tal and physical-leading to the restoration of a lost equilibrium between an organism and its environment. If this reconstruction produces greater organic complexity to meet more involved conditions of life there is progress.

Adaptation may take a form of response already perfected or in process of becoming fixed, or, again, there may be a tendency to alter the reaction to meet the varying needs of the environment. If the established response is continuous through the species-with the moderate variation observed in even so-called fixed reactions-it is instinct, and if it is peculiar to an individual it is habit. The ability of an organism to break away from established types of response-to adapt itself better to new conditions -measures its capacity to develop. When changed conditions in the environment are met by a responsive adjustment of behavior in the organism, the variation thus introduced leads to the establishment of a new reaction, which tends again to become fixed in habit. Along with the impulse to adapt and, when necessary, to readapt oneself to altered circumstances, there is always the tendency, as we have noticed, to do so with as little expenditure of energy as possible. Change, whether organic or mental, is always resisted. During any marked change in the essentials of an environment many perish because of inability to meet the new requirements. Those that survive make as little change in structure and behavior as will meet the exigencies of the situation.

The lower animals, we have said, must adapt themselves to the environment as it stands. They cannot make it over to any large extent. Their adaptation is therefore passive. Man, on the other hand, can entirely reconstruct his environment and in this way create new incentives to further improvement. An environment constantly changing under man's reconstructing and reorganizing ability presents a continuous succession of inducements to progress. The marvellous irrigation systems by which deserts

have been changed into fertile farms, and the transformation of water-power into electrical machines that supply distant cities with electricity are illustrations.

We have illustrated human adaptation somewhat at length because of its importance in human efficiency. Man is prone to think that his higher intelligence makes him superior to this organic tendency. Yet he is no less subservient to it than are the lower animals. Adaptation is relentlessly exacting. We cannot escape it. The only method of control is the indirect one of planning the conditions to which adaptation shall be made. And it is here that man's intelligence has a chance to assert itself. The convicts, to whom reference has been made, adapted themselves to two widely varying sets of conditions; and the results were so different as to exhibit in each convict two apparently antagonistic selves. Yet each manifestation of personality was true to itself and to the condition which drew it out. In helping others to develop, the effect of the conditions to which response is made is readily discernible because of the objective point of view. The problem is quite different, however, when it is a question of training oneself. This difference arises from the stealthy way in which adaptation works. Evidently the intellect should play a more discriminative part in planning the conditions to which human adaptation shall be made. We may therefore turn to the nature and method of thinking.

CHAPTER II

THINKING AND ACTING

WE have seen that the man who would be efficient should strive to control the external conditions to which, sooner or later, he will inevitably adapt himself. We will assume then that the external conditions have been well planned with reference to efficiency-that the stage is set, so to speak. The next step is the organization of effective mental habits, and foremost among these, perhaps, is the subtle process called thinking. Suppose we pause a moment to correct a rather wide-spread error.

Thinking is not a spontaneous process, like breathing. To be sure, ideas come into the mind and are succeeded by others that have some sort of connection with the first. But this is not necessarily thinking in the proper sense. Mere succession of things thought of even related things -need not be thinking. There are many ways in which things and their ideas may be related. Some of these ways have significant meaning under given conditions, and others have not. Thinking implies seeing real relations, not those that are fanciful or artificial; and these relations must lead somewhere. Some consequence should follow them. This consequence becomes a body of knowledge, perhaps a belief. Thinking also finds the reasons for a belief, if it is well grounded, and, if not, it exposes the insecure foundation.

Evidently, then, mere association of ideas does not constitute thinking. The test is in the kind of associated ideas that we have. Ideas may have no more significance than is disclosed in the prattle of infants. A few illustra

tions will indicate the frequency of insignificant associations incorrectly dignified as "thoughts."

A "well-read" woman, for example, on hearing some one speak of the barren, degenerating lives of those in the slums, replied: "They should have good books to read, like those of Thackeray and George Eliot." And again, the manager of a large manufacturing plant on being told that the laborers in his mills were dragging out a joyless, hopeless existence, working ten hours a day six days in the week, said: "They don't know how to use their leisure time."

The arguments of political parties, to illustrate failure to think from a different angle, are often insulting to even moderate intelligence; yet they are not resented. A wellchosen slogan is frequently sufficient. But slogans presuppose absence of thinking. They are designed to awaken certain ready-made associations in the voters; and they take the place of arguments. Obviously, politicians assume that the public can be fooled long enough to win the election, and the voters accept their judgment. They therefore justify it.

If these illustrations are fairly chosen, and they are of a type sufficiently frequent to be rather commonplace, it is clear that ideas brought into the mind through association may revolve in a very small circle and, consequently, never advance thought. As a matter of fact, thinking is largely controlled by inheritance, tradition, and environment, including early education and social pressure; and it is partly for this reason that experience, as usually accepted, exerts such a dominating influence.

Merely living through a series of events, however, we have found does not give valid experience. Even activity -taking part in the events-does not make experience. Getting experience requires understanding causes and consequences-seeing connection between what precedes and that which follows. Change is meaningless transition un

less it is connected with its results. When change is translated into cause and effect it is full of significance. We learn something.

The character of experience-indeed, the very realization of any experience at all-is determined by the proportions in which habits of response, on the one hand, and variability, on the other, enter as constituents into our thought and actions. When response becomes habitual experience is at its minimum. The quantity of experience, again, is measured by the amount of conscious, attentive reaction which is opposed to habits of thought and behavior. So far as situations fail to be adequately met with habits, adaptation tends to become conscious, new, and, to the extent of the failure of habits, inventive and original. With man, at least, any break with mental habits tends to be educative.

In the active affairs of life, however, experience usually settles what promises to be the efficient course to pursue. Here, as in other judgments, the test of the value of the decision is the success or failure of the plan in achieving the aims which are sought. Thinking is strictly an intellectual matter and in no sense a moral one. Its value depends wholly upon the accuracy of the process. The thinking of an Arsène Lupin in accomplishing his criminal purposes is as good as that of a Sherlock Holmes in thwarting them. The starting-point from which the thinking proceeds is itself a matter of experience and interpretation. The human being seems to be enclosed in a circle from which he cannot extricate himself. He begins with experience, or with the interpretation and estimate of the views of others which is determined by his experience. This interpretation, again, rests upon personal judgment, "fundamental principles," which will be shared by others in proportion as these people have had similar experiences and have reasoned with like accuracy from the same starting-point. The circle within which one reasons will be