responds with its adaptations and reconstructions. Those who cannot meet the issues succumb either by suffering the supreme penalty of failure or by dropping to a lower level, where the less exacting demands can be met. In Al Jennings' world of that day the latter meant becoming cattle rustlers or ordinary thieves. To remain in the criminal aristocracy required intellect and bravery. Both of these Jennings had, and they came out when needed. Prison-life adaptation is more likely to cause deterioration than to develop mental keenness. Robert Louis Stevenson observed this effect. "For it is strange," he says,1 "how grown men and seasoned soldiers can go back in life; so that after but a little while in prison, which is after all the next thing to being in the nursery, they grow absorbed in the most pitiful, childish interests, and a sugar biscuit or a pinch of snuff becomes a thing to follow after and scheme for." The sharpening of his intellect, which Jennings attributes to his life "on the road" and in prison, came from the need of the fullest development of all of his powers of perception, interpretation, and reasoning. Self-preservation is a stern and effective teacher. The conditions of his life called for certain responses-behavior-which were possible only as the result of functional changes. These changes were largely in the nervous system. He saw more, interpreted better what he saw, and reasoned more correctly on the basis of his interpretation. That it is possible to see much more than is usually observed has been proven by Pfungst in his investigation of "Clever Hans," the so-called educated horse. Without any further practice than was involved in making the experiments, Pfungst, playing the part of the horse, was able to see and interpret the unconscious movements of the persons, who thought three numbers together with their 'St. Ives, p. 2. See also My Life in Prison, by Donald Lowrie. sum, so as to determine the order in which the numbers were mentally added. For example, a man thought of 12 as 5 + 5 + 2 and as 2 + 5 + 5, and Pfungst, as he tapped off the number with his hand, could determine by watching the man which order the number took in his mind. The significance for interpreting events of this sharpened observation and inference is obvious. Adaptation to a changed environment is also seen in the altered conduct of States-prison convicts when placed under new conditions. These striking changes, which often amount to a revolution in the character of the prisoners, are so much a matter of general knowledge to-day that it is only necessary to refer to them. In Colorado, convicts have been employed making roads two hundred miles from the prison. The men were housed in tents and dugouts, away from the towns near at hand, and the camps were guarded only to keep away tramps and prowlers who might attack the commissary or carry away other property. "For a long time the only man who carried firearms in one of these camps was a long-time prisoner who patrolled the place for the above reason.. We have now" [when the letter was written] "three hundred men employed away from the walls, and yet in the last eight months only one man has escaped." Mr. Fremont Older, of the San Francisco Bulletin, has a former stage-robber as manager of his ranch. "He is absolutely honest and could be trusted with a million dollars. He has served four terms, aggregating thirty-eight years, for stage robbery and highway robbery, and he was considered the worst man in California."2 Evidently adaptation has a wide reach in making and remaking men. Perhaps the explanation of the change in these convicts when placed under a new environment is to be found in 1 Information contained in a letter from Warden Tynan. Used with permission. 2 From a personal letter. Used with permission. a statement of an Oregon convict. Governor West was convinced that the shoe-shop of the penitentiary was inefficient. So he telephoned the warden and asked that a prisoner, whom he designated by number, be sent to him. The convict came unguarded. He was told that he should go to Oregon City, study the machinery of the shoe-shops, and report on what was needed to make those of the penitentiary efficient. He went, again unguarded, and on his return told the governor what was necessary to make the prison shoe-shops modern. The governor then said to him: "Now, you're in for life, a murderer. You have tried to get away before. Why didn't you try it this time?" "Well, I'll tell you, governor. I've tried it before. This would have been a pipe for sure. But it's the first time since I can remember that a man trusted me. I couldn't throw you down." 1 These human pictures represent men's physiological and mental reorganization in a changed environment. They are wholly comparable to the adaptations of lower animals. Habits and actions-behavior viewed in the large are not isolated states. They are responses to environmental situations, and they can be rightly appraised only when considered in relation to these environing conditions. Behavior involves two factors, the organism, and the objects or circumstances that it faces. The external conditions demand adaptive response. At one time this demand imposes the penalty of death for failure to meet it, and at another the ridicule of associates with all the anguish that accompanies ostracism. The human will is not resistless. It is influenced by racial and individual traits, some of which originated in needs quite different from those of the present day. Consequently, the adjustment of action to environment is at times imperfect. Primitive man, like his animal ancestors, New York Times, May 2, 1912. Verified by a letter from the secretary of former Governor West. expended tremendous strength and, having won his fight, relapsed into inaction, revelling in the fruits of his victory. Man is able to maintain a persistent battle-front only in extreme danger to his life. At other times he gradually relaxes his vigilance and finally, when resistance becomes too great a burden, he slowly yields. Witness the progress of reforms. A crying need is felt and volunteers are not lacking. But soon, confronted with continued opposition, enthusiasm wanes and vanishes, and things remain much as they were. The overwhelming but temporary outburst of indignation after the Iroquois Theatre and the Triangle Shirt-Waist Building burned, with their appalling loss of life, are illustrations. Enthusiasm comes in waves, but the effort needed to keep it going is too exacting. All of these forms of behavior are phases of adaptation. In the case of the convicts of whom we have spoken, the social and industrial conditions confronting them required more mental, moral, and physical stamina than they had at their disposal. When, at a later time, the circumstances surrounding them favored an ethical, social attitude, when opposition to the unsocial did not require such strenuous, unremitting resistance, new adaptations followed. Only when it is recognized that will is an adaptive process, the outcome of pitting ideas, emotions, and thoughts, with their judgments, against surrounding conditions, will a social science be possible. As we shall see later, the will is not a "faculty"—a single, simple force. It is the whole mind active, impulses, emotions, ideas, and ideals, but it is active with reference to something external to it. Life is not action. It is reaction. The illustrations of adaptation which we have given are those of individuals-made within the lifetime of one person. When we turn to racial adaptation an interesting observation has been made by Boas.1 He claims to have 1 Senate Document, No. 208, Sixty-first Congress, 2d Session, p. 7. 1 found that "the head form, which has always been considered as one of the most stable and permanent characteristics of human races, undergoes far-reaching changes due to the transfer of the races of Europe to American soil." Another example is seen in Stefánsson's blond Eskimo of Victoria Island. His measurements of 104 of these men "give an index of 97, which places the 'blond Eskimo,' when judged by head form, exactly where it places them when judged by complexion-in the class with persons who are known to be of mixed Eskimo and white descent." Naturally, adaptation was favored by cross-breeding, but if Stefánsson's theory is correct the Scandinavians who survived in their westward journey from Greenland must have practised very rigid adaptation. This is shown by the fate of early discoverers, as Sir John Franklin's party, who, though equipped with protecting devices and a reasonable quantity of food, could not meet the conditions sufficiently well to survive. We have been discussing adaptations which were more or less successful and which made the individuals or group more efficient in respect to the exigencies that they fitted them to meet. But human adaptation is not fully illustrated by success. Let us therefore turn for a moment to some failures. If the death-rate increases it is evidence of lack of intelligent adjustment to conditions. And this is exactly what is happening in the United States to-day. Government reports show that the death-rate from organic diseases in this country has been steadily rising since 1880. It might be assumed that this is a necessary state of affairs due to uncontrollable causes involved in the progress of civilization were it not for the fact that during this period the death-rate from the same causes has not risen in European countries of a corresponding degree of civilization. "Coincident with the increase in the death-rate from or 1 Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, My Life with the Eskimo, 1913, pp. 192 ff. |