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

war.

"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.

quently, these simple animals have undergone little change. Their surroundings have put upon them few new requirements which called for adaptive reconstruction.

The history of animals from the lowest to man reveals continuous, though more or less interrupted, changes, resulting from the attempt to maintain harmonious relations between the organism and its environment. A certain equilibrium must be established between external forces acting upon the individual and his responses. Maintaining this equilibrium is what is meant by adaptation. Among the lower animals we have seen that strict conformity is the rule. Any change that takes place is forced upon them by the exigencies of their surrounding conditions. Few reconstruct their environment to any great extent before adapting themselves to it, and any reconstruction that they make is explained by some earlier adjustment which has become fixed in them as an instinct.

Man, on the other hand, because of the superior development of his brain, possesses greatly increased ability to alter his environment. In certain lines he has practically made over the world in which he lives. The changes growing out of the natural sciences have been stupendous, but in many other matters his "thinking" has been largely drifting. It is the same sort of involuntary, uncontrolled adaptation that is characteristic of the lower animals; and the reasons for this are the pressing demands for immediate adjustment which is as much a human as an animal requirement, and the fact that reconstruction of the environment to enable the adaptation to be more intelligent calls for an expenditure of energy which man is loath to meet. Now efficiency requires that the quantity of intelligence in human adaptations be increased. But let us see how adaptation works out in the actual affairs of life.

When a young man starts on his business or professional career he is at once confronted with certain obstaclesdifficulties to be overcome. If he is a lawyer the obstacle

may be the unwillingness of a witness to reveal facts with which he is familiar. Now there are different ways of approaching a witness, and one acquainted with human personalities knows that certain methods are successful in dealing with some men and worthless with others. It is almost certain, however, that the young attorney will adopt a method that expresses his own personality rather than that of the witness. In other words, his attitude and manner of questioning will be an unconscious adaptation to the difficulties that arise. Soon this form of behavior toward witnesses becomes an established adaptation. This is shown by the fact that lawyers are often described as relentlessly severe or as gentle and insinuating, leading the witness kindly to unforeseen admissions.

If we say that we know when we succeed in what we are engaged upon, the statement must be qualified by adding that the standard of achievement may be low. Many college students, for instance, "succeed" if they obtain the "gentleman's grade" of mediocrity. For them it is sufficient to have just missed the lowest passing mark. A certain summer school, to illustrate further, celebrated an increase of twenty-five students over the preceding year. Yet the surrounding territory should furnish two or three times as many students as the school ever had. And, again, a salesman recently said with great elation that his sales for the year exceeded those of a fellow traveller whose record, the writer happened to know, was in the lowest third of those made by the salesmen in the organization. Since this relative success is the selective force in determining the adaptations it is clear that the result may be altogether inadequate to the needs and possibilities of the situation. There is, however, a further fact of immense importance to adaptation. The human environment is not static. "There is no standing still in the business world to-day," said the president of a large manufacturing plant recently. "Everything is in continual change, so