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CHAPTER I

ORGANIZATION FOR MENTAL EFFICIENCY

MAN's response to situations in the day's work is the measure of his efficiency. When the response results in behavior which satisfies the immediate, pressing demands and, in addition, adapts itself to change, growth, and progress, efficiency is perfect. In other words, the ability of a man to react effectively to his daily problems may be gauged by his alert, flexible adaptation to changing circumstances. The other side of the shield, however, is more familiar the sight of the person whose response to new conditions is unreflective adaptation influenced by the force of habit, and nothing more. We select an illustrative example from the many suggested by the present

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"It did not seem possible that human beings could brave these haunted streets," says Owen Johnson,1 speaking of Arras under bombardment; "and yet human beings were there. In a broken street, where one shell had literally disembowelled a whole house, leaving only the roof hanging like a suspension bridge, whom should we happen upon but a postman delivering mail to a woman who rose cautiously from her cave. Remember, this was within fifty yards from the house which had been literally blown away. She was a sweet-faced old lady, untroubled and resigned. I asked the invariable question:

"How do you dare stay here?'

"Where would I go?' she said, with a helpless little look.

"To her, as to the rest, to leave home meant the end of all things. The outer world was something uncompre1 The Spirit of France, pp. 103 f.

I

hended, which terrified her. The military authorities have done everything possible to enforce the evacuation of Arras, short of an absolute order, and yet they are met at every turn with this terrified clinging to the threshold, that prefers any risk rather than exile."

Adaptation and habit-adaptation to terrifying conditions, and the ability of the individual to continue his normal, habitual reactions in horribly abnormal situations! The nervous system cannot long continue to respond to repeated shocks. Either it becomes inured to the frequent mental concussions, which finally lose their power and cease to produce a response, or the nervous system gives way under the strain. Those who could not adapt themselves to the awful conditions had left or become insane. It is rapid and inexorable selection in which the sight of dead and maimed friends and the constant prospect of sharing their fate are the tests of even temporary survival. Adapt themselves they must if they remain; but, fortunately, the nervous system cares for that.

Another instance of adaptation-a more common, everyday illustration-is related by S. S. McClure from his editorial experience. "In the winter of 1905-1906 the Chicago papers were filled day by day with news that revealed Chicago as a semibarbarous community in which life and property were unsafe to an extraordinary degree. This daily crop of news would be duly accented by reports of horrible crimes. I had a selection made from these papers which gave a criminal record of Chicago for the winter and revealed an appalling situation. Now it is a fact, which I have observed, that people will become accustomed to almost any environment. I remember, when I was in Turkey, where occasionally a village would be devastated, the children killed and women tortured, that people in an adjacent village, who might at any time become victims, went about their work quite calmly and indifferently; so that it is not surprising that this daily grist of news of

the Chicago crimes was accepted by the citizens as a matter of course.' 99 1 What is the explanation of these adaptations which lead, at times, to such incredible acquiescence?

All variation by which an individual or a species is adjusted to the surrounding conditions must be made by the organism. To be sure, fitness for types of variations must exist in the environment. Lung-breathing animals, for example, could not have arisen had it not been for the atmosphere which surrounds the earth, and adaptation to electricity could not have been made were it not for the prevalence of electrical energy. Had the earth and atmosphere, with all the kinds of energy manifested in or through them, been different from what they are, living creatures, if they could have existed at all, would bear little or no resemblance to present forms.

Within the limits set by the physical environment, however, great variation is possible. It is entirely conceivable, for instance, that an air-breathing mechanism quite different from the lungs might have developed. What, then, determines the kind and range of variation? For the lower animals it is natural selection acting through structural changes and instincts. Animals must adjust themselves to conditions as they are. Such moderate alterations of the environment as the damming of a stream by beavers are, of course, observed; but these instances of control are sufficiently rare to be commented upon by zoölogists. Usually animals must adapt themselves to a rigid environment, or perish.

Adaptation is perhaps the most significant influence to which organisms are subjected. The character of the surroundings, so far as conformity conditions their life, forms a circle within which the organisms live. In the unicellular animals the circle is small. The essential nature of their habitat has altered little even through the ages. Conse1 McClure's Magazine, May, 1914.

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