Individuals ^hemselves.
All these questions have brought the problem of
Jie nature of man to the fore. Since the end of the
ast century this problem has gained more and more
ii general interest. Following a period of relative
security during the second half of the last century,
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 7
situation became fraught with increasing
^ Ultimately the loundations of human
existence were doubted or shattered altogether. This
state of affairs prompted the question: May notjthis
disaster jbavejieen pror|u(^od through( a false Jdea^of
the nature of the human being ?^ Did the institutions
aHd^organizationi^f"ggciety crumble because^ they
Tailed to fit the ^agaciti^s of that nature, and_were
men theri^^ them?_ InJ*i e west-
ern world these institutions were based especiallyi
high estimate of the human capacity called]
"since flTe\tme / ^Ttlie 6reeEs hacTbeen
corcsiaered as the" most important and the most
fundamental capacity of the human race. Could
this assumption possibly have been wrong? Is man a
being governed mainly by reason? Or is it incorrect
to suppose that it is this capacity which principally
separates man from animals? Ought not the human
being perhaps to be considered only as a species of
animal, possibly uniquely developed, but an animal
just the same, motivated in his activities by "in-
stincts" and "drives" and not by reason and free
will?
The experiences of the last few decades, in Europe
in particular, have awakened great doubt regarding
the character of human nature. Qualities have been
proclaimed from the housetops as the highest virtues
which in their very nature stand in complete opposi-
tion to those social and moral ideas which have
formed the basis of western culture for thousands of
8
HUMAN NATURE
years.- j.ne success of these new ideas has shaken
the old faith^The nature of man has thus become
problematic at its very core, and this is likely To
affect the whole existence of the human race. ~Thus
itls understandable that, as the German philosopher
Max Scheler 3 said, "in the ten thousand years ^of
Ruffian history ours is the first era in 'whiter man 4ia&
"become a problem to himself, in which he nojpnger
Imows wEat Tiejs^ and^t the same time'Tmowsl2S"t
lie d6es~not know it."
1 Based ontfer situation, the increased interest of
scientists in man has emerged in various realms
in anthropology and ethnology, which have tried to
gain a Fetter "msigETmto the nature"of man in gen-
era^ especially throughTa jCompar isoh of ^civilizecF
and "primitive" peoples; in mecficine andjpsychpL-
"ogy, 4 where a science of the indivfduaTperspnality
TiasT)eeli "more" and more urgently demanded; and
-finally in philosophy.
It wa^natur^lthat, in the developm^it of this
approach to man in his entiret^in6?^^^^
"^eMmenon^wliidi till then soence^haxl stressed in
all its various fieldsT^ould have diminisned. Thi$
Vneant a turnmsr away from the atomistic and mecha-
jV-~x--- .^ ^__ ^^ -r-Cx-> - ~^^' V * > ^ X T N * S~~~^'~*~~~
nisfic appfoaclip from a mere theoretical attitude^
toward enipmosm ^M^cbncreteness. TfiTsTtendency
Lpror^5^ rft '" ^^ inHiviHiifll
well
increasing
departments o
concem^yith synthesizing the results prthejlivgrse
sciences w hkh
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 9
atioiT little ^but,.j^h3^j^aLphenQmena ? nowjriea^.tc
base its conclusions not only ugon the results of
physical anthropology but also ugon those of "eth-
nology, psychology, sociology, philosophy^ and pa-
thology. That^thjs elifmnaHorT~of the Jmes oi
3eH^catjSnTetween the^^^ous^scfen^^ in order
EcTattam a clearer view of the real facts a charac-
teristic oTth"e~irr0iaenrapproacIT of Biological science
especially of the science of man was familiar tc
James may be judged from such statements as:
"There is no valid demarcation between philosophy
^-~~}>^ *""~V"W^ * ->**-~^- <-"">'~w--v w ,^~v^ <--vv -y-t 1 ^-v * V^*^** 1
and^p^^io^ical^gsycholpgy.' 7
^When a student of humaifnature bases his studies
on the results of one special science, he has nothing
but a starting point; he will never derive a correct
answer to his questions from the material of a singk
realm alone. In this connection, I should like tc
consider _my own use of pathological material.
/With jour Jjpljgfoc approach to human na^jire. w^
arej aced with a yery_diffi_cult epistemological^ prob
For us there is no doubt that the atomistic
method is_the onljMegitimate scientific^proiceKre
for gainingjacts^^nowledge ol Human nature hag
to be based ^^h e ^9J^.? na jdi^osd^^
_ .^
BuFis it^possible tojroceed from material gained by
tEeHseTof this method to^a science of the organism
science of the nature of man? 5
If the organism were a sum of parts which we
:ould study separately, there would be no difficulty
10 HUMAN NATURE
in combining our knowledge about the parts to form
a science of the whole. But all attempts_to under-
stand the organism as a whole directly from these
phenomena have met with very little success. They
have not J3gen_successful, wejgmv_conclude, because
Bie organism is not such a sum of jpaits^^The ..ana-
lytic experiment maylioFTDeTsuitable in principle for
finding out the real constituent attributes of i or-
ganism and leading to a recognition of the organism
as a whole.
If the organism is a whole and each section of it
functions normally within that whole, then in the
analytic experiment, which isolates the sections as it
studies them, the properties and functions of any
part must be modified by their isolation^from the
whole of the organismy/ThiisJ^
function_of^ these parts in normaMife. There are
innumerable"fels"TOic!TdenTdnstrate how the jfunc-
_ .__ ft. \_ ^ ""-- < "
tiomng-of ai field $ changed by itsTis'olation. If we
want to use the~f esulfs of suffi~exjperfmentsTor under-
standing the activity of the organism in normal life
(that is, as a whole), we must know in what way the
condition of isolation modifies the functioning, and
we must take these modifications into account. We
have every reason to occupy ourselves very carefully
with this condition of isolation; as we shall see later,
many a phenomenon of human life is understandably
Wy in terms of the effects of isolation.
In order to understand these modifications of func-
tions in isolation we must discuss the function of the
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH II
nervous system. 6 Such an excursion will also be
valuaHeTfor the understanding of certain other prob-
lems which we shall have to discuss later. Naturally,
I must confine myself to the most important facts,
and can only outline them in apodeictic form.
The organism^jvve^ assume, fraTunitT^Ve shall con-
sider~tKe functioning oTTHiTlmiFEy means of the
facts gained through studies of the nervous system,
because the functioning of this system lends itself
especially well to explanation. The nervous system i g
an apparatus which always functions as a whole.JXis
always in a state of excitation, neveTat rest. ^M
performances are expressions of chan^esin_thls con-
dlition of perpetual activity, wfiich arecaused by
the stimuli that impinge upon the organism. These
"changes always concern the entire system, but not in
the same manner throughout, the special effect of
any stimulus becoming apparent in one particular
place. Stimulation of the eyes by light is usually
followed by movements of the pupils or of other eye
muscles, and by vision. If we assume that stimula-
tion spreads over the whole system, this localized
effect can be explained in the following way. Stimu-
lation may change the excitation in the whole sys-
tem, but it changes it in an effective way particularly
in the part of the body near the entrance of the
stimulus. We call this the local or spatial near effect.
The particular effect of a stimulus, however, results
not only from the special excitation of those parts
of the body which are in the neighborhood of the
12 HUMAN NATURE
point of entrance of the stimulus, but also from the
specific receptiveness of definite parts of the nervous
system to specific stimuli. The eyes, for example,
are specifically adapted to be affected by light, the
nose by odor, and so on. We call this the functional
near effect, in distinction to the spatial near effect.
The performance caused by a stimulus is the expres-
sion of the excitation of both the spatial and the
functional near effect. The processes set off by the
stimulus are not restricted to a part of the nervous
system the excitation of which corresponds to the
performance for example, the perception of an
object; the rest of the nervous system is also more
or less involved, and there is a characteristic rela-
tionship between the excitation in the near part and
excitation arising in the distant parts. We speak in
this connection of the near effect as the figure process
and of the excitation in the rest of the nervous sys-
tem as the ground process. In the same way we speak
of figure and background in a performance. Any
excitation in the nervous system has the character
of a figure-ground process. Any performance in-
variably shows this figure-ground character.
When you look at a picture you see and under-
stand at once what is figure and what background.
The terms "figure" and "ground" have, indeed, been
borrowed from our visual experience. However, they
fit not only visual configurations but all other con-
figurations as well. For example, if you raise your
arm vertically, the exact execution of this movement
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 13
requires, as you can feel in yourself and observe in
others, a quite definite position of the rest of the
body. The raised arm is the figure; the rest of the
body is the background. Figure and background can
be discriminated as readily in speaking, thinking,
feeling, etc. A word, for instance, is understandable
only within a definite context, within a definite sen-
tence, within a certain cultural sphere.
Habitually we ignore the background of a per-
formance and pay attention only to the figure. From
the standpoint of systematic observation and meth-
odology this is false, for figure and background are
intimately interconnected. Neither can be properly
evaluated without the other.
As an example of the influence of the background
on the figure let me recall first how the impression of
a simple color changes if it is presented on different
backgrounds. Just so, the execution of any precise
movement of a limb demands a definite attitude of
the rest of the body. The most superficial glance at
the way we walk will show that the correct move-
ments of our legs in walking depend upon definite
movements of our arms and head. When for any
reason freedom of arms and head is impeded, the gait
changes immediately; in short, when the background
changes, the figure (the performance) also changes.
In the normal organism a definite stimulus pro-
duces under the same conditions approximately the
same figure and ground configuration, and with it
approximately the same reaction. For example, a
14 HUMAN NATURE
person always has about the same visual acuity;
that is, the same visual stimulus a point of definite
extension and color on a definite background pro-
duces the same visual experience. The reaction is
based on what is called the threshold of vision. If
the threshold did not remain approximately equal
under normal conditions, it would not be possible
for a given object or part of the physical world to
arouse the same experience again and again nor
should we be able to react to the same situation
in a consistent way. Only through such uniformity
is an ordered life possible. Otherwise our world
would change constantly, and we ourselves would
change, too. But this is not the case. Our world
remains relatively constant despite all the changes
in it, and we, too, remain about the same.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that each
stimulus produces a change in the substratum which
changes its excitability, with the result that a new
stimulus equal to the former one gives rise to
an effect different from the previous one. 7 Now how
is it possible that in spite of this change of excit-
ability through stimulation the threshold remains
approximately the same, that the organism remains
about the same, and that it reacts in about the same
way to a later stimulus? This constancy is achieved
only by virtue of the fact that in normal life ex-
citation which has been changed by a stimulus re-
turns, after a period of time, to its former state; that
is, if no new stimulation occurs, it returns to a state of
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 15
equilibrium. The presupposition of constancy is that
the change in excitability caused by the stimulus is
only temporary.
This equalization process fixes the threshold and,
with this, creates constancy, ordered behavior, and
secures the very existence of the organism. Normal
equalization demands the working of the whole or-
ganism; it is, in fact, an equalization between the
excitation in near and distant parts. (formal life is
ordered life because the equalization process takes
place in relation to the tasks of the whole organism.
This is not the case under experimental and patholog-
ical conditions. In an experiment we deliberately
isolate the parts we wish to study. This is perfectly
evident in experiments on animals where, for exam-
ple, we separate the spinal cord from the brain and
study the functioning of the isolated spinal cord by
stimulating it when it is cut off from the rest of the
nervous system. But there is no difference in principle
in our method of studying reflexes in human beings,
or elementary functions such as vision, hearing, etc.
Here, so to speak, we functionally isolate the part
to be tested, excluding by special arrangements the
co-working of the rest of the organism. Pathological
processes, too, are rather like the experiments on
animals in the way they isolate parts of the nervous
system. Pathology consists in the destruction of
some regions of the nervous system, as a result of
which the latter is divided into parts, each of which
functions in isolation from the rest. This separation
1 6 HUMAN NATURE
may take place in various parts of the nervous sys-
tem, and the symptoms in different fields correspond
to the isolation of different parts.
Now how does isolation change the functioning
of the nervous system and modify its reactions? 8
We shall mention here only such facts as are impor-
tant for the explanation to follow.
1. The reactions to stimuli in an isolated part are
abnormally strong. For example, knee jerks in an
animal with a lesion of the upper part of the spinal
cord are exaggerated. The explanation is that the
excitation produced by the stimulus, which normally
spreads over the whole nervous system, is now re-
stricted to a smaller part of the organ and therefore
has a greater effect.
2. The reactions are of abnormal duration, be-
cause the normal equalization process is disturbed.
3. The reactions are bound to the stimulus in an
abnormal way. We call this phenomenon abnormal
stimulus bondage, or forced responsiveness to stimuli.
Normally a reaction is determined not only by the
stimulus but also by the after-effects of former re-
actions, which are elicited by the stimulus at the
same time. These after-effects correspond to proc-
esses not only in the stimulated part of the organism
but also in the rest of the organism. Now if the
stimulated part is more or less detached from the
rest of the organism, those processes cannot be uti-
lized in the reaction as they normally would. In
consequence, the outside stimuli gain an abnormal
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 17
predominance and compel the organism to react in
a more than normal way. This effect of isolation is
to be seen particularly clearly in sick people. They
are in general much more under the influence of ex-
ternal stimuli, less capable of freeing themselves
from a stimulus which has touched them, than well
people.
This abnormal bondage to an existing stimulus
appears also when the stimulation originates not
externally but in an excitation of any part within
the organism, if this part is isolated from the rest
of the organism. Thus isolated processes within the
organism may determine the reactions of the sick
individual in an abnormal, compulsive way. In the
mental field this finds its expression in the abnormal
predominance of particular thoughts, ideas, or com-
pulsive activities. To the individual himself these
phenomena seem strange and not a part of him.
4. A further change of the form of the reaction
in an isolated part is the appearance of abnormal
rigidity on the one hand and alternating reactions
to a single stimulus on the other. This is the conse-
quence of a disturbance of the normal figure-ground
process. If the stimulus which touches an isolated
part is adequate for the activity of this part, the
reaction, the "figure," becomes abnormally fixed
because of the lack of the equalization process.*
If the stimulus is adequate only to a section of this
part, then a reaction may appear which corresponds
* Cf. point 2, above.
1 8 HUMAN NATURE
to that section. But this excitation, the "figure," has
no constancy, because the rest of the isolated part
does not represent an adequate background. Ex-
citation of this part may gain preponderance after a
certain time, and a phenomenon appears that cor-
responds to the stimulation of the rest of the part.
After a time this reaction, which is also not a "good"
figure and therefore has no stability, disappears, and
a reaction corresponding to the excitation of the first
stimulated section returns, and so on, in alternation.
This we call "lability." Such alternating reactions
are frequently observed in patients with mental dis-
eases.
5. The detachment of a part of the organism
from the rest more or less deprives the activities of
that part of content. Therefore actions in isolation
are simpler or, as we say, more "primitive."
Isolation phenomena are characteristic of patho-
logical conditions. They may also occur in normal
life if stimulation gains an abnormal strength or an
abnormal duration which hinders the normal equali-
zation process. We shall see later that much of the
behavior of normal people becomes understandable
when considered as phenomena in an isolation caused
through abnormal outer-world conditions.
I should like to illustrate the effect of isolation by
some simple examples, from experiences open to
everybody. We can isolate processes in our own
bodies by special experimental procedure. We can
expose our visual apparatus to abnormal stimula-
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 19
tion, as in after-image experiments, where we allow
a color to act intensively on our eyes. In that case
we obtain both an abnormal after-effect and repeated
alternations of opposite (complementary) color sen-
sations. Or take a similar phenomenon in the motor
field. If, with the arm hanging loosely, one presses
the hand against a wall so that the deltoid muscle is
strongly innervated, the arm rises by itself. The less
attention the subject pays to the arm, thereby iso-
lating it, the more striking the phenomenon is. If
one succeeds in this isolation, one experiences an
alternating movement, the arm rising and falling
several times. The Danish psychologist, Rubin, to
whom we are greatly indebted for the elucidation of
the figure-ground problem, has constructed a figure
which is designed especially for the demonstration
of the alternation phenomenon (Fig. i). 9 When we
look at it passively, oscillation appears very readily;
we see now a white vase on a black background, now
two black faces on a white background. We also
feel that this oscillation is, so to speak, detached
from our personality, that it takes place almost
against our will.
All these phenomena are "isolated" from us. The
isolation becomes particularly clear if we succeed
in bringing one of the phenomena into closer rela-
tionship to ourselves. Then the character of lability
disappears, or at least decreases strongly. Some
events gain definiteness and stability. That is to be
observed especially in the last example. When we do
20 HUMAN NATURE
not take the figure merely as a visual picture, but
look at the vase or the two faces as if they were real
objects, the lability lessens. Apparently the experi-
ence of alternation corresponds to a more passive
FIG. i
stimulation of a part of the organism, namely, the
visual apparatus that is, to the stimulation of a
part which, functionally, is relatively isolated from
the whole personality. The more complete the ap-
proach of the whole organism to an object in the
outer world, the more constant the object: Because
in everyday life we usually make the complete ap-
proach, the objects of the outer world are definitely
figures, and there is never under normal conditions
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 21
a change of figure and ground or even an uncertainty
about what is figure and what is ground.
There is no doubt that, if we take into consider-
ation the changes that occur through isolation, the
phenomena revealed by the isolating method can be
used in a way adapted to our purpose, which is to
understand the organism as a whole. Even then we
do not know whether the phenomena we observe
correspond to the essential properties of the organ-
ism or whether they may represent merely accidental
expressions of the organism under certain possibly
very unnatural conditions. As we shall see later,
we shall come nearer to our goal by using another
methodological procedure.* This consists in the use
of observations under certain conditions which we
call preferred conditions. The phenomena observed
under these conditions we call them preferred
behavior or preferred performances will bring us
somewhat nearer to the true constituents of the or-
ganism. Even then, however, we remain still within
the realm of the analytic method, and we can never
be sure that we possess the attributes characteristic
of the organism as a whole. Thus our endeavor to
gain any knowledge of the nature of man seems to
be doomed to failure. Certainly there is no possi-
bility of achieving biological knowledge on the sole
basis of phenomena which can be determined by the
analytic method. In making this statement, how-
ever, I do not wish to arouse the impression that we
*Seep. 174-
22 HUMAN NATURE
underrate the significance of such phenomena or that
we believe there is no real possibility of gaining
biological knowledge. Concerning the first point, I
may say that we do not accept these phenomena as
undistorted manifestations of the nature of the or-
ganism. They must first prove their "significance"
for the organism. They are the material with which
we have to deal, but the value they have for our
understanding of the behavior of an organism de-
pends upon our conception of the latter. In this way
they lose their apparent character of self-evident
facts. Thus what biology in general believes to be
the basis of its body of knowledge, the "facts/ 7 be-
comes most problematic. For this reason many facts
in the history of science have proved to be without
value for the advancement of our knowledge. I be-
lieve that this skepticism toward what we call facts
is a basic requirement for fruitful work in all
branches of natural science. It is only this skepti-
cism which eliminates existing biases by preparing
the ground for posing the fundamental question:
Which phenomena are biologically relevant, and
which not? Which phenomena are biological "facts,"
and which not?
A criterion for that relevancy can be offered only
by a conception of the organism in its qualitative
organization and holistic functioning. This concep-
tion is the basis of biological knowledge. How can
we gain it? It is not a mere synthesis of separate
phenomena. It is true that the latter point to the
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 23
organization in question, but such a picture of the
organism cannot be obtained directly from them.
Neither can it be obtained by means of the simple
inductive method. It is not a question of generaliz-
ing or of applying to other circumstances the results
of previous observations, and thus of enlarging our
knowledge progressively by induction. This factor
certainly plays a large part in concrete scientific
work, but it does not furnish us with knowledge, nor
does it make a scientific description of biological
phenomena possible. Yet neither is the process of
acquiring biological knowledge a deductive proce-
dure. We do not adhere in any way to the a priori
method of preconceived categories applied to the
nature of life, to the differences between animals and
"human beings," etc.
We do not try to construct the architecture of the
organism by a mere addition of brick to brick; rather
we try to discover the actual Gestalt of the intrinsic
structure of this building, a Gestalt through which
some phenomena may become intelligible as belong-
ing to a unitary, ordered, relatively constant forma-
tion of a specific structure, and other phenomena
may become intelligible as not belonging to it. The
picture of the organism must be of such a kind that
it allows us to differentiate among the observed
phenomena between the members which really be-
long to it and phenomena corresponding to less rele-
vant arbitrary connections between contingent parts.
The concept which should help us to make this
24 HUMAN NATURE
differentiation is grounded in the reality which con-
stitutes being, but it is an idea, a criterion by which
something is known (Erkenntnisgrund). We can
arrive at it only by using a special procedure of
cognition a form of creative activity by which we
build a picture of the organism on the basis of the
facts gained through the analytic method, in a form
of ideation similar to the procedure of an artist. It
is a sort of ideation, however, which springs ever and
again from empirical facts, and never fails to be
grounded in and substantiated by them! Biological
knowledge is the result of the continued extension of
our experience. The German poet, Goethe, to whom
we owe much for important discoveries in the field of
biology, has called this procedure of acquiring knowl-
edge SckaUj and the "picture" by which the indi-
vidual phenomenon becomes understandable (as a
modification), the Urbild (prototype). To recom-
mend such a type of cognitive procedure may suggest
that we are headed for metaphysical or even mystical
fields. This impression can readily be dispelled by
pointing to such a trivial biological phenomenon as
the acquisition of any skill bicycling, for example.
We execute inappropriate bodily movements that
is, movements which are determined by partitive
aspects and which are only partially relevant for
correct bicycle-riding until suddenly we are capa-
ble of maintaining our balance and of moving in the
correct way. All these initial exercises are only in-
directly related to the performance finally achieved.
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 25
They are not aimless, of course, but merely incorrect
movements which in themselves never lead directly
to the correct movements. They are necessary be-
cause the correct performance can be reached only
by continuous modifications of those movements.
The correct movements appear suddenly, however,
when a state is reached in which the procedure of the
organism is adequate to the environmental condi-
tions. This adequacy is experienced by us. The
procedure in this situation also includes insight into
the correct procedure in bicycling. We continually
try to bring about this experience of adequacy, and
the correct procedure, until it becomes the perform-
ance that we set going when we attempt to ride a
bicycle.
In essence the biological knowledge we are seeking
is akin to this phenomenon in which the capacity of
the organism becomes adequate to environmental
conditions. This is the fundamental biological proc-
ess by virtue of which the actualization of the or-
ganism, and with that its existence, is made possible.
Whenever we speak of the nature of the organism,
of the idea, the picture, or the concept of the organ-
ism, we have in mind the essentials for the oc-
currence of an adequate relationship between the
organism and its environment. From these, in prin-
ciple, that picture arises which we have to grasp in
determining the nature of man. In doing so we are
subjected to practically the same difficulties of pro-
cedure as the organism in learning: we are obliged
26 HUMAN NATURE
to discover what the relationship is between concept
and reality.
In practice the difficulties which this method may
seem to entail are not so great as they appear in theo-
retical consideration. In practice we usually venture
to pass from the plane of partitive facts (which
corresponds to the isolating method) to this other
form of cognition. The more conscious we are of the
theoretical justification of this procedure and of its
consequences, the less concerned we need be about
doing so. We usually proceed in such a way that
from certain facts gained by analysis we sketch a
picture of the whole organism, which in turn, so long
as we encounter discrepancies between this picture
and factual experience, stimulates further questions
and investigations. Upon the basis of new inquiries
the picture of the whole is again modified, and the
process of discovering new discrepancies and mak-
ing new inquiries follows, and so on. By such em-
pirical procedure in a dialectic manner, a progres-
sively more adequate knowledge of the nature of the
organism, of its "essence" (Wesen}, is acquired,
and an increasingly correct evaluation of the ob-
served facts, and of whether or not they are essen-
tial to the organism, is obtained.
The process of acquiring knowledge which we have
described as characteristic of biology does not differ
in principle from that used in other sciences. As
skepticism toward a naive copy-theory of knowledge
grew, and as it was realized that "empirical" facts
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 27
are not a simple expression of reality but are also
produced through the method of investigation, it
became more and more clear that it was the task of
natural science to transcend "empirical" facts and
create images, "symbols," which are suited for gain-
ing a coherent understanding of the "facts." In
physics the concept of the symbol has become, so to
speak, as Ernst Cassirer has explained, "the center-
point and focus of our entire epistemology." Ac-
cording to the French historian of physics, Duhem,
the dividing line between physical theory and mere
empiricism is the fact that there is no direct transi-
tion to physical knowledge from the empirical col-
lecting and ordering of "facts." It is a matter of a
transgressus, a transition, to a new perspective. In-
stead of the concrete data, we use symbolic images,
"which are supposed to correspond to data on the
basis of theoretical postulates which the observer
considers as true and valid. . . . The significance of
these concepts is not manifest in immediate percep-
tion, but can be determined and secured only by an
extremely complex process of intellectual interpreta-
tion." 10 This conceptual interpretation represents
the character of physical theory. In biological
knowledge as well, it is necessary that the "creative
power of imagination" should become effective. In
my opinion, however, there is still a difference
between physical and biological knowledge. The
symbols which biology requires for the coherent
representation of empirical facts must come closer
28 HUMAN NATURE
to the "real" than is requisite for science of inorganic
nature. This is due to the fact that, in the field of
biology, knowledge and action are more intimately
related than in physical science. Knowledge in biol-
ogy always has to stand the test of usefulness. We
do not want merely to understand the nature of an
organism and to use our understanding secondarily
for practical purposes; we are primarily interested
in guaranteeing the existence of the living being, in
helping it to live according to its nature and as well
as possible. We need knowledge which will do jus-
tice to the whole organism, because in biology action
always involves the individual as a whole. Mere
reference to a part is insufficient. Even though an
action may fit a part, it may distort the functioning
of the whole. Therefore we cannot be satisfied with
symbols which correspond only to part processes.
We have to reject, for example, as we shall explain
later, the scheme which serves as the basis of reflex-
ology. We need symbols which are not as essentially
alien to the observed phenomena as it is permissible
for the symbols of physical science to be; in extreme
cases physical science can confine itself to and con-
tent itself with a system of fictitious "signs." Bio-
logical knowledge also remains a set of symbols and
deals with substitutes, it is true, but it does not make
use of representation by simple arbitrary signs.
Biological knowledge needs a more complete image,
of an individual concrete character, which must
match as closely as possible the particulars from
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 29
which we build it up. After all, we do not regard the
particular data we are studying as mere appearances,
but as things which pertain to the reality of the whole
organism, although they are insufficient for its direct
cognition. Biological understanding, furthermore,
can never be satisfied with finding laws of relation-
ship between completely undetermined, theoretically
assumed elements. In biology, symbols, theoretical
representations, must in principle include quality and
individuality in all their determinations. Biological
descriptions must exhibit a definite qualitative or-
ganization ; the symbol must have the character of a
Gestalt. For this reason, though it is not unusual in
physics, the assumption of various principles of ex-
planation of the processes in an organism is unten-
able. In physics diverse systems of symbols may
coexist and may be put to practical use at the same
time. I am thinking here, for example, of the fact
that the wave theory and the corpuscular conception
in the light-quantum theory are both valid. Such a
multiplicity of theories is not only theoretically tol-
erable for the physicist but does not necessarily
obstruct his practical dealings. Yet such a procedure
would not satisfy the requirements of biology. 11
From these differences between physical and bio-
logical symbols it is understandable that, in spite of
their agreement in basic procedure, physical science
might find itself in opposition to the method of cog-
nition here proposed. The contrast between the two
sciences has often been apparent, and has led both
30 HUMAN NATURE
to opposing tendencies within biology and to heated
controversies between scientists. It is clear that,
when based on the procedure we have chosen, our
knowledge in the field of biology can never be final,
and that we must content ourselves with an increas-
ing approximation to the truth. This approximation
must not be understood, however, in the sense of the
approximate value of a mathematical series, which
increases in correctness as we are able to determine
decimal points, and where we can be satisfied with
a limited number of decimals. It may be that bio-
logical knowledge frequently has a similar character,
but in principle it is of an entirely different kind.
Biological knowledge is not advanced by simply
adding more and more individual facts. The facts
which are gradually included in the "whole" as parts
can never be evaluated merely quantitatively, in
such a way that the more parts we are able to deter-
mine the firmer our knowledge becomes. In biology
every fact always has a qualitative significance.
Thus one single new fact may revolutionize an entire
conception based on former findings, and demand an
entirely new theory, in the light of which old facts
may have to be newly evaluated. Final completeness
and definiteness in biology is never possible unless
one has recourse to explicit or non-explicit meta-
physical interpretations, and these we have to reject
as unempirical. Indeed, if one defines biology merely
as the accumulation of single data, which must be
secured by the analytic method, then he has to choose
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 31
between two alternatives: either he renounces the
type of understanding which grasps the organism
as a whole and in so doing virtually rescinds
cognition in biology in general or he resorts to
metaphysical and speculative doctrines in order to
supplement the body of his knowledge of the organ-
ism. Naturally we reject the latter procedure, al-
though it has been frequently proposed in recent
years, be it in the notion of vitalism, the idea of
entelechy, or any kind of teleological approach.
Needless to say, the approach suggested here takes
a fundamentally different course. Although this ap-
proach aims to attain knowledge of the nature of the
organism by a method which deviates from the
analytic-synthetic procedure, nevertheless it springs
from the conviction that it offers the same objec-
tivity and exactness as physical science. The claim
of our approach to objectivity is grounded in the
fact that it introduces as a working hypothesis an
image of the organism as a whole, which is the sup-
porting frame of reference for the determination of
the factors that condition the phenomena that are
within reach of our empirical observations. The
claim of our approach to exactness is grounded in
the fact that it is ready to shift its working hypoth-
eses whenever new data demand a reorientation and
reorganization, in order to fit in all the evidence of
the phenomena observed.
Such an approach, of course, is ultimately tied up
with the personality of the scientist. One man may
32 HUMAN NATURE
be convinced that the task of science is the accumu-
lation of piecemeal data without any attempt at ex-
planatory hypotheses, that this is the ethics of sci-
ence. In that case he will content himself with the
stepwise procedure of cataloguing unrelated facts
ad infinitum. He achieves little for the understand-
ing of nature, but he risks nothing. Another man
may believe that progress in science requires cour-
age the courage to advance explanatory hypoth-
eses, to test them empirically, to expose them to
criticism, even to renounce and to revise them, if
necessary. There is risk in this, but the result
satisfactory or unsatisfactory meets the standards
of his ethical conviction that biology must strive
perpetually for adequate knowledge the object
of its study, the living organism.
This point of view is not far removed from Wil-
liam James's idea about belief, which he advanced
not only in the field of religion but also in science.
Productive thinking, he says, presupposes belief:
"The same attitude of initial belief is necessary in
the case of specific theories and hypotheses, if we do
not want to content ourselves with a dogmatic
negation as crudely dogmatic in its spirit and
method as any primitive taboo." 12 Certainly, belief
contains the danger of dogmatism. One may avoid
this, according to James and Perry, provided that
one combines belief "with a readiness to abandon the
hypothesis if after a period of trial the evidence is
negative." 1S Recognizing the similarity of my own
epistemological standpoint in biology to this attitude
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH 33
toward cognition, I should like to add one thing. It
is not sufficient to abandon a hypothesis after a
period of trials with conflicting results. We can
avoid error only if we are ready to give up our pic-
ture of the organism if any new phenomenon does
not fit in with it, and if we try again and again to
build up a new one through which all the given facts
are understandable. We should not make auxiliary
hypotheses; or, if we do, we must be conscious of
doing so, aware of their transient character, and
willing to give them up.
It may be difficult to see how the scientist can be
convinced of the value of his scientific activities
and he must be so convinced in order to carry on
his work and at the same time aware of the pos-
sibility of being deceived, open-minded enough to
see his own fallacies, and tolerant enough to confess
that other people may be right. It may be difficult,
I say, to believe that such contrary attitudes can be
taken at the same time, but there is no doubt that it
is possible, and I would say that the realization of
that possibility is what makes a man a scientist.
This attitude will not appear so strange if we realize
that it corresponds very well to human nature, that
it is characteristic of the approach of man to the
world.
We shall see that our general concept of biological
science is fruitful in connection with the special
problem with which we have to deal in these lectures
human nature as seen in the light of experiences
with sick people.
II
PATHOLOGY AND THE NATURE OF MAN
DURING the last few decades the use of the observa-
tion of patients with mental diseases for the under-
standing of normal human behavior has become more
and more customary. For example, there was an
attempt to make the behavior of primitive people
intelligible in this way; the paintings and sculpture
of primitive people were compared with the paintings
and sculpture of the insane. By means of such com-
parisons the concept of a primitive, "archaic" form
of thinking was developed. 1 I should also like to
point out to what an extent the attempts to under-
stand the cultural phenomena of early periods of
mankind have been influenced by the psychoanalytic
conception of neurosis. It is not necessary to discuss
here the question of the relevance of these efforts.
There is no doubt that they brought into focus many
characteristics of human nature which before that
had not been taken into consideration at all, or at
least less than they deserved.
Before considering the phenomena observable in
patients with mental diseases we must answer two
questions: (i) Is it not dangerous to use pathologi-
cal phenomena for formulating ideas about norma'
human nature? (2) Why do we use observations oi
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 35
pathologically changed human beings? What is the
advantage of that procedure as compared with the use
of the observation of normal persons?
In regard to the danger involved in using patho-
logical phenomena, if one considers pathological
facts as has very often been done as curiosities
caused by illness and therefore not intelligible in the
same way as the behavior of normal individuals,
opposition to the use of pathological findings for the
understanding of normal behavior is justified. There
is no doubt, however, that such an assumption is
false. If it were correct, we should not have the
systematic statements about pathological facts that
we do have; we should not even be able to describe
them satisfactorily. Pathological phenomena are of a
kind accessible to the understanding of the nor-
mal person. They are performances which have
been modified according to definite laws, and they
become intelligible if one takes into consideration
the characteristic alterations which illness produces.
To be sure, we are not able at present to understand
all pathological phenomena from such a point of
view, and those which are not understandable should
not occupy the psychologist.
Here we shall deal only with phenomena of the
understandable type. For this reason we shall choose
a special kind of patient as a basis for our discussion.
It is quite usual, particularly in textbooks of psycho-
pathology, to start from observations of mentally ill
persons, of psychotics and neurotics. We shall not
36 HUMAN NATURE
omit evidence which can be gained from such cases,
but this material will not constitute our main source.
It is too complicated, and it still resists unambiguous
analysis. In all discussions of this material one finds
much theory and very little real evidence, very few
real facts. Another type of patient provides better
material, allows of better observation and much bet-
ter understanding and explanation of modifications
in behavior the patient with an organic defect of
the brain caused by injury or disease. 2
,We shall first take into consideration patients with
circumscribed lesions of the brain cortex, in whom
the damaged brain process has healed but with some
irreparable defect. We begin with these cases in-
stead of with patients who have acute illnesses, be-
cause in acute stages of illness (stages in which the
struggle of the organism with the damage has not
ended) the behavior picture is much more compli-
cated, and it is much more difficult to analyze and to
form an opinion of the changes that occur. We shall
not overlook this acute condition, however, for we
can also learn very much from it, particularly about
the struggle of the organism against the damage done
to it.
A great part of my own material has come from
brain injuries incurred during the first World War.
These injuries were very well suited for study,
because they occurred in young people in good
general physical condition. Furthermore, we had the
unusual opportunity of being able to observe our
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 37
patients for a very long period of time, some for more
than eight years, in a relatively favorable environ-
ment. These circumstances gave us a much better
insight into behavior than it is possible to obtain with
patients who have brain lesions that are due to other
causative factors, though the examination of the
latter has not been omitted and has led us to the
same conclusions.
For those phenomena with which we have to
deal first the special localization of the lesion in the
brain cortex is relatively unimportant. 3 The phe-
nomena are especially clear in lesions of the frontal
lobe, and therefore we shall take our examples espe-
cially from patients with lesions of this part of the
brain. 4
However, to come back to our two questions, why
use pathological findings for understanding normal
behavior? The answer is that we try to learn from
the observation of sick people because we can ac-
quire better information in this way, and acquire it
more easily, than by observing normal individuals.
Normal life is determined by so many factors, and
these factors are interwoven in such various and
complicated ways, that very often the reaction of a
normal organism even to an apparently simple stimu-
lation is exceedingly difficult, sometimes quite impos-
sible, to analyze and to understand. Now the greater
the defect of the organism, the simpler are its
responses to stimuli, and therefore the easier to
understand. Furthermore, pathological behavior is
38 HUMAN NATURE
particularly revealing concerning the organization of
behavior. The destruction of one or another sub-
stratum of the organism gives rise to various changes
in behavior, showing how these substrata and forms
of behavior are interrelated and giving an insight
into the organization of the total organism. Just as
it is easier to gain an insight into the organization of
performances in sick people, so it is easier to under-
stand their ways of adjusting to changing conditions.
For the sick organism, to find an adjustment to the
abnormal condition produced by sickness is a ques-
tion of being or not being. Thus we have an espe-
cially good opportunity of observing the forms and
rules of adjustment, which are not always easily ob-
served in normal persons.
The changes to be observed in patients with brain
lesions are manifold, and concern both mental and
bodily performances. Even if we restrict ourselves
to mental performances we are faced with a very
complex picture. Usually the disturbances have been
described as separate changes in single fields of per-
formance, as in perception, action, speech, emotions,
memory, etc. Researches in the lastTfew decades
have shown more and more, however, that these
complex pictures can be understood only if we regard
them as expressions of a change in the total person-
ality of the patient concerned.
\We shall consider our findings in reference to two
problems: first we shall concentrate on the change in
personality; then on the adaptation of the patient
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 39
to his defect. The study of the change of personality
will give us some insight into the organization of the
personality of the normal human being. The study
of adaptation of the patient to his defect will inform
us about the way the normal person comes to terms
with the outer world. There would be no better way
of getting to the heart of our problem than to give
demonstrations with actual patients; I regret very
much that this is impossible and that I must confine
myself to a description of the behavior of certain
patients.
The patient whom I have first in mind is a man
thirty years of age, with a lesion of the frontal lobe.
His' customary way of living does not seem to be
very much disturbed. He is a little slow; his face is
rather immobile, rather rigid; his attention is directed
very strictly to what he is doing at the moment
say, writing a letter or speaking to someone. Con-
fronted with tasks in various fields, under certain
conditions he gives seemingly normal responses, but
under other conditions he fails completely in tasks
that are apparently very similar to those he has per-
formed quite well. These differences will be the
starting point of our discussion. We shall ask: What
is the reason for the failure in the one situation, the
correct performances in the others?
Let us take as an example the behavior of this pa-
tient in a simple test. We place before him a small
wooden stick in a definite position, pointing, for ex-
ample, diagonally from left to right. He is asked to
40 HUMAN NATURE
note the position of the stick carefully. After a half
minute's exposure the stick is removed; then it is
handed to the patient, and he is asked to put it back in
the position in which it was before. He grasps the
stick and tries to replace it, but he fumbles ; he is all
confusion; he looks at the examiner, shakes his head,
tries this way and that, plainly uncertain. The up-
shot is that he cannot place the stick in the required
position. He is likewise unable to imitate other
simple figures built up of sticks. Next we show the
patient a little house made of many sticks, a house
with a roof, a door, a window, and a chimney. When
he is asked to reproduce the model, he succeeds
very well.
If we ask what the reason may be for the differ-
ence in the behavior of the patient in the two tasks,
we can at once exclude defects in the fields of per-
ception, action, and memory. For there is no doubt
that copying the house with many details demands
a greater capacity in all these faculties, especially in
memory, than putting a single stick into a position
seen shortly before.
At first sight the difference may seem inexplicable,
but the following experiment clarifies the situation.
We put before the patient two sticks placed together
so as to form an angle with the opening pointing
upward. The patient is unable to reproduce this
model. Then we confront him with the same angle,
the opening pointing down this time, and now he
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 41
reproduces the figure very well at the first trial.
When we ask the patient how it is that he can repro-
duce the second figure but not the first one, he says:
"This one has nothing to do with the other one."
Pointing to the second one, he says, "That is a roof";
to the first, "That is nothing."
These two replies lead us to an understanding of
the patient's behavior. His first reply makes it clear
that, to him, the two objects with which he has to
deal are totally different from one another. The
second answer shows that he apprehends the angle
pointing downward as a concrete object out of his
own experience, and he constructs a concrete thing
with the two sticks. A concrete apprehension and
concrete behavioral action are sufficient to meet the
conditions of this test. In the former test the two
sticks did not arouse an impression of a concrete
thing. He had to conceive of the positions of two
meaningless sticks in a meaningless connection with
each other. He had to regard the sticks as mere
representations indicating directions in abstract
space. Furthermore, he had to keep these directions
in mind and rearrange the sticks from memory as
representatives of these abstract directions.
In the second test the patient needs to deal simply
with a known concrete object; in the first he must
give an account to himself of relations in space, and
act on the basis of abstract ideas. Thus we may
conclude that the failure of the patient in the first
42 HUMAN NATURE
test lies in the fact that he is unable to perform a
task which can be executed only by means of a
grasp of the abstract. The test in which the opening
of the angle points down does not demand this, and
the patient is able to execute it perfectly. It is for
the same reason that he is able to copy the little
house, which seems to us to be much more com-
plicated.
Some examples of performances by another pa-
tient a woman with a disease of the frontal lobe 5
may illustrate this defect still more clearly. This
patient was also able to copy the angle pointing
upward, and an analysis of her procedure revealed
that this model was recognized by her as a concrete
known object, namely, as a V. She was unable to
copy a square, and it was obvious that this figure
did not mean anything to her. However, she could
copy the following model:
Asked what it was, she explained: it was a window.
It could be demonstrated by many examples that if
she recognized a model presented to her as a concrete
object she could always copy it; if not, she failed.
When she was unable to copy a model because it did
not mean anything to her, she sometimes changed it
so that it assumed for her the characteristics of a
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 43
concrete object, and then she was able to copy it.
Faced with a square
she produced the following picture:
When asked what these figures meant, she answered,
"The windows of a church/' She drew not meaning-
less squares but three church windows in a position
in which they might actually be found; apparently
where we see an abstract geometrical figure, she had
seen a concrete object.
This lack of an attitude toward the abstract is
found not only in such tests as we have mentioned
but also in the behavior of the patient in general.
Thus, for instance, the patient is unable to execute
everyday activities if the latter demand an attitude
toward the ^imaginary. For example, he may be able
to perform expressive movements (say, the act of
threatening) in situations to which they belong but is
unable to demonstrate them outside of the situation
which demands them. He is unable simply to demon-
strate. He may have no difficulty in using known ob-
jects in a situation that requires them, but he is totally
44 HUMAN NATURE
at a loss if he is asked to demonstrate the use of such
in object outside of the concrete situation, and still
more so if he is asked to,do it without the real object.
For example, one of our patients was able to drink
water normally out of a glass, but if he was given an
empty glass and asked to demonstrate how one
brings the glass to the mouth in drinking and to make
the appropriate movements with his mouth, he was
unable either to do so or to imitate the action after
it had been demonstrated to him.
There is a real gradation of difficulty in these
various procedures, depending on the degree of con-
creteness in the action. The easiest performance is
to drink during dinner, if one is thirsty. Under these
very concrete conditions only patients with the very
greatest impairment of function fail; if the impair-
ment is less marked, the patient may fail if he has to
drink, let us say, not at mealtime or if he is not
thirsty, but simply on demand. If he is asked to
demonstrate how to drink with an empty glass or
without a glass that is, in a situation involving a
very high degree of abstraction he is unable to do
it at all. The reason why the patient's capacity for
performing these steps corresponds somewhat to the
degree of impairment of function is that his capacity
for abstraction is disturbed by this to a greater or
lesser degree.
Let us consider some other examples. The patient
is asked to drive a nail with a hammer into a piece
of wood. He takes the nail and drives it correctly
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 45
by successive strokes of the hammer. Now the nail
is taken away, and he is asked to imagine that there
is a nail and that he is to drive it in. But this he is
incapable of doing. He does not seem to know how
to make the movement of driving it in either with the
fist or with the hammer. Furthermore, even if he sees
the nail and has the hammer in his hand, he is unable
to make the movement of driving the nail in when
he is not allowed to touch it.
The patient is asked to blow away a slip of paper.
He does this very well. If the paper is taken away,
and he is asked to think that there is a slip of paper
and blow it away, he is unable to do so. Here again
the situation is not realistically complete. In order
to perform the task the patient would have to im-
agine the piece of paper there. He is not capable of
this.
The patient is asked to throw a ball into boxes
situated respectively at distances of three, nine, and
fifteen feet. He does it quite well. When he is asked
how far the several boxes are from him, he is not
only unable to answer this question but unable even
to say which box is nearer, which farther.
What is the difference between the two tasks? In
the first, the patient has only to deal with objects
in a behavioral fashion. It is unnecessary for him
to be conscious of his act and of objects in a world
separated from himself. In the second, however, he
must separate himself from objects in the outer world
and give himself an account of his actions and of the
46 HUMAN NATURE
space relations in the world facing him. Therefore he
fails.
That we do not have to deal here with a disturb-
ance of space perception may be illustrated by an-
other example which shows clearly that these patients
are able to deal with complicated space relations
when there is the possibility of doing it in a concrete
way but fail as soon as an attitude toward the ab-
stract is necessary.
In a conversation a patient was asked what she
had been doing during the day. She answered, "I
have been working." When asked where, she offered
to lead the way to the workroom situated on an upper
floor of the hospital. She went directly across the
floor to the end of the ward, where there was a closed
door, and glanced at the nurse, apparently realizing
that the door was locked and desiring her to open it.
The patient opened the door with a key given to her,
locked it from the outside, returned the key to the
nurse, went straight to the elevator situated on the
other side of the corridor, rang correctly, and en-
tered it on its arrival. On reaching the floor of the
workroom she left the elevator at the direction of
the operator, went directly to the door of the work-
room, and immediately took her place at the table.
She then asked the supervisor of the workroom for
her needlework, prepared her material, and started
to knit. All this was done without the least hesita-
tion, even with alacrity. Later she was asked to go
back to the ward. She arose and left, taking the
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 47
correct route out and heading for the elevator. When
she was stopped before reaching it, however, and was
led into the corridor on the same floor (which was
identical in structure with the floor on which her
ward was located), she believed it to be the floor
where her ward was. She then walked through the
corridor as if she were on the ward floor and turned
to the right at the end of the corridor as though she
were about to enter her sleeping room. She was sur-
prised to find herself in a room unknown to her.
When told that she was on the wrong floor she be-
came perplexed and looked around but was unable
to find the correct way to the ward. She not only
was ignorant of where she was but did not know how
to return to the elevator. When, on another occa-
sion, she was allowed to go straight to the ward, she
did it in the same correct way as on her trip to the
workroom. Plainly, she was able to take a compli-
cated path in the same way as a normal person, but
she failed immediately when the task demanded that
she give herself an account of it that is, of rela-
tions in space, the way from one place to another,
etc. This may be deduced also from the fact that she
could not describe the route, although she had fol-
lowed it correctly.
We find in patients of this kind a similar modifica-
tion of their attitude toward time; that is, they can
tell us about certain aspects of temporal things, but
they do not really know what they mean. They can-
not really distinguish between different durations;
48 HUMAN NATURE
they do not understand the meaning of longer and
shorter time. So far as their behavior is concerned,
indeed, one would get the impression that they are
quite at home in matters of chronology. For example,
one patient was required repeatedly to present him-
self for an examination at four o'clock. He had a
journey of three-quarters of an hour from his house
to the hospital. He always arrived with the greatest
punctuality. How did he manage it? He knew it
would take him forty-five minutes. He knew that in
order to be at the hospital at four o'clock he must
leave his house at a quarter past three. This knowl-
edge was conveyed to him by a certain position of
the hands of his watch, without his knowing or need-
ing to take into account their meaning in a general
way.
Though such patients show an apparently normal
ability to use a watch, nonetheless they have no sense
of time at all. This is revealed by a simple test, such
as asking them to say where the minute hand of a
clock is at a certain time for example, at thirteen
minutes past four o'clock. A normal person would
immediately say, "Slightly beyond the hour figure
two." Our patients could not give a description at
all, or could reach it only when allowed to point at
the minutes from sixty to thirteen.
As a further example from another performance
field we may choose a simple reaction test. The
patient is instructed to execute a simple movement
in response to an abruptly flashed light signal. After
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 49
some practice he learns the situation. He reacts cor-
rectly in a relatively short time. We now flash a red
light, then a blue light ; and the patient is instructed
to execute the movement on seeing the red light but
to do nothing on seeing the blue. In this and similar
selective reactions his performance is inadequate.
He seems to become confused, and either does not
react at all or makes many errors. What is the
difference between the two tests? In one the patient
has to react in a simple way to a simple stimulus.
His behavior is simple and directly determined by the
stimulus. In the second test he has to choose. This
means that he has to face two possibilities; in other
words, he has to transcend the given situation, and
here is the very thing he cannot do.
These and similar examples show that the patient
is unable to deal with any merely "possible" situa-
tion at all. Thus we may also describe the deficiency
in these patients as a lack 'of capacity for approach-
ing a "possible 7 ' situation.
Results with another task in quite a different field
yield confirmation. A simple story is read to the
patient. He seems unable to understand it. He may
repeat some single words, but he does not understand
their meaning and is unable to grasp the essential
point. Now we read him another story, which would
seem to a normal person to be no easier to under-
stand. This time he understands the meaning very
well and recounts the chief points. What was the
difference between the two stories? The first one
SO HUMAN NATURE
dealt with a simple situation, but a situation which
had no connection with the actual environment of
the patient. The second story had a direct bearing
on his own situation. Again we observe that the
failure is due to an incapacity to approach a situation
presented only in imagination. Choosing stories with
this point of view, we are able to predict beforehand
which ones the patient will be able to understand.
The same difficulty is observable in tests with
graphic representations. Pictures of single objects
are almost always recognized. In pictures which con-
tain a number of things and persons in contact wit?
each other, the patient may pick out some details, but
he is unable to understand the picture as a whole anc
is unable to react in response to the whole. A precise
examination reveals that the patient's real under-
standing does not depend on the greater or smaller
number of components in a picture but on whether
the components, whatever their number, hang to-
gether concretely and in ways familiar to him, 01
whether an understanding of their connection re-
quires a more abstract synthesis on his part. In the
first case the patient may apprehend pictures witt
many details. In the second he may lack under-
standing even if there are only a few details. If the
picture does not reveal its essence directly, by bring-
ing the patient into the situation which it represents
he is not able to recognize it. Thus one may charac-
terize the deficiency as an inability to discover the
essence of a situation.
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 51
This change in behavior finds its expression in
characteristic changes in memory and attention.
Under certain circumstances the faculty for the re-
production of facts acquired long ago may be normal.
For example, things learned in school may be recalled
very well in some situations, but not in all. The
situation must reawaken old impressions. The pa-
tient must be able to regard the present situation in
such a way that facts from the past belong to it. If
this is not the case, he is completely unable to recall
facts which he has reproduced very well in another
situation. Repeated observation in many different
situations demonstrates clearly that such memory
failures are not caused by an impairment of memory
content but by a failure in the approach that is
requisite for a specific test. The patient has the ma-
terial in his memory, but he is unable to use it freely;
he can use it only in connection with a definite con-
crete situation, to which it must seem to him to be-
long. Only in this way, too, is he able to learn new
facts. He may be able to learn numbers, syllables,
or movements by heart ; he is able to hold in memory
situations, facts connected with his environment, and
so on, but he is able to do so only in a concrete situa-
tion, and he can reproduce them only in the situation
in which he learned them.
That such patients keep in mind essentially those
patterns which they are able to comprehend that
is, grasp in a concrete way the following simple
example may illustrate. We put before a patient a
52 HUMAN NATURE
single vertical line, or a circle or a square alone. She
is able to copy each figure. Now we present the
vertical line, the circle, and the square together.
When asked to reproduce the patterns a minute later,
the patient draws only the square; the others she
has not held in mind. She apparently remembers
only the one among several patterns which is a con-
crete figure for her that is, the square, which she
interprets as a window of a church. Obviously, her
memory of an object is determined by the concrete-
ness or abstractness of the object in question. Her
ability to copy pictures is not bad if the pictures are
seen by her as concrete figures.
We arrive at the same result in testing attention.
At one time the patient appears inattentive, at an-
other attentive, even abnormally so. Attention is
usually weak in special examinations, particularly at
the beginning, before the patient has gained the real
approach to the whole situation. In such a situation
he ordinarily seems much distracted. If he enters
into the situation, however, his attention may be
satisfactory, sometimes even abnormally keen. Under
these circumstances he may be totally untouched
by other stimuli from the environment to which
normal persons will react unfailingly. His attitude,
in short, depends upon whether he is equal to the
task set him or not. In some tests he will always
seem distracted for example, in those which de-
mand a change of approach (a choice reaction),
because he is incapable of making a choice. Conse-
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 53
quently, it is not correct to speak of a change of
attention in these patients in terms of plus or minus.
The state of the patient's attention is but a part of
his total behavior and is to be understood only in
connection with it.
The lack of an ability to grasp the abstract impairs
all voluntary activities. Our patients have the great-
est difficulty in starting any performance which is
not determined directly by external stimuli. Thus,
for example, they may be unable to recite the series
of numbers on demand, although they are able to do
it if the examiner begins the series. This difficulty
finds its expression in a marked lack of initiative.
They have great trouble in voluntary shifting, in
switching over voluntarily from one topic to another,
or from one part of a situation to another. Conse-
quently they fail in performances in which such a
shift is necessary. Since, as we have shown, they
are hindered in the making of choices, they are un-
able to follow a conversation between various people,
especially if the contents change, and they seem
rigid and lifeless, mentally and bodily, in everything
they do.
This difficulty in voluntary shifting can be ex-
plained in the following way. Shifting presupposes
that I have in mind simultaneously the object to
which I am reacting at the moment and the one to
which I am going to react. One is in the foreground,
the other in the background. But it is essential that
the object in the background be there as a possible
54 HUMAN NATURE
object for future reaction. Only then can I change
from the one to the other. This presupposes the
capacity for approaching things that are only im-
agined, "possible 77 things, things which are not given
in the concrete situation. If, for example, we nor-
mal people do not understand a complicated picture
immediately, we voluntarily look first at this and
then at that part; we keep changing our attitude until
we achieve success. This changing presupposes the
capacity for freeing oneself from a concrete situation
and turning to something that is already in mind.
The mentally sick man is incapable of doing either
because of his inability to grasp what is abstract.
To be sure, we normal people do not always shift
in an arbitrary manner. Shifting may be directed
by the changing significance of one part or another
for the best and most adequate performance, and
this happens somewhat passively. But if the situa-
tion itself does not bring about this change we can
focus voluntarily upon one part or another. Normal
performances usually demand both active and pas-
sive shifting. Among the abnormal, the incapacity
for voluntary shifting makes the fulfillment of cer-
tain tasks impossible.
We have already mentioned the fact that our pa-
tients are unable to imitate or copy anything that is
not a part of their immediate concrete experience.
It is a very interesting expression of this incapacity
that they have the greatest difficulty in repeating a
sentence which is meaningless for them that is,
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 55
the contents of which do not correspond to the
reality they are capable of grasping. Thus a patient
of mine was unable to repeat such sentences as "The
snow is black." I was able to induce him to repeat
the individual words, isolated, and then to repeat
the words one after the other in the correct succes-
sion, but he stopped before he spoke the word
"black," looked startled, and said, "white," or, if he
said the word "black," he did it very quickly and
apparently with great uneasiness, and then said very
quickly afterwards, "white." To say such things
apparently requires the assumption of a very difficult
attitude. It demands, so to speak, the ability to live
in two spheres, the concrete sphere where "real"
things take place and the non-concrete, the merely
"possible" sphere, for in saying meaningless things
we must shift from one to the other. This the patient
is unable to do. He can live and act only in the con-
crete sphere. He is therefore always himself. He is
unable to place himself in the situation of other
people; he is not able to imitate other people, nor
is he able to impersonate as an actor is.
His inability to put himself in another's place finds
its expression in certain characteristics of his emo-
tional and social behavior. He frequently exhibits a
dulling of the emotions, but in other situations he
does not appear to be without feeling; on the con-
trary, we observe in him a great excitability. If we
analyze both situations carefully, we find that the
presence or absence of emotional expression corre-
56 HUMAN NATURE
spends to his entire behavior in a given situation,
and that his emotional behavior is best understood
in terms of his attitude toward the situation. The
fact seems to be this: If the patient does not seem
to react emotionally in a satisfactory way, it is in
situations in which he also fails to comprehend the
essentials to which a definite feeling attaches. This
frequently demands a grasp of the abstract. He may
have grasped only a part of the situation because
only that part could be grasped concretely. His
reaction seems inappropriate to us because we regard
the whole situation and not merely a part of it. If
we consider his behavior from this point of view, we
see that, in the situation as it is experienced by him,
his feeling is not abnormal.
This also helps us to understand why it is that a
patient who appears very dull may suddenly become
excited in a situation which at first seems to contain
no cause for irritation. For example, a patient of
mine had a friend who was his close companion.
One day the 'friend went to a cinema with another
man. He did not take our patient because the latter
had seen the picture before and would not go to see
it a second time. When the friend came back our
patient was in a state of great excitement and refused
to speak to him. He was not to be quieted by any
arguments. No explanation- that his friend did
not want to offend him, that his friendship had not
changed made any impression. From that time
on, our patient was his old friend's enemy.
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 57
This reaction, at first so unintelligible, can be
understood if we remember that the patient was able
to make only a direct concrete approach to any
situation. This was the case in his approach to his
friend. He saw only that his friend was the com-
panion of another man, and he felt himself slighted.
He was unable to understand that his friend's con-
duct in no way actually affected their relations. He
could not understand why his friend went without
him, and he could not perceive the situation as a
whole. He saw only the concrete separation between
himself and his friend, and his exaggeration is thor-
oughly understandable if we consider how difficult
it is, in the case of such a change of attitude, to enter
into the relation of friendship. The patient felt his
loneliness, and sank into a "catastrophic situation"
of confusion and anxiety.* He regarded his friend as
the cause of his bad condition and reacted to him in
a way that is easily understandable in terms of his
grasp of the situation.
It is in general very difficult for our patients to
come into close contact with other people. They do
not try to become intimate friends with other persons
or to mingle in society; as a rule they live in an iso-
lated way. Only a concrete situation by which they
are affected brings them into and keeps them in con-
tact with others; then their feelings may correspond
to normal feelings. Outside the actual situation,
however, they may be without any inner contact with
* Cf . p. 86.
58 HUMAN NATURE
the members of their society. An example may make
this clear. One of our patients never seemed to be
concerned about his family. He never spoke of his
wife or children, was unresponsive when we ques-
tioned him about them, and when it was suggested
to him that he should write to his family was utterly
indifferent. Thus he appeared to lack all feeling.
Now it was an established practice that at times he
should visit his home, which was situated in another
town, and stay there several days. While at home
he conducted himself, as we learned, like a normal
man in the bosom of his family. He was kind and
affectionate to his wife and children, and interested
in their affairs in so far as his abilities would permit.
Yet after his return to the hospital from such a visit,
upon being asked about his people, he would smile
in an embarrassed way and give evasive answers;
he seemed utterly estranged from his home situation.
Unquestionably what ailed this man was not really a
deterioration of his character on the emotional and
moral side. Rather, he could not represent the home
situation to himself, and consequently the corre-
sponding feelings did not arise. This lack of real
contact with others, taken in connection with the
impairment of a grasp of the abstract, will give us a
basis for our discussion of the social relationship in
normal persons.
We have characterized the patient's deficiency in
different terms as lack of a grasp of the abstract,
lack of an approach to imagined things, inability to
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 59
give himself an account of his own acting or think-
ing, inability to make a separation between the ego
and the world, and lack of freedom. At bottom all
these terms, and others which one may use to char-
acterize the facts, mean basically the same thing.
We speak, in brief, of the lack of an attitude toward
the abstract. 6
To avoid misunderstanding, let me say here that
the perception of concreteness by different patients
need not be expressed in the same way in a given
task. What is concrete for one individual can only
be understood within the frame of reference for that
particular patient, as it is related to his pre-morbid
individuality and his changed capacity and the situ-
ation given. Therefore it may express itself in dif-
ferent ways in different patients with the same type
of lesion.
I know that the designation of the two kinds of
behavior as "abstract" and "concrete" is misunder-
standable and has often been misunderstood. I am
sorry that I do not know any more appropriate words
with which to characterize the facts. Now I am very
anxious not to be misunderstood at this point be-
cause what I am about to say concerns the most
important problem in our attempt to characterize
human nature on the basis of our findings.
Thus I should like to review briefly what has been
said. Tn "concrete" performances a reaction is deter-
mined directly by a stimulus, is awakened by all
that the individual perceives. The individual's pro-
60 HUMAN NATURE
cedure is somewhat passive, as if it were not he who
had the initiative. In "abstract" performances an
action is not determined directly and immediately
by a stimulus configuration but by the account of the
situation which the individual gives to himself. The
performance is thus more a primary action than a
mere reaction, and it is a totally different way of
coming to terms with the outside world. The indi-
vidual has to consider the situation from various
aspects, pick out the aspect which is essential, and
act in a way appropriate to the whole situation.
True, this procedure may have various degrees of
complexity. Sometimes the situation demands noth-
ing more than a singling out of one property of an
object, as, for instance, when we are asked to sort
objects according to their colors. In the highest
degree of complexity we have not only to apprehend
objects by means of certain simple characteristics
but to choose aspects for consideration in accordance
with a certain task which demands a conceptual
organization. Even in its simplest form, however,
abstraction is separate in principle from concrete
behavior. There is no gradual transition from the
one to the other. The assumption of an attitude
toward the abstract is not more complex merely
through the addition of a new factor of determina-
tion; it is a totally different activity of the organism.
Perhaps it would be better not to designate both
conditions by the term "behavior," since behavior
connotes real activity and is especially well suited
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 6 1
to the concrete performance. Abstraction represents,
rather, a preparation for activity; it involves an atti-
tude, i.e., an inner approach, which leads to activity.
Therefore it is better to speak of an attitude toward
the abstract. Real action is never abstract; it is
always concrete. The difference between the two
conditions is shown in the difference between the
processes which precede action. In the concrete situ-
ation action is set going directly by the stimuli; in
the situation involving the abstract, action is begun
after preparation which has to do with a consideration
of the whole situation.
Yet these explanations are not entirely correct.
From them it might seem as if concrete behavior
could take place in complete independence of the ab-
stract attitude, determined by the external situation
alone. This, however, is not the case. The arousal
and the normal course of an action presuppose in
any case an abstract attitude. In normal life we are
rarely forced into action by the stimulus situation
itself. Usually we have to place ourselves at least
in imagination in the appropriate situation. The
outside world merely gives us the impulse to do
this. Thus even the initiation of an action demands
the abstract attitude. Nor is the latter entirely ex-
cluded during the performance of a concrete act. On
the contrary, the concrete performance is always
somewhat dependent upon the abstract attitude,
which becomes effective in restoring order as soon
as any disturbance in the normal course of concrete
62 HUMAN NATURE
performances occurs. Thus concrete performances
are grounded upon the abstract attitude in their
initiation and receive its regulative control during
their course.
This is very evident in our patients. Their con-
crete behavior can begin only if it is stimulated by
the outer world, and it is to an abnormal degree
dependent upon the outer world. It runs in an
abnormal, compulsive way, and is disturbed very
easily by changes in external events. It lacks spon-
taneity and, so to speak, an adequate context
within the individual.
From what we have said it is clear that normally
we do not distinguish sharply between performances
carried out on the basis of the abstract attitude
and those carried out in a concrete way. Normal
performance demands both kinds of behavior. If
I stress the importance of the abstract attitude for
normal human beings, I do not mean that normal
performances or even the larger part of them
are carried out only in the abstract way. In or-
dinary life concrete behavior plays a very great
role; most of our everyday performances are of this
sort. Many performances consist of parts, some
of which demand the one, others the other behavior.
Whether abstract attitude or concrete behavior
plays a more prominent role depends upon various
factors first, on the situation. There are situa-
tions in which most normal persons react in a very
concrete way without thinking about their behavior.
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 63
A person enters his bedroom in the evening and puts
on the light without realizing that he is doing so.
Here and in similar cases our actions are determined
directly by stimuli. But even here we do not act
without employing an abstract attitude to a certain
extent. We are acting somewhat passively, but we
are not forced to act in this way. Under certain
conditions we can go to bed without putting on the
light if, for instance, we want to avoid disturbing
someone else. This shows that, even where we react
in a very concrete direct way, our actions are de-
termined somewhat by our general mental set that
is, by some abstract attitude. Thus even in very
familiar everyday actions we have to deal with
a combination of abstract and concrete behavior.
The same is the case in activities of such high
rank as scientific and artistic work. Perfection in
any field demands the concrete execution of at least
some parts of our actions without our thinking about
them. Thinking itself is very often just such a
concrete process; one thought involuntarily brings
about another. T'he same is true in artistic expres-
sion. In all productivity concrete action plays a very
great role. We must stress the point, however, that
productive action is never possible unless it is
embedded in an abstract set. The importance
of concrete behavior in artistic creativeness has
perhaps been overemphasized. Creative work can
never be produced without an ideational basis
that is, without the abstract attitude. In this respect
64 HUMAN NATURE
nothing in our patients is so impressive as their
lack of productiveness.
In this connection it may be said that any com-
parison of the artistic products of abnormal persons
with those of normal artists, however many the
similarities, have a very uncertain basis. 7 In any
case, we ought to be much more careful in our
judgments about the artistic products of the insane
than we have often been. The point must be
stressed that the products in question stem mainly
from schizophrenics, and as a result of new investi-
gations by Vigotski, Hanfmann and Kasanin, Bolles
and Goldstein, we now know that schizophrenics suf-
fer from an impairment of the abstract attitude.
The role which this attitude plays in the life of an
individual depends further upon the latter's individ-
ual organization, his constitutional and mental type.
There are some persons who are more strongly
directed toward the concrete than the abstract, and
others who prefer by nature to assume an abstract
attitude in all their doings. Thus one may easily
arrive at a wrong judgment about the importance of
the abstract attitude for human behavior by the
observation that very intelligent people seem to
behave very concretely. Behavior in performance
tests provides a case in point. Take, for example,
the following simple test, which I devised for this
purpose with the material of the Kohs blocks. 8
The subject is faced with various simple designs
and is asked to reproduce them with cubes, each cube
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 65
having a different color on each side. The cubes are
of the same size as the entire design. Thus the prod-
uct built up from the blocks is four times as big as
the model. On first looking at the models one is im-
pressed by certain figures which stand out, and one
may try to reproduce them. With this procedure,
however, one can be at most only partially successful.
One has to abstract from the outstanding figures,
divide the model in imagination into squares cor-
responding to the blocks, and copy the divided pic-
tures. Our patients fail in various ways because of
the impairment of their ability to abstract: they
cannot abstract from the size or from the figures
given, and they are not able to divide the model into
squares in imagination. Now we sometimes observe
in normal people behavior similar to that of our
patients. Sometimes it takes a long time before a
subject gets the idea of dividing the model in imagi-
nation, and sometimes the examiner has to demon-
strate the successful procedure. This may suggest
that intelligent normal persons, like our patients, are
very concrete in their reactions and that the capacity
for abstracting cannot be so essential as we have
asserted. Yet there is one great difference between
these normal persons and our patients which shows
that such assumption is wrong. Immediately after a
demonstration by the examiner the normal individual
is able to continue in the correct way. This proves
that he has grasped the abstract method and is fol-
lowing it. But a demonstration of the abstract
66 HUMAN NATURE
method does not help our patients at all. They really
lack the abstract attitude which normal persons
possess. Although normal persons may have a tend-
ency to behave primarily in the concrete manner
and often begin in this way, they can shift very
easily to the other mode of procedure and so gain the
insight that is necessary for success.
Thus these and similar observations of normal
people do not affect our conception of the significance
of the abstract attitude; they show only that there
are two types of normal persons one that prefers
the more coricrste behavior, and another that prefers
the abstract. This difference reveals a characteristic
which has s to be taken into consideration in any
analysis of the structure of the personality, but it
does not reveal any essential difference in the or-
ganization of various human beings. We shall have
to come back to these differences in personality
when we speak about the structure of the personality.
Normal behavior is characterized by an alterna-
tion between an attitude involving abstract and one
involving concrete behavior, and this alternation is
appropriate to the situation and the individuality,
to the task for which the organism is set. If either
attitude becomes independent and governs the be-
havior of a normal person too completely, then we
are faced with an anomalous form of behavior. This
we shall discuss later.
To the characteristic deviation of behavior from
the normal shown in the various examples I have
PATHOLOGY AND MAN'S NATURE 67
given, there naturally corresponds a change in the
world in which the patient lives. We may say that the
patient has no world at all outside himself and op-
posed to him, in the sense that we do: he is impaired
in his capacity for separating himself from the world
which surrounds him; he is embedded in his own
world. His inability to achieve performances which
demand an abstract attitude means not only a shrink-
age of his personality but also a shrinkage of the
world in which he lives. In addition, not only are the
contents of his environment diminished, and his own
capacities shrunken, but there is a decrease in his
freedom of action.
Perhaps we are now justified in drawing some
conclusions as to the structure of the normal human
being. We may start from this point: In the type of
cases we have used as a basis for our discussion we
never observe that an impairment of concrete be-
havior occurs while the attitude toward the abstract
remains intact. The attitude toward the abstract is
always impaired first, and to a higher degree. Now
we may assume that those capacities which are first
impaired by a brain lesion are those which demand
the best functioning of the most complicated sub-
stratum of the brain. Thus it is not accidental that
we find the loss of this capacity especially in lesions
of the frontal lobe, which we consider to be the most
complex part of the human brain. Further, we may
assume that the performances corresponding to the
best functioning of the most complex part of the
68 HUMAN NATURE
brain are the most important that is, represent
the highest capacity of the organism in question.
Thus we are led to the conclusion that we must dis-
tinguish in the human being two types of behavior,
the concrete and the abstract, and that abstract
behavior represents the highest capacity in fact,
the essential capacity of the human being.
Ill
THE ABSTRACT ATTITUDE
AND SPEECH
THE IMPAIRMENT of the abstract attitude is clearly
revealed in characteristic changes in the speech of
patients with brain lesions. We know various forms
of speech defects in such patients and usually class
them together as aphasia. 1 No other pathological
material can teach us so much about the organization
of the human being. Since we cannot deal with all
the various types of aphasia, I shall confine the dis-
cussion to a special form, known as amnesic aphasia, 2
which in my opinion is particularly well suited to give
us an insight into the nature of man.
If one examines a patient with this type of aphasia
one observes as a striking symptom that he is totally
or partially unable to find names for concrete things.
This is especially noticeable in cases where he has
the task of naming presented objects, but it is also
apparent in his spontaneous language, which is con-
spicuously lacking in nouns and verbs. Usually this
symptom is considered as the characteristic change,
but closer examination shows that other changes also
occur. Many circumlocutions are used where we
would use single words. A patient shown a cup, foi
example, may respond with, "This is for drinking/'
70 HUMAN NATURE
or say, on seeing a penholder, "That is for writing/'
etc. In another case, a patient of mine said, "That
is something for the rain," in a situation in which
we should merely say, "That is an umbrella." Or
she said: "I must have it for the rain/' or, "I have
three umbrellas at home." In the last sentence she
used the right word in her periphrasis, yet she was
unable to repeat it in reply to a repeated question,
"What is that?" soon afterward. Evidently such a
patient has not lost the word itself but for some rea-
son is unable to use it in naming an object. Further,
his entire behavior shows peculiarities. All his acting
and thinking seems to center, to an unusual degree,
around his own personality and its relation to the
world. He is acting in the world rather than think-
ing or speaking about it. His speech is accompanied
to a marked degree by expressive movements. Very
often we observe that he seems unable to express his
meaning by words but can do so quite well by move-
ments.
The change involving the whole behavior appears
still more strikingly in special examinations. I shall
begin by presenting the results of one examination
with a sorting test because the results seem particu-
larly well suited to carry us into the core of our
problem, namely, the basic change in patients with
amnesic aphasia.
We place before the patient a heap of colored
woolen skeins Holmgren's well-known samples
used for testing color efficiency. We ask him to pick
ABSTRACT ATTITUDE AND SPEECH 71
out all the red skeins and put them together. (There
are, of course, many different shades of red.) Or we
pick out one particular skein for example, a dark
red one and ask him to choose strands of the
same and similar colors.
In the first task a normal person with good color
efficiency usually selects a great number of different
shades of the same ground color that is, for ex-
ample, different reds, without regard to intensity,
purity, lightness, etc. In the same task patients with
amnesic aphasia behave quite differently, and exhibit
varying types of behavior. For example, when he is
told to choose all the skeins that are similar to a
given skein, one patient chooses only skeins of the
very same or of a closely similar shade. Though
urged to go on he chooses a small number because
there are only a few very similar ones in the heap.
Another patient matches a given bright shade of red
with a blue skein of similar brightness. At first such
a patient may seem to be color-blind, but it can be
demonstrated beyond doubt that his color efficiency
is normal and that he is able to differentiate very
distinctly between colors that are much alike. More
precise observations disclose that in this case the
choice is determined by a particular color attribute of
the given skein, its brightness. We observe, further,
that the choice may be decided by a number of dif-
ferent attributes at one time by brightness, at
another by softness, or coldness, warmth, etc. How-
ever and this is a very amazing thing a patient
72 HUMAN NATURE
who seems to be choosing according to a certain at-
tribute is not able to follow this procedure voluntarily
if it is demanded of him that is, if he is asked to
choose only bright skeins, etc. Further, we observe
that he does not seem to be able to hold to a certain
procedure. He has chosen, for instance, some bright
skeins. Suddenly he begins selecting on the basis of
another attribute the coldness of the color or some
other factor. In another case, the patient arranges
the skeins as if guided by a scale of brightness. He
begins with a very bright red, then adds one less
bright, and so on to a dull one. But if we ask him to
place the skeins in a succession according to their
brightness he shows himself incapable of the per-
formance, even if it is demonstrated to him.
To understand the behavior of our patients, it is
necessary to examine the procedure of normal per-
sons in such tasks. If we normal persons want to
choose a color, we select various nuances, even
though we see that they have various attributes not
equal to one another, because we recognize that they
belong together in respect to their basic quality. The
several shades are merely examples of this quality,
and we treat the skeins not as different individual
things but as representatives of that one basic color.
For the moment we ignore all differences in shade
and disregard all singular attributes. We are able to
do this because we can abstract and because we can
hold fast to a procedure once initiated.
There is another approach, however, which is open
ABSTRACT ATTITUDE AND SPEECH 73
to the normal person. We can start with one particu-
lar skein and move it about over the heap, passively
surrendering ourselves to the impressions that
emerge. Then either of two things will take place.
If we find skeins resembling our sample in all at-
tributes, all these immediately cohere in a unitary
sensory experience with the sample. If we find
skeins which match our sample in some respects, we
experience a characteristic unrest concerning the
heap, and an alternating sense of relationship be-
tween skeins in the heap and the sample, according
to different attributes. No matter whether we experi-
ence rivalry or matching, the coherence we feel re-
sults directly from sense data and takes place pas-
sively; we do not experience a definite attitude toward
any attribute.
There is an essential difference between the more
passive kind of approach and the former, in which
we definitely choose a particular color. In the one,
a definite ordering principle determines our actions;
in the other, there is no such principle, and our actions
are passively determined by outer impressions. These
two kinds of behavior correspond to what we have
called abstract and concrete behavior and what we
may now call categorical and concrete behavior.
A particular kind of language belongs to each of
these types of behavior. Our behavior is abstract
when we give a name to an object. When we speak
of "table" we do not mean a special given table with
all its accidential properties; we mean table in gen-
74 HUMAN NATURE
eral. The word is used as a representative of the
category "table" even when naming a particular
table. Thus, if we are asked to group together all
reds, upon hearing the word "red" we are immedi-
ately prepared to select colors in a categorical fashion.
In this approach language plays a great role, and
the particular form it takes here may be designated
by Karl Buehler's term, darstellende Sprache, which
may be translated as "representative speech."
In the second form of behavior language does not
play much of a role at all. Our words merely accom-
pany our acts and express a property of the object
itself, like other properties, such as color, size, etc.
This fact is shown in the particular kind of words
we use in such situations. The words are especially
adapted to the individuality of the given object. We
use words like "rose-red," "violet"; we do not say
"red," but "pink," "dark red," "strawberry-red,"
"sky-blue"; not green but "grass-green," etc. Often
we have no word for naming a given object, and then
we do it in a roundabout way. Words are used here
less as representative of categories than as individual
properties which, like other properties, belong to the
object in question. We call such words "individual"
words.
Now when we consider the behavior of the patient
in the light of these elucidations we may say that it
is similar to the second approach of normal persons.
He is able to assume only the more concrete, the
more realistic, attitude. Therefore he chooses identi-
ABSTRACT ATTITUDE AND SPEECH 75
cal skeins or skeins which are similar in an outstand-
ing property, such as brightness. This interpretation
finds confirmation in the greater concreteness of the
patient's general behavior, in the predominance of
acting over thinking, in the accompaniment of speech
by expressive movements.
Our assumption is finally substantiated by the re-
sults of another type of sorting test. If a normal
person tries to arrange a number of objects lying
before him say, on the writing table of a very
busy man he may do it in various ways, according
to various attitudes. He may arrange them by size,
by color, by function, by the importance of their
situation, in terms of activity, of thought, etc.
Further, he is able both to shift from one attitude
and one kind of order to another as the situation
demands it, and to effect a particular arrangement
on demand. A patient with amnesic aphasia, con-
fronted with miscellaneous objects with the instruc-
tion to group them, will exhibit the same behavior as
in the color test. He is capable of proceeding only
in a manner that indicates that he is guided by con-
crete promptings.
A particularly instructive example is the follow-
ing. Among a number of different objects there
were placed on a table before a patient a corkscrew
and a bottle with a cork loosely set in its neck. The
patient, asked to arrange these, did not put the bottle
and the corkscrew together. Asked if these two ob-
jects did not belong together, he said, "No," very
76 HUMAN NATURE
positively, backing his answer up with the explana-
tion, "The bottle is already opened." Under these
circumstances most normal people would pay no at-
tention to the fact that the cork was not fast. For
the immediate task the grouping together of ob-
jects that belong together it is quite incidental
and unimportant whether the cork is loose or fast.
With the abstract attitude, in a form of sorting which
involves grouping objects according to categories,
we assume that bottle and corkscrew belong together,
independently of their occurrence in any particular
situation. But for the patient who is able to take the
objects only as they are given in sense experience,
the corkscrew does not belong to the bottle and the
cork if the cork is already loose. From this and
similar cases it is plain that he takes the concrete
attitude toward objects as well we may say toward
all objects, toward the world in its entirety.
Our conclusion is that the patient's inability to
lame objects is a consequence of his inability to as-
sume the abstract attitude, for this is a prerequisite
for the naming of objects. As we have shown in the
example of the umbrella, he has not lost the words
themselves, but he is unable to use them in situa-
tions which demand their use as categories. Often a
patient, asked to name a color presented to him, calls
out over and over various color names: red, blue,
yellow, etc. He may even utter the appropriate name,
but in spite of this he is still unable to connect it with
the color itself. Furthermore, it does not help him
ABSTRACT ATTITUDE AND SPEECH 77
when we say the different color names for him to
repeat after us.
But what makes these words unsuitable for use
in connection with objects in the normal way that
is, as names? Why can they not be used as symbols
for objects? This may be disclosed in observations
of patients who utter appropriate words in connec-
tion with some objects but, as closer analysis shows,
do not use them in a normal categorical fashion.
Here we learn that the patients have the same con-
crete attitude toward the words that they have toward
objects they are asked to sort.
/ Asked to mention the names of several different
Kinds of animals, the patient may be at first unable
to do so. In one case it was not until we had given
a patient such examples as dog, cat, mouse, that she
replied to the question at all. Then suddenly she
said: "A polar bear; a brown bear; a lion; a tiger."
Asked why she named these particular animals, she
said, "If we enter the zoological gardens, we come at
first to the polar bear- and then to the other animals." 3
Obviously she had recalled the animals as they were
situated in the zoological gardens, and had used the
words only as belonging to the concrete situation,
not as names for objects. It was very characteristic
that she did not simply say "hfi^r," a word which
represents the category of all bears, and which we
would use when asked to name animals, but that
instead she selected the words "polar bear," "brown
bear." The same fact appeared when the patient
78 HUMAN NATURE
was asked to recite different female first names. She
said: "Crete, Paula, Clara, Martha/ 7 and, asked why
she had mentioned these particular names, answered,
"These are all G s" (G was her family
name), and went on, "One sister died of a heart
neurosis." The last sentence demonstrates very
clearly that the patient did not recite names but
only uttered words which belonged to a particular
concrete situation, namely, to her family situation.
How very concretely such words are apprehended
may be demonstrated by the following example.
When, to such a patient of ours, a knife was offered
with a pencil, she called the knife a "pencil sharp-
ener"; when the knife was offered with an apple, it
was to her an "apple parer"; when offered with a
potato, it was a "potato peeler"; in company with
a piece of bread, it became a "bread knife"; and
with a fork it was "knife and fork." The word
"knife" alone she never uttered spontaneously, and
when she was asked, "Could we not always call it
simply 'knife?' " she replied promptly, "No."
With different mental sets the same word may
mean for the normal person different things. For
example, in German the word Anhdnger is used for
a lavalier which hangs on a chain around a girPs
neck, or for a follower of a personage, or for the
second car which is customarily attached to a street-
car in Germany. Our patient was unable to use the
word in more than one sense or in connection with
more than one object. If she understood the word in
ABSTRACT ATTITUDE AND SPEECH 79
a particular sense she could not understand that it
could be used in another sense. This observation
shows clearly that the words themselves are quali-
tatively different for such patients as compared with
normal people, by whom the same word can be used
for various totally different objects. By patients
with amnesic aphasia they can be used only in a con-
crete way, for they seem to have lost the character-
istic that is necessary if they are to be used in a
categorical sense that is, as symbols. They may
be useful as properties belonging to a definite object,
but they have become unfit to serve as symbols for
ideas. They have lost their meaning.
It has usually been assumed, even by those authors
who recognize that these patients have lost the cate-
gorical attitude toward objects, that the cause of this
lack is the loss of words, or a difficulty in evoking
words. This cannot be the case. There is no doubt
that words provide a very important means of
helping us to assume the categorical attitude and of
stabilizing concepts, but, as we have explained, our
patients have not really lost the words. Instead, the
words have lost their character of being usable in
the abstract, and this change in language is only one
expression of the basic change in our patients, the
lack of the capacity to create any sort of abstraction.
These observations are important for understand-
ing the character of the capacity for naming objects.
This apparently simple performance does not repre-
sent a superficial connection between a thing and a
80 HUMAN NATURE
word; naming objects presupposes the abstract atti-
tude and is an expression of a very high mental func-
tion. But these observations reveal another point
still more important for our discussion. They show
that speech is one of the essential characteristics of
human nature, inasmuch as it is tied to man's highest
capacity, the capacity for abstract behavior.
Another significant point appears. The patients
we have been discussing have not lost the capacity
to use words in a concrete way, and from the advan-
tage this type of speech gives them we can infer
what role it may play in normal life.
A patient of minelcould name pure colors with
their respective color names red, blue, and so on
but she declined to extend the same word to the
everal shades of a given color. The words were at
her disposal only as individual, concrete things be-
longing to definite objects. In the course of time,
after repeated examinations, she came to call various
shades by the same name; for instance, she would
use the word "red" for all shades of red. Superficially
she seemed to behave like a normal person. One
might have thought that she had improved, that she
had regained the meaning of the words. But it was
not so. Asked why she now called all these different
shades by the same word, she answered, "The doctors
have told me that all these colors are named red.
Therefore I call them all red." Asked if this was not
correct, she laughed and said, "Not one of these
colors is red, but I am told to call them by this word."
ABSTRACT ATTITUDE AND SPEECH 8 1
It is clear that she had not used the words as symbols
but had learned to build a quite external connection
between one word and a diversity of things, a quite
meaningless connection, which, however, because she
had a good memory, helped her to carry out a task,
if only in a very external way.
Thus we must distinguish very definitely between
two ways of using words in connection with objects:
real naming, which is an expression of the categorical
attitude toward the world in general, and pseudo-
naming of objects, which is simply a use of words
held in memory. The incidence of this pseudo-naming
depends on the extent of the individual's verbal pos-
sessions. In it words are used as properties of objects
just as other properties color, size, hue are
used; they belong to concrete behavior. To this type
of words belong the speech aul ^tisms of ordinary
people the alphabet, > .imbe 1 ^ i*i series, the days
of the week, and many otiitM longer or shorter speech
expressions of everyday life. This use of words plays
a great role in ordinary speech. In learning a for-
eign language, for example, as long as we have no
real conception of it as a language, we possess its
words only by such superficial connections with the
words of our own language. If we understand their
meaning within the realm of the foreign language
itself, then the words achieve an absolutely differ-
ent character; then they become representative of
a category.
Important as these speech possessions are for our
82 HUMAN NATURE
everyday language, they obtain their significance
only from their position against a background of
representational, meaningful speech. This may be
gathered from the fact that to a certain extent speech
automatisms are developed only if a human being
possesses the function of meaning. Certainly a child
acquires many automatisms by repeated imitation
of his own speech and that of others. If he is not
able to use them later in connection with meaningful
speech, however, his learning of these words is
limited, and he forgets many that he has learned.
We know that children with an inborn deficiency in
the attitude toward the abstract are not able to de-
velop speech automatisms to any extent, and that
they forget them, in spite of a good memory, if the
words are not practiced constantly. In the same
way, patients with a loss of categorical behavior may
lose their speech automatisms if they are not con-
tinuously kept in use by the demands of concrete
situations. Thus, for example, if the meaning of
numbers is lost, these patients lose the ability to
count and the knowledge of the simple multiplica-
tion table, which are usually regarded as well-estab-
lished possessions of memory.
Speech automatisms may be designated as "tools,"
but it is false to consider language in general as a
mere tool. Even speech automatisms are dependent
upon the categorical attitude both in their building
and in their use. This point is most important. The
use of speech automatisms alone is not real language.
ABSTRACT ATTITUDE AND SPEECH 83
Our patients, despite their lack, of the categorical
attitude, may be able to use speech automatisms
which they acquired at a time when they were capable
of the categorical attitude, but the fact that their
speech lacks the spontaneity and fluidity which
characterizes normal language, and that they are
not able to use the words as symbols, demonstrates
very clearly that language without a categorical
background is not real language. Whenever human
beings use language to establish natural connections
between themselves and the world, particularly with
their fellow men, language is not merely a tool. It
is not merely a superficial means of communication,
not a simple naming of objects through words; it
represents a particular way of building up the world
namely, by means of abstractions. "Language,"
said Wilhelm von Humboldt, "never represents ob-
jects themselves but the concepts which the mind
has formed of them in the autonomous activity by
which it creates language." It is this that makes lan-
guage so important, so essential to the development
of a culture. It becomes a manifestation both of all
that is human, the human being at his deepest, and
of man's psychic bond with his fellows; in none of
his culturafcreations does man reveal himself so fully
as in the creation of language itself. It would be
impossible for animals to create a language, because
they do not have this conceptual approach toward
the world. If they had, they would be not animals
but human beings. Nothing brings this home to us
84 HUMAN NATURE
more strikingly than observing in patients with am-
nesic aphasia the parallelism between the changes
which occur in personality and the loss of the mean-
ing of words.
IV
ORDERED AND CATASTROPHIC BE-
HAVIOR: ANXIETY AND FEAR
THE FOREGOING lectures have given us some insight
into the organization of man by showing the con-
sequences of the lack of the attitude toward the
abstract. In this lecture we shall try to gain an
understanding of the way in which men come to
terms with the outside world. In discussing this im-
portant problem we shall draw upon observations
of our patients' ways of adapting themselves to the
difficulties caused by their defects.
Let us begin with the observation of the behavior
of one of our patients in a task which seems very
simple. 1 We give him a problem in simple arithmetic
which before his sickness he would without any
doubt have been able to solve. Now he is unable to
solve it. But merely noticing and recording the fact
that he is unable to perform a simple multiplication
would be an exceedingly inadequate account of the
patient's reaction. By simply looking at him we dis-
cover a great deal more than his arithmetical failure.
He looks dazed, changes color, becomes agitated and
anxious, starts to fumble. A moment before, he was
amiable; now he is sullen and evasive or exhibits
temper. He presents a picture of a very much dis-"
86 HUMAN NATURE
tressed, frightened person, a person in a state of
anxiety. It takes some time to restore him to a state
which will permit the examination to continue. In
the presence of a task which he can perform, the
same patient behaves in exactly the opposite manner.
He looks animated and calm, and appears to be in a
good mood; he is well-poised and collected, inter-
ested, cooperative; he is "all there." We may call
the state of the patient in the situation of success
ordered behavior ; his state in the situation of failure,
disordered or catastrophic behavior?
In the catastrophic condition the patient not only
is incapable of performing the required task, which
exceeds his impaired capacity, but he also fails, for
a longer or shorter period, in performances which he
is able to carry out in the ordered state. The whole
organism is in great disorder for some time. Obser-
vation of the patient over a longer period of time
reveals that his behavior fluctuates between these two
opposing states and that the catastrophic type of
behavior appears very often in examinations. After
a while the patient becomes calmer, and catastrophic
situations more or less disappear, even if the dis-
turbance of functions remains unaltered. In normal
life as well, in his attempt to come to terms with the
outer world, the individual has to go through such
states of disorder or catastrophe. Thus, in our at-
tempt to understand human nature we cannot fail
to be much interested in scrutinizing the structure of
the catastrophic condition in our patients and in
learning how the abnormal person overcomes it.
ANXIETY AND FEAR 87
To begin with their structure, one might argue
that ordered and catastrophic behavior represent the
reactions of the individual to good and bad perform-
ances. Such an assumption, however, fails to accord
with the observation that the patient is very often
unable to tell why he is restless, angry, afraid, nega-
tivistic, and so on. Frequently usually, in fact
he does not realize that the cause of his anxiety was
a specific task which was demanded of him and to
which he was not equal. We have already pointed
out that our patients are especially disturbed in the
capacity for giving themselves an account of what
they are doing. Therefore we must be allowed to
assume that they are unable to give themselves an
account of the difficulty of the task required, of their
failure, of the consequences which this failure may
have, etc. Thus we may say that catastrophic be-
havior is not simply a consequence of lacking the
capacity to perform but rather belongs to the situa-
tion of failing. The same is true in the case of or-
dered behavior. It belongs to the situation of doing
well.
In order to make this clear we shall supplement
our explanations by further comments on the func-
tioning of the nervous system.
We have already discussed the conditions under
which the organism functions in a constant and or-
dered way. We stressed especially the significance
of the equalization process, which brings the organ-
ism back to its average state of excitation.* What
*See p. 15-
88 HUMAN NATURE
we call a normal performance or an appropriate
reaction to a definite stimulus corresponds to an
excitation pattern within this average zone of ex-
citability. The maintenance of constancy in the
actions of an organism depends on two conditions:
(i) that the organism be nornial, and (2) that the
external stimuli do not differ too strongly from the
adequate stimuli, those suited to the organism con-
cerned.
What do we mean by the phrase "adequate stim-
uli"? 3 We know the organism does not react to all
stimuli in the same way. There are many events to
which a particular organism is not sensitive. I need
not mention the fact that every organism, including
the human organism, is insensitive to stimuli to
which other organisms react. Each has its special
organization as to sensory equipment, etc., and usu-
ally is responsive only to stimuli relevant to this, its
"nature." As we shall see later, it is the basic tend-
ency of the organism to actualize itself in accordance
with its nature. All performances that can be ob-
served are expressions of the activity of the organism
in this direction. This actualization means existence,
life. Normally the organism responds only to those
stimuli which are "adequate" that is, relevant
to its nature. Normal equalization is possible, and
the organism is in a state of ordered behavior, only
so long as it is not affected by inadequate stimuli;
and only in this ordered state is it able to carry on
the performances that correspond to its nature.
ANXIETY AND FEAR 89
Therefore to live in a milieu which allows for ordered
behavior, which allows especially for normal equali-
zation, is requisite for the organism's living at all.
The proper milieu of the organism is not the entire
environment but only that part with which it can
come to terms in such a way that normal equalization
is possible. Each organism has its own characteristic
milieu. Only that, a certain segment of all that sur-
rounds it, constitutes its world. We call this milieu
the adequate milieu, that is, the milieu that is appro-
priate to the nature of the organism. 4 Contact with
it does not alter the organism in such a way that it
becomes unable to realize its own nature. The stim-
uli arising from it we call adequate stimuli.
The very existence of the organism is tied up with
the possibility of finding an adequate milieu within
its environment. Normally, the adaptation of the
organism to its environment that is, congruency
between the two is developed to such a degree
that existence is guaranteed.
The organism ordinarily does not react at all to
stimuli which are inadequate to it. Such stimuli can
become effective only if they are very strong and
force themselves upon the organism ; then it is driven
into the catastrophic situation, not only because it is
unable to react adequately but also because it is so
shocked and disturbed in its functioning that, for a
longer or shorter period, it is unable to react at all.
This brings it into the danger of not being able to
carry on even those performances which are essential
90 HUMAN NATURE
for its existence, and in this sense we may consider
catastrophic behavior as a threat to the existence of
the organism.
For several reasons this situation takes place more
often in abnormal persons than in normal ones.
Every injury to the nervous system involves an im-
pairment of structure and an impairment of the
normal reactions of the substratum and of the process
of equalization. The result is that the sick organism
is not able to react adequately even to normal stim-
uli, which become "inadequate." Catastrophic reac-
tions consequently take place even during normal
tasks, and catastrophic situations appear very easily.
Furthermore, they endanger the existence of the ab-
normal person more than that of a normal one be-
cause his performances are so limited by his illness
that he is more likely to be unable to realize essential
capacities.
It may be difficult to understand how failure in
such apparently unimportant tasks as, for example,
simple arithmetic, can bring an individual into a state
that actually endangers his existence. In order to
understand it, one must bear in mind that any failure
or lack of ability, which to a normal person would
be merely somewhat disagreeable, may produce in
the abnormal one a sense of such inadequacy that it
blocks his ability to perform at all. The danger to
his existence does not depend upon a special task but
on the fact that the task places him in the situation
of not being able to react in accordance with his es-
ANXIETY AND FEAR 91
sential capacities. With that, realization of the essen-
tial capacities is endangered that is, life, existence
itself.
As we have said before, the phenomenon of anxiety
belongs to the catastrophic condition. That is, anxi-
ety corresponds on the subjective side to a condition
in which the organism's existence is in danger. Anxi-
ety is the subjective experience of that danger to
existence. The catastrophic condition and the phe-
nomenon of anxiety, in short, have a special signifi-
cance for life. We feel that we are correct in assuming
that both of them are to be found in all living crea-
tures, in animals as well as in man that they belong
to life itself.
There is one point which must be stressed. We
have explained that our patients are not aware of
the causes of the catastrophic conditions they ex-
perience. Thus we may conclude that, subjectively,
anxiety is not connected causally with the experience
of an event in the external world. Objectively, it is
true, the condition is connected with such an event.
The organism, shaken by the catastrophic shock,
stands in relation to a definite objective reality, and
the basic phenomenon of anxiety, the occurrence of
disordered behavior, is understandable only in terms
of this relation. The subject, however, is not aware
of this objective reality; he experiences only the
shock, only anxiety. His anxiety is the result of the
disordered functioning of his organism, not a reac-
tion to an object. And what holds true for the pa-
92 HUMAN NATURE
tient's anxiety holds true for anxiety in general. Our
observations of many patients confirm the interpre-
tation offered by most philosophers and psycholo-
gists who have dealt with anxiety, that it represents
an emotional state which does not refer to anything
definite, that the source of anxiety is nothing and
nowhere. Anxiety deals with nothingness. It is the
inner experience of being faced with nothingness.
This statement is correct only if one distinguishes
strictly between anxiety and another emotional state
which is very often confused with it fear. Super-
ficially, fear may have many of the characteristics
of anxiety, but intrinsically it is different. The stu-
dent of human nature has every reason to distinguish
sharply between these two phenomena. They are not
characteristic of man in the same way. Anxiety, as
we have said, belongs to the life of all organisms;
fear, however, seems to be confined to the "higher"
organisms, perhaps only to man, because, as we shall
see, it presupposes the abstract attitude.
Let us call attention to some phenomenological
differences between anxiety and fear. 5 In the state of
fear we have an object before us that we can meet,
that we can attempt to remove, or from which we can
flee. We are conscious of ourselves as well as of the
object; we can deliberate as to how we shall behave
toward it, and we can look at the cause of the fear,
which actually lies before us. Anxiety, on the other
hand, gets at us from the back, so to speak. The only
thing we can do is to attempt to flee from it, but
ANXIETY AND FEAR 93
without knowing what direction to take, because we
experience it as coming from no particular place.
This flight is sometimes successful, merely by chance,
but usually it fails and anxiety remains with us. The
assumption that we are dealing with qualitative dif-
ferences is supported by the fact that we have two
different words, "fear" and "anxiety," and that these
words are not interchangeable. In German the dis-
tinction between them is more definite than in Eng-
lish; it is reflected in such expressions as "Ich fiirchte
etwas" and "Ich angstige mich" We shall use jcar
as corresponding to the German word Furcht and
anxiety as corresponding to Angst.
We have said that anxiety corresponds to the ex-
perience of danger to existence. What is character-
istic of the object of fear? Is it something inherent
in the object itself, at all times? Of course not. An
object that at one time arouses only interest, or is
met with indifference, at another time may evoke the
greatest fear. In other words, what results in fear
must be something which is found only in a specific
relationship between organism and object. What is it,
then, that leads to fear? Nothing but the experience
of the possibility of the onset of anxiety. What we
fear is the impending anxiety. Thus it becomes clear
that anxiety cannot be derived from the phenome-
non of fear, and that only the opposite procedure is
logical. The person who is afraid knows anxiety
from past experience as well as through imagination
and anticipation. The person in a state of anxiety,
94 HUMAN NATURE
however, cannot know fear, because in the state of
anxiety he is incapable of any recollection of the
past.
Because the person in a state of fear is not yet in
a state of anxiety, but only envisions it, because he
only fears that anxiety may befall him, he is not so
disturbed in his judgment of the outer world as the
person in a state of anxiety. On the contrary, driven
by the tendency to get rid of the fear, he attempts to
establish special contact with the outer world. He
tries to recognize the situation as clearly as possible,
and to react to it in an appropriate manner, in order
to free himself, either by attack or flight, from the
impending anxiety-situation. Fear is conditioned by,
and directed against, very definite aspects of the
environment. These have to be recognized and, if
possible, removed. Fear sharpens the senses, whereas
anxiety renders them unusable; fear drives to action,
anxiety paralyzes. We can escape anxiety only by
avoiding situations which might result in anxiety.
From these explanations it is obvious that to feel
anxiety it is not necessary to be able to give oneself
an account of one's acts; to feel fear, however, pre-
supposes that capacity. The observation of our pa-
tients teaches us that they are very much affected
by anxiety but not by fear. This corresponds to the
fact that their attitude toward the abstract is im-
paired and that they are therefore unable to look
into the future. Thus it is understandable that fear
should be a phenomenon especially characteristic of
ANXIETY AND FEAR 95
the normal adult human being. Infants, in whom the
abstract attitude is still in the process of develop-
ment, are much more harassed by anxiety than by
fear.
Now how does the abnormal person get rid of his
catastrophic reaction and, with it, of anxiety?
We have stressed the fact that catastrophic situ-
ations are especially dangerous for the sick man.
The tendency to avoid them therefore is a dominant
feature of his whole behavior. Avoiding catastrophic
situations is possible only if he is able to come to
terms with the world in spite of his defects that
is, only if he finds a new milieu which is appro-
priate to his defective condition, a milieu from which
no stimuli arise which put him into a catastrophic
condition. As I have said before, sooner or later
after the injury to the brain, catastrophic reactions
become rarer, and the patient grows quiet, happier,
and more friendly.
I have had an opportunity to observe this change
of behavior in great detail in many patients, since
during and after the war of 1914 I was in charge of
a large hospital for soldiers with brain injuries.
These injured men remained for many years and
lived under conditions that in a way were well
adapted to the mental changes that had occurred in
them. Two or three lived together in a room which
they had to keep very tidy. Each had his own things,
his own wardrobe, and so on. During the time the
men were in the hospital they collected many articles
96 HUMAN NATURE
which they stored in their wardrobes. The life of
these patients was ordered in general by household
regulations. Mealtimes were definitely fixed, as were
times for walking, resting during the day, going to
bed at night, and so on. The patients had an oppor-
tunity to go to concerts, motion pictures, and theaters,
and to have visitors, and there were many other
forms of recreation. Within this general framework
of regulation, however, they still had many opportu-
nities to arrange their lives in a strictly individual
manner.
Now how did the patient, under these conditions,
avoid catastrophic situations and find a milieu ade-
quate to his defect? One way to escape catastrophe
consists in voluntarily withdrawing, to a greater or
less degree, from the world. In extreme cases the
only way out is through loss of consciousness, a factor
which plays an important role in the disturbance of
consciousness appearing in epileptics. One of my
patients, living in an adequate milieu, as in the hos-
pital, was usually quiet and well-behaved. This state
lasted as long as he had to do only those tasks to
which he was equal. When faced with a task to
which he was not equal, he began to tremble vio-
lently, showed signs of catastrophic behavior, and
often fell into unconsciousness for a short time. In
his case a catastrophic reaction of the severest type,
leading to unconsciousness, could be produced experi-
mentally. If, after the patient had returned to his
normal condition, he was asked what had been the
ANXIETY AND FEAR 97
matter with him and what had been demanded of
him, he could give no information whatever.
Resorting to unconsciousness is, of course, hardly
a suitable means of avoiding catastrophic situations,
since it totally abolishes contact between the patient
and his environment. The organism, therefore, com-
monly seeks protection in another way namely, by
avoiding particularly dangerous situations and by
seeking other situations which promise a minimum
of irritating stimuli. In discussing this avoidance of
situations, we must bear in mind that the mentally
sick cannot achieve such a thing by conscious effort;
our patients, as we have seen, were unable to recog-
nize whether or not a situation was dangerous for
them, because they were impaired in the capacity
which makes this judgment possible. Avoidance takes
place in a rather passive way. If the patient has had
some experience of being disturbed in a catastrophic
way in certain situations, and if he is able to recog-
nize these situations by certain particulars, then,
warned by such criteria, he may withdraw from the
dangerous approach. In such cases he does not rec-
ognize the real cause of the danger but is influenced
by some warning signal. We often observe that
patients persistently resist certain tasks which, to us,
seem entirely harmless. We can understand the be-
havior of the patient in these cases only when we
see the situation from the point of view of the danger
it presents to that patient.
Another method of escaping danger is found in
98 HUMAN NATURE
not reacting at all to the required task. If the ex-
aminer urges the patient, he often gives an answer
which is not correct but by which he can escape the
situation for example, "I don't know' 7 ; "That
does not interest me"; "I don't like it." Usually the
patient gives these answers very quickly, with a much
quicker reaction than in other situations. One gets
the impression that he has a great desire to hurry
out of a dangerous situation. His countenance shows
a mixture of anxiety and embarrassment, though he
may be smiling and seem full of determination.
Through these expressions he covers his uncertainty,
hiding it from the examiner and probably from him-
self as well. You will understand the condition of the
patient if you imagine yourself taking part in an
important examination. You are unable to answer
an important question ; you feel the same embarrass-
ment, the same desire to cover up the situation by
evasion and excuses, by giving an answer or doing
anything which you know is right in itself, although
it does not fit this particular instance, for in so doing
you hope to draw the examiner away from the point
at issue. In such a situation you need not be any
more conscious of what you are doing than the pa-
tient. Both of you act as if driven by the desire to
get away from a dangerous situation, and you use
the same means of doing so.
It is natural that the patient should seek protec-
tion by avoiding company and situations out of which
troublesome demands may arise. But this does not
ANXIETY AND FEAR 99
mean that he is not in contact with his environment
and that he is doing nothing. On the contrary, he is
always busy at something not by accident but be-
cause this activity protects him from disturbances
which may arise. He avoids a catastrophic situation
indirectly by busying himself with those things which
he is able to do. No stimulus is so dangerous for him
as an unexpected one, because the quick readjust-
ment which the reaction demands is very difficult for
him, and may even be impossible. We observe again
and again that patients start violently when suddenly
addressed. It is not necessary that what is said be
irritating in itself. What acts as the irritant is the
mere fact that the stimulus comes from a situation
not belonging to the patient's immediate milieu and
therefore demands a particular adjustment which he
cannot make. Very often he does not react at all to
such stimuli, and this has been explained as inatten-
tion. If spoken to with greater vehemence, however,
he will respond. By keeping busy he is aided in his
desire to avoid these sudden irritations. The activi-
ties which engross him need not be of great value in
themselves; their usefulness consists in their pro-
tective character. We call them "substitute reac-
tions." Just what performances appear as substitute
reactions depends on the individuality of the patient
and upon the particular conditions of the environ-
ment. Wherever we find such performances we have
to remember that the patient is in a condition in
which he is afraid of catastrophic situations. The
100 HUMAN NATURE
value of these substitute reactions is not primary but
secondary.
These phenomena have received much attention
in neurotics, but it must be noted that organic cases
behave in the same way. These phenomena in both
cases have the same character and the same origin
functionally, differing only in their etiology. When
produced organically, the defect in special perform-
ances that results in the danger of entering a cata-
strophic situation comes from the organic defect oi
the patient and his inability to fulfill the demands of
his environment ; in the neurotic it is due to the fact
that he is incapable of mastering the battle in his
own soul.
This flight from demands with which they cannot
cope makes it plain that our patients are incapable
of the contemplative attitude of normal persons, that
they cannot take themselves for granted and play the
role of detached spectators. For the same reason our
patients will not walk merely for the sake of walking,
without a definite goal. They may be able to find a
known path easily, but they go for a walk only if
they have a special purpose for example, if they
are going somewhere in particular or want to fetch
something. They do not stroll about, for strolling
about contains in it many dangers of abrupt stimu-
lation. Thus the patient avoids it, and may even
resist going to a known goal by an unfamiliar route,
even if accompanied by a friend. He tries at all costs
to avoid the unknown.
ANXIETY AND FEAR IOI
Another protection from catastrophic situations is
excessive and fanatical orderliness. Suppose, in sit-
ting and talking with a patient, you put several
objects at random on a table. If he becomes aware
of them, he will at once arrange them in some order.
Or, to take another example, a patient has just writ-
ten something for me on a sheet of paper. The ex-
amination is concluded. "That is all," I say, make
a quick note, and drop the pencil on the sheet of
paper, which happens to be lying aslant. The patient
takes up the pencil, straightens the paper carefully
so as to bring its sides parallel with the side of the
table, and then as carefully places the pencil parallel
to the margin of the paper. I change the pencil to an
oblique position, and the patient once more puts it
back into the parallel position. This game can be
kept up for some time. If the patient is made to
desist, being told that the pencil is to be left in the
oblique position, he will obey, but with visible signs
of discomfort. Apparently such a state of "disorder"
is unbearable to him. Similar tendencies can be
observed in regard to time, in behaving in accordance
with instructions and in response to household regu-
lations, in thinking, and in behavior in general. The
patients fulfill required tasks meticulously, and be-
come unhappy, even excited, if they are interrupted
by anyone in their work before it is finished. They
are punctual in their daily activities, in bathing,
going to bed, etc., doing everything at the prescribed
time. I have already said that the patients under my
102 HUMAN NATURE
observation were supposed to look after their per-
sonal belongings. Nothing was more illuminating to
me than the wardrobes and closets of these people
and the extreme care with which innumerable odds
and ends, the accumulation of ten years 7 residence,
were always arranged. Everything had its appointed
place; and not only that it had to occupy that
place in a definite way. Looking more closely, one
discovered a utilitarian motive behind this formal
geometry namely, that of bringing each article
within the patient's reach with a minimum of effort
on his part.
It may prove interesting to stop a moment here and
consider what is meant by the words "order" and
"disorder. " It is impossible to characterize a dis-
tribution of objects once and for all as either orderly
or disorderly. Total disorder would be a completely
haphazard distribution, as far as such an arrange-
ment is possible. Further, what may appear to one
person as order may be disorder for another, depend-
ing on the attitude of each and the capacity of each
to change his attitude. The adequate distribution of
certain objects may be one thing for the contem-
plative individual and quite another for a person
whose approach is behavioral. A person with a be-
havioral approach would find a distribution orderly
which enabled him to use the objects as easily and as
quickly as possible in the situation in which he was
acting. Furthermore, the distribution might vary
greatly with different tasks. A distribution which is
ANXIETY AND FEAR 103
adequate for a simple action may be inadequate for
a complex one and may even hinder the person who
has to use the same objects in different combinations
and in different situations. The distribution of the
objects on the desk of a very busy man may seem
disorderly if you have no insight into the purposes for
which they are to be used. When you have this in-
sight, you see that it may be the best order it is pos-
sible to find in the situation. It is not uncommon for
housewives or maids to feel an irresistible desire to
put such objects in "good" order, to the dismay of
the man to whom the desk belongs. \
For a person who is capable of rising objects only
for very simple actions that arrangement will be best
which makes it possible for him to grasp each thing
easily when he needs it. That means an arrangement
of objects one beside the other in a place where each
can be taken hold of quickly. This arrangement is
"order" for such a person, all other arrangements
"disorder."
This primitive type of order is adequate for the
man with a severe brain injury, since it makes it
possible for him to perform such simple actions as
he is capable of. Any change puts him into a state
of the greatest excitement. For example, one day the
patients of my hospital had to be moved from one
ward to another. One of our patients had intended to
go to his relatives for some weeks during this time,
a thing he very much liked to do. But when he
learned that moving would take place while he was
104 HUMAN NATURE
away, he refrained from making the visit. He did
not wish to abandon his possessions not that he
thought anyone would steal them; he was simply
afraid that they would be disarranged and left in a
condition that would make it difficult for him to find
them. In any other arrangement he would have to
decide which object to use in a given situation, and
that was particularly difficult for him, at times even
impossible. The anxiety that arises out of a situ-
ation in which he is unable to function leads to his
holding with great pertinacity to a simple, primitive
arrangement. It is adequate for him, however, and
enables him to get along in an undisturbed fashion.
The sense of order in the patient is thus an expression
of some pathology, an expression of the impairment
of an essential faculty of human beings, the faculty
of meaningfully changing their behavior.
Not all our patients are orderly to the degree we
have described, however. Sometimes we find patients
who exhibit the contrary behavior. This is particu-
larly the case when they are in an acute condition of
change, in excitation, in depression, and so on. But
in these states of disease they are very often shocked
by catastrophic situations. In chronic disease, where
there is a quieter general condition, we find this
abnormal orderliness as a concomitant factors
One may observe in the behavior of these patients
another phenomenon, which one might describe as
abhorrence of a vacuum, a horror vacui. If the
patient is faced objectively either with a vacuum in
ANXIETY AND FEAR 105
space or with a situation which contains no possi-
bility for him of reaction, he immediately becomes
troubled, anxious. For example, a patient is asked
to write a letter, or just his name, on an empty sheet
of paper. We observe that he hesitates and seems
embarrassed. He does not know where he ought to
write, and so he writes at the very top of the paper,
very often parallel to the top edge. Asked to write
something more, to write to dictation, he joins the
new words closely to the first ones written. If you
try to induce him to write in the middle of the sheet,
he begins to object and becomes excited. Very often
it is impossible to get him to write there. But he will
do so instantly if you draw a line upon which he can
write. At first it may seem that the patient is unable
to write without a line, but further examination shows
that this is not the cause of his deficiency; if it were,
he would not have been able to write without a line
at the top of the sheet. No, the deficiency does not
consist in an incapacity for writing without lines but
in the inability to do anything without clinging to a
given concrete object. This inability induces the
patient to write near the top edge of the paper or
and this is very amazing if he is not allowed to do
that, to draw a line at another place on the sheet
parallel to the edge and to write below that, always
looking at it as he writes. Even more striking is an-
other example: a patient was unable to read letters
or words if they were not written on a line. If you
wrote a letter on the blackboard without a line, he
106 HUMAN NATURE
took the chalk, drew a line under it, and immediately
could read it.
There is no question but that our patients try to
avoid the situation of emptiness. But we cannot as-
sume that they behave so because of having the
experience of emptiness. For having that experience
certainly demands what we have called an abstract
attitude, in which our patients, as we know, are lack-
ing. This abhorrence of a vacuum is caused by the
fact that empty space is not an adequate stimulus.
The patient cannot handle it, and from this inca-
pacity arises the catastrophic situation. Faced with
this condition, the patient recognizes that he is un-
able t6 act and tries to evade the difficulty by cling-
ing to an object which he can cope with.
Now we must discuss further a very interesting
and important means by which our patients are pro-
tected against catastrophic situations, namely, the
means by which dangerous stimuli arising from the
defect itself, and from the impending realization of
the defect by the patient, are excluded.
It is an amazing but very characteristic fact that
people with brain diseases are very often totally un-
conscious of their deviation from the normal, of the
difference between their own state prior to the de-
velopment of the disease and after it. Their unaware-
ness is strikingly displayed when they speak to the
physician of their troubles. It is astonishing how very
small a part is played in their complaints by the
paralysis of a leg or the hemianopic defect, by dis-
ANXIETY AND FEAR 107
turbances of speech, of recognition, of manipulation,
etc. This becomes exceedingly impressive when the
existing defect tends toward a totality, such as com-
plete blindness, complete loss of speech. It is impor-
tant to notice, however, that what happens here is
not simply that the patient is subjectively unaware
of his defects but that objectively he has so compen-
sated in his attitude and actions that they cause very
little difficulty in the field which they concern.
The analysis of this process of adjustment leads us
to stress the fact that the adjustment is made in pro-
portion to the severity of the defect. When the latter
completely blocks any essential activity, the read-
justment becomes much better than in cases of lesser
disturbances. When, for example, sight is entirely
gone, the patient compensates far more thoroughly
than when his vision is merely impaired.
I once had a patient who had been shot through
the optic nerve (chiasma opticum) and was at first
totally blind. As long as this lasted he was not con-
scious of being blind. He used to talk of visual things
like any seeing person; he was quiet, his behavior
was orderly, and one could see that he managed to
get along with the help of his other senses and that
he adjusted without difficulty in the hospital environ-
ment. Later his injury improved and to a certain
degree he regained his sight. Then he became upset;
he sought to orient himself by means of sight but,
owing to its imperfection, succeeded badly. He was
thus less well adapted to his world than when he had
108 HUMAN NATURE
been blind. Now, for the first time, he spoke of some-
thing's not being right with his vision, and this previ-
ously quite reasonably contented man dropped into a
state of depression. "What's to become of me if I
can't see?" he would cry.
From this and similar experiences we may con-
clude that alterations are shut out from the life of
the organism when they would seriously impair any
of its essential functions. If total blindness remained
permanently present to the patient's consciousness
and his situation were the impossible one of facing
visual demands which he could never meet, then the
only possible procedure would be the catastrophic
reaction. But the organism so threatened spontane-
ously reaches a new equilibrium through readjust-
ment to the non-visual world.
We observe all these ways of escaping catastrophic
situations not only in cases of major brain defects
but also in severe bodily disease. Most people have
heard about the characteristic euphoria in patients
in the last stage of tuberculosis. (I might recall here
the masterly description of this condition in Thomas
Mann's novel, The Magic Mountain.) In this we
meet with a very general biological phenomenon:
what seems to be a kindness on the part of nature
saves the organism from an experience too poignant
to be borne.
Using what we have learned by studying patients
with brain defects, we are ready to discuss the role
ANXIETY AND FEAR 109
which anxiety and fear play in normal human life.
In normal life, unquestionably, incongruities often
arise between the capacities of the organism and the
tasks imposed by constellations of stimuli in the en-
vironment; for example, an organism may have to
cope continually with new tasks i.e., with tasks
which contain factors not in keeping with the con-
dition of the organism. The conquest of the world
inevitably forces the organism over and over into
such situations. Consequently we assume that the
"coming to terms" with the world must proceed by
way of constantly recurring catastrophic situations,
with concomitant emotions of the character of anxi-
ety. This is actually the case. To be sure, anxiety
in its full strength does not always appear when one
is incapable of solving a problem. It occurs only
when the situation is of a particular kind. In patients
with brain injuries it is induced by the fact that the
impossibility of solving any given problem acts very
easily as a menace to the existence of the individual.
In normal persons such a situation i.e., not being
able to solve a given problem usually does not
really put the individual into such danger. The nor-
mal person has many possibilities for managing the
situation without threat to his existence. And here
the abstract attitude plays a very great role. Thus
real anxiety does not always appear, but the structure
of the emotion is of the same kind, though slighter
in degree. This emotional reaction may increase to
real anxiety in a moment, however, if an event in
HO HUMAN NATURE
itself apparently unimportant takes place in a situa-
tion in which it can become dangerous. For example,
in an examination that is very important real anxiety
may appear very quickly.
As might be expected, the appearance of anxiety
is to be observed especially in the child, who is
definitely not yet adapted to his environment.
Staring, the expression of astonishment, a condition
surely closely related to anxiety, is characteristic
of the child. But the urge for activity is so great
in the child that he does not shrink back from the
danger of anxiety situations; indeed, he even seeks
them. There is a German tale for children, about
how Little John went out into the world to learn
to shudder, which tells how a little boy is driven by
the desire to learn to know the dreads and dangers
of the world. The story brings home very well the
characteristic behavior of children. Again and again
we see that children not only do not avoid dangers
but actually seek them out as something to be coped
with. In place of an anxious astonishment there de-
velops surprise touched with satisfaction at having
mastered a bit of the world. Thus anxiety is
overcome by activity in the sense of a fruitful coming
to terms with the world, not, as in our patients,
by the avoidance of reality and the building up of
a world which is a shelter from the dangers of
reality.
As the child becomes adapted to the world of the
adult, its behavior becomes more even and ordered;
ANXIETY AND FEAR in
its personality becomes more balanced and settled;
its "wondering" decreases. Yet this wondering never
disappears completely, and the adult, too, again and
again is shaken by astonishment and anxiety when-
ever he finds himself facing new outer and inner
situations and problems which he cannot solve. Like
the person with a brain injury, though to a much
smaller degree, the normal person has the urge to
diminish his anxiety. As an expression of it, we
find the tendency toward order, norms, continuity,
and homogeneity, similar in principle to the tendency
exhibited by our patients. But, on the other hand,
the normal person is also driven by his inherent
desire for new experiences, for the conquest of the
world, and for an expansion of the sphere of his
activity in a practical and spiritual sense. His be-
havior oscillates between these two tendencies, and
is influenced now by one, now by the other. The
outcome of the interaction of the two is the develop-
ment of culture and the products of culture. But one
can in no way maintain that the ordered world
which culture represents is the product of anxiety,
the result of the desire to avoid anxiety. Freud,
for example, conceives of culture as a sublimation
of repressed drives. This is a complete misappre-
hension of the creative trend of human nature, and
at the same time leaves one question completely
unanswered: why the cultural world should have
taken shape in certain patterns, and why just these
forms should be suited to win security for man. The"
112 HUMAN NATURE
matter becomes intelligible only if one regards the
forms as expressions of the creative power of man,
and of his tendency to effect a realization of his
nature. Only when the world is adequate to man's
nature do we find what we call security.
This tendency toward actualization is primary, but
it can achieve its end only through a conflict with
the opposing forces of the environment. This never
happens without shock and anxiety. Thus we are
probably not overstating the facts if we maintain
that these shocks are essential to human nature
and if we conclude that life must, of necessity, take
its course via uncertainty and shock.
Whenever anxiety, as the mainspring of the ac-
tivity of an organism, comes into the foreground,
we find that something is awry in the nature of
that organism. To put it conversely, an organism
is normal and healthy when its tendency toward
self-actualization issues from within, and when it
overcomes the disturbance arising from its clash
with the world not by virtue of anxiety but through
the joy of coming to terms with the world. How
often this perfect form of actualization occurs, we
leave open to question. In any event, even life in its
most nearly perfect manifestation must go through
the disturbances which emerge from the adjustment
to the environment. The creative person, who
ventures into many situations which expose him to
shock, gets into these anxiety situations more often
and more readily than the average person. The
ANXIETY AND FEAR 113
more original a human being is, the deeper his anxiety
is, said Soren Kierkegaard. According to this phi-
losopher, the cause of not being able to come to
terms with the world, the cause of anxiety, is the
inability to come to terms with the phenomenon
of sin. The more original a human being is, the
more he experiences this inability and with it,
anxiety.
Individuals differ as to how much anxiety they
can bear. For a patient with a brain injury, the
amount is very low; for a child it is greater; and
for the creative individual it is still greater. The
capacity for bearing anxiety is the manifestation of
genuine courage, in which ultimately one is con-
cerned not with the things of the world but with a
threat to existence. In the final analysis courage is
nothing but an affirmative answer to the shocks of
existence, to the shocks which it is necessary to bear
for the sake of realizing one f s own nature. This
form of overcoming anxiety requires the ability to
view a single experience within a larger context, i.e.,
to assume the "attitude toward the possible," to
maintain freedom of decision regarding different
possibilities. This attitude is peculiar to man, and
it is because persons with brain injuries have lost
it, and have suffered a consequent impairment of
freedom, that they are so completely helpless
when facing an anxiety situation. They surrender
entirely to the anxiety situation, unless they are
safeguarded against it through a limitation of their
114 HUMAN NATURE
world which reduces their existence to the simplest
forms.
The manner in which creatures in general, and
human beings in particular, cope with anxiety pro-
vides insight into their nature. Nothing shows
more clearly the connection between freedom and
the capacity for sustaining anxiety, and makes it so
evident that freedom is inherent in human nature,
than the difference between the behavior of a person
with a brain injury and a normal personality. The
more the normal person is able to bear of pain and
grief pain and grief from which no human being
is safe, as I believe, because of the phenomenon of
individualization the more surely he preserves
his freedom.
When normal people are beset to an abnormal
degree by anxiety, they are unable to actualize
themselves, and the result is catastrophic situations,
with their consequences. Abnormal states of anxiety
grow out of various causes, but fundamentally they
result from the fact that the individual is in a
state of uncertainty about his existence, taking this
term in its broadest meaning. This uncertainty may
be based upon external or internal difficulties ; it may
rest upon events in the personal life of the individual
or upon the condition of a group, a class, a people,
a nation, and so on.
Uncertainty and anxiety force the individual into
abnormal activities (i.e., substitute phenomena) or
into neurosis or suicide. Substitute phenomena
reveal their abnormal character, their origin in the
ANXIETY AND FEAR 115
abnormal isolation produced by anxiety, by their
abnormal stress on partial aspects of human action
or nature, and by their compulsiveness, their lack
of freedom and relationship to reality, to life. Their
true nature is sometimes misunderstood because
they may have a high value in themselves, as, for
example, when they consist in religious beliefs, in
valuable scientific ideas, in sacrificing oneself for
political reasons. However, as long as these activities
are not spontaneous, are not outlets for the free per-
sonality, but are merely the sequelae of anxiety, they
have only a pseudo value for the personality. They
always mean a shrinkage of the freedom of one's
world. This can be well illustrated by the difference
between the sincere faith of the really religious man,
which is based upon willing devotion to the infinite,
and superstitious beliefs. Or by the difference
between the open-minded scholar who bases his
belief upon facts and is always ready to change his
conceptions when faced with new facts, and the
dogmatic scientist, who maintains his ideas in an
obstinate way and supports them by far-fetched
auxiliary hypotheses because he fears the crash of
his artificially maintained structure a type to be
found in any period. There is a saying attributed
to the Chinese philosopher Chuang-tse which shows
that four hundred years before Christ there was
no difference in this respect. Chuang-tse said: With
a learned person it is impossible to discuss the
problems of life; he is bound by his system.
If the shrinkage of personal life reaches too high
Ii6 HUMAN NATURE
a degree and nature does not help the individual by
blinding him to the danger to existence which this
state involves, then courage reaches its limit. The
person involved may then fall into insanity, as very
often happened in the horrible situations of the
first World War. Or he may become conscious of
the conflict within him and turn to suicide as the
only means of protecting himself from the perpetual
fear of catastrophic situations and the terrible
experience of not being able to carry out tasks which
appear to him as the essence of life. A deliberate
decision to commit suicide presupposes that the
individual gives an account of the situation to himself
and willingly chooses death as the ultimate solu-
tion. Suicide, therefore, is a phenomenon we ob-
serve only in man. No animal commits suicide.
Neither do patients with brain injuries, except in
states of transition in which they are aware of their
situation. With them, suicide at least, the kind of
suicide we have in mind is a very rare phe-
nomenon, and the same is the case with animals.
An animal which is in great anxiety or a patient
who is in the same situation or who is suffering to an
extreme degree may react to this situation in such
a way that he hurts himself and dies, as a man
running amok runs into death. Here, however, we
are not dealing with an action of the will but with
a sequence of disorder and confusion belonging to
the catastrophic situation, in which the actions of the
individual inadvertently cause death. Death then is
ANXIETY AND FEAR 117
a mere accident; it is not desired by the individual
and should not be called suicide. Suicide is a
voluntary act, and, with that, a phenomenon be-
longing to abstract behavior and thus characteristic
of human nature alone.
When anxiety besets groups or nations, it may
force individuals into very strange situations and
lead them to renounce reason and freedom to a
degree that seems unbelievable to the objective
observer. This is especially the case in the political
field. Shaken on the one hand by uneasiness about
the present situation and by anxiety for their
existence, deceived on the other by the mockery of
a brilliant future as the political demagogue depicts
it, a people may give up freedom and accept
subordination or virtual slavery. And it may do this
in the hope of getting rid of anxiety. This is the
condition which tyrants of any kind utilize for sub-
duing free people, for transforming them from people
into masses. The characteristic difference between
free people and masses consists in the fact that the
former determine themselves in liberty, bear pain
and distress, but do this, conscious of necessity, with
a free will, with courage. Thus, in spite of all
necessary restrictions, they remain individuals,
human beings. The man in the masses is not free
and does not think about what he is doing; yet he
may be happy in not needing to think. He does not
need courage; he finds protection against his anxiety
in the will of other individuals. He behaves like a
n8 HUMAN NATURE
man with an .injured brain; he lacks the highest
capacity of human nature, the attitude toward the
abstract, losing himself in activities determined by
concrete demands. Therefore he lacks true com-
munity with his fellow men, for true community
presupposes freedom in action and freedom to
renounce one's right as an individual for the sake
of one's fellow men. Masses are made up of passive
beings, driven together by equal needs and equal
anxiety. And as the attitude of one of our patients
can easily be modified by a skillful person who knows
his needs and his fears, so the attitude of the man in
the masses can be changed, and he can be induced
to fight even against people who shortly before had
been his closest friends. The more firmly their com-
munity is based on the freedom of the individual
that is, the more truly democratic it is the more
individual men will resist such influences.
The differences between individuals in a true
community and those in masses governed by a
dictator of any kind lead back ultimately to
differences in the capacity for taking the abstract
attitude. There is no better means, therefore, of
enslaving people and destroying democracy than to
weaken this capacity. And there is no better means
of attaining that goal than to create in people a
state of anxiety. One of the basic pillars of all kinds
of fascism, consequently, is anxiety.
Subjugation to a tyrannical government is then the
last refuge from suicide. Instead of physical death,
ANXIETY AND FEAR 119
the individual chooses a more or less conscious
form of suicide with respect to the essence of human
nature. How near it is to real suicide can be learned
from the fact that in such political situations
physical suicide is a very frequent event in the
camp of the political party in power as well as in
that of its opponents. The individual is always in a
state of conflict between physical suicide and the
renunciation of what is to him the essence of human
nature. States of anxiety in groups have the
characteristics we have described in individuals, and
many phenomena of social life revolutions and
wars, especially the latter are understandable
only in these terms.
From what we have said, it is plain that we can
understand the behavior of an organism, and so also
of a human being, only if we take into account the
mechanisms used to avoid catastrophic situations.
In pathological cases the tendency to avoid catas-
trophies is very prominent; yet even here the
individual is not governed by this tendency alone,
for he tries to make use of his capacities. This is
even more strongly the case in normal people. An
understanding of normal behavior, consequently,
asks especially for knowledge of the capacities that
are characteristic of a particular individual.
V
COMING TO TERMS WITH THE WORLD
Now WHAT are the means of determining the
capacities of the individual? Observation under the
atomistic method reveals a great variety of phe-
nomena. Among them we can distinguish phenomena
that are directly observable and phenomena that
can be determined only indirectly, through the
communication of the individual's inner experiences.
Thus we observe motor actions of various kinds,
habits, various sensory experiences, moods, feelings,
thoughts, motives, tendencies, needs, desires, drives,
etc. Aside from these innumerable phenomena
revealed by analytic examination, the organism,
especially the human organism, appears to us as a
unit of which these manifold phenomena are the
manifestations. But this is a mere pre-scientific im-
pression. Ours is the task of construing this unity
on the basis of the phenomena we observe. Such
an endeavor to construe the whole, however, meets
at the very outset the skeptical opposition that it is
not necessary to assume such a unit to explain the
behavior of an organism, that the observable phe-
nomena are to be understood without reference
to a personality unit. Personality, according to this
theory, is nothing more than a collection of hundreds
COMING TO TERMS 12 1
or thousands of independent specific habits which
may be determined statistically. 1 They originate in
certain inborn stimulus-response patterns or in the
functioning of definite anatomic and physiological
apparatuses. Upon these inborn reactions, acquired
reactions are built up as conditioned reflexes.
We cannot speak here of the lack of a real
anatomical basis for this theory. Such famous
investigators as Coghill, Herrick, Lashley, Bethe,
and others, are not at all inclined to admit the
existence of such anatomical mechanisms. 2 In
several investigations made many years ago I myself
tried to demonstrate the untenability of this assump-
tion. Often the student is not aware of the extremely
speculative character of the anatomical basis of this
theory. But here we must confine ourselves to a
discussion of the theory itself. According to it, the
reflex is supposed to be a constant reaction to a
definite stimulus, and the behavior of an organism is
understandable in terms of such constant responses
and their combinations. 3
Now observation of human beings shows that
under natural conditions such constant reactions are
very rare, if they occur at all. What we observe
is a variety of reactions to the same stimulus, as
well as equal or similar reactions to various stimuli.
If we want a constant reaction to a stimulus, we must
isolate both the stimulus and that part of the
organism where the stimulus acts. If, for example,
we elicit the knee jerk, the rest of the organism
122 HUMAN NATURE
must be held in a definite state. The attention of
the individual must be artificially diverted from the
event. Only if that succeeds do we regularly get the
same effect from stimulation of the tendon of the
knee. The same is the case with the reflex usually
considered as the prototype of reflexes: the light
reflex of the pupil of the eye. A constant reaction
corresponding quantitatively to the amount of light
is to be achieved only under fixed conditions.
Usually the reaction varies throughout, depending
upon the differences in the mental and bodily
condition of the entire organism.
Any change in any part of the organism changes
every reflex reaction more or less. The reflex is
apparently dependent not only upon the stimulus
and upon that part of the organism where the
reaction takes place but also upon the condition
of the rest of the organism. A very great number
of observations shows that relative constancy
is reached only if the influence of all other stimuli
except the reflex stimulus is experimentally hindered.
This is very often overlooked, as is also the fact
that during the course of a reflex the rest of the
organism is also changed in a definite way. Only
to superficial observation does the stimulus of the
sole seem to evoke flexion of the foot alone (the
so-called foot reflex) and stimulation by light the
contraction of the pupils alone. The same thing is
observable in many other phenomena for example,
those of muscle tone. And all these phenomena
COMING TO TERMS 123
those representing the reflex reaction and those in
other parts of the organism are not only con-
comitant but constitute a unit, no part of which can
be changed without changing the other parts,
including the reflex reaction. This is very often
overlooked because part of the organism which is
considered as unrelated to the reflex reaction is
artificially held constant. On the basis of observation
we have to say that constant reactions in one part
of the organism are phenomena corresponding to an
artificial maintenance of a constant condition of the
rest of the organism. They are thus in effect re-
actions of the whole organism, where by artificial,
experimental means the reactions in the rest of the
organism are held in a definite, constant state.
There do not exist discrete, individual reactions
of parts, as combinations of which the behavior of
the organism can be understood. On the contrary,
only knowledge of the whole organism leads us to
understand the various reactions we observe in
isolated parts. The response to a special stimulus
depends upon the significance of that stimulus for
the performance required of the whole organism at
the moment of stimulation and is intelligible only
from this point of view.
I should like to demonstrate this by an example.
The tendon reflex is usually considered as the con-
traction of a muscle as the result of the stimulation
of its tendon. Very careful investigations by a
physiologist, Hoffmann, have shown that the tendon
124 HUMAN NATURE
reflexes are not elicited by the stimulation of the
tendon but by the tension of the muscle which is
produced by the striking of the tendon. Hoffmann
therefore called these reflexes "prqprioceptive" re-
flexes (Eigenrejlexe) , reactions to stimuli arising
through the processes in the functioning of the
stimulated apparatus itself. 4 The reflex action takes
place in the following way. The muscle is stretched
abnormally by the stroke. This tension is followed
by a reflexively produced innervation by which the
muscle is brought back to the average state of tension
of the muscle. This is the activity of the tendon
reflex. The reader will remember that to the change
produced by a stimulus belongs the process of
equalization by which the state of excitation is
brought back to the "average" condition which makes
possible the best performance. Here it makes
possible the exact innervation of the muscle. The
correct innervation corresponds to a definite average
tone of the muscle.
The average state of tension of the single muscle
is not determined by the condition of the muscle
alone but by the situation of the whole organism.
This might be demonstrated in the following way.
If you jump down a steep incline in such a way that
you always touch the ground first with your heel,
then the muscles located on the anterior part of
the lower segment of the leg and the quadriceps
are first passively stretched and then contracted
reflexively. This very sensible reaction seems to
COMING TO TERMS 125
take place without any voluntary innervation and
to be the consequence of a reflex process. It seems
to happen without any relation to the organism as
a whole. But, correct and plausible as such an
explanation seems to be, it is not really so. This
is to be seen by the fact that, under other conditions
of the whole organism, we observe a totally different
phenomenon during the same kind of abnormal
tension of these muscles. If, as one walks, let us say,
through a forest, one's foot sticks fast behind an
object, say a stone, the muscles we mentioned before
are stretched. They do not contract, however, in
response to that tension. On the contrary, they
extend, and the opposite muscles those of the back
of the leg contract, for only so can the foot be
released and a fall be avoided. This reaction, too,
takes place without our knowledge, without our will
which means reflexively; yet it is certainly not an
innervation caused by the abnormal tension alone,
but one determined rather by the condition of the
organism as a whole.
Now if we assume that the change of peripheral
innervation in this case is determined by the whole
organism, we have no reason not to assume the same
in the other case. Thus we obtain the following re-
sult: The reflexive reaction to a change in the pe-
riphery is determined by the condition of the whole
organism. This means that so-called reflexive reac-
tions are reactions corresponding to the condition of
the whole organism.
126 HUMAN NATURE
We might also react in a voluntary way to the
peripheral change, i.e., to the overtension. But this
voluntary reaction would come too late, and the
organism would be in danger of injury. In such
situations reflex reactions take place, but, as we have
seen, they are determined by the condition of the
entire organism. They represent a special type of
reaction of the organism as a whole. We may say
then that so-called reflexive reactions appear dur-
ing certain states of the organism as a whole, i.e.,
in situations of danger in which the organism can-
not react quickly enough voluntarily. But what
is most important is that they are reactions corre-
sponding to the situation involving the organism as
a whole.
Furthermore, closer experimental studies of the
isolated reactions in human beings which are com-
monly used in support of the reflex theory reveal
phenomena which speak directly against its basic
assumption of the single relationship between
stimulus and reaction. For example, we observe in
many different parts of the body that most of these
isolated reflex reactions can be reversed i.e., the
reflex reaction does not depend solely upon the
specific stimulus, but, in addition, what was
considered in the experiment to be stimulus ap-
parently can be changed by what was considered, to
be reaction. That is, there is usually a mutual
influence of the two factors. Under certain experi-
mental conditions, for instance, we can produce a
COMING TO TERMS 127
change of the position of the limbs by bringing the
head into a certain position. This relationship is
considered as the effect of a neck reflex from the
head upon the limbs (one of the so-called Magnus-de
Klejns reflexes). But the opposite is also the case.
Under certain conditions we can influence the
position of the head by changing the position of the
limbs. On the basis of the tremendous amount of
material dealing with reactions in the vegetative
system, the mutual influence between certain stimuli
and reactions can be demonstrated in the most
impressive and convincing way. This is a very
important fact which speaks against the usual idea
of the reflex character of behavior.
Thus, after having reviewed all the facts in this
field, one reaches the following conclusion: We are
dealing with a system in which the single phenomena
mutually influence one another through a circular
process, which has no beginning and no end. If,
starting with the observation of reflexes, we try in
unbiased fashion to understand the behavior of an
organism, the facts everywhere force such a point
of view upon us. In this disappointing situation
the adherents of the reflex theory are forced to
build up supporting hypotheses by introducing
factors which integrate the mechanisms of single
processes and thus account for the total behavior
of an organism, which is always an ordered be-
havior. But these regulative and integrative factors
in themselves for example, the assumed regulative
128 HUMAN NATURE
higher nerve centers or a metaphysical entelechy (in
Aristotle's sense) or a vitalistic principle, as Driesch 5
would call it are all of an order totally different
from the reflexes. Thus we face a situation in
which one has to assume two essentially different
determining factors in the organism: reflexes and
higher regulating principles. With such a twofold
assumption the essential significance of the reflex
theory its claim to explain behavior entirely on
the plane of reflexes is abandoned. But it is not
merely that these adventitiously introduced factors
differ in principle from the reflexes; implicitly they
are usually thought of as an expression of the
function of the whole organism. Consequently, the
whole organism again comes into the discussion, and
the very situation arises which the simple reflex
theory tried to avoid.
Observations of human beings thus fail to support
the stimulus-response theory; new experiments and
recent critical revisions of the experiments on
animals increase our skepticism regarding it.
The controversy on this issue has reached a climax
during the last ten years, and more and more evidence
has been adduced against the stimulus-response
theory. Such investigators as John Dewey, R. S.
Woodworth, Thurstone, Karl Lashley, Gordon W.
Allport, Kluever, the Gestalt psychologists, Wheeler,
Kantor, Warren, Carter, Jr., and others, 6 have all in
various ways taken a critical stand against it. It is
true that it still counts among its followers a great
COMING TO TERMS 129
number of well-known physiologists and psycholo-
gists. But among these many recognize the increas-
ing difficulties which have appeared as the result not
only of theoretical discussion but of the discovery
of new facts and the making of innumerable new
observations. Difficulties coming from the realm of
fact must be taken particularly seriously, for the
theory became famous chiefly because of its
supposedly empirical character. More and more
observations of the action of reflexes in animals
have been published which appear unexplainable
on the basis of the simple phenomenon of a constant
connection between stimulus and reaction ; more and
more factors have been demonstrated to influence
the reaction.
There is no paper which illustrates the situation
better than the presidential address delivered before
the American Psychological Association (1937) by
E. C. Tolman, who without any doubt is one of the
outstanding experts in this field. 7 Tolman's address
deals with the simple question: What factors cause
a rat in a simple T-maze to enter, at a given point
of choice, one of the two channels? The task which
the rat has to perform seems very easy. The animal
can run in a maze of T-form from a point of choice
to one of the two ends of the transverse channel,
and is trained to go to one of them. The result the
dependent variable, the percentage tendency at any
given state of learning for the group as a whole to
turn left, the behavior ratio, as Tolman explains
130 HUMAN NATURE
definitely does not depend upon the stimulus alone
but upon many factors. Tt would be impossible to
enumerate them all. The diagram by which Tolman
illustrates the relationship between the result (the
dependent variable) and the determining factors
(the independent variables) is based on a very com-
plex formula. It should be mentioned only that, in
addition to the "operational factors" given in the
experimental arrangement, a series of groups of fac-
tors is to be taken into consideration. These are six
groups of environmental variables and four groups of
individual-difference variables (heredity, age, previ-
ous training, and special endocrine, drug, or vitamin
conditions). Each of these individual-difference
variables is assumed to be potent to influence each
of the independent variables (the operational and
the environmental). Further, there are intervening
variables, which have to be introduced in different
ways, according to the different theories by which
the reaction becomes understandable, and which are
open to discussion. These intervening variables are,
for example, according to Hull, "conditionings" of
the running response to successive aggregates of
exteroceptive, proprioceptive, and interoceptive
stimuli. 8 Tolman suggests as intervening variables
such factors as demand, appetite, differentiation,
motor skill, hypotheses, and biases, which correspond
to the various environmental variables. As far as
most of these factors are concerned, an unequivocal
result may be deducible from the formula which de-
COMING TO TERMS 131
termines the reaction to a stimulus, complex as it is ;
the effect can be considered as a resultant of the
effects of all the definable factors.
Further experiments, however, disclose one other
implication which is much more detrimental to the
theory. As Tolman explains, the influence of the
various factors cannot be considered simply as a
type of summation effect. The manner of combina-
tion of the factors does not seem to be that of simple
addition. Certain factors may increase the effect
of others under certain conditions, but under other
circumstances they may decrea^p it. To this
complexity, which can hardly be perceived in an
unequivocal way, there finally has to be added a
factor which Tolman calls Catalyzing behavior." It
consists in "lookings or runnings back and forth"
on the part of the animal. Kluever and Gellerman,
especially, have described it in experiments with
monkeys, chimpanzees, and children; according to
Tolman, Muenzinger has observed the same phe-
nomenon in rats. 9 Tolman goes so far as to suggest
that "such 'lookings back and forth' might be taken
as a behavioristic definition of conscious awareness."
Without being able to explain it in any other way,
he points to its great importance. And, indeed, he is
right in doing so. This behavior apparently pertains
to high mental capacities; it is decreased, for
example, in rats with brain injuries. We do not know
how the effect of the various factors may be modified
by this phenomenon, which seems itself to be in-'
133 HUMAN NATURE
fluenced by the other factors in a way not yet
determinable.
This mutual influence of the factors has not
received the special attention it deserves in connec-
tion with our problem. We discussed its importance
when we spoke of experiments on human beings,
and we saw that to take it into consideration makes
it impossible to stand by the reflex theory at all. It is
thus not surprising that Tolman should come to a
widely negative result. He feels the urge to declare
himself for an anthropomorphic approach to the
problem. He w^tes: "I in my future work intend
to go ahead imagining how, // / were a rat, I would
behave as a result of such and such a demand
combined with such and such an appetite and such
and such a degree of differentiation, and so on." I
mention this conclusion to demonstrate what kind of
result must eventually be reached even by a man
who has done such outstanding work in this field
as Tolman has if he reviews critically the facts dis-
closed in innumerable experiments on animals.
Certainly any reaction is understandable only if
we consider the individual phenomenon in reference
to the condition of the whole organism. In animal
psychology, too, such a conception has of late gained
more ground. I should like to mention especially
the work of K. S. Lashley and Kantor. A follower
of Kantor, I. W. Carter, after a very careful analysis
of all the different types of conceptions advanced for
understanding the facts, holds that only an or-
COMING TO TERMS 133
ganismic or interactional conception, as he calls it,
can do justice to the facts. 10 Thus he comes to the
same conclusion as I did from my investigations in
man: that the stimulus has to be considered from
the point of view of "its stimulating function or
value" for the individual, and that the response is an
expression of the adjustment of the organism as a
whole to the given situation. The special action by
which this adjustment is reached is understandable,
I would add, only in relation to the task which the
organism faces at the moment, and in terms of the
law that it is the organism's tendency to fulfill a task
in such a way that its capacities are realized as fully
as possible. This tendency represents the drive by
which the organism is set going, a topic we shall
have to discuss very soon.
We come to the conclusion therefore that what we
usually call reflexes are performances of the organism
which are understandable only from a knowledge of
the organism. And thus we are brought back to
the problem which the stimulus-response theory tried
to solve.
Now what about conditioned reflexes? 11
I need not say that we consider these phenomena
as artificially produced and therefore cannot assume
that normal life can be based on them. In saying
this, however, I do not wish to deny that they may
have significance in some special situations. We saw
as we discussed proprioceptive reactions to abnormal
tensions of single muscles that localized reactions
134 HUMAN NATURE
may play an important role in situations of
emergency and danger. Something similar may be
the case with conditioned reflexes. We are very much
interested in this problem, because the possible
demonstration of such significance on the part of
conditioned reflexes may teach us something about
the role which artificial events play in normal life.
A look at the whole arrangement under which
conditioned responses are built up and maintained
shows clearly that the situation corresponds to what
we have described as the characteristic requirement
of isolated stimulus-response reactions in general.
Conditioned responses are observed only when the
organism as a whole is held in a definite constant
state. In experiments this complicated situation is
created and maintained by the experimenter.
I doubt whether in the natural life of an animal
there can be such complicated conditions in the
environmental situation as to build up conditioned
reflexes, and, further, I doubt whether, if these
conditions exist, they are constant enough to enable
the conditioned responses to be maintained and thus
become important for the life of the animal. Here
is a problem which we have not enough experience
to discuss. We can say somewhat more about the
significance of conditioned responses in human
children. Here, too, the experimenter, the educator,
has to bring the infant into a situation which is
suited for building up conditioned reflexes, and he
has to maintain this condition for as long as the
COMING TO TERMS 135
response is to be maintained. In immature children
this is achieved by reward and punishment, but later
the acquired actions can be preserved without these
measures and by other factors, which are given in
the characteristic organization of the human being.
Two factors have to be considered. The first is the
possibility of transition from a conditioned response
to a natural, normal, adequate performance. For
example, the baby must learn to control urination.
He is not able to understand why, or how to manage
it. Now a conditioned response may be built up
by using reward and punishment, but later the habit
is no longer based on these factors. His behavior
comes to be determined by will, insight, and the
purposeful use of his organic capacities i.e., a
special habit becomes part of the behavior as a
whole that is characteristic of the grown child. Here
the conditioned response shows its significance as a
reaction built up in a state of immaturity as prepa-
ration for real performances in mature life. If
this mature status is not achieved because, for
example, of retardation in the child's general,
especially his mental, development then the
proper habit will never be perfectly attained. Con-
ditioned responses are characteristic drill actions.
Normal learned performances are not the result of
drill but of training.
Both these proceedings aim at performances that
are as good as possible. Training attempts to achieve
them by exercising the natural capacities of the
136 HUMAN NATURE
individual organism and by bringing them to the level
of greatest efficiency. The performances in question
are related to the nature of the organism, and the
intended effect is the highest possible adequate
relationship between the individual organism and the
environment. In drill the performance aimed at is
not related to the nature of the organism. It is
achieved by building up a connection between a
particular stimulus and a reaction by an isolated part
of the organism. This connection, created by the
method of conditioning, is intended to become so
well set that whenever the stimulus is present the
reaction appears automatically. The building up of
such drill-reactions is possible only if the rest of
the organism is in a definite situation which is held
constant by certain means. In animals this is con-
trolled by the trainer. Later the animal may be in
a condition in which the isolation of parts required
for conditioned responses occurs passively, without
pain, but supported by reward and punishment. The
best results are achieved, however, if the trainer uses
performances which are natural to the animal. Then
the performance will be executed most accurately
and may also give the animal some pleasure. The
best drills one sees in circuses are of this kind. An
expert in drilling animals must be an expert in
knowledge of their nature. In any case, the main-
tenance of the action demands the presence of the
human being; it can never occur through the efforts
of the animal itself.
COMING TO TERMS 137
In human beings as well, the best learning is
that which is based on the natural capacities of the
individual. Nevertheless, the human adult is also
forced to subject himself in some measure to learning
by drill. Because of the complex structure of
civilization, his environment is not consistently
natural. As a result, men are compelled to build
up external connections between certain stimuli and
definite reactions which make it possible for them to
respond to the sometimes very unnatural demands
of civilization.
There is a special capacity of human nature which
enables human beings to build up such unnatural
connections and to maintain them; it is the capacity
for abstraction. A human being is able to separate
functionally parts of his own organism from the
rest, subject them to specific isolated stimuli, and
let the reactions run off by themselves. In this way
he can drill himself. The only thing he has to do
is to avoid hindering these reactions. It is insight
into the necessity for such reactions which leads
the human being to build them up and to maintain
them. From this point of view it is obvious why
conditioned responses can be built up more easily
and maintained better in human beings than in
animals.
Thus we come to the conclusion that conditioned
responses cannot be considered as basic for under-
standing human behavior. They represent only
secondary phenomena; abstract behavior is necessary
138 HUMAN NATURE
for building them up and maintaining them. In
animals they depend upon the experimenter's or
trainer's capacity for abstraction; in infants on that
of the educator; and in adult men on their own. This
interpretation of conditioned reflexes in no way
conflicts with our conclusions about unconditioned
reflexes. True, conditioning is an essential factor
in human behavior which must not be neglected. It
can be used successfully, however, only if we con-
sider it within the framework of the organism as
a whole.
Our discussion of the stimulus-response theory
has revealed that it is impossible to understand the
behavior of organisms in terms of constant reactions
of isolated apparatuses to external stimuli. We have
alw r ays been brought back to the organization of the
individual organism as a whole. We come to the
same result if we try to understand human behavior
on the basis of the so-called instincts.
I am sorry that I have no time here to analyze
in detail the phenomena which are called instinctive
behavior. 12 A careful analysis leads to the conclusion
that these phenomena are of various kinds. Some
the reactions of infancy, as, for example, the to-
turning reactions or the first grasping and sucking
movements are reactions caused through the im-
maturity of the organism; they represent the
equalization processes of immature living matter.
For their understanding the assumption of special
instincts is not necessary. A second group sitting,
COMING TO TERMS 139
walking, speaking, etc. represents performances of
the same order as any other performance. They
also are grounded in inborn potentialities and
developed through experience. They have to be
distinguished from other performances only by the
fact that inborn and non-conscious factors play a
much greater role than in other performances
than, for example, in the highest form of perform-
ance, voluntary actions. Although the latter, too,
are based upon inborn potentialities, they are
determined to a much higher degree by experience
and learning. In a voluntary action the "drive"
works through the medium of intention, thinking,
decision, and motivation on the part of the in-
dividual; in an instinctive action the performance
is set going directly by the "drive." Both types of
performance are dependent, however, upon the
activity of the organism as a whole. The third and
last group of instinctive actions is made up of habits
and customs, actions which are distinguished from
other performances by the fact that they occur in
relative isolation from the organism and thus seem
to represent a special type. They are actions ac-
quired by the activity of the whole organ which
later gain a great independence of it.
In common with the voluntary actions, all these
so-called "instinctive" actions represent the or-
ganism's means for coming to terms with the outer
world in an adequate way; they make possible the
organism's actualization of its capacities. They"
140 HUMAN NATURE
differ from voluntary actions, however, in the va-
riety of capacities which are actualized under various
conditions.
The tendency to actualize itself is the motive
which sets the organism going; it is the drive by
which the organism is moved. This idea about drives
is in contradiction to most theories of drives, which
assume (i) that the goal of the drive is to release
itself, to release the tension which corresponds to
it, and (2) that a number of different drives exists.
In my opinion both assumptions are wrong. What
can we learn from the observation of patients
with brain injuries in connection with a theory of
drives?
First, that the tendency to release tension is a
characteristic phenomenon of pathological life. In
pathology abnormal tensions occur relatively often
in single fields, because reactions tend to take place
in isolated parts and because the process of equali-
zation is disturbed. Through abnormal tensions with
which the organism cannot cope, catastrophic situa-
tions are favored. The sick person has the tendency
to avoid catastrophic reactions, and therefore has a
special tendency to remove abnormal tensions. This
gives the impression that he is governed by a drive
to do this. For example, the sick who suffer from a
tension in the sex sphere seem to be forced to release
this tension. From this observation the idea has
arisen that it is the real goal of all drives to lift and
discharge tension, and to bring the organism into a
COMING TO TERMS 141
state of non-tension i.e., that it is the goal of the
drive to release itself.
The tendency to discharge any tension whatsoever
is a characteristic expression of a defective organism,
of disease. It is the only means the sick organism
has to actualize itself, even if in an imperfect way.
But the entire existence of a sick organism depends
upon other organisms. Clearly, life under such con-
ditions is not normal, and the mere discharge of
tensions cannot therefore be characteristic of normal
life. Innumerable instances teach us that it is the
basic tendency of the sick organism to utilize what
capacities it has in the best possible way (considered,
of course, in relation to the normal nature of the
organism concerned). The behavior of patients with
brain injuries, for example, is to be understood only
from such a point of view. A comparison of the
behavior of our patients with that of normal persons
leaves us no doubt that the life of the normal
organism is also governed by this rule. We may say
then, that an organism is governed by the tendency
to actualize its individual capacities as fully as
possible. This tendency is frequently regarded as
a tendency to maintain the existent state, to preserve
oneself. We learn from pathology, however, that the
tendency to self-preservation is characteristic of sick
people and is a sign of anomalous life, of decay oi
life. For the sick person the only form of actuali-
zation of his capacities which remains is the
maintenance of the existent state. This is not the
142 HUMAN NATURE
tendency of the normal person. Sometimes, it is
true, the normal organism also tends primarily to
avoid catastrophes and to maintain a state which
makes this possible, but this occurs only when
conditions are unfavorable and is not at all the
usual behavior. Under adequate conditions the
tendency of normal life is toward activity and
progress.
Since the tendency to actualize itself as fully
as possible is the basic drive, the only drive by
which the sick organism is moved, and since the
life of the normal organism is determined in the
same way, it is clear that the goal of the drive is
not a discharge of tension, and that we have to
assume only one drive, the drive of self -actualization.
Under various conditions various actions come into
the foreground; and since they seem thereby to be
directed toward different goals, they give the im-
pression of existing independently of each other. In
reality, however, these various actions occur in
accordance with the various capacities which belong
to the nature of the organism, and in accordance
with those instrumental processes which are the
necessary prerequisites of the self-actualization of
the organism.
The concept of different separate drives 13 is based
on observations of the sick, of young children, and
of animals under experimental conditions that is,
on observations made under circumstances in which
some activities of the organism are isolated from the
COMING TO TERMS 143
whole. This is the case in pathology; it is the
case in children because the organism of the child
lacks a center; and it is the case in experiments
with animals because of the experimental conditions.
One of the basic errors of the Freudian theory
is that the tendencies observable in sick people are
considered as the basic drives of the normal human
being.
The impression that there are separate drives
arises easily because the organism is governed at
one time by one tendency, at another time by
another, because one or the other tendency in a given
condition becomes more important for self-actuali-
zation. This is especially the case when the organism
is living under inadequate conditions. If a human
being is forced to live in a state of hunger for a
long time, or if there are conditions in his body
which produce a strong feeling of hunger, so that
he is urged to relieve this feeling, it disturbs the
actualization of his whole personality. Then it
appears as if he were under a hunger drive. The
same may be the case with sex. A normal organism,
however, is able to repress the hunger feeling or
the sex urge if it has something very important to
do, the neglect of which would bring the whole
organism into danger.
The behavior of a normal individual is to be
understood only if considered from the point of
view that those performances are always fulfilled
which are most important for the organism. This
144 HUMAN NATURE
presupposes a normal centering of the organism
and a normal, adequate environment. Because these
conditions are not always fulfilled, even in normal
life, the organism may often appear to be governed
transitorily by a special tendency. In this case we
have to deal with an emergency situation, not with a
normal one, and as a result one gets the impression
of a special, isolated drive. This is to be found
particularly if the organism is not allowed to ac-
tualize one potentiality or another for an abnormally
long time, as, for example, if the reception of food
is hindered for a long time. Then the harmonious
relationship between the organism and the outer
world is thrown out of gear, and the individual is
driven to fulfill that particular potentiality because
only in this way can its existence be guaranteed.
We are confronted here with a behavior corre-
sponding to that in which only the activities prevail
that are important for mere existence in situations
of danger. But these are not the activities by which
normal behavior can be understood.
On the basis of our discussion I believe we are
in no way forced to assume the existence of special
drives. I believe that the facts which are taken as
foundations for the assumption of different drives
are more or less abstractions from the natural be-
havior of the organism. They are special reactions
in special situations, and represent the various forms
by which the organism as a whole expresses itself.
The traditional view assumes various drives which
COMING TO TERMS 145
come into the foreground under certain conditions.
We assume only one drive, the drive of self-actuali-
zation, but are compelled to concede that under
certain conditions the tendency to actualize one
potentiality is so strong that the organism is
governed by it. Superficially, therefore, our theory
may not appear to be much in conflict with the
others, but I think there is an essential difference.
From our standpoint we can understand the latter
phenomenon as an abnormal deviation from normal
behavior under definite conditions, but the theory
of separate drives can never comprehend normal
behavior without positing another agency which
makes the decision in the struggle between the single
drives. This means that any theory of drives has
to introduce another, a "higher" agency. Here the
same situation confronts us as in the discussion of
reflexes, and we must again reject the auxiliary
hypothesis as unsuitable in solving the problem.
In the tendency of the organism to actualize itself
we are faced with only one question. We do not need
to assume drives.
We reject the theory of drives from yet another
point of view. If one of these potentialities,* or one
which we can abstract from the whole of the or-
ganism, is taken as a distinct faculty, we fall into
the errors of faculty psychology. It is isolated, and
isolation changes the capacity, exaggerates it, just
* Henceforth the terms "potentiality" and "capacity" will be
used interchangeably.
146 HUMAN NATURE
as it changes every behavioral aspect taken apart
from the rest of the organism. If we start from the
phenomena to be observed in such situations of
isolation, we can never understand behavior. False
concepts arise, as of the determining importance of
single drives, sex or power, etc. A judgment about
such phenomena as sex and power is to be made
only if one considers them outside of their ap-
pearance in isolation and looks at their appearance
in the natural life of the organism, where they
present themselves as embedded in the activities of
the organism as a whole. With this approach to
the problem, the way usually obstructed by some
preconceived idea of isolated drives is free for
new investigations. This should be the essential
outcome of our critique.
What are usually called drives are tendencies
corresponding to the capacities and the nature of
the organism, and to the environment in which the
organism is living at a given time. It is better to
speak of "needs." The organism has definite po-
tentialities, and because it has them it has the need
to actualize or realize them. The fulfillment of these
needs represents the self-actualization of the or-
ganism. Driven by such needs, we experience our-
selves as active personalities and are not passively
impelled by drives that are felt to conflict with the
personality.
A special form of such self-actualization is the
need to complete incomplete actions, a tendency
COMING TO TERMS 147
which explains many of the activities of the child.
In the innumerable repetitions of children we are
not dealing with the manifestation of a senseless
drive for repetition but with the tendency toward
completion and perfection. The driving force is
given in the experience of imperfection, be it thirst,
hunger, or the inability to fulfill any performance
which seems to be within our capacities; the goal
is the fulfillment of the task. The nearer we are to
perfection, the stronger is the need to perform. This
is valid for children as well as for adults.
The urge to perfection brings about the building
up of more or less perfect instruments in any field.
These in themselves become a further impulse for
the use of the instrumental mechanisms, because this
makes possible perfection in other fields. As long as
the child's walking is imperfect, he tends to walk
and walk, often with no other goal than walking.
After he has perfected the walking, he uses it in
order to reach a special point which attracts his
attention that is, to complete another perform-
ance, and so on.
It has been believed that it is possible to reduce
drives to these instrumental mechanisms. The
mechanisms themselves are supposed to have
originated from conditioned responses built up by
the organism as a means of adjustment during
development. A drive, then, is nothing but a neural
process or a habit corresponding to the neural
process that releases these mechanisms. There is"
148 HUMAN NATURE
no doubt that habits lead to activity. But the
problem is how these habits originate, and whether,
for their acquisition, a special activity and tendency
is not the necessary cause. There are two possi-
bilities to be considered. Either the mechanisms
develop with the maturation of inborn neural
patterns without any active interference on the
part of the organism, or they are built up by the
activity of the organism in connection with ex-
perience. Nobody doubts that the development of
mechanisms is based upon inborn dispositions corre-
sponding to the nature of the organism, upon inborn
capacities which develop with maturation. But the
question is whether these capacities develop without
any activity on the part of the organism. I think ex-
perience teaches us that this is not the case. The
development of the mechanisms takes place as part
of the organism's procedure in coming to terms with
the outer world. Walking and speaking do not de-
velop without an impulse on the part of the child.
If this impulse is lacking, the development even of
these definitely inborn capacities is retarded or
missing. Thus the development of the mechanisms
presupposes the drive for self-actualization, notwith-
standing the "functional autonomy" the mechanisms
achieve later on.
From these mechanisms arises a strong impulse
toward action. They become instrumental in the
performances of the organism and make the self-
actualization of the organism easier; therefore there
COMING TO TERMS 149
is a strong urge to use them. Thus far we agree with
R. S. Woodworth, 14 who has emphasized the fact
that "the means to the end becomes an object of
interest on its own account." But normally this
"functional autonomy/ 7 as Allport has called it/ 5 is
meaningfully integrated with the whole of the
personality; that is, "means to an end/' "mech-
anisms/' and "habits" achieve independence only
in so far as they are not in conflict with the "needs"
of the whole organism and the life situation. When-
ever they gain an actual autonomy, then we are
dealing with a quite different phenomenon, with
unnatural isolation. This applies also to the habits
of groups i.e., to customs. In the course of history
many customs, habits, and symbols in civilization
and culture have attained a certain emancipation
from their original contextual intention and govern
the behavior of the individual without his being
aware of their original purpose. Notwithstanding
the unjustified tyranny they may exercise and the
obstacles they may offer to free development, they
are still embedded within the purposive setting
of the situations and social framework in which
they play a part. If, however, this emancipation
reaches such a degree in individuals that the
mechanisms become practically detached from the
personality, then we have to do with pathological
conditions, with a consequent defective centering of
the organism.
VI
ON THE MOTIVES ACTUATING
HUMAN BEHAVIOR
THE DISCUSSION of reflexes, instincts, and drives
has established our contention that human behavior
is intelligible only as viewed in connection with the
organism as a whole. The particular emphasis which
we have placed upon the abstract attitude as a
conscious phenomenon may give the impression that
we fail to pay tribute to non-conscious events. Now
it is beyond doubt that human behavior cannot be
understood on the basis of consciousness alone but
that it embraces a great number of events of which
we are not conscious. Usually one speaks of the
"unconscious" factors by which human behavior is
determined; I prefer to use the term "non-con-
scious." I am especially induced to discuss these
non-conscious phenomena because in no field of
psychology does so much confusion prevail as here,
even with regard to the elementary facts.
The non-conscious events which, with the con-
scious ones, determine our acting and thinking are of
various kinds. First, there are bodily processes,
automatisms (as, for instance, expressive bodily
patterns, postures), which support and facilitate
appropriate mental and bodily sets initiated by
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 151
voluntary activity, and thereby guarantee the
execution of performances. These processes as such
can never become conscious ; they can be recognized
only indirectly by the way of perception, just as
we perceive objects in the outer world.
The second group of non-conscious events con-
sists of inner experiences, commonly described as
feelings, moods, attitudes, desires, needs, etc. We
may, for example, have the experience of liking or
disliking something, of finding something agreeable
or disagreeable, of feeling harmony or disharmony,
of being under tension or relaxed. This inner state
is experienced, but can never become conscious in
the correct sense of the term.
A proper appreciation of the facts demands a
short comment here on the use of the term "con-
sciousness." Very often it has been understood to
mean the sum of all the contents of the mind of
which we are aware, and these are regarded as being
in a special realm, as if contained in a receptacle.
We speak of consciousness only when we wish to
denote behavior in which we are aware of what
we are experiencing, or, as we might say, when we
are "having" something consciously. We have a
clear-cut awareness of a given situation, of our ac-
tivity, of its purpose and its effect. The world then
is experienced as apart from us, and we experience
ourselves as objects equivalent to other objects. The
states mentioned in the paragraph above, indeed,
are experienced by the subject, too, but they are not
152 HUMAN NATURE
objectified that is, they are not conscious in the
sense described above. If we try to become aware
of them in this way, we have to transform them
into objects, and then their original character of
attitudes, feelings, etc., is lost, and they are distorted
into "things. " The mere fact that we can reflect
upon a subjective state as if we were considering
an object has led to the belief that these inner states
can become "conscious," but actually this is
impossible.
The third group of non-conscious events consists
of the after-effects of earlier conscious events, which
have been forgotten but which influence our present
thinking and acting, with or without our being aware
of their influence. These phenomena correspond to
what we call memory.
Now, in a person whose behavior is conscious,
there are always in addition to those phenomena
which we have called conscious attitudes, bodily
processes, and after-effects of earlier conscious phe-
nomena. Or, to speak more correctly, all these
phenomena conscious and non-conscious to-
gether, in a definite configuration, characterize
conscious behavior. The singling out of any one of
these behavioral aspects is a mere abstraction, be-
cause each of them represents an artificially isolated
aspect of the total behavior. Sometimes it may seem
as if they were separate entities namely, when-
ever one of these aspects of total behavior is in the
foreground, as figure, and the others form the
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 153
background. Which aspect of the unitary behavior
becomes the figure depends upon the situation, upon
the kind of adjustment demanded from the organism
as a whole. That aspect comes into the foreground
which makes possible the optimal coming to terms of
the organism with a given condition.
The normal course of thinking can take place only
in a certain attitude, in a certain setting, and in a
certain bodily state. Disturbances in the normal
state of the attitudes or bodily processes derange the
conscious actions, thought, will power, and so on. In
the same way, attitudes and even bodily processes
may be deranged by any disturbance in the volun-
tary conscious actions. Finally, disturbances of atti-
tudes bear consequences for the bodily processes,
and vice versa. A normal action of the organism
demands a normal configuration of the activity of
the organism as a whole, a configuration in which we
can discriminate only abstractly the three aspects
mentioned.
Each activity of the organism leaves an after-effect
which modifies subsequent reactions, their course
and intensity; the after-effect is strengthened when
the organism is touched again by the same stimulus
situation. Remembering and recalling, however, are
bound to more specific conditions. Not all that we
have once experienced affects later reactions or can
be remembered in the same way. Remembrance to
some extent presupposes a similarity between the situ-
ation of the organism at the time of the experience'
154 HUMAN NATURE
and a later condition. To put it more precisely: an
event can be remembered only in that modality in
which it first appeared. Now remembrance is nor-
mally bound to the figure; the background normally
comes out in the after-effect only in conjunction
with the figure to which it belongs. Thus the aspect
which was originally the figure can affect behavior
in a similar situation later. If this aspect is conscious
in the sense given above, it can become effective later
only in the form of a conscious phenomenon, influ-
encing other conscious phenomena. If it is an inner
experience, it can be effective later only in the form
of an attitude or a feeling that is, as an emotional
setting, influencing other settings. Thus a phenome-
non which is not experienced in a conscious form
can never subsequently become directly conscious;
and, conversely, a conscious phenomenon can never
work directly upon attitudes or feelings. There is
no direct transition from one aspect to the other, nor
does a direct effect of one upon the other exist. Only
by way of the whole, by a detour, so to speak, can
either influence, arouse, or disturb the other.
In ordered life, after-effects occur in a way ade-
quate to the tasks set before the individual. Normal
behavior is built up from the reactions of the indi-
vidual at a given moment and from those after-
effects which favor his coming to terms with the
outer world in the best possible way. Thus, the nor-
mal development of knowledge, of feelings, attitudes,
habits, bodily processes, automatisms, skillful ac-
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 155
tions, and so on, is the result both of the reactions
of the moment and of past experience.
There is an abnormal form of after-effect; how-
ever, which may disturb or even distort the behavior
of the whole. Such distortion may be caused in each
of the three aspects of behavior. For example,
changes in the normal functioning of certain nervous
apparatuses because of disease may produce as sec-
ondary changes abnormal effects in the bodily sphere,
and this changed bodily background may distort
feeling and thinking, as the subcortical changes in
postencephalitis do. Abnormally exaggerated ideas
or images derange conscious life and with it, sec-
ondarily, mental attitudes and bodily processes.
Since conscious phenomena form the background for
feelings and bodily processes, any derangement of
conscious activity must also modify these phenomena.
This is the case in some mental diseases. Finally,
we know of after-effects which are the result of ab-
normal feelings, attitudes, etc. On these we must
dwell in more detail because here we are dealing with
influences to which the term "unconscious" has been
especially applied.
These after-effects stem from situations in which
the organism is not able to react in an adequate way.
Phenomena then become isolated and attain an ab-
normal strength. These isolated phenomena have
abnormal after-effects. If, in spite of these disturbing
influences, the organism regains order, they may
remain essentially in the background. However, in
156 HUMAN NATURE
a condition where for other reasons the organism
comes into a state of disequilibrium that is, under-
goes defective centering these phenomena enter
the foreground abnormally.
Abnormal after-effects always grow out of isola-
tion. They originate in childhood as sequelae of the
immaturity of the organism, and in adult life from
conditions in which the demands made upon the or-
ganism exceed its capacities.
The infant responds to any stimulation that is at
all effective with a reaction of the whole organism; 1
for example, his whole body turns in response to a
light-stimulus. As he grows older, there are more
and more reactions of individual apparatuses; that
is, more and more figures stand out to which a cor-
responding functioning of the rest of the organism
belongs as background. Now he reacts to the light-
stimulus by a turning movement of the eyes alone,
the rest of his body not participating overtly in this
movement. Furthermore, in the earlier stage of de-
velopment the child's reactions differ from those of
adults in the fact that they consist predominantly of
processes in the bodily sphere and of inner experi-
ences, and not, for the most part, of conscious phe-
nomena. The "figures" at that time correspond rather
to what we call feelings, attitudes, needs, etc., than
to conscious experience. On the other hand, all the
phenomena found in the child are very intensive,
have abnormal duration and stronger bonds to ex-
ternal stimuli, and represent both more primitive
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 157
reactions and reactions in alternating phases; that is,
they show the characteristics of phenomena in isola-
tion. The prevalence of isolated phenomena is caused
by the fact that the reactions occur in an immature
organism, where the relationship of individual reac-
tions to each other and to the organism as a whole is
not fully developed. The normal configuration of an
organismic event presupposes the organism's ma-
turity. The criterion of maturity is a proper center-
ing; this requires the abstract attitude, by virtue of
which all mental and behavioral aspects can be prop-
erly integrated and thus adequately centered in the
personality as a whole.
The life of the infant is always precarious. Be-
cause of his immature state, most of the stimuli
originating in the world surrounding him do not yet
"fit" his organism; they demand reactions that be-
long to a more mature, more fully integrated organ-
ism. In consequence, the organism of the child is
very often unable to accomplish the required actions
in an adequate, ordered way. His tendencies, feel-
ings, attitudes, come into conflict with what is de-
manded of him; there is a clash between his tendency
to self-realization, which corresponds to his immature
state, and what is forbidden. If, however, the adults
representing the child's environment take such im-
maturity into consideration and try to avoid situ-
ations not commensurate with his degree of maturity,
then he may gradually adapt himself to their demands
and prohibitions by behavioral adjustments and atti-
IS8 HUMAN NATURE
tildes which arise from development and training,
especially with the help of his increasing capacity for
abstraction. What we said in our discussion of con-
ditioned reflexes about the development of habits may
be recalled here. The child may acquire adequate
habits especially when consciousness enables it,
if necessary, to bear voluntarily even something dis-
agreeable because they seem appropriate and use-
ful for the actualization of its personality.
Thus the normal development of the child proceeds
by way of adaptation through its maturing and
training. Such attitudes and urges as are in opposi-
tion to the development of the whole personality
disappear and become ineffective because of the de-
velopment of adequate habits. Consequently we find
not continuous repression but continuous formation
of new patterns. As the child matures, new patterns
of the organism are formed, conforming to the ways
of the human species in general and to the cultural
pattern of the particular milieu in which the child
grows up. Of course one may call this development
"ego formation," and of course the prohibitions the
child meets with, like other processes in the environ-
ment, are co-determining factors. Yet the effects of
former reactions are not forgotten through repres-
sion; rather, they cannot be remembered, because
they are no longer part of the attitudes of later life,
and therefore cannot become effective. Though it
may be that some reactions are repressed volun-
tarily, voluntary repression is certainly not impor-
tant in childhood: first, because conscious behavior
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 159
is developed only to a small degree; further, because
voluntary repression requires a very strong will, and
even then is usually not very successful. There is
undoubtedly less voluntary repression in childhood
than there is of building up of new and adequate
habits. Their development makes for a passive -dis-
appearance of the older inadequate reactions and
leads to their fading away into the background.
If the child is forced to do things that are too
difficult for him, however, then catastrophic situa-
tions and anxiety set in, and he attempts to avoid
these situations through substitute reactions. He
tends to resort to those attitudes of which he is capa-
ble (that is, the more primitive ones), because he
feels himself protected by these against the endan-
gering demands; or he builds up new habits which
allow escape from anxiety. He is not conscious of
these tendencies and usually develops them in the
way we have described in patients who lack the
capacity for abstraction. Because of their isolation
from the total personality these attitudes have a
disturbing influence and may hinder the further de-
velopment of the child. Since they do not belong to
the subsequent developmental stages they upset
behavior and are experienced as strange to the in-
dividual. Like all isolated phenomena, they are
especially likely to produce an ambivalent state. If
not overcome by later centering, this ambivalent
mental set produced by a particular situation in child-
hood may influence the activity of the adult.
As long as the individual achieves a certain adapta-
160 HUMAN NATURE
tion to life in spite of abnormal habits and ambiv-
alence that is, comes to terms with the world to
some degree these peculiarities may be considered
as disagreeable things which have to be borne. If
later, however, in adult life, situations arise with
which the individual is not able to cope and which
produce phenomena of isolation, weakness of center-
ing, and ambivalence, then the old disturbing after-
effects may come to the foreground in an abnormal
way. If these are not conscious phenomena, the dis-
tortion is regarded as produced by the invasion of
the unconscious. When these after-effects have an
abnormal influence, ambivalence increases more and
more. The patient may be in permanent danger of
running into catastrophic situations; anxiety leads
him to search for new outlets; and gradually a neu-
rotic condition develops.
For various reasons the patient is not conscious
of the origin of the symptoms arising from this con-
dition: (i) the phenomena which disturb him have
the character of attitudes, feelings, needs, etc., which,
as such, have never been "conscious"; (2) those
attitudes are eliminated which produce anxiety be-
cause they do not fit his present life-situation and
personality make-up. This may happen in the adult
without conscious awareness; in the same way, he
may repress a conflict of the present because he is not
able to solve it.
Now, if we offer him protection against his rising
anxiety, as during therapy, he reveals his ambiva-
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 161
lence in various ways by expressive movements,
affective excitation, outbursts, moods of depression,
and so on. And, of course, he may also express his
feelings in words. When free associations are elicited,
especially, he may utter all that corresponds to his
present and former state of ambivalence, to wishes,
feelings, attitudes, thoughts, and ideas that belong
both to childhood and to the present. It is often not
easy to distinguish which of the phenomena belong
to the present, which to the earlier, conflict which
represent the real conflict of the patient, and which
are only means that later increase it and lead to its
outbreak. Usually all the ideas expressed are con-
sidered as emerging from infancy, as having been
repressed at that time into the so-called "uncon-
scious." It is assumed to be the task of the psycho-
therapist to make conscious the repressed ideas which
produced conflict in infancy, because to this conflict
is attributed the chief reason for the development of
the present conflict and thus for the appearance of
the symptoms.
Here arises the fatal mistake of psychoanalysis. 2
Many of the ideas expressed during free association
may allude to the feelings, attitudes, and "needs of
infancy, but they are couched in the language of
adult experience. There is no reason to conclude
from the observable facts that these ideas have lived
in the patient's unconscious since his early childhood.
The fact that they frequently have contents which
could never have belonged to a child utterly refutes"
1 62 HUMAN NATURE
such a conclusion. That some few of the ideas may
have had their origin in the thinking of childhood,
and that this can be disclosed as the cause of abnor-
mal reactions and of later symptoms, does not conflict
with our statement. The cases in which this occurs
are ef a special type. For instance, the adult has
forgotten the once-conscious conflict; yet some habits
connected with its overcoming persist, and they dis-
turb him later in situations where they occupy the
foreground without his realizing their presence. If in
such cases the forgotten situations are made con-
scious and this can be done, because they were
conscious in infancy then it is relatively easy to
free the patient from his abnormal habits and from
the concomitant disturbance of his life.
This is not so easy in those cases in which the
basis of the disturbance does not consist of forgotten
conscious phenomena but of feelings, attitudes, needs,
which did not fit the life-situation in the early stages
of development. Such a conflict usually results in
the development of the severe neurosis. Here the
inadequacy of the feelings is the disturbing factor,
and improvement is difficult because feelings which
have never been conscious cannot be made conscious.
What psychotherapy can do here is to bring the indi-
vidual into a situation in which these feelings emerge
without the patient's having to be afraid of them as
he was in childhood, because now he experiences
them under the protection of the therapeutic situ-
ation. This protection enables him to face his feelings
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 163
and to see that they belong to the state of infancy
and have nothing directly to do with his present con-
dition. He realizes that the disturbances are caused
by factors which were isolated from his personality
in the past and which have brought about phenomena
that are apart from his present personality. He
overcomes their influence by realizing that they do
not belong to the present conflict and that they hinder
him from solving it and this is the prime effect of
the analysis. If we succeed in making him aware of
this situation, he is forced to occupy himself with the
present conflict and is able to solve it by finding a
new adaptation.
Getting rid of these influences becomes more diffi-
cult the more one considers them as effects of definite
forces which live in a special realm of the unconscious
and which emerge to disturb the individual, without
his being able to enter this realm and fight the forces
there. Such a hypostatization of the after-effects of
needs and feelings, and particularly the application
of definite names to them, makes a liberation from
them highly difficult, if not impossible. Psychoana-
lytic interpretation, which is full of such hypostati-
zations, often leads to this result. On the other hand,
it does not make a definite distinction between the
phenomena belonging to the present state of the in-
dividual and those belonging to childhood; conse-
quently it creates a wrong attitude on the part of the
individual toward the effects of his earlier life. In
overemphasizing the events of childhood it fails to
1 64 HUMAN NATURE
see that motivation and conflict are always contem-
porary, or, as Gordon Allport says, that motivation
always has to be tackled from the condition as pres-
ent. This faulty overemphasis upon the genetic
approach to the study of conflicts has even begun
to a*rest the attention of psychoanalysts themselves.
For example, Karen Horney writes: "I believe that
the genetic approach if used onesidedly [and I add,
as is the case in Freudianism] confuses rather
than clarifies the issue, because it leads then to a
neglect of' the actually existing unconscious tenden-
cies and their functions and interactions with other
tendencies that are present, such as impulses, fears,
protective means." 3 The astonishing thing is that
the author fails to realize that with this statement
she drifts away from essentials of the theory of
psychoanalysis and deprives it of its real basis.
This overestimation of the genetic factor, on the
one hand, and the misinterpretation of the ideas
presented in free association as being repressed con-
scious phenomena, on the other, have had a fateful
consequence in both a theoretical and a practical
respect. They have induced the analyst to look re-
peatedly for explanations of the ideas expressed ( not
seldom selected in a somewhat uncritical way from
the free associations of the patient), and as a result
many theoretical statements of psychoanalysis have
arisen which lead only to the hopeless struggle of the
neurotic patient with psychoanalytic terms, a situa-
tion that suggests the vain labor of Sisyphus.
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 165
With this critical probing of the concept of the
unconscious, many other essential points of the
theory of psychoanalysis become doubtful. Since it
is not my purpose to scrutinize psychoanalysis here,
however, I must confine myself to these comments.
Our problem was the unconscious, and thus we had
to take issue with the Unconscious in the psycho-
analytic sense.
In the light of our discussion non-conscious phe-
nomena take on a character that is quite different
from the one psychoanalysis ascribes to them. We
divorce them from their negative denotation as re-
pressed conscious phenomena, charged with the
tendency to reoccupy the forbidden grounds of con-
sciousness; indeed, we try to acknowledge them as
events of a positive, unartificial, and observable na-
ture. Finally we attempt to evaluate their signifi-
cance for and influence upon behavior, be it normal
or pathological. With this we avoid the wrong
hypostatization of functional (i.e., configurational)
events to separate driving forces, which is so charac-
teristic of the Freudian theory; we thereby escape
the wrong theory of drives, as well as the false over-
estimation of single factors which determine life
for example, sex. 4
Let me add to our discussion of the unconscious
some remarks about the epistemological basis of
Freud's theory, from which alone his point of view
becomes really understandable. The underlying pro-
cedure is akin to the one we met in our discussion of
1 66 HUMAN NATURE
the reflex theories. In these theories we encountered
the erroneous premise that the partitive phenomena
gained by atomistic methods represent facts from
which we can gain a direct understanding of the
behavior of the organism and that we can synthesize
these elements again to form a concept of the organ-
ism as a whole. We find the same kind of procedure
in psychoanalysis, especially in its evaluation of
findings in the free association experiment, which is
a typical example of the isolating procedure, since
the subject is instructed to say the first thing that
enters his mind, neglecting as much as possible its
relation to his personality.
If one considers the materials produced through
free association as facts, one is in the same position
as if one considered all individual responses to stim-
uli as building-stones for the understanding of the
behavior of an organism, and then one runs into the
difficulties which arise if one neglects the rules gov-
erning the procedure of isolation. In psychoanalysis
the same kind of attempt is made to overcome these
difficulties as in the reflex theories namely, by
building up a series of auxiliary hypotheses. It was
in this way that the theory of drives originated, and
especially the overvaluation of a sex drive. Misjudg-
ing the relationship between individual phenomena
and the organism as a whole, Freud conceived the
idea of a hierarchy of antagonistic mental elements,
such as the subconscious, the conscious, the ego, and
the super ego, and converted certain phenomena
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 167
which appear in the behavior of the organism into
factors which govern that behavior. Especially un-
fortunate were his failure to take into consideration
the fact that all the phenomena on which his theory
was based had been observed in people who were not
in a normal state, and his neglect of the fact that it
is not permissible to transfer or apply directly to
normal people an evaluation derived from such phe-
nomena.
Here again, in spite of its striking difference from
the other psychology of the late nineteenth century,
the Freudian form of thinking reveals its origin in
the same epistemological background and reflects the
same methodological errors as any other pure posi-
tivistic-atomistic approach. I have stressed the
methodological errors which, in my opinion, underlie
the theory of psychoanalysis because only by having
recourse to them can a critique be pertinent and
fruitful
Freud's theory of the unconscious has its effect on
his appreciation of the conscious. As we saw before,
his theory made him fail to recognize the significance
of conscious phenomena. Before Freud, psychology
suffered from an overrating of the conscious, and it
advocated a conception of consciousness in terms of
a realm with separate contents and with atomistic
laws regarding their functions. This attitude was
combined with a neglect of non-conscious phenomena.
In Freud, however, we find an overrating of the non-
1 68 HUMAN NATURE
conscious, which is conceived of as a realm that has
both content and rules of activity, while conscious
phenomena are neglected and in their turn consid-
ered essentially negative. Neither tendency is in
keeping with the facts. Just as a proper recognition
of the non-conscious is necessary, so an appreciation
of consciousness is necessary if we wish to under-
stand human behavior. A comparison between nor-
mal persons and those with brain diseases leads one
to realize the positive importance of consciousness
and to appreciate the special endowment which con-
sciousness imparts to man and which distinguishes
him from all other living nature. No matter how
many performances patients with brain diseases are
still capable of accomplishing, they lack every cre-
ative power, the most characteristic in human nature.
It is precisely this factual material of pathology that
impresses us with the enormous significance of con-
sciousness.
On the other hand, of course, our standpoint has
certain implications for therapeutic practice. A criti-
cal elaboration of psychoanalytic material and theory
is bound to uncover sooner or later a nucleus of facts
which will reveal itself as similar in principle to the
basic types of organismic laws which a more truly
biological approach discloses. I have mentioned
many phenomena in our patients which might be
described in psychoanalytic terms, but they are de-
scribed more simply and with fewer prepossessions
in biological terms. The similarity in principle be-
MOTIVES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR 169
tween the behavior of what we call "organic" patients
and neurotics will become more and more under-
standable from the point of view that in both cases
we are dealing with expressions of biological events,
which are governed by the same fundamental laws.
If I preferred to make organic pathology my start-
ing point, I did so because the material it offers is
easier to study and the conclusions drawn from it are
less exposed to fallacies than those of psychoanalysis.
When we shall have reached the phase in which we
interpret organic and psychogenic cases from a com-
mon biological standpoint, then many of Freud's
ideas will be found to retain their importance, and
his great merit in leading toward a truer understand-
ing of the nature of man will receive its deserved ap-
praisal. With all my criticism, I do not wish to give
the impression that I am blind to the enormous
merits of Freud. Yet even a genius is a child of his
time. If I see it correctly, it was Freud's fate not to
achieve the goal of understanding human behavior
to its very depths a goal to which he came nearer
than anyone else because of his preoccupation
with certain prejudices of the natural science of his
time.
Our approach endeavors to open the way for the
discovery, without theoretical bias, of the essential
conflicts which ultimately bring about disease. The
conflict has to be understood on the basis of the indi-
vidual life-history, which contains bodily processes,
attitudes, and conscious events. All these events have
170 HUMAN NATURE
to be considered in their configurational relation
within the given individual according to the situation
in which they originally took place, and they have to
be evaluated according to their present significance
for the individual's coming to terms with his environ-
ment. When this approach is adopted, psychotherapy
will lose much of its exciting, interesting character,
but I think it can be brought nearer to simple truth
and, because the duration of treatment will be
lessened can be made more beneficial to the patient.
VII
ON THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY
OUR ANALYSIS has disclosed some characteristic
trends in the structure of the organism. We have
seen the specific significance of the abstract attitude
for human behavior, the relation between abstract
and concrete behavior, and the role both play in
human life. We have familiarized ourselves with the
character of conscious and non-conscious events and
the way they influence each other. We have become
acquainted with some of the general rules that deter-
mine the human being's coming to terms with the
outer world. We have learned that man is a being
who does not merely strive for self-preservation but
is impelled to manifest spontaneity and creativeness,
that man has the capacity of separating himself from
the world and of experiencing the world as a separate
entity in time and space. All these features we have
inferred from the changes which patients with brain
injuries show as a result of the loss of various capaci-
ties.
In attempting to understand human behavior,
however, we cannot content ourselves with these
results so long as we are unable to determine the
qualitative structure of the individual human organ-
ism in which reactions in a given situation are ulti-
172 HUMAN NATURE
mately rooted. It will be remembered that in all our
discussions we had to refer back to the potentialities
of the organism as basic for all its activities. We
arrived at the conclusion that the drive which sets
the organism going is nothing but the forces which
ari^e from its tendency to actualize itself as fully as
possible in terms of its potentialities. But what are
the potentialities of a given individual?
In making definite general statements about hu-
man potentialities we must be mindful of the fact
that any such general statements are abstractions
from what has been observed in individuals, and
that we have learned nothing about how to investi-
gate these potentialities. Unquestionably, we have
to go back to concrete findings as offered by the
isolating methods. But how, among the innumerable
observable phenomena, shall we discriminate be-
tween those which really correspond to the nature
of the individual and those which are only more or
less accidental reactions produced by the method
that has been used? To decide this question we are
in need of a criterion. We are faced here with a
problem which lies at the center of modern psychol-
ogy, the problem of how to characterize personality.
Although for a time the study of personality was
neglected to a marked degree by psychology, scholars
are now at work in many places trying to find a way
to comprehend it. I cannot describe these various
attempts here, but those who wish to become thor-
oughly acquainted with the complexity of this prob-
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 173
lem and the multiplicity of the attempts to attack it
will find Gordon W. Allport's Personality: A Psy-
chological Interpretation an excellent guide. (In ad-
dition to giving an admirable critical review of the
research methods in this field, the book presents a
conception of Allport's own which is well worth
following up.)
We can assume that those factors belong essen-
tially to an organism which guarantee its existence.
There is no question that, in spite of its changing in
time and under varying conditions, an organism
remains to a certain degree the same. Notwithstand-
ing all the fluctuations of the behavior of a human
being in varying situations, and the unfolding and
decline that occur in the course of his life, the indi-
vidual organism maintains a relative constancy. If
this were not the case, the individual would not ex-
perience himself as himself, nor would the observer
be able to identify a given organism as such. It
would not even be possible to talk about a definite
organism.
This is not the place to elaborate on the highly
specialized and subtle controversies that center
around the question of specificity versus consistency
of traits, nor to reiterate the difficulties which the
advocates of specificity have encountered and the
criticisms which have been presented recently in
various publications. I prefer to take another route.
I should like to contribute to the discussion by draw-
ing evidence in favor of consistency from a kind of
174 HUMAN NATURE
material which is not so well known but through
which biology can supplement psychology.
Consistency appears in pathology in a special
form, in the abnormally ordered behavior of the
patient. It is true that we have to deal here with a
pathologically exaggerated phenomenon, but, as we
have explained above, the tendency to ordered be-
havior belongs to the normal organism as well. Con-
sequently, in their content observable activities dur-
ing ordered behavior can be considered as reflecting
essential capacities belonging to the individual con-
cerned.
If we consider an organism first in the usual
atomistic way, as composed of parts, members, and
organs, and then in its natural behavior, we find that
in the latter case many kinds of behavior which on
the grounds of the first consideration can be con-
ceived of as possible are not actually realized. In-
stead, a definite selective range of kinds of behavior
exists. These we shall classify as "preferred" be-
havior. To avoid possible misunderstanding it should
be pointed out that this term does not imply any
conscious awareness or choice of a special way of
performing; it is merely descriptive of the observable
type of behavior. The way in which the organism
actually experiences this state of preferred behavior
we shall describe later. 1
To illustrate the phenomenon we have ample choice
in the various fields of pathological human behavior,
normal human behavior, and animal behavior. To
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 175
mention one example in animal life, we know that a
cat, when dropped, always lands on its feet. In spite
of differing environmental situations it always re-
turns to an optimally balanced position, and this we
call the preferred position. If we turn the head of a
cat toward one side we find an immediate compensa-
tion for this abnormal position, a turning back to the
old position. Or, if this is prevented, the posture of
the rest of the body changes until a definite total
position is again achieved. Thus, within a certain
range, the animal has the capacity of adapting itself
to differing environmental situations through spe-
cific positions of the body. Certain definite positions
and actions belong to the various activities of the
animal sitting, eating, sleeping, etc. The number
of possible positions and performances becomes much
larger in the higher animals, and especially in man.
But even in human beings the possible positions and
other modes of behavior by no means correspond in
number to the organization of the members con-
cerned, and to the quantitative variability of the
environmental situation, as it appears in the usual
analytical investigation.
The phenomena to which I wish to point first can
be easily observed. Anyone can make the pertinent
observations. If a person points to a place that lies
more or less to the side, he does not always execute
the pointing movement of the arm in the same man-
ner. If the object at which he is pointing is slightly
to the side, say to the right, he points only with his
1 76 HUMAN NATURE
extended arm, without moving the rest of the body,
in such a way that the angle between arm and the
frontal plane of the body is obtuse, about 130 tQ
140. If the object at which he is pointing lies more
nearly in front of him, then the arm is no longer
moved alone, but the trunk too is moved somewhat,
toward the other side (the left), so that the pointing
arm still forms approximately the same angle with the
frontal plane of the body as before. If the object
pointed at lies further to the side say to the ex-
treme right then the body turns so far to the
right that, when the subject points, the angle between
the frontal plane and the arm is again essentially the
same as before. Of course, it is possible to behave
differently; for example, one can point forward while
the body remains fixed. But this is not the natural
way. In the pointing movement, then, the organism
seems to have the tendency to prefer a definite rela-
tion between the positions of arm and trunk, and
does not conform to the varying environmental de-
mands, although this could very well be done by
changing the relation between the arm and trunk
positions. To take another example, if one asks a
person who is standing to describe a circle, one type
of individual usually describes a circle of medium
size in a frontal plane parallel to the line of the body,
using the index finger of the right hand, the arm being
half flexed at the elbow. Larger circles and circles
in other positions, possibly executed with the ex-
tended arm, seem unnatural and uncomfortable to
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 177
such persons, who naively proceed in the manner we
have described. When the trunk is bent forward,
however, it is natural for this type to describe the
circle in a horizontal plane. One might think the
horizontal circle simply the result of the movement
of the arm in the same relationship to the upper part
of the body as before, and due only to the change in
bodily position. If this were true, we should have a
circle in an oblique plane; actually, however, it is in
the horizontal plane. In this position, apparently,
the circle in the horizontal plane corresponds to the
preferred behavior. Accurate analysis shows that
the manner of describing the circle is unequivocally
determined by the total situation of the subject. In
"total situation' 7 the factor of the subject's attitude
toward the task is included; consequently the circle
is not made by all subjects in the same way. In a
specific situation, however, each one makes it in a
specific way which he prefers, quite naively, to all
other possible ways.
Through this simple experiment one can detect
some characteristic properties of individuals belong-
ing to different types of personality. In the one type
the objectifying attitude prevails. This type prefers
to describe a small circle in an almost frontal parallel
plane. Another type is more subjective and has a
prevailing motor attitude. This type describes a large
circle with the extended arm, with excessive move-
ment in the shoulder joint; actually the subject does
not describe a true circle, but moves his arm around
178 HUMAN NATURE
in a circular fashion, for which an excessive excur-
sion is most natural. These variations in the execu-
tion of the circle reveal differences between men and
women, between persons of different character, voca-
tions, and so on. But each person has his own pre-
ferred way of performing, and it is this that is
essential for the point under discussion.
If one who is accustomed to hold his head some-
what obliquely is forced to hold it straight, it requires
a special effort, and, in addition, after a certain time
the head will return into the usual, "normal" posi-
tion, unless the subject prevents this by continuously
paying attention to the position of his head. If, in
going to sleep, one assumes a variety of positions,
one will very soon take a certain position which leads
naturally to falling asleep. Much wakefulness is due
simply to the fact that one is prevented by some
circumstance from assuming this natural position.
If we trace the causes for the assumption of such
positions, we find a great variety of bodily and psy-
chological factors, but they are almost always fixed
for a given individual.
In abnormal persons such phenomena can be ob-
served even better than in normal persons. We have
stressed the fact that in our patients we are dealing
with states of disintegration or decreased differentia-
tion of personality. The reduced and narrowed per-
sonality of the patient is cut off from many events in
the outer world which the normal person experi-
ences; it is confined to a more limited order, as is
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 179
shown by the tendency to abnormal orderliness as a
means of avoiding catastrophes. In an organism thus
reduced to a simpler form of organization and to a
shrunken range of activities, preferred behavior
comes strikingly to the foreground and it ought
therefore to be easier to discover its qualitative
characteristics.
There are two further circumstances which bring
preferred behavior to the foreground in abnormal
persons. A normal person, because of his capacity
for abstraction and voluntary action, is able to exe-
cute tasks in a not-so-preferred condition and to
maintain a not-preferred behavior. In addition, he
is not restricted to the type of preferred behavior we
have been discussing; he is capable also of preferred
performances on a higher level, which correspond to
his higher level of performance in general. The ab-
normal person is either wholly incapable of this, or
less capable of it, because of his lack of the capacity
for abstraction. As a consequence, he is subject in a
higher degree to preferred behavior. This is mani-
fest in the fact that a patient who is asked to execute
a movement in an uncomfortable position invariably
shifts into a more comfortable one unless his atten-
tion is concentrated entirely on the task demanded
of him. To prevent such concentration it usually
suffices to have him carry out the movement with
closed eyes. We find then that, even against his will,
and usually without his knowledge, he assumes the
preferred position. The second circumstance is as
l8o HUMAN NATURE
follows. In normal persons preferred performances
have a certain range of variability within which a
performance is still adequate. In abnormal persons
this realm is narrowed and the preferred perform-
ances are restricted to more rigid positions and to
mope fixed relations between positions. Thus, for ex-
ample, in a patient with a disturbance of the left
frontal lobe, the preferred position of the head is a
slight tilting to the right. This is his natural position.
If the examiner brings the head into a straight posi-
tion or tilts it to the left or even further to the right,
the head returns without the subject's knowledge
into the natural position, where it ultimately will
remain. The same thing happens if the patient him-
self intentionally holds his head in an abnormal posi-
tion and then pays no further attention to it. A
normal person can hold his head in a position that is
to a certain degree oblique without discomfort and
without having an irresistible tendency to bring the
head back to its normal position. The patient is
forced to bring his head back.
What we have said about these simple motor ac-
tions is valid for all other performances. Every indi-
vidual reveals preferences not only in the motor
sphere, in walking, standing, sitting, eating, and so
on, but in the sensory and intellectual processes, in
the realm of feeling and voluntary activities. The
perceptual field offers some interesting examples.
When angles between 30 and 150 are presented
optically, not all the steps of the differential threshold
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 181
are experienced as equal. What we recognize pri-
marily are acute, obtuse, and right angles. (The
knowledge of these facts we owe especially to the
investigations of Max Wertheimer 2 and other Gestalt
psychologists.) These are the preferred impressions
around which all others are grouped. Each of -the
preferred impressions has its range. An angle of 93,
for instance, appears as a poor right angle, deviating
somehow from the preferred impression, and does not
give the impression of uniqueness. In tachystoscopic
experiments it is the circle which is easiest to recog-
nize; polygonal figures are perceived as circles. The
circle is also preferred tactually. In the common
field of vision there is a preference for the square,
for certain curves, symmetry against asymmetry, the
vertical against a somewhat oblique line, and so on.
Corresponding phenomena are found in the field of
tones. The fourth and the fifth are preferred. Small
deviations leave perception relatively unaffected.
Larger deviations are experienced as an impurity of
the fifth (as a bad fifth, etc.), without one's always
being able to say in which direction the deviation
occurs.
In pathology the assimilation of an oblique line to
a vertical is particularly instructive. The line pre-
sented may deviate considerably from the objective
vertical and still be experienced as a vertical. This
becomes especially apparent when a patient sees the
line as a vertical irrespective of whether it deviates
to the right or to the left. When I showed one of my
1 82 HUMAN NATURE
patients a stick one foot long at a distance of two
yards, first in a vertical position and then in a ten-
degree inclination to the left or to the right, he did
not notice the difference, but saw only a vertical rod.
(Correspondingly, a stick that deviated by ten de-
grees from the horizontal was always seen as horizon-
tal. Only in deviations above ten degrees did the
patient see that the stick was oblique.) When the
stick was turned from the vertical into the oblique
position he did not see the change until the stick
reached the region where he could experience
deviations.
The usual explanation of these phenomena even
in normal persons as being the effects of past experi-
ence, habit, training, etc., has proved invalid. For
material on the subject I may refer here to the nu-
merous experiments in Gestalt psychology and to
many published observations in pathology.
Performances under preferred conditions show
two characteristics, (i) They represent the most
exact execution of the required task under the cir-
cumstances given; for example, pointing in the pre-
ferred realm is much more exact than elsewhere.
(2) They are executed with a feeling of comfort and
ease, of fitness and adequacy. Natural performances
under not-preferred conditions are experienced as
disagreeable, unsatisfactory, unnatural.
As I have explained elsewhere,* observation shows
that preferred performances are determined not only
* See p. 248, note i to Chapter VII.
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 183
by the processes in the area where we observe them
but also by the condition of the rest of the organism.
On the basis of many facts reported elsewhere I
reached the conclusion that preferred behavior in
one field always means preferred behavior on the
part of the whole organism; the tendency toward
preferred behavior is an expression of the fact that
the organism constantly seeks a situation in which it
can perform at its best and with optimal comfort.
Preferred performances are the performances which
correspond best to the capacities of the organism.
Thus observation of such performances may serve as
a means of finding out the capacities the constants
of the organization and functioning of the indi-
vidual. The problem of research on personality can
thus be substantiated. We are only at the beginning
of this kind of quest. Consequently, our discussion
will have to deal more with possible methods of pro-
cedure in this new field than with a comprehensive
survey of facts.
For our purposes we should have to explore an
individual by exposing him to a variety of tasks in
the fields of perception, motor performance, memory,
thinking, and so on; in every instance we must seek
to determine what are for him the preferred ways of
execution. These consist not only of the actual pat-
terns of the performance as determined from ob-
served overt behavior but include the preferred
mediums of execution, as, for instance, retention
through the medium of visualization or through the"
1 84 HUMAN NATURE
medium of kinesthetic representation. For every
task there is an objective optimal manner of adequate
execution, and for every individual there is a certain
range of possible variations within the realm of his
preferences. Consequently, we may call the pre-
ferred way of execution a constant of the individual.
Ultimately these constants are basic traits of the
constitutional and character make-up of the indi-
vidual. Wherever the individual does his best, not-
withstanding the fact that another solution may be
more adequate in the light of the objective optimal
execution, we are dealing with a constant. Here we
face a number of interesting psychological problems
and educational implications upon which I can only
touch in passing. Very likely the question of indi-
vidual aptitudes perhaps even the problem of
intelligence ought to be oriented by the meas-
ure to which objective adequacy and the subjec-
tive preferred way of performing approach each
other.
In all these investigations, of course, we have to be
mindful of certain positive and negative criteria.
i. No matter what the behavioral field in which
we may test an individual, we are justified in speaking
of a constant only when and if other pertinent tests
show that, concomitantly with the execution hi that
field, the rest of the organism is in ordered condi-
tion ; for example, definite behavior in a sensory field
can be called constant only when we ascertain that,
among other things, blood pressure, respiration, pulse
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 185
rate, threshold of reflexes, etc., correspond to the
norm of the individual, which is to be determined for
each field in the way just described.
2. If a required task falls outside the realm of the
preferred ways that are peculiar to an individual, the
corresponding capacity is wanting in a greater or less
degree. In such a case we have to vary the methods
of examination until the subject is able to cope with
the task in some way that he finds natural. For
example, an individual is subjected to a task for the
execution of which visual memory is a prerequisite
(e.g., he is asked to memorize a complicated path).
Now we find that, if we try to impose the use of
visual imagery, his general state becomes disturbed.
But if we allow him to choose another means of
coping with the task for instance, memorizing by
verbalization instead of visualization then he may
perform fairly well, and his general condition will
remain undisturbed. He will verbalize, for example,
in this way: "First I have to turn left, then go a
hundred feet straight ahead, then turn to the right,"
and so on. The result is not, of course, so successful
as it would be through visualization, which is better
adapted to this particular task, but it is precisely
because of this that the performance is so revealing
to us. It indicates the patient's lack of capacity in
the visual field and brings to light his preference for
memorizing by language; another person may have
another preference, drawing upon kinesthetic mem-
ory, for example. Thus this method may be instru-"
1 86 HUMAN NATURE
mental in discovering the constants in individuals in
certain types of performances.
3. The preferred and ordered behavioral forms
(constants) are not identical in all the performances
of an individual. On the contrary, the individual
responds to every type of task in a special way. This
is determined by the organism's tendency to come
to terms with the requirements of the outer world in
the best possible condition of the whole. This can be
attained by various means in various tasks. Conse-
quently, constants have to be determined through
the discovery of the types of task which the indi-
vidual can perform most successfully, as evidenced
in his preferences. Of course, the circumstances
under which a task is presented also have an influ-
ence in that they elicit differing preferred ways. But
by varying and controlling these circumstances we
can find out under what conditions an individual
performs best and which of his preferred ways repre-
sents a true constant. For example, if a person is
faced with a task under conditions which prescribe
different speeds of execution, he may execute this
task adequately within a certain range of speed but
fail when other speeds are demanded. Now we can
define his constant on the basis of the knowledge we
have gained by introducing controlled circumstantial
variables.
The constant in the temporal course of processes
must be regarded as particularly characteristic of
individuality. The important role of the specific
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 187
temporal sequence of processes for the ordered ac-
tivity of the normal organism can be seen in the fact
that many pathological phenomena may be regarded
as being predominantly the expression of changes in
the normal temporal course. This is shown not only
by the analysis of symptoms but also by investiga-
tions with time-measuring methods (e.g., chronaxie
and electroencephalography). Every human being
has his own rhythm. This rhythm manifests itself in
various temporal measures in various performances,
but in any given performance it is always in the
same measure. A performance is normal only when
an individual can accomplish it in the rhythm that is
natural to him for this performance. This holds true
for psychological events like emotion or thought
processes or acts of will; it is also the case in physio-
logical processes, like the beating of the heart and
respiration, and in physicochemical processes. All
these time constants indicate particular characteris-
tics of the personality.
From my experience to date I believe that we are
justified in selecting a number of factors as guiding
for the determination of constants. We have pointed
out that each person prefers a definite medium for
the performance of certain tasks for instance, a
definite sense modality, or the motor apparatus, or
speech; all this is indicative of certain constants. The
preference for a concrete or an abstract approach
falls under the same aspect.
But we must be careful not to relapse into the old
1 88 HUMAN NATURE
notion of visual, auditory, motor, and other types.
The preference for a certain sensory medium in one
field involves certain characteristics of behavior in
fields other than the preferred one. These character-
istics are not necessarily the same and may be of
different natures although they are dependent upon
preferences in other fields. They are ultimately em-
bedded and rooted in a definite interactional organi-
zation of the personality as a whole. And we must
inquire about the qualitative nature of this inter-
action. For example, if a person is preinclined to the
concrete attitude, his behavior is very often accom-
panied by less emphasis on verbalization and lan-
guage than is the case in the person preinclined to
the abstract. In turn, the latter will fail to regard
many details in his environment which do not elicit
a language response. Again, the person with a tend-
ency toward the abstract leans toward personalized
emotional contacts with others; the person with a
tendency toward the concrete is more given to ob-
jective realities in social contacts. I mention these
examples in order to illustrate two points: (i) that
preferred ways in one field influence and shape pre-
ferred ways in other fields; (2) that this influence
does not occur by direct causation, nor does it mani-
fest itself by uniform phenotypic symptoms, but
rather indirectly, by way of the functional organi-
zation of the whole. The usual test approach fails
here to consider the peculiar interactional dependence
of all behavioral fields upon the personality structure
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 189
as a whole. This complex relation remains to be
explored and defined before we can draw conclusions
from results in tests which are based on the erroneous
premise that any capacity is a factor of uniform
manifestation in all the activities of an individual.
Obviously, all this has a bearing upon the mueh-
discussed problem of types, as, for instance, the
introvert-extrovert problem.
It is true that as yet we do not know very much
about the determinants of the functional relation
between a preferred performance in one field and
performances in other fields. Pathology, however,
has adduced empirical evidence to the effect that
changes of constants in one field are accompanied
by changes in other fields, so that we may reasonably
infer from this material the functional interdepend-
ence we have suggested above.
Only on the basis of the knowledge of the struc-
tural interrelation between preferred performances
in various fields can the problem of what are called
types 3 be treated in a reasonable way. In the last
few decades an immense literature has accumulated
on the subject, and certainly there are groups of
individuals who are so similar with respect to some
traits, and so different from other individuals, that it
seems very reasonable to consider them as belonging
together to a special class, as being a type.
In accordance with differing approaches toward
the understanding of human behavior, attempts have
been made to define these groups in various ways.
1 90 HUMAN NATURE
Plato's metaphysical division of the human soul into
three parts we meet again in Bain's classification of
men as "mentals," "men of action/' and "vitals."
The theoretical, economic, social, and political types
of Spranger represent the expression of another still
mofe philosophical approach. Physical features form
the basis for the creation of anthropological types
marked by differences of skull, hair, color, and so on.
Impressed by differences in temperament or, more
recently, by differences in the functions of the endo-
crine glands, some investigators have distinguished
the melancholic, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and
the sanguine types. An interest in the constitutional
habit was the basis for the well-known types of
Kretschmer which have achieved significance in psy-
chiatry. From the psychological standpoint, types
have been discriminated on the basis of the special
development of single senses (the auditive type, the
visual type, etc.). Finally there should be men-
tioned the much-discussed distinction of types ac-
cording to differences in the individual's general
attitude to the world, the introverted and extroverted
types.
In all these hypotheses there is certainly something
which we feel to be true. Notwithstanding this, all
these attempts must be considered failures, even if
they happen to be useful for some practical purpose.
The never-ending discussion about the correctness of
these distinctions shows this only too clearly. The
cause of the failure seems to me to be grounded in
the same methodological error as the failure of the
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 191
reflex theory. Single phenomena are taken as essen-
tial factors either because of their accidentally com-
ing into the foreground or because of theoretical
prejudice. If one considers such single factors as the
basis of personality, then one easily yields to the
impression that individuals are merely examples of
types characterized by these factors. This procedure
is wrong, however, in its selection of the determining
factors, and does injustice to the nature of indi-
viduality. The error in selection could be avoided
if the factors were determined by the methods we
used in establishing the preferred behavior of the
individual. And such a procedure alone w r ould do
justice to the nature of individuality. Under these
circumstances individuals would never appear as
mere examples of types. We could, of course, use the
concept of types as a means of sorting the immense
variety of individuals for practical purposes. Then
it might be useful in several respects. It might
serve to reveal the significance of some attributes
within the organization of an individual, to reveal
the special character which an individual may have
through the predominance of such an attribute.
Further, the better knowledge of similarities and
differences in individuals might help us to under-
stand why some are fitted to get along with one an-
other, others not. Finally, the concept of types,
which has frequently been utilized for stressing dif-
ferences between groups, might be extremely useful
in demonstrating factors of similarity.
In connection with the question of the functional
192 HUMAN NATURE
relation between those factors of personality which
we call preferred, I should like to suggest that factor
analysis might offer an appropriate method of ap-
proach. Factor analysis tries to discover the factors
on the basis of which personality can be understood.
If Jt were possible to determine with this instrument
the performances that are preferred (in the sense
in which we have defined the term), then we might
hope to discover by objective mathematical methods
some consistent traits of personality. But this can-
not be attained through a comparative investigation
of a great number of subjects by means of standard-
ized tests. How can we tell whether we grasp the
essential factors with these tests? Methodologically
this would be possible only if we could study the
tested group under conditions which represent an
ordered state for each individual within the group.
This presupposes, however, that we are acquainted
with the nature of each person in that group; and
so we are brought back to the individual as our point
of departure. Factor analysis may have value as a
technique if it is applied fruitfully to the individual
proper, where the major determinants of preferred
performances and their structural interrelation within
the whole personality may become susceptible of
mathematical representation.
The methods which till now we have considered
instrumental for determining the basic constants of
an individual are more or less confined to a cross-
sectional aspect of his present behavioral state, but
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 193
there can be no doubt that we ought to include the
temporal aspect of his total behavior that is, the
course of life and the biographical span of the per-
sonality explored. In other words, the biographical
method or "anamnesis," as we call it in medicine, is
an indispensable supplementary source of informa-
tion. It can furnish a distinction between the factors
which make for ordered or disordered behavior, be-
tween genuine constants and the more casual pheno-
typic reaction patterns, habits, and so on. Only on
the basis of information regarding the course of the
individual's life can we really identify unequivocally
the constants in question, by recognizing their con-
sistency and persistence in the pattern of that per-
son's development.
I am, of course, well aware of a question which
probably has beset the mind of the reader since I
began to outline the importance of preferred be-
havior. In what way are the individual's constants
influenced and modified by experience, and in what
way do they in turn shape and mold the experiences
of the individual? In attempting to answer this
question, we must first of all recognize the ultimate
consequence which follows from the conception of
preferred behavior. If there are any constants aUall,
then they must operate as selective and accentuating
factors upon the experiences of the individual and
the stimuli by which he is affected.
In order to appreciate this rule we must recall the
result of our discussion of the problem of drives. It
194 HUMAN NATURE
will be remembered that we came to the conclusion
that the only drive or basic tendency of the organism
is to actualize itself according to its potentialities in
the highest possible degree. This is possible only if
the organism is faced with situations it can cope
with, From what we have learned about the behavior
of our patients we know that, if the patient is faced
with environmental conditions with which his
changed personality cannot come to terms, then he is
either not touched at all or he responds with a cata-
strophic reaction. He can exist that is, actualize
his capacities only if he finds a new milieu that is
appropriate to his capacities. Only then can he act
in an orderly way, and only then can his powers of
recognition, attention, memory, and learning be at
their best.
These facts offer us the key to our question re-
garding the relation between preferred performances
and experience in the normal person. The experiences
a person has, or is able to assimilate or acquire, hinge
upon his capacities, and these we can infer from his
preferred ways of behavior. Only if given the oppor-
tunity to realize himself in these ways will he be in
an ordered state, which is the basis of good perform-
ance; in other words, the more the demands made
upon him correspond to his preferred ways of be-
having, the more nearly perfect will his achievements
be. Of course, these preferred ways of behaving
have a determinable range of variation and should
not be treated as fixed and rigid patterns. The ex-
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 195
perienceable environmental segments may vary
within certain limits according to this range of vari-
ability. And it is this scale of variability which has
to be carefully studied and weighed by the investi-
gator of the mutual interdependence of preferred
behavior and environmental demands. In orde* to
determine and secure the best possible performances
of an individual, and in order to develop his manifold
potentialities to their full capacity, we have to know
the extent of this interdependence. In pathology this
fact is quite obvious. We have acquainted ourselves
with the rule that patients have catastrophic reac-
tions, and that their intact performance fields are also
reduced, if the demands of the outer world exceed
the scope of their impaired capacities. Such a dimi-
nution of capacity for performance also takes place
if the demands are too low, and the capacities which
remain are not called upon and utilized to their full
extent. Then a shrinkage of the patient's milieu and
personality sets in which is greater than the actual
impairment would entail.
From this it follows that, if we wish to prompt the
development of an organism in the way best suited
to its potentialities, our demands must be neither too
low nor too high. The measure of the commensurate
degree is to be found in the organism's range of pre-
ferred ways of behaving.
We have tried to qualify the relation between the
demands of the outer world and the development of
the capacities of an individual. With this in mind we
196 HUMAN NATURE
can also understand the far-reaching influence of a
given milieu upon the actualization of the individ-
ual's potentialities. Wherever a person grows up,
his environment is of a specific nature, and this
provides the cultural and social contents of his de-
velopmental socialization; that is, the determination
of the specific character of the potentialities of any
individual is oriented by the contents of his milieu.
This relation between the individual and his environ-
ment has implications for a number of much-dis-
cussed problems, such, for instance, as questions
having to do with learning and education, with racial
differences, and with differences in the development
of societies and culture. These problems seem to per-
tain to quite diverse topics, but in my opinion they
all go back ultimately to one question namely,
how can the individual actualize himself in the world
in the way that best corresponds to his capacities?
I should like to comment briefly on my views on the
solution of the problem of differences in character be-
tween the inhabitants of different countries and states
and between races. 4 These differences stand out most
strikingly if, under the influence of a bias, we push
single properties into the foreground as chief charac-
teristics and compare the groups or races as to such
properties. If we do this, we see only the differences
and are inclined to overrate them in a way that does
not at all correspond to the facts. This fallacious
procedure is the mainspring of all personal national
and racial prejudice and one of the chief causes of
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 197
much of the suffering and distress in the world.
Fundamentally this state of affairs is the result of a
lack or a falsification of knowledge, and of a corrup-
tion of science, which lends pseudo-scientific argu-
ments and pretended justification to all kinds of
abominable actions.
The importance of enlightenment in this field can-
not be overstated. It cannot be said often enough
that individuals, peoples, races, can actualize them-
selves without harming each other, that this can be
accomplished only by an adequate organization of
group life, and that, moreover, the life of any group
is guaranteed only in an organization which guaran-
tees the existence of other groups as well. The search
for innate factors of any kind which can account for
racial differences has been vain, and it is not surpris-
ing that this is so. The empirical evidence adduced
and the painstaking analysis undertaken by Boas,
Klineberg, and others, have shown that all the varie-
ties of race and culture which have been attributed
to inborn, unchangeable factors are as a matter of
fact culturally and socially determined. Even such
differences as those in pigmentation and other con-
stitutional properties do not alter the fact that aft.
men are endowed with ecmal inherent potentialities.1
All individual differences granted and, in fact,
precisely because of the vast variety of existing
individual differences we know that no race pos-
sesses traits by which it can be distinguished intrin-
sically from other races. The fact that there is great
1 98 HUMAN NATURE
diversity of traits of personality in all races and
groups, and that it traverses the boundaries of every
population and sector of the globe, proves that all
the phenomena which are common to a group or race
are not reducible to common inborn personality
traiffc in that group.
Our biological point of view, especially our notion
of preferred behavior, would seem to contradict these
statements. Therefore I must reemphasize the postu-
late that the range of variability in the preferred
ways of human behavior has to be considered as the
deciding factor in the variety of social and cultural
patterns. Within the interactional relation of en-
vironment and organism the members of any group
will actualize their potentialities according to the
peculiarities of their environment, adapting them-
selves to its natural and social demands. The prob-
lem of differences in society and culture is basically
similar to the problem of personality, as far as the
contents of life, conflicts and demands, are concerned.
Here, too, we cannot draw artificial dividing lines in
the true unitary pattern of life in which the person
and his environment are interwoven, and we have
therefore to reject the doctrines of the extreme
environmentalist, as well as those of the extreme
believer in heredity. How the relation between in-
dividual and society presents itself from our stand-
point we shall see later.
On the basis of the relationship we have tried to
establish between the range of variability in pre-
THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY 199
f erred behavior and the diversity of cultural products,
we come to noteworthy conclusions, (i) Our asser-
tion that man as a species is endowed with potentiali-
ties which are basically equal is confirmed by the
fact that, different from ours as modes of life and
thought among primitive peoples are, there i^ no
doubt in the minds of competent anthropologists
that, if we^transplanOa member of such a group into
our society, he can be trained to think in our terms;
this holds particularly, of course, with regard to chil-
dren. (2) The importance of the relationship be-
tween capacities and environment for ordered be-
havior may again be ascertained by the study of
abnormal persons. In contrast with normal persons,
they are so rigidly bound to a definite environment
that they perish if this environmental setting is
changed in a way not adequate to their preserved
potentialities. This pathological fact teaches us
something with regard to the adjustment of the nor-
mal person to changes of environment. The vari-
ability of which we have spoken has a certain limit.
If the changes imposed upon an individual or group
go beyond the limits of possible adjustmental vari-
ations, or if, in other words, the demands of the
outer world exceed the range of adequacy for the
individual, then catastrophe occurs and the organism
can no longer function in orderly fashion. I think
this rule may offer us a key to the understanding of
certain disorders in individual behavior as well as in
the functioning of a society. For example, many a
200 HUMAN NATURE
disturbance has been found in the development of
children who are left-handed, and who have been
forced into right-handedness, in which the disorder
appears in fields totally different from the sphere of
left- or right-handedness, so that only a scrutinizing
analysis can reveal the cause. Later we shall discuss
certain consequences of this rule for social life.
(3) There is a third aspect in the relation of pre-
ferred behavior and environment. It will be recalled
that when we turned our attention to the problem of
how experience influences preferred behavior, and
vice versa, we stressed the fact that the preferred
tendencies of an individual operate as selective and
accentuating factors upon his experience. It may
not seem obvious, but close reflection suggests that
there is an intimate relation between the preferred
modes of behavior of the individual and the psycho-
logical motivations of his conduct, contact with
others, likes and dislikes, and attitudes toward life.
Just as we have agreed with Woodworth that
habits once formed may achieve a motivational im-
pulse, so we may assume that the drive to actualize
one's potentialities also operates as a motivating
force in one's emotional valuations in accordance
with one's preferred ways of acting.
VIII
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS
WE HAVE elaborated the contention that there is only
one motive by which human activity is set going: the
tendency to actualize oneself. This emphasis upon
the supreme importance of the nature of the in-
dividual might easily lead to an interpretation of
our standpoint as an asocial individualism and
egotism. In fact, however, such an interpretation is
flatly opposed to the idea of human nature which we
are attempting to advance. It is directly opposed to
the fact that individuality never means simply "I
am" but always that simultaneously with me there
exist other creatures.
Our observation of our patients shows that they
cannot actualize themselves without respect to their
surroundings in some degree, especially to other
persons. The sick man is exposed to catastrophic
reactions to a higher degree than the normal man;
he can perform only if he finds a milieu which allows
him to avoid catastrophic reactions. This implies
that his behavior has to presume definite environ-
mental conditions, in particular the existence of
other men. The patient must develop an adjustment
to others and limit himself according to the social
actuality of others.
202 HUMAN NATURE
True, as we have said before, the patient is
subject to this connection with others in a somewhat
passive way. Even on this reduced level, however,
such a connection indicates that the existence of one
man presupposes another man. Because of their
lack of the capacity for abstraction, our patients are
not capable of creating contacts actively and
spontaneously. Therefore their existence depends to
a high degree upon the cooperative activity of their
fellow men. One can hardly find a better example
of the fact that the attitude of self-restriction belongs
to natural human behavior than that given by the
behavior of normal persons toward the sick, which is
characterized by active self-restriction in the interest
of the sick. This fact gains greater significance in
view of the contrasting behavior of our patients,
who lack the capacity for voluntary self -restriction.
It is because of this that they seem so self-centered
and that they are unable to build up by themselves
a real community or a social world. What patients
exhibit of an apparent social character is actually
something quite different.
The attitude of self-restriction in the normal
person has often been considered to be caused by
the impact of extraneous forces, and understood,
like other altruistic customs, as a mechanism for
yielding to insuperable forces in the struggle of life.
In this sense all social norms are supposed to be
merely the products of sublimation. We have ex-
plained, however, that such an interpretation is
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 203
incompatible with the facts. Self -restricting behavior
can be understood only if we assume that it is due
to an underlying tendency which belongs to human
nature, or that, as John Dewey says, "the ideas
involved in such behavior appeal to something in
human nature and awaken in [man] an active
response." Otherwise there would be only a struggle
of all against all, a condition out of which social life
could never originate; the law of the jungle would
prevail.
Self-restriction in the interest of another, however,
is not the only form of behavior which reveals that
a connection with and dependence upon others is
part of the nature of man, and even requisite for
the existence of the individual. There is still another
behavioral interrelation between individuals which
is inherent in man. The self-actualization of the
individual in his social environment can take place
only by his encroaching upon another's freedom, by
claiming something from another, by imposing
upon another to a certain degree. The primary fact
that the individual does not exist alone, but with
other creatures, necessarily implies the incomplete
realization of every individual's nature; it entails
impact, antagonism, conflict and competition with
others.
Self-actualization on the part of one individual
can be attained only by some renunciation on the
part of another, and each must ask from others
that renunciation. Hence there is not a pre-
204 HUMAN NATURE
established harmony between human beings. Ac-
cording to the myth of the expulsion from Paradise,
man lost that state of permanent mutual accord
through the sin of cognition. No longer is it possible
for him to realize himself through a coming to terms,
without conflict, with his natural and social environ-
ment. Neither offers him the immediate primeval
adequacy that Paradise seems to have offered. Man
can no longer live in effortless harmony with the
world. He has to seek it in an active way. And he
is free to make his own decisions.
One might evaluate this freedom as essentially
positive or essentially negative; certainly it remains
a basic characteristic of human nature, as we can
demonstrate clearly in the changes in our patients.
Being individual, being free, implies the necessity
of encroaching upon the freedom of others. The
two things are the same. Therefore, we may say
that the activity of encroaching also belongs to
the nature of man.
These two kinds of behavior, self-restriction and
encroachment, have been spoken of (by McDougall, 1
for example), under the names of "submission'' and
"aggression," as two basic drives of human nature.
In terms of our general criticism of the theory of
drives and instincts we have no reason to assume
such inherent drives. These two types of behavior
are not separate and antagonistic tendencies
operating in the human being. Man is neither
aggressive nor submissive by nature. He is driven
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 205
to actualize himself and to come to terms with his
environment. In doing so, he has at times to be
submissive and at times to be aggressive, depending
on the situation.
Whenever either form of behavior achieves
dominance in such a way that all the activities of
the individual seem to be under its control, then
something has gone wrong in the relationship be-
tween the individual and the surrounding world.
Either the individual lacks adequate centering or
the demands arising from the world are so difficult
that he is not able to cope with them. Under such
conditions one or the other of these two types of
behavior comes abnormally to the foreground, and,
according to the law of isolation, behavior takes
on an abnormal character. Then we encounter
either self-sacrifice or aggressiveness. Abnormal
aggressiveness or submissiveness we observe es-
pecially in patients who lack the capacity for
abstraction and in those in whom there is a patho-
logical isolation of certain personality sectors. In
the latter case the individual may be driven by an
irresistible urge to fulfill the needs say abnormal
hunger or sexual desire that result from this
isolation. Then he is inconsiderate, reckless, and
highly aggressive in seeking the release of this urge.
This can be observed in patients with organic as
well as functional diseases. Thus we find aggression
as a characteristic symptom of neurosis. Abnormal
aggression is always combined with abnormal sub-"
206 HUMAN NATURE
mission, however, and what we observe in our
patients is an abnormal exaggeration of normal
behavior. Normally behavior fluctuates in adequate
proportions between self-restriction and an en-
croachment upon the freedom of others. The
exaggeration in pathology is the sequel of a lack
of proper centering, which, as we have explained,
always produces opposed reactions that alternate
abnormally. As in normal persons, the situation
determines which type of behavior becomes the
figure, comes to the foreground; the only difference
is that the intensity is abnormally exaggerated. That
behavior always appears by which in a given condi-
tion the organism can best come to terms with the
outer world; and this rule holds for a changed
personality as well as a normal one.
Aggressiveness may come into the foreground if
an individual is afraid to show his inclination to
submissiveness, because he fears that people would
misuse his subjection and that he would meet with
situations that he could not bear. On the other
hand, abnormal submission may appear as an
expression of fear of normal aggression.-' A child
may have grown up under conditions in which he
faced the danger of unreasonable punishment for
any attempt at encroaching upon other people, espe-
cially his mother and that even if the degree
of the intrusion was normal for a child of that age.
One of my patients found that any opposition to
her mother made her lose her mother's affection,
and without this she could not live. This led her
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 207
to suppress all resistance, and eventually she was
governed by abnormal submission. This experience
influenced her behavior during her entire future
life. As an adult, she seemed to be very compliant
and gave the impression of being an abnormally
submissive person. In certain situations, however,
abnormally aggressive behavior suddenly appeared,
astonishing not only the people around her but also
the patient herself. As a matter of fact, such a person
is not abnormally submissive, as it would appear to
a superficial view, but ambivalent] from this am-
bivalence emerges abnormal submtesiveness as well
as abnormal aggressiveness.
Normal, ordered life asks for a balanced relation
between compliant and encroaching behavior. Only
then can the individual realize himself, and assist
others in their self-realization. Furthermore, the
highest forms of human relationship, such as love
and friendship, are dependent on the individual's
ability and opportunity to realize both these aspects
of human behavior. This is evident so far as self-
restriction is concerned. It acquires then the char-
acter of self-restriction without resentment. But
encroachment also belongs to every relationship
between individuals. Love is not merely a mutual
gratification and compliance; it is a higher form of
self-actualization, a challenge to develop both one-
self and another in this respect. This challenge in-
volves aggression inasmuch as it involves influencing
perhaps even coercing another to do things
which sometimes seem foreign to him. Self-restric-
208 HUMAN NATURE
tion is experienced as inherent in human nature; it
corresponds to what we call the ethical, to the norms.
Our intrusion upon others is often experienced as a
suffering that has to be endured, as one of the diffi-
culties of life that must be borne. It is experienced as
suffering because interference with one's own free-
dom or that of others has the appearance of injustice.
But if one understands the necessity of such inter-
ference for one's own or another's sake, one can
tolerate or enact it without self-accusation, and with
less harm to others. Then indeed it should no longer
be called aggression, since it is not intended to hurt
anyone. To call it pseudoaggressive attitude would
be more nearly correct.
If this conception of the relationship between one
individual and another fits the facts, if all relations
between individuals are determined by the tendency
of each to realize himself, then we may draw the
general conclusion that the individual is primary in
all social organization. Very often the "we" that
is, the relationship between the individual and others
is considered the primary factor, and the indi-
vidual's behavior is supposed to be understandable
only in terms of that "we." 3 Indeed, there is no
question that in a concrete situation it is often the
case that the individual is determined to a high
degree by the community in which he lives. But the
question is: Is this a normal situation that is, does
it correspond to the nature of man, or is it merely
an accidental phenomenon? In other words, is the
"we" empirically given? Can it serve to make
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 209
understandable in terms of human nature the self-
realization of the individual? Is the fact that the
"we" determines the behavior of the individual
sufficient to prove that it is normal? There is no
doubt that its empirical character is not necessarily
a sign that we are dealing with a normal phenomenon.
We know many such "we's" which can easily be
proved not to be of a normal character. To appre-
ciate the connection between the "we" and the
individual-' we must take into consideration the
phenomena of the "we" which in their very nature
guarantee the existence of the individual.
Even to raise the question in this way may seem
to be unjustified, however, since nature may have
no interest in the individual, but only in the group,
the species, the race in short, in the "we." The
widespread assumption, in fact, is that nature is
not interested in the individual. It is supposed to
be wasteful of individuals, to have no other goal
than the perpetuation of the species. General as it
is, this assumption is in no way based on facts.
Everywhere in nature we meet with individuals, not
only in the realm of man but also in that of animals
and plants. What we call kinds, races, and so on,
are products of human thought in its generalizing
aspect. And what appears to occur irrespective of
individuals and as a waste of individuals can also
be understood as a consequence of the imperfection
of the single individual in a situation in which im-
mense numbers of individuals coexist. How are we
to understand the immense variety of forms, colors,
210 HUMAN NATURE
and ways of living, without assuming that they are
all of importance to nature, an importance which is
much greater than it usually appears to the human
mind to be, especially in the scientific approach? On
principle the scientific approach abstracts from par-
ticulars and takes into consideration only what can
be described in general terms. This is a procedure
leading to negative statements not in accordance with
nature. We shall stress later the fact that there
is nothing negative in nature. Nature is always posi-
tive. Does it not follow that the present is the center
of importance? And is the present not always in-
dividual? What we call a "species" is never present;
it belongs to the past or to the future. Only the
individual is present. Is not such an abstraction as
species a special expression of human thinking, which
alone can grasp the negative, and with that the past
and the future? Let us remember in this connection
that the patients we have been describing are unable
to grasp the negative and the general, and unable,
as well, to grasp the past and the future. They live
in one dimension, in the concrete. We have traced
this back to the impairment of the capacity for
abstraction. Nature in general seems to live in only
one dimension (the present), the dimension of the
concrete, of the individual. Only the human being,
and possibly some of the higher animals, goes beyond
this dimension.
My assumption that nature is concerned with the
individual may appear to be merely a metaphysical
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 2 II
belief. Yet it is certainly no more metaphysical than
the idea which ascribes to nature a lack of concern
with the individual and sees as its goal the preserva-
tion of the species.
From this point of view, not all "we" phenomena
are real, but only those which guarantee the reali-
zation of the individual. All other concepts of the
relationship between the individual and other in-
dividuals represent accidental connections related to
a variety of factors, such as the concept of reflexes
or of "higher centers," all of which are more or less
inadequate.
If we thus consider the "we" as secondary to the
individual, the "we" should by no means be thought
of simply as an extraneous and secondary connection
between individuals. It is not simply a sum made up
of individuals. Real group life, social life, is not an
accidental living-together, nor is it based on a volun-
tary "social contract." A concrete group life may
develop in the first way, if individuals happen to
live together under equal conditions and feel im-
pelled to help each other against common difficulties.
Yet real social life, whether under these conditions
or under those in which a social unit is constructed
by means of a "contract," will develop only if some
genuine communion between its members exists. If
this is not the case, the whole structure is shaken
when conditions change. The political disasters of
recent decades in Europe make an excellent case to
illustrate the instability and insecurity of units built
212 HUMAN NATURE
up on the basis of external connections between men.
The collapse of such social entities is caused by
the incapacity of the "we" in question to guarantee
natural ways of existence for individuals. The only
"we" that is real and "natural," and constitutes a
true social organization, is one which can do this.
This shows that the "we" is determinable only
through the individual, that he is actually the
measure of its suitability, that it is secondary to him.
Where it asserts its primacy, the existence not only
of the individual but of the "we" is endangered. If
the state pretends an inherent value independent of
the rights of individuals (to take only one example),
restriction of human nature takes place, with serious
consequences to the existence of both individuals
and state.
This explanation implies a critical attitude toward
the problem of collectivism. The term "collectivism"
may mean a rational organization of society or a
metaphysic entity as a thing in itself. In the first
case, every endeavor to build a collective presupposes
a certain idea for the manner of its organization.
Collectivism per se cannot represent a goal. Every
collectivistic endeavor uses collectivism as a means
not always expressed but always intended for
the realization of the best manner of existence for
the individuals in the collective. Only if this is
guaranteed does the collective have sense and will it
have permanency. An organization which is unable
to guarantee this is not a true collective. This
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 213
collectivistic endeavor can be directed toward
different ends, according to the idea one has of the
nature of man. If one considers freedom as essential
to human beings, any collectivistic organization is
wrong i.e., contradicts itself which is not con-
structed in such a way that the freedom of *all
individuals is guaranteed.
If collectivism is regarded as a hypostasized
reality in the metaphysical or naturalistic sense, then
any organization which matches the conception of
this reality fits the purpose. The organization does
not have to concern itself primarily with the in-
dividual. However, collectivism on such a basis,
whether in theory or in practice, is subject to the
same criticism as any metaphysical or naturalistic
dogma. It opposes the conception of man which
considers freedom essential. The term "freedom"
does not mean the arbitrary right of each individual
to do what he likes laissez-faire, laissez-aller. On
the contrary, it means the right and the inner
necessity to actualize oneself, a right which, as we
have seen, presupposes the possibility of actualiza-
tion on the part of all other individuals. For freedom
fundamentally presupposes the freedom of all others
equality; not, indeed, equality in the simple
political sense of the word, but equal rights and
equal duties. The restriction of the personality
involved in the latter must be considered a limitation
caused by the living together of individuals under
certain conditions, not as determined by any
214 HUMAN NATURE
metaphysical or natural law. Progress means the
amelioration of these conditions to allow for a
more and more adequate self-realization on the part
of all individuals. The fact that a certain degree of
restriction will probably always remain is a con-
sequence of individuality, i.e., of the coexistence of
individuals.
As we have said, the individual is not independent
of the "we." Yet he cannot exist without the "we";
he can realize his nature only within the group.
The individual and the "we" depend upon each
other.
Even though the individual is primary to society,
without question he is influenced to a very high
degree by society. His life is determined by the
habits, customs, and institutions characteristic of the
society he lives in. The problem is how these habits
and customs develop. It has sometimes been as-
sumed that they emerge simply from the fact that
this kind of association of beings exists, that they
are products of a collective mind. From our point
of view self-restriction and encroachment upon the
freedom of others are the two basic aspects of all
forms of living together, and, with that, of all
social organization; they are not simply the me-
chanically conditioned products of a society that
preexists or takes primacy over individuals; rather,
they emerge during the building up and constituting
of a society. They are the avenues for the best
possible self-actualization of all individuals forming
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 215
that society, and by virtue of this they are instru-
ments for the creation of the best possible society. It
is true that there are ideas which are common to a
group and they are often much more fixed and
influential than the ideas of individuals but they
are the products of the minds of individuals. They
originate within society, and the actual living to-
gether of individuals is a very important cause of
their development, but they are built up, or at least
accepted and transformed, by individuals.
In this respect our concept is very close to the
rule of the convergence of internal and external
factors which the late William Stern introduced
into psychology. It seems to me that modern an-
thropology and social psychology have adduced
sufficient evidence of this interaction or convergence.
It is scarcely necessary to support this statement
by recalling the variability of the I.Q. according to
modifications in milieu. In his book, Experimental
Social Psychology, Gardner Murphy has summarized
the results of pertinent investigations in the state-
ment that the I.Q. in the same children or in
different children with equal endowments varies es-
sentially according to environment. The dependence
of the I.Q. to a very large degree upon environmental
conditions has also been ascertained by Otto Kline-
berg in comparative investigations dealing with
negroes and with rural and urban population. Recent
investigations in Iowa have even led to the assertion
that the I.Q.'s of feeble-minded children can be
2l6 HUMAN NATURE
markedly improved by changes in environment.
Perhaps the most striking illustration of the way
in which this convergence operates is offered by the
analysis of language, as, for instance, the naming
of objects. From the linguistic studies of Wilhelm
von Humboldt and of Ernst Cassirer, 4 and from the
psychopathology of aphasia, we know that the
function of naming objects does not represent a
simple superficial connection between a thing and
a word. We know that language is more than a
mere reflection of outside objects in the mind, that it
is rather a means in itself for building up the world
in a particular way that is, in a categorical way.
The categorical, or abstract, attitude is a capacity
belonging to every human being and endows him
with the ability to vary his perspective and to orient
his conception of the world by a variety of frames
of reference. If the language of civilized people
differs from that of primitive ones, the reason lies
not in differences in capacities but in differences
in the use of the same capacities according to
different environmental requirements.
We have already explained the role of the ab-
stract attitude in the process of building habits.*
It plays a similar role in the building up of customs
and institutions. Customs are built up in a historical
development that covers thousands of years; they
are transmitted from generation to generation,
* See p. 135.
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 217
modified and changed by our ancestors and by our
fellow human beings of the present.
To a great extent this transmission and acceptance
of customs takes place during infancy and youth,
and rather passively. In the adult, however, customs
which are actually followed are integrated with the
personality by the capacity for assuming the abstract
attitude. As we have explained, conditioned re-
sponses are established in early youth; it is not
until they are transformed into genuine performances
that they become the habits of the adult, and this in
turn is possible only by virtue of the abstract
attitude. The same is the case with the customs which
are taken over by the individual. They can never
become established without the abstract attitude,
and it is responsible for the fact that an association
between a definite stimulus and an act (whether
accidental in origin or imposed by outer circum-
stance) becomes a true custom. For a custom
is never an external phenomenon, but is connected
with the whole personality. Without the abstract
attitude that is, insight into the significance of
customs for the life of the individual and society
its development is impossible. This attitude is a pre-
requisite for the taking over of a custom and is
particularly important for the modification of
customs according to new conditions, which is in-
dispensable to a living culture, since without this
continual change there would be standstill and
decay. 5
2l8 HUMAN NATURE
Persons with brain injuries demonstrate all this
clearly. The customs they follow are those of their
pre-morbid stage. They are unable to change these;
on the contrary, they have abnormally rigid and
fixed habitual modes of social behavior. As we have
explained, they are able to find new adaptations
and establish new habits only with the help of their
healthy fellow men. And the adaptations acquired
by this procedure are so connected with specific
situations and correspond so closely to the particular
organization of the patient's personality that they
are unsuited to become the customs of a group. As
a result of the homogeneity of environment in which
patients live in a hospital, similar habits may
originate in individuals, but never customs that are
common to a group. And only this is characteristic
of social habits.
In short, such living together is not real social
life. Consequently, these similar habits are very
easily disturbed. Since the patients lack adequate
centering and are very susceptible to immediate
stimuli, they are always ready to react even to minute
changes in their surroundings in a way that is not
consistent with these habits.
Thus we come to the conclusion that customs
originate in society, but that their origin, still more
their transmission, depends upon the abstract atti-
tude on the part of the individuals concerned. They
are accepted as belonging to the personality and are
changed according to the needs of the situation by
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 219
means of the abstract attitude. The faculty of trans-
mitting customs as such belongs only to human
beings. It is never observed in animals. It is true
that one occasionally finds traits which might be
called cultural, like the domestication of plants and
the division of labor in some species of insects, *but
these traits are not acquired by any individual crea-
ture; they belong to the structural pattern of its
species and therefore cannot be changed. Man has
to acquire such customs all over again with each
generation; only the capacity for transmission is
inherited. Ruth Benedict says very correctly that
"man is the culture-making animal." I should like
to add that this faculty is an expression of his ability
to grasp the abstract.
- The development of an institution can be much
more readily observed than that of a custom because
it is built up before our eyes. There is no question
that institutions originate as the result of reasonable
deliberation in which the whole group participates
more or less. The individual, being a member of 'the
group, acknowledges them.
To sum up, a habit is a means of adaptation on
the part of the individual to the conditions of the
nonhuman environment; habits help particularly to
guarantee one's physical existence. A custom is a
means of adaptation to the general conditions of life
in a group. An institution is an adaptive measure
that has to do with the socio-economic conditions
of a group. Common to all these adaptive forms
220 HUMAN NATURE
is the fact that, once built up, they can function
without continual voluntary acts on the part of the
individual. They achieve a certain independence of
the individual. The formation of habits calls for very
little volitional participation on the part of the in-
dividual; that of institutions calls for much. For this
reason institutions vary greatly, and it is easy to
misuse them. From all these adaptive processes
there emerges a strong impulse toward action. They
become valuable aids in the accomplishments of
individuals and make the self-actualization of the
organism easier; there is therefore a strong urge to
preserve them.
In the course of history many of the habits,
customs, and institutions in civilization and culture
have attained a certain emancipation from their
original meaning, and thus govern human behavior
without our being aware of their original purpose.
In spite of the unjustified tyranny they may exercise
and the obstacles they may offer to free development,
they are maintained as long as they are to some
degree embedded within the purposive setting of
the social framework in which they play a part.
If, however, this lack of relation reaches such a
degree that the rules of conduct are practically de-
tached from the real needs of a majority of the group,
we are dealing with abnormal conditions. Limita-
tions may then be imposed upon the life of the
individual in such a way that sufficient leeway for
self-realization is no longer conceded.
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 221
The consequences of such a condition are cata-
stropic reactions and anxiety, which the individual
tries to overcome through attacks on customs and in-
stitutions, on the government which attempts to
preserve those institutions. If it is extensive enough,
the confusion which arises from such a condition can
be used by a minority to claim spuriously, in the
name of society, the right to take over all power in
order to protect society. If such a group is victorious,
tyranny develops. Thus society comes to be divided
into groups that rule and groups that are ruled in
opposition to their own wishes, a state of affairs which
is incompatible with the essential character of human
nature because it contradicts freedom.
The members of such a society are rather like the
patient who lacks the ability to abstract and who
thus becomes the victim of an abnormal response to
outside stimuli. Like the sick person, they suffer from
the limitation of their freedom and from anxiety, with
its consequences (the shrinkage of the environment,
dependence upon and submission to other people).
And all this occurs under the necessity for main-
taining physical and mental existence in some, even
the most primitive, form. Such disturbances affect
both the individual and society as long as an in-
adequate relationship between the two, manifested
in the abnormally exaggerated power of certain in-
stitutions, prevails. Society is then in danger of being
distorted into forms of organization which, the ruling
minority to the contrary notwithstanding, do not
222 HUMAN NATURE
correspond to the nature of man. Irrational factors
are thrust into the foreground by the minority in
order to make acceptable and understandable an or-
ganization which is not understandable by reason as
such, because it is not adequate to human nature.
Sudh a society is not really productive; and it is
very insecure. Immense activity must be called into
play to maintain the organization itself; because it
has no stability within, it can be upheld only by the
utilization of all the worst traits of human nature,
by mechanical means, by force, by the state of anxiety
which tyrannical rulers, as we have explained, often
produce intentionally as a means of tuning the spirit
of the masses to one key and level of action. An
external order only hides the disorder which exists
below the surface, splendid as that surface some-
times is.
Such a pseudo-social organization may be com-
pared with an organism in disease, and we may speak
of such a society as sick. Normal society means a
type of organization through which the fullest possi-
ble actualization on the part of all individuals is
assured. This presupposes the possibility that both
aspects of human nature, self-restriction and en-
croachment, can be effective in a balanced fashion.
The attempt to build up social life based on the
notion of a drive to submission or to aggression, or
of an antagonistic struggle between the two, is futile.
If we acknowledge and utilize social organization as
an instrument by means of which all individuals may
THE INDIVIDUAL AND OTHERS 223
actualize themselves to an optimal degree, then a
genuine social life becomes possible. Only under
these conditions is a social organization capable
of doing justice to every individual; only this makes
it a real social organization and secures its dura-
tion. Far as we may be from realizing such a society
nowadays, it seems to me extremely important to be
aware of the fundamentals on which its possibility
is grounded. Only in this way can we discover the
concrete causes of failure in a given situation and the
appropriate ways to correct the failure.
Failure, or a series of failures, may be the conse-
quence of a wrong procedure in the realization of
a sound idea; it does not necessarily speak against
the correctness of that idea itself. In the same way,
success, taken as the sole measure, does not speak
for the correctness of the underlying idea; only suc-
cess in accordance with the essence of human nature
constitutes a real success. And the basic reason for
failure in this respect, it seems to me, lies in the
misinterpretation of human nature. Ultimately all
failures in social organization are caused by an un-
derestimation of the significance of the abstract
attitude and by a misjudgment of the detrimental
influence which can emanate from human traits if
one changes them through artificial isolation. With
the help of the abstract attitude the fallacy which
is basic to all false social organization can be dis-
closed.
IX
THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION" IN
SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
IF ONE ranges the facts of history against the asser-
tion that man's capacity for abstract behavior, for
freedom and self-restriction, has paramount signifi-
cance for the organization of social life, and if in
particular one considers the present world situation,
the idea may seem quite wrong, not to say ridiculous.
If the capacity for abstract behavior were really the
highest attribute of human nature, why, one may ask,
are human beings not able to build up a social or-
ganization that will guarantee human existence at
least to some degree? How is it possible that human
ingenuity should be used essentially for the purpose
of destruction? How is it possible that hatred and
vandalism should govern the world to such an extent
not only that the civilization of western Europe is in
danger of being wiped out, but that human existence
in its widest expansion seems to be menaced by a
struggle of all against all? How is all this possible in
view of the fact that we possess the capacity of
reasoning?
Such an objection indicates a failure to under-
stand the dialectic procedure of cognition. Errone-
ously, it considers as ends conditions which repre-
THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION" 225
sent only transitory states in the process of the
human being's coming to terms with the world. In
our discussion of acquiring such a simple skill as
bicycling, it was shown that many wrong actions are
necessary before the situation which makes the cor-
rect performance possible is found. As we have
demonstrated, all misinterpretation of the phenomena
of life originates in the application of the analytic
method; we can attain adequate results only by a
special type of cognition, an activity that transcends
this analytic procedure. We have to admit, however,
that this method in itself contains the danger of
error. If it is so difficult to find the procedure through
which bicycling such a simple form of coming to
terms with the world ! becomes possible, how
much more difficult it is to find an adequate way for
a large group of human beings to live together, not
to mention mankind.
The dialectic point of view will prevent us from
considering any given state of affairs as a permanent
one and as the sole expression of what the human
being is capable of in principle. We will be mindful
of the fact that we are always dealing with partitive
results, which we are not allowed to take for granted
as absolutes. Every historical event, as it goes into
the mere factual record, shows definitely the charac-
teristics of a process in isolation; it is a more or less
successful attempt to actualize human beings with
the help of society. The more it thrusts into the
foreground single tendencies of men, the more it
226 HUMAN NATURE
demands its own recognition as an absolute and
emancipated value, the less successful it is. The
social order which then develops is not adequate for
a great number of its members. Because its isolation
and exaggeration of one normal trait, aggressiveness,
it isneither productive nor secure, a caricature of
real society.
Our methodological point of view will lead us to
avoid the fallacy of overestimating a temporary and
incidental condition. We shall not forget the needs
of the true nature of man. We shall not let ourselves
be deceived by false idols, nor commit suicide by
following blindfold the tendencies and orders of a
tyranny which denies human nature. On the other
hand, we shall be capable of avoiding the attitude of
hopeless skepticism into which so many are driven
in the present situation.
My predecessor in these lectures, fitienne Gilson,
has said very truly, "In philosophy skepticism is
defeatism." x To this I should like to add^thaTthe
statement applies not only to philosophy but to all
knowledge and action. Skepticism is not in accord
with the phenomenon of life. Life is always positive.
Only human thought, through the isolating method,
produces the negative. Everybody who has to do
with living beings, especially with human beings,
knows that in practice negative procedure can play
a merely transient role and that it is fruitful only in
relation to positive measures. This concerns the
educator as well as the physician. And it refutes
skepticism in principle.
THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION" 227
Closer consideration reveals that the skeptical
standpoint is always a subterfuge, as Max Hork-
heimer, 2 in particular, has pointed out. Even when
it appears as a philosophical attitude, it is not genu-
ine, but a secondary phenomenon, a phenomenon of
escape from unbearable conditions. In his inability
to realize himself, in his struggle with given condi-
tions, the individual withdraws into himself. He is
not aware of the danger involved in this mental isola-
tion, of the shrinkage of his personality and the
mental suicide which this attitude implies. It is con-
cealed from him by a subterfuge in an individualistic
ideology which glorifies the ego as part of a selected
aristocratic class. His existence would be impossible
without a privileged economic status, by which he is
supported as the mental patient is by his fellow men.
In skepticism we are dealing with a special form of
the attempt to exist without taking into consideration
the existence of others, with their justifiable demands.
Another form is to be found in the hedonistic atti-
tude. 3 This attitude, too, tries to avoid any partici-
pation in the difficulties and unhappiness of the life of
man and confines the meaning of life to the pursuit
of pleasure; it shuns grief and seeks escape in pleas-
ure. This standpoint is close to the Freudian idea
that human behavior is understandable on the basis
of the pleasure principle, or, to put it in another way,
that the purpose of drives is to find release from
hidden urges. The hedonist tries especially to find a
release from tension. I need scarcely recall our
conclusion that from such a point of view normal
228 HUMAN NATURE
behavior is never understandable. It is not under-
standable in this case because the hedonistic tend-
ency originates in the abnormal isolation of one
attribute of human nature. It is impossible in this
way to achieve real self-actualization, to "live" in
the true sense of the word. The hedonist may not be
aware of the situation because his judgment is dis-
turbed, especially in the abstract attitude, by the
narcotization in which he lives. In consequence he
is incapable of experiencing the positive character of
joy; he experiences only the release from tension and
the absence of pain and grief. Like Freud's concept
of drives, the hedonistic way of thinking deprives the
individual of the true experience of the joy and
beauty of life. It can never guarantee the existence
of the individual or of society; it can be held only for
a time because it disintegrates the personality and
with that prevents self -actualization. Enjoyment of
life, happiness, and self-actualization belong together.
Enjoyment of life is a special type of self-actualiza-
tion, the happiness which originates in the individ-
ual's adequate coming to terms with the world.
Because this scarcely ever remains constant, happi-
ness can hold the center of the stage only for a certain
time. But during the rest of the time it does not
vanish ; it operates in the background, giving the life
of the individual the special flavor which is so char-
acteristic of the well-adjusted person. Any attempt
to secure unceasing happiness is destined to failure;
where it appears as a constant phenomenon we are
THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION" 229
dealing with pathology, as, for example, in the
maniac. The hedonistic attitude is a kind of with-
drawal from the world, and such an attitude, what-
ever its cause, will never enable the individual to
find an existence adequate to his nature. This holds
even when the individual subjectively experiences it
as moral, as, for example, in the case of Epicurus.
Basically, hedonism has its origin in skepticism. In
both we are dealing with the isolation of the indi-
vidual from society; in both one tries to save one's
own personality at any price, even the sacrifice of
one's fellow beings. Both attitudes fail because they
deny human nature.
Opposed to this attitude we meet another, in which
the individual sacrifices himself for the sake of his
fellow men. It is much more difficult to prove the
ambiguity of this attitude. Some sacrifices are rightly
to be considered an expression of an unusually high
development of human nature. But self-sacrifice in
itself is not of value. It is of value only if it is im-
portant for the actualization of the individual; it is
of value only if the rescue of others is of such impor-
tance to the individual that his own self-realization
demands this sacrifice. This is a border situation
similar to one we have already discussed, in which
voluntary suicide is sometimes the last way out in
the attempt to preserve the personality. One has to
be very careful in the evaluation of self-sacrifice,
because it is often nothing more than an escape from
the difficulties of normal self-actualization. If society
230 HUMAN NATURE
has to ask for general self-sacrifice on the part of its
members, then there is something wrong with the
organization of that society. I do not mean to deny
that an emergency may arise in which the individual
has to sacrifice himself for the sake of society. But
the individual ought always to have the possibility of
making the decision for himself. Only then will the
sacrifice have real value.
I am aware of the incomplete and scanty treatment
I have given the problem of social organization,
viewed in relation to our findings concerning the
normal organism and the organism in disease. I be-
lieve, however, that the preceding discussion has
prepared us sufficiently to warrant the following
broader conclusion: Any attempt to determine what
a normal social organization should be like is faced
with the same epistemological difficulties as that of
determining the characteristics of an organism. 4 In-
dividuals are not separately existing and discrete
units of the social "organism," and the latter does
not constitute merely a sum total of these units. Just
as the functional and material structure of an organ-
ism guarantees the normal behavior of its parts, so
the organization and behavior of the social commu-
nity must guarantee the existence of the individual.
The study of a given social organization, like the
study of an organism, has to be based upon the study
of phenomena isolated by the analytic method; and
we cannot proceed directly from these to a charac-
terization of the whole which social organization
THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION" 231
represents. We are confronted once more with the
limitation of the analytic method which was dis-
cussed in the first chapter.
When we deal with living beings, science of the
analytic type can never speak the last word. In the
last few decades it has been realized more, and more
that medical treatment cannot be based on science
of this type alone. The same holds true for educa-
tion and for practical guidance in politics. But this
restriction of the value of science in no way justifies
renouncing this form of cognition entirely, and sur-
rendering to mysticism and irrational speculation.
Science maintains its great value no less when we are
conscious of its limits.
The analytic scientific approach remains the only
one by means of which phenomena can be discovered
in a systematic way. It is the only approach by
means of which we can achieve that broad orbit of
empirical data which renders it possible to discover
which phenomena are relevant for the understanding
of living beings and which not. This is its positive
value. It also has great value in the negative sense,
though this is often not taken into consideration with
the seriousness it deserves. The unbiased registering
of all phenomena which the analytic method produces
necessarily brings about a critical attitude concerning
the value of these phenomena for gaining a real
understanding of the object in question human
nature. In the field we are interested in, this critical
attitude is of the greatest importance. Science
232 HUMAN NATURE
thereby reveals the danger of applying its piecemeal
results to situations of inherently different structure
and of making generalizations in that way. So, for
example, when one makes conditioned responses the
basis for understanding the natural behavior of an
animal, or when one tries to explain human behavior
on the basis of the results of studies of animals, or
vice versa, the critical attitude reveals the error to
which we have fallen victim. By scrutinizing the
conditions and the consequences of isolation it can
demonstrate the danger involved in this procedure,
the datfger of taking results obtained under these
conditions as absolute. For this reason many so-
called "scientific" results in the fields in question are
open to a very serious criticism.
The critical attitude cautions us not to attempt an
understanding of nature directly on the basis of the
phenomena gained by the scientific method and
refers us to the need of dialectic procedure. It re-
veals, further, the necessity for transcending the
imminent situations of the analytic method if we
wish to understand human nature and to act in its
terms.
As a consequence, the personality of the scientist
acquires a particular significance in relation to the
task set before him. The scholar in physical science
is usually confined to an elaboration of that part of
the world which becomes prominent through the
analytic procedure. The biologist, in addition to his
consideration of physicochemical phenomena, is con-
THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION" 233
fronted with living beings and has to do justice to
them, especially when he has to deal with men. This
difference makes the actions of the' physical scientist
and the biologist very different.
The technologist's interference with nature means
violence to nature; it is directed against the forees of
nature in order to master them for the benefit of man.
Even where the technologist utilizes and exploits
natural energies by direct manipulation, he is able to
establish and maintain his use of them only in oppo-
sition to nature, by building up protective walls
against nature. Within these walls nature is not
alive, but knowledge resulting from analytic pro-
cedure achieves practical utilization in the form of
machines. Only when they are protected in this way
against the threatening forces of nature are machines
able to endure.
The biologist acts in this manner only when he is
not interested in living creatures as such, as, for ex-
ample, when he breeds animals for human purposes,
or when his lack of knowledge prevents his real
understanding of the nature of a living creature and
its appropriate environment. Since biological knowl-
edge in most cases lacks completeness, we are fre-
quently forced to act in this way, though our goal is
something quite different that is, (toprovide^ the
kind of environment ^which allows f orTlie^ost^com-
pletifreal^^
This manifests itself in the activities of both the
physician and the educator, which in this respect
234 HUMAN NATURE
take on much the same complexion. But in education
we approach still more closely the boundaries of
human perfection as they are given in the imperfect
knowledge of pedagogic means and ends grounded,
moreover, in man's imperfect adaptation to the world
in which he has to live. Many pedagogic measures
spring from the necessity of adapting the individual
to the norms of the civilization and culture of which
he is a part, a necessity which must be borne. 5 It is
not sufficient to encourage and help the child in the
development of his innate potentialities. This is the
ideal of any biologically founded education, which is
concerned with the development of the individual
according to its nature, but the demands of civiliza-
tion compel the educator to exercise, to a certain ex-
tent, mere drill; that is, to force the pupil to activities
not entirely suited to his nature.
It is apparent, then, that in all scientific dealing
with living beings, particularly with human beings,
the personality of the scientist plays an eminent part.
We should not lose sight of this fact. The biologist
and the physician have to encroach upon the freedom
of other human beings, and they have to do this on
the basis of their own decisions. All success depends
ultimately upon their personal judgment and is a
matter of their own responsibility. We know that
these two factors are based upon the capacity for
abstraction. Thus the critical analysis of the sub-
stance of the scientific approach again discloses from
another angle the significance of that capacity which
THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION" 235
our entire discourse has asserted we think justly
to be essential to the nature of man. This analysis,
on the other hand, may keep us from an overestima-
tion of this capacity. We do not forget that in speak-
ing of the abstract attitude we are dealing merely
with a phenomenon revealed by the analytic method
and that it can be evaluated only in reference to the
whole organism. With this in mind, we consider other
factors important for human behavior: concrete be-
havior and the constants that are characteristic of
species and individuals. Only in a harmonious ac-
tualization of all these factors does human life appear
to be normal. Whenever one of them comes abnor-
mally to the foreground we meet with abnormal
phenomena, with all the attributes of phenomena in
isolation.
As we have seen, what kind of behavior, what
special factor, is in the foreground depends upon the
whole situation, particularly upon the environment.
Thus the human being may appear in very different
aspects. But human life will never be comprehensible
if we take any one of these aspects as the sole char-
acteristic of the individual or group. All misunder-
standings of other individuals, all misinterpretations
of the behavior of other people, are grounded basi-
cally in such a wrong procedure. For we are not
dealing with individual differences in principle, but
with many factors, each characteristic of all human
beings, which are arranged in various ways in various
individuals and groups. Thus some normal persons
236 HUMAN NATURE
prefer the concrete attitude, others the abstract; in
others language dominates, in still others vision.
There are similar differences in peoples. The differ-
ences between primitive and civilized peoples, in
particular, it becomes more and more evident, are
really only variations in the arrangement of the
same factors, corresponding to general differences in
life and environment. Only from this standpoint,
which is not only based on but enforced through a
critical use of science, can one individual do justice
to another, one people to another, one religion to
another, one form of civilization to another. Only
from this standpoint are justice and morals possible.
Only from this standpoint do we achieve the humility
that is in keeping with the imperfection of our coming
to terms with the world. Only this attitude prevents
us from taking as absolute, as the expression of
human nature, one of those imperfect formations in
which human nature appears at a given time.
We recognize further that a more nearly perfect
realization can take place only through a process of
mutual adaptation between peoples, which will per-
mit a fuller actualization of all the different factors
that, harmoniously combined, represent human
nature. From this cooperative work nobody need be
excluded except those who deliberately construct
barriers and who thus decline cooperation in prin-
ciple. In this latter situation we have to do with such
an essential deviation from human nature that mu-
tual understanding is impossible. We may be able to
THE FALLACY OF "ISOLATION" 237
understand those who deviate in this way as anoma-
lies, as insane or criminal, but they can never under-
stand us and they can never become normal members
of any human social organization. There is no choice
forjsocjcty but to protect its members againstjuch
individuals or groups7~How this protection caa be
broughF55out I cannot even suggest here. I wish to
stress only one fact: in our stand against these
offenders of society we are not justified in doing any-
thing which opposes human nature in principle.
This would be bound to fail, because the very ex-
istence of society, which is based on human nature,
would be endangered by such a procedure.
It is true that emergencies may arise to force us,
in self-defense, to use methods fundamentally op-
posed to the needs of human nature. Otherwise we
should face the danger of seeing the destruction of
all that we consider essential to civilized human life,
perhaps even the danger of being rooted out phys-
ically. We must never forget, however, that such
situations are abnormal ones and that our actions
can be justified only if they are regarded as tem-
porary expedients. If we do, we may forfeit the very
things we are seeking to defend.
In the state of despair in which so many people
find themselves at present, we must always remem-
ber that we are very far from solving the problem
of the adequate social organization of mankind, that
we are only on the road to a goal which may be
reached in the future nobody knows when but
238 HUMAN NATURE
that we have no reason to despair if we proceed in
a way determined by our knowledge of human
nature.
To accept this task demands two faculties in par-
ticular: first, readiness to restrict oneself and to
encroach upon others in the interest both of one's
own actualization and that of others, and, second,
courage in the struggle against those resistances of
the inner and outer world which oppose human na-
ture faculties which one might consider the two
paramount manifestations of the highest capacity
of man, the capacity for freedom.
NOTES
NOTES
CHAPTER I
1. See C. M. CHILD, The Physiological Foundation of Be-
havior (New York, 1924) ; G. E. COGIIILL, Anatomy and the
Problem of Behavior (New York, 1929); C. J. HERRICK, "Ana-
tomical Patterns," in Physiological Zoology (New York, 1929) ;
K. S. LASHLEY, Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence (Chicago,
1929) ; ADOLF MEYER, "Critical Review of the Data and General
Method and Deduction of Modern Neurology," Journal of Com-
parative Neurology, vol. VIII, 1898; TRIGANT BURROW, The
Biology of Human Conflict (New York, 1938) ; KURT GOLDSTEIN,
The Organism (New York, 1939).
2. See KURT GOLDSTEIN, "Die Neuroregulation," Verhandlungen
der Gesellschaft fur innere Medizin und Kinder heilkunde, vol.
XLII, 1932; "Zur Frage der Restitution nach umschriebenem
Hirndefect," Schweizer Archiv fur Neurologic und Psychiatric,
vol. XIII, 1923; and The Organism, pp. 427 ff.
3. MAX SCHELER, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos
(Darmstadt, 1928).
4. G. W. ALLPORT, Personality, A Psychological Interpretation
(New York, 1937).
5. See GOLDSTEIN, The Organism, chap. IX.
6. See GOLDSTEIN, "Zur Theorie der Funktion des Nerven-
systems," Archiv jur Psychiatric, vol. LXX, 1925, pp. 370 ff., and
The Organism, chap. III.
7. This phenomenon, long known in psychology, falls under
what is known as the Weber-Fechner law. This law says that
discrimination depends upon relative rather than absolute intensi-
ties. The facts were established by E. H. Weber and G. T. Fechner
more than half a century ago in investigations of perception and
discrimination of weights. Weber's problem was: If we compare
two weights in succession, how large must the difference in weight
be to enable us to tell which is the heavier? He found that the
difference which was required was not an absolute quantity but
242 NOTES
depended upon the relation of the first weight to the second weight
(a ratio of about i to 30 for good discrimination). Further in-
vestigations with other stimuli brought him to the general con-
clusion that correct comparison required a constant quantitative
relationship between the two stimuli. Later Fechner, experimenting
in the visual field, got similar results. In general, one can say that
reactions do not increase in the same proportion as the increase of
the stimuli. In order for the responses to increase in arithmetical
proportion (i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 . . .), the corresponding stimuli must
increase in geometrical proportion (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 . . .). In
other words, the effect of a given stimulus depends upon the condi-
tion of the organism at the moment of stimulation, upon the state
of excitation at that moment (initial situation).
Closer investigations of the Weber-Fechner law have shown that
it is not valid in all situations in the same way, and, what is par-
ticularly interesting for us, that the figures diverge greatly from
the theoretical expectation at extremely low and high intensities.
It is probable that in very extreme states of excitation there is a
reversal of the reactions. As yet we have no systematic investiga-
tions to prove this in weight discrimination. In some somatic
reactions, however, this reversal can be shown very well. The
study of certain drugs, with their characteristic reactions, yields
us good examples. We know that adrenalin, the extract of the
adrenal gland, increases the tension of the muscles of the blood
vessels, the tension of muscles of some visceral organs, such as the
stomach, and so on. If one injects a small amount of this drug,
the tension of some muscles increases to a degree corresponding
to the amount of the injected drugs. But the degree of tension of
the muscle at the time of injection determines what the change of
the tension will be. If the tension at the time of injection is below
a certain level (below average tension), the effect will be greater
than if it were in the average state of tension. If the tension is
above average, the effect of the same amount of injection will be
less; while in a very high state of tension, the effect will be re-
versed, and there will no longer be an increase of tension but a
decrease. To give an example, the relaxed stomach contracts under
adrenalin, the contracted stomach relaxes. We know of many
similar examples, particularly in the field of the vegetative nervous
system. Thus we have evidence of the fact that the same stimultts
NOTES 243
has a different effect when it touches the organism during various
states of excitation. The effect is to be understood only if we
consider it not merely in terms of the working of the stimulus,
but also in terms of the tendency of the organism to return to the
average state of excitation. If the stimulated region is in a low
state of excitation, then a stimulus which usually has the effect of
producing a particular degree of excitation may produce a stronger
reaction because it will be working in the same direction as the
tendency to return to the average state. If the stimulated region
is in a state of excitation close to the average state, the same
stimulus will act less forcibly. If it is in a state of excitation above
average, then the stimulus leads to a reaction of opposite charac-
ter; that is, it diminishes the excitation, because the tendency to
return to the average state is effective in addition to the working
of the stimulus; if the stimulus were operating alone, it would
result in the expected increase of excitation. This tendency is the
basis for the maintenance of the threshold in spite of the fact that
stimulation always changes the organism and its sensitivity to
further stimulation. In normal life, after a period of time, excita-
tion which has been changed by a stimulus becomes equalized,
returns to its normal state of excitation. Thus when a new
stimulus reaches the organism it is again in a state in which the
threshold to stimuli is constant. This equalization process guar-
antees the equality of the threshold, and with that the stability
and the existence of the organism. Therefore we speak of equali-
zation as the basic biological phenomenon. How important this
equalization is for the organism may be demonstrated by the fact
that, when the organism is responding in an abnormal way (having
lost this average, or mean, state through abnormal conditions), it
responds to a new stimulation not with the reaction generally
evoked but by a return to the average state of excitation. In
connection with this problem, see I. H. WILDER, "Ein unbeachtetes
biologisches Gesetz, sein Bedeutung fur Forschung und Praxis,"
Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, vol. II, 1939, and GOLDSTEIN, The
Organism, pp. 73 ff., where other examples are mentioned.
8. On the problem of isolation, see GOLDSTEIN, The Organism,
PP. 133 ff.
9. EDGAR RUBIN, Visuell wahrgenommene Figuren (Copen-
hagen, 1931). See also MOLLY HARROWER, "Some Factors Deter-
244 NOTES
mining Figure-Ground Articulation," British Journal of Psychology,
vol. XXII, 1936, and "Changes in Figure-Ground Perception in
Patients with Cortical Lesions," British Journal of Psychology,
vol. XXX, 1939.
10. ERNST CASSIRER, Philosophic der symbolischen Formen
(Berlin, 1929), III, 26.
11. See GOLDSTEIN, The Organism, p. 98.
ifc. See WILLIAM JAMES, The Will to Believe, and Other
Essays (New York, 1897).
13. R. B. PERRY, In the Spirit of William James (New Haven,
1938).
CHAPTER II
1. On the problem of "archaic thinking," see ALFRED STORCH,
"The Primitive Archaic Forms of Inner Experiences and Thought
in Schizophrenia," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Mono-
graph Series, no. 36, 1924.
2. There is an immense amount of medical literature on the
subject. A few books and articles particularly suited to non-
medical readers are: HENRY HEAD, Aphasia and Kindred Disorders
of Speech (New York, 1926) ; KURT GOLDSTEIN and ADHEMAR
GELB, Psychologische Analysen hirnpathologischer Fdlle (Leipsig,
1920), partially translated in W. D. ELLIS, Source Book of Gestalt
Psychology (New York, 1938), 26-30; KURT GOLDSTEIN, "The
Problem of the Meaning of Words," Journal of Psychology, vol.
II, 1936, and "The Modifications of Behavior Consequent to Cere-
bral Lesions," Psychiatric Quarterly, vol. X, 1936; THEODORE
WEISENBURG and KATHARINE MCBRIDE, Aphasia (New York, 1935) ;
KARL ZUCKER, "An Analysis of Disturbed Function in Aphasia,"
Brain, vol. LVII, 1934; KURT GOLDSTEIN, Die Behandlung,
Fursorge und Begutachtung der Hirnverletzten (Leipsig, 1918) .
3. For the problem of localization see CARL MONAKOW and
RICHARD MOURGUE, Biologische Einfiihrung in das Studium der
Neurologie (Stuttgart, 1930) ; KURT GOLDSTEIN, "Lokalisation in
der Grosshirnrinde," Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen
Physiologie, vol. X, 1927, and The Organism (New York, 1939) ;
K. S. LASHLEY, "Functional Determinants of Cerebral Localisation,"
Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, vol. XXXVIII, 1937.
NOTES 245
4. KURT GOLDSTEIN and ADHEMAR GELB, Psychologische
Analysen hirnpathologischer Falle (Leipsig, 1920) ; KURT GOLD-
STEIN, "The Significance of the Frontal Lobes for Mental Perform-
ances," Journal of Neurology and Psycho pathology, vol. XVII,
1936.
5. See KURT GOLDSTEIN and S. E. KATZ, "The Psychopathology
of Pick's Disease," Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, vol.
XXXVIII, 1937. *
6. On the problem of the impairment of abstract behavior see
GOLDSTEIN and GELB, "t)ber Farbennamenamnesie," Psychologische
Forschung, vol. VI, 1925; M. M. BOLLES and KURT GOLDSTEIN,
"A Study of Impairment of Abstract Behavior in Schizophrenics,"
Psychiatric Quarterly, vol. XII, 1938; A. B. NADEL, "A Qualitative
Analysis of Behavior Following Cerebral Lesions," Archives of
Psychology, vol. 224, 1938; EUGENIA HANFMANN and JACOB
KASANIN, "A Method for the Study of Concept Formation,"
Journal of Psychology, vol. Ill, 1937, and Journal of Psychiatry,
vol. XCV, 1938; EUGENIA HANFMANN, "Analysis of the Thinking
Disorder in a Case of Schizophrenia," Archives of Neurology and
Psychiatry, vol. XLI, 1939; M. M. BOLLES, "The Basis of Perti-
nence," Archives of Psychology, vol 212, 1937; KURT GOLDSTEIN,
"Frontal Lobotomy and Impairment of Abstract Attitude," Jour-
nal of Nervous and Mental Disease, vol. no, no. 2, 1949.
7. On the problem of art and mental disease see especially
HANS PRINZHORN, Die Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Berlin, 1922).
8. For the block test see GOLDSTEIN and BOLLES, "A Study of
Impairment of Abstract Behavior in Schizophrenics," Psychiatric
Quarterly, vol. XII, 1938; NADEL, "A Qualitative Analysis of Be-
havior Following Cerebral Lesions," Archives of Psychology, vol.
224, 1938; KURT GOLDSTEIN and MARTIN SCHKERLR, ''Abstract
and Concrete Behavior- An Experimental Study with Special
Tests," Psychological Monographs, vol. 53, no. 2, 1941.
CHAPTER III
1. Sec HKNRY HKAD, Aphasia and Kindred Disorders of Speech
(New York, 1926); THEODORE WEISENBURG and KATHARINE
McBRiDE, Aphasia (New York, 1935); KURT GOLDSTEIN, Vber
Aphasie (Zurich, 1927), and Language and Language Disturbances
(New York, 1948).
2. See KURT GOLDSTEIN and ADHEMAR GELB, Psychologische
Analysen hirnpathologischer Falle (Leipsig, 1920); KURT GOLD-
246 NOTES
STEIN, "The Problem of the Meaning of Words Based upon Ob-
servation of Aphasic Patients," Journal of Psychology, vol. II,
1936; "On Naming and Pseudonaming," Word, vol. 2, no. i, 1946;
ERNST CASSIRER, Philosophic der symbolischen Formen, vol. II
(Berlin, 1928).
3. EVA ROTHMANN, "Untersuchung eines Falles von umschrie-
bener Hirnschadigung mit Storungen auf verschiedenen Lei-
stungsgebieten," Schweizer Archiv fur Neurologic und Psychiatric,
vol. XXXIII, 1933.
CHAPTER IV
1. See KURT GOLDSTEIN, "The Significance of the Frontal Lobes
for Mental Performances," Journal of Neurology and Psycho-
pathology, vol. XVII, 1936, and WILHELM SIEKMANN, "Psycho-
logische Analyse eines falles Rat," Psychologische Forschung, vol.
XVI, 1932-
2. See GOLDSTEIN, The Organism, pp. 35 ff.
3. See HEINRICH KLUEVER, Behavior Mechanisms in Monkeys
(Chicago, 1933)-
4. See KURT KOFFKA'S distinction between geographical and
behavioral milieu: KOFFKA, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (New
York, 1935).
5. See SIGMUND FREUD, Hemmung, Symptom, und Angst
(Leipsig, 1926) ; WILLIAM STERN, Psychology of Early Childhood
(New York, 1931); KURT GOLDSTEIN, "Zum Problem der Angst,"
Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychotherapie, vol. II, 1927, and The
Organism, pp. 291 ff.; S0REN KIERKEGAARD, Der Begriff der Angst
(Jena, 1923); KAREN HORNEY, New Ways in Psychoanalysis
(New York, 1939); ROLLO MAY, The Meaning of Anxiety (New
York, 1950).
CHAPTER V
1. For this theory see G. W. ALLPORT, Personality: A Psycho-
logical Interpretation (New York, 1937).
2. See C. J. HERRICK, The Brains of Rats and Men (Chicago,
1926) ; G. E. COGHILL, Anatomy and the Problem of Behavior
(New York, 1929) ; K. S. LASHLEY, Brain Mechanisms and /-
telligence (Chicago, 1929) ; ALBRECHT BETHE, "Plastizitat und
Centrenlehre," Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physi-
NOTES 247
ologie, vol. XV, 1930; KURT GOLDSTEIN, "t)ber die Plastizitat des
Organismus," Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physi-
ologic, vol. XV, 1930.
3. On the theory of reflexes, see JOHN DEWEY, "The Reflex
Arc Concept in Psychology," Psychological Review, vol. Ill, 1896.
KURT GOLDSTEIN, The Organism (New York, 1939), lists the per-
tinent literature.
4. PAUL HOFFMANN and ERNST KRETSCHMER, Untersuchun^en
uber Eigenreflexe (Berlin, 1922).
5. HANS DRIESCH, Philosophic des Organischen (Leipsig, 1928).
6. See JOHN DEWEY, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,"
Psychological Review, vol. Ill, 1896; R. S. WOODWORTH, Dynamic
Psychology (New York, 1926) ; ALLPORT, Personality, A Psycho-
logical Interpretation (New York, 1937); HEINRICH KLUEVER, Be-
havior Mechanisms in Monkeys (Chicago, 1933) ; KURT KOFFKA,
Principles of Gestalt Psychology (New York, 1935) ; I. R. KANTOR.
A Survey of the Science of Psychology (Bloomington, Ind., 1933) ;
R. H. WHEELER, The Science of Psychology (New York, 1940) ;
I. W. CARTER, JR., "An Experimental Study of Psychological Stim-
ulus Response," Psychological Record, vol. II, 1938.
7. E. C. TOLMAN, in Psychological Review, vol. XLV, 1938.
8. C. L. HULL, "Mind, Mechanism, and Adaptive Behavior,"
Psychological Review, vol. XLIV, 1937.
9. L. W. GELLERMANN, "Form Discrimination in Chimpanzees,"
Journal of Genetic Psychology, vol. XLII, 1933; K. F. MUEN-
ZINGER, "Motivation in Learning," Journal of Comparative
Psychology, vols. XVII, XX, XXI, 1934-37 (seven papers).
10. "An Experimental Study of Psychological Stimulus Re-
sponse," Psychological Record, vol. II, 1938.
u. See I. P. PAVLOV, Conditioned Reflexes (Oxford, 1927).
An enormous amount of literature has been accumulated on con-
ditioned reflexes; for a bibliography see R. S. WOODWORTH,
Experimental Psychology (New York, 1938). Critical work
concerning this concept will be found in the article by KARL
ZENER, "The Significance of Behavior Accompanying Conditioned
Salivary Secretion for Theories of the Conditioned Response,"
American Journal of Psychology, vol. L, 1937, and in H. S.
LIDDELL, "The Conditioned Reflex," in Comparative Reflexology
(New York, 1934) and KURT GOLDSTEIN, The Organism, p. 175
248 NOTES
12. See, on the subject, KURT KOFFKA, The Growth of the Mind
(London, 1928-), and GOLDSTEIN, The Organism, chap. IX, pp.
157 .
13. In addition to the references in note 12, see WILLIAM
McDoucALL, Introduction to Social Psychology (London, 1908)
and Psychoanalysis and Social Psychology (London, 1935).
14. WOODWORTH, Dynamic Psychology (New York, 1926).
13. ALLPORT, Personality, A Psychological Interpretation.
CHAPTER VI
1. See WILLIAM STERN, Psychology of Early Childhood (New
York, 1930) ; KURT KOFFKA, The Growth of the Mind (New York,
1925) ; G. E. COGIIILL, Anatomy and the Problem of Behavior
(New York, 1929) ; MAX MINKOWSKI, "Sur les mouvements," etc.,
Revue neurologique, vol. XXXVII, 1921, pp. 1105-18, 1235-50,
and "Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte," etc., Archiv fur Neurologic
und Psychiatric, vol. XIII, 1923, p. 475; LEONARD CARMICHAEL,
"The Development of Behavior," Psychological Review, vol.
XXXIII, 1926; N. L. MUNN, Psychological Development (New
York, 1938); KURT GOLDSTEIN, The Organism (New York, 1939),
chap. IX.
2. See SIGMUND FREUD, Collected Papers (London, 1934).
3. KAREN HORNBY, New Ways in Psychoanalysis (New York,
1939). See also GOLDSTEIN, The Organism, chap. IX, and MARTIN
SCHEERER, Die Lehre von der Gestalt (Berlin, 1931).
4. The problem of sex needs particular consideration which it
will find in a special presentation.
5. KURT GOLDSTEIN, "The Idea of Disease and Therapy,"
Review of Religion, March 1949.
CHAPTER VII
1. On preferred behavior, see KURT GOLDSTEIN, "Zum Problem
der Tendenz zum ausgezeichneten Verhalten," Deutsche Zeitschrift
fur Nervenheilkunde, vol. CVII, 1929.
2. See WERTHEIMER, "Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der
Gestalt," Zeitschrift fur Psychologic, vol. LXI, 1912 (translated in
W. D. ELLIS, Source Book of Gestalt Psychology, New York,
1938, lectures II, V).
3. See ERNST KRETSCHMER, Korperbau und Charakter (Berlin,
1918).
4. See FRANZ BOAS, The Mind of Primitive Men (New York,
1911), and OTTO KLINEBERG, Race Differences (New York, 1935).
NOTES 249
CHAPTER VIII
1. WILLIAM McDouGALL, Introduction to Social Psychology
(London, 1908).
2. See JOHN DOLLARD and others, Frustration and Aggression
(New Haven, 1939).
3. See ELLIS FREEMAN, Social Psychology (New York, 1936).
4. ERNST CASSIRER, Philosophic der symbolischen Formen
(Berlin, 1929).
5. On customs see RUTH BENEDICT, Patterns of Culture (New
York, 1934), and MARGARET MEAD, Sex and Temperament in Three
Primitive Societies (New York, 1935).
CHAPTER IX
1. fiTiENNE GILSON, The Unity of Philosophical Experience
(New York, 1937).
2. HORKHEIMER, MAX, "Montaigne und die Function der Skep-
sis," Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung, vol. VII, 1938,
pp. i ff.
3. See HERBERT MARCUSE, "Zur Kritik des Hedonismus,"
Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Soztalforschung, vol. Ill, 1938, pp. 55 ff.
4. KURT GOLDSTEIN, "Bemerkungen iiber die Bedeutung der
Biologic fur Soziologie," in Studlen uber Autoritat und Familie
(Paris, 1936), ed Max Horkheimer, p. 656.
5. See ROBERT ULICH, Fundamentals of Democratic Education
(New York, 1940).
INDEX
INDEX
Actualization, tendency toward,
H2, 139
Abstract behavior, lack of in
patients, 42 ff.
Abstract attitude, 59; and cus-
toms and institutions, 217;
and choice, 49 ; and democ-
racy, 118; and emotional and
social behavior, 55 ; and fear,
94; and memory, 51 ; and sci-
ence, 234; and space and time
perception, 46 ff. ; and speech,
68; and shifting, 53; and vol-
untary actions, 53 ; and condi-
tioned reflexes, 137
Adaptation, 89; to a defect,
38, 96
Adequacy, 182
Adequate stimulation, 88
Adequate milieu, 89
After-effect, 153; abnormal, and
isolation, 156
Allport, Gordon W., 128, 149,
173, 241, 246, 247, 248
Alternation reactions, 17
Ambivalence, 17, 161, 207
Amnesic aphasia, 2
Analytic method, 9 ff., 231;
danger of, 231
Anthropology, 9
Anthropomorphism, 132
Anxiety, 91 ; and fear, 92 ; and
abnormal activity, 99 ; and
consciousness, 94; and child-
hood, 110; and nothingness,
92; and orderliness, 96; and
originality, 113; and insanity,
116; and culture, in; and
the unsolvable task, 90; and
social and political oiganiza-
tion, 117; and freedom, 114;
and fear in normal life, 109
Anxiety, capacity of bearing,
in
Aristotle, 128
Atomistic method, 3
Bain, 190
Beauty of life, 228
Behavior, normal, 66; abstract
and concrete, 59 ff. ; ordered
and disordered, 85 ff. ; pre-
ferred, 174
Benedict, R., 249
Bethe, A., 121, 246
Biology, knowledge in, 9, 21 ff.;
science of, 232 ; basic law of,
15
Biologist, 232
Boas, 179, 248
Bolles, M., and Goldstein, K.,
64, 245
Brain lesion, 36
Buehler, Carl, 74
Burrow, Trigant, 5, 241
Capacity of abstraction, 59, 68;
137
254 INDEX
Carmichael, L., 248
Carter, J. W , Jr., 128, 132, 247
Cassirer, E., 27, 216, 244, 246,
249
Catastrophic behavior, 85 ff.
Catastrophic situation, 57
Chil<i, C. M., 241
Childhood, 5, 156; and am-
bivalence, 1 60; and isolated
reaction, 169; events during,
and psvchoanalysis, 163
Coghill, G. E., 5, 121, 241, 246,
248
Collectivism, 212
Comfort, 182
Culture, and anxiety, in; vari-
eties of, 199; and disease,
221; and sublimation, in;
differences of, 198
Customs, 149, 216, 219; trans-
mission of, 218
Danger, condition of, 89; to the
existence of the organism, 89 ;
methods of escaping, 96 ff.
Defect, awareness and unaware-
ness of, 1 06; adaptation to,
96
Democracy, and anxiety, 118;
and the abstract attitude, 118
Dewey, J., 5, 128, 203, 246, 247
Community, true, and masses, Dialcctic proce dure of cognition,
118 26, 224
Concrete and abstract behavior, Dilthcv ~
41, 59 ff., 72; dependence of Disease, 5
the first on the second, 61, McDougall, W., 204, 248, 249
82; in normal life, 64; and Dollard, J., 249
scientific and artistic work, Drill) I35; and cond i t ioned re-
6 3 flex, 137
Conditioned reflexes, 133, 158; Drive, 139, 140 ff., 193, and re-
lease of tension, 140; concept
of different separate drives,
142 ; and "instrumental mech-
anisms," 147; the basic, 133,
and development, 158; mean-
ing in man, 137; dependence
on abstract attitude, 137
Conflict, 164, 169
Consciousness, 151 ff., 167
Consistency, 174
Constant reaction, 122
Constants of individuality, 184,
187; and experience, 193
Contact, social, 202
Courage, 113
142
Education and educator, 233
Ego, 1 66
Ellis, W. D., 244, 248
Emptiness, the experience of,
1 06
Creative power, lack of in pa- Encroachment, 204, 207
tients, in, 1 68
Creative work, 63
Enjoyment of life, 228
Enlightenment, 197
INDEX
255
Entelechy, 128
Equality and freedom, 213
Equalization process, 15
Erkenntnisgrund, 24
Essence (Wesen) of the organ-
ism, 26
Exclusion of defects, 106
Factor analysis, 192
Facts in biology, 22
Faculty psychology, 145
Fear, 92 ; and the abstract atti-
tude, 94
Figure and ground, 12, 19; and
constancy, 20
Free-association theory, 161, 166
Freedom, 113, 204, 208, 213,
238; and anxiety, 114
Freeman, E., 249
Freud, S , 165 ff., 227, 246, 248
Freud's theory, cpistemological
basis of, 165
Frontal lobe, 350
Frustration without resentment,
207
Gelb, A,, 244, 245
Gellermann, L. W., 247
Goethe, J. W., 24
Gestalt, 23, 29; and good and
preferred behavior, 186
Ge stall, psychology, 5, 128, 181
Qilson, E., 226, 249
Goldstein, K., 241, 243, 244, 245,
246, 247, 248, 249
Groups, habits of, 149
Habits, 135, 149, 216, 219
Harrower, M., 243, 244
Hanfmann and Kasanin, 245, 246
Happiness, 288
Head, H., 244, 245
Hedonism, 247
Herrick, C. J., 5, 121, 241, 246
Hoffmann, P , and Kretschmer,
E., 247
Horkheimer, M., 227, 249
Horney, Karen, 164, 246, 248
Horror vacui, 104
Hull, C. L., 130, 247 9
Human nature, 67 ff , 172 ; holis-
tic approach to, 9 ; science of,
9; creative trend of, in, 168;
and conditioning, 135; and
skepticism and hedonism, 229
Human and animal, 7, 83
Individual, in true community
and masses, 118; potentiali-
ties of, 172; variability of,
194, 198; and surrounding
world of, 205; and species,
210; and the "we," 211; and
society, 214; and the others,
201 ; rights of, 212
Individuality and the temporal
course of processes, 186
Infancy, 157
Instincts, 138
Institutions, 7, 219
Isolation of functions, % io; and
pathology, 16, 18; and ab-
normal after-effect, 156; and
childhood, 160; and the social
problem, 225; and skepticism
and hedonism, 227
I.Q., 215
Justice, 236
James, William, 4, 32, 244
Kant, I., vi
Kantor, I. R., 128, 132, 247
Kierkegaard, S0ren, 113, 246
256 INDEX
Klineberg, 197, 215, 248
Klucver, H, 128, 246, 247
Knowledge, in biology, 9, 21 ff. ;
in biology and physics, 29
Koffka, K., 246, 247, 248
Kretschmer, E., 248
Lability, 19
Language, see Speech
Lashlcy, K. S, 5, 121, 128, 132,
241, 244, 246
Liddcll, H S., 247
Life, disintegration of, 3 , al-
ways positive, 25, 210, 226;
enjoyment of, 228, decay of,
141
Localization in the brain cor-
tex, 37
Man, nature of, 6 See (ilso
Human nature
Mann, Thomas, 108
May, Rollo, 246
Masses and anxiety, 117
Mead, Margaret, 249
Meaning of words, 79
Meyer, Adolph, 5, 241
Mechanisms, development of,
148; and impulse toward ac-
tion, 148; instrumental, 147
Milieu and individual, 196
Minkowski, M , 248
Monakow, K., and Mourgue, R ,
244
Morals, 236
Muenzinger, K. F , 247
Munn, N. L., 248
Murphy, G , 215
Nadel, A., 245
Names, character of, 77 ff.
Natural, 182, 212
Nature, kindness of, 108; in-
terest in the individual, 209
Needs, 149
Normal and pathological life,
37
Neurosis, 100, 169, 205
Nervous system, 1 1
Order and disorder, 85 ff , 102
Ordered behavior and con-
stancy, 184
Orderliness, and anxiety, 96 ;
excessive, as pathological phe-
nomenon, 101
Organism, knowledge of, 21, 22
ff ; presupposition of its ex-
istence, 89
Pathology, 15, 34
Pavlov, J. P , 247
People and masses, 117
Perfection, urge to, 147
Perry, B., 4, 32, 244
Personality, change in brain
lesions, 38; organization of,
120, 171 ff.
Physical science, 232
Physician, 233
Plato, 190
Pleasure principle, 227
Pleasure of tension, 228
Preferred behavior, 174; and
environment, 196, 200; and
ordered behavior, 186
Preferred perceptions, 180
Preferred positions, 175
Primitive people, 236
INDEX
257
Primitive reaction, 18
Prinzhorn, H., 245
Progress, 214
Prototype, 198
Pseudoaggressive attitude, 208
Pseudo-social organization, 222
Psychoanalysis, 161, 164 ff. ;
Skepticism, 226
Social contact, 202
Social contract, 211
Social norms, 202 ; and sublima-
tion, 202
Social organization, 208, 223,
230
methodological approach of, Society and the individual? 214
165
Psychotherapy, 162, 168
Race, 196
Races and the range of variabil-
ity, 198
Racial prejudice, 196
Reflex, conditioned 133, 158;
in man and animal, 134; and
the nature of man, 135
Reflexes, meaning of, 133
Reflex theory, 121
Religion and superstition, 115
Remembrance, 153, 158, 160
Repression, 158, 160, 206
Reversion of actions, 127
Rigidity, 17
Rothmann, Eva, 246
Rubin, E , 19, 243
Scheler, Max, 8, 241
Scheercr, M , 2, 245, 248
Schizophrenia, 64
Science, holistic approach in, 3 ;
nature of, 231, 234; task of,
21
Self-defense, 237
Society, sick, 221
Sorting tests, 70
Speech, 69, 216; and abstraction,
70 ff ; and representation, 74 ;
of animals, 83 ; automatisms,
82 , and real speech, 82 ff
Specificity, 173
Species, 210
Stern, William, 215, 246, 248
Stimulus, effect of, 12, 13
Stimulus bondage, abnormal, 16
Stimulus-response theory, 128
Storch, A., 244
Submission, 204
Substitute reactions, 99, 114, 159
Suicide, 116
Symbols in science, 27
Technology, 233
Tendency to actualize oneself,
140
Tendency to self-restriction, 202
Tension, release of, 140, 227
Test methods, 188
Therapeutic situation, 162, 168
Threshold, change by stimula-
tion, 14; constancy of, 15
Self-restriction, 202, 206; with- Time, 46, 186
out resentment, 207
Self-sacrifice, 229
Shifting, 53
Tolman, E C., 129, 247
Training, 135
Type, 177, 185, 188, 190
258
Tyranny, 118, 221
INDEX
Ulich, R., 249
Unconscious, 150, 165 ff. ; in
the psychoanalytic sense, 165
Vrbild in knowledge, 24
Variability of individuals, 194,
198
Verbal possessions, 81
Vigotski test, 64
Warren, 128
Weber-Fechncr law, 241
''We," the, 208 ; and the realiza-
tion of the individual, 211
Weisenberg, Th., and McBride,
C., 244, 245
Wertheimer, M., 181, 248
Wheeler, R H, 128
Wilder, J. H., 243, 247
Woodworth, R. S , 149, 200,
247, 248
World, organization in normal
persons, 67; in patients, 67
Zener, K , 247
Zucker, K , 244
