the borderland of disease. Among his most terrible sins, according to his own word, were the ringing of bells, dancing, hockey, swearing, lying, and blaspheming. Even in his childhood the Lord "did scare him with fearful dreams and visions." He found redemption from his "original and inward pollution" in the blood of Christ. "Christ was a precious Christ to my soul that night; I could scarce lie in my bed for joy and peace and triumph through Christ.” 24

Compensations for social inferiorities cover many different directions, since there are so many reasons why a person may feel socially inferior-poverty, manual labor, exclusion from societies, lack of poise in company, and so on. It is sometimes a blessing that a boy cannot be a "good fellow," for his limitation keeps him from frittering away his nights in dancing and spending his days in a half doze. Howe, Arkwright, and Whitney had to endure the taunts of the people while they worked on their inventions. Public ridicule imbued them with the determination to see the task through to a successful conclusion, in order to vindicate the possibility of their conceptions and to prove their sanity. Martin Luther, during his early days in the monastery, was a humble monk, fasting and praying for salvation. In contrast, his later life was marked by a conviction of righteousness and a fearless aggressiveness. Through the Protestant Reformation he gained an opportunity to burst from his insignificance by defiantly burning the papal bulls. The meek son of a peasant had the audacity to declare himself on a

the midst

and bene

"John Bunyan: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. 1907. Quoted by W. James: Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 158, 186, 187. 1902.

par with the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther enjoyed his rise to prominence all the more because in his youth he had been denied any outstandng influence in his community by virtue of his low ocial position.25 Thoreau was a lonely man. Though e was a solitary person, he possessed a compensating oy in the love of nature. In the appreciation of ature his sensibility was as broad and sensitive as it was narrow and unresponsive in relation to men. "In he midst of the gentle rain . . . sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sight and sound around my house," he found "an infinitive and unaccountable riendliness" which "made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant." 26 It was given to Thoreau, with his isolation from men, to disclose to us he beauties of the world of nature with such a sympahetic insight as is unknown to the man who depends upon social contacts for his happiness.

CRITERIA OF COMPENSATORY TRAITS

Allport lays down four criteria of compensatory craits: (1) They originate from an obstacle, defect, or imitation; (2) further adjustment of the individual is effected, not by trying to adapt reality to his own peculiarities, but by adapting his capacities to reality. (3) These activities become not merely so many separate acts of adjustment but prepotent habit trends, or drives, which in time appear as ends in themselves. (4) Since these habit trends become controlling forces 25 Lorine Pruette: "Some Applications of the Inferiority Complex to Pluralistic Behavior." Psychoanalytic Review 1922, 9, 32; 33. Henry Thoreau: Walden, "Solitude." 1889.

20

in themselves, they tend to carry the individual past an adjustment which is simply adequate, to higher levels than he would have attained without the original defect.27 Take Rousseau, for example. He could not get along with anybody on account of his extraordinary vanities and caprices and his extreme sensitiveness. To gloss over his social inadequacy he developed a sentimental love for all mankind, and "by his very extravagances he was able to make an impression on the artificial age in which he lived, of which a more balanced nature might have been incapable." 28

OVERCOMPENSATION

Where inferiority leads to extraordinary achievement, it is through the process of overcompensation. Compensation gains a momentum as it proceeds, which carries the development to supernatural stages, heights to which the individual never would have attained except for that momentum originally imparted by the sense of inferiority. The analogy of the pendulum is apropos. If a person possesses no defects of sufficient magnitude to instill a real sense of inadequacy, there is no compensatory push to start the pendulum swinging. Where there is a feeling of insufficiency, the pendulum is drawn back and released; compensation sets in. The momentum of the downward swing carries the bob past the point of rest to a new and higher level, overcompensation. "The incentive in Byron," says a biographer, "was that mark of deformity on his person, by an acute sense of which he was stung into the ambition

* F. H. Allport: Social Psychology, p. 115. 1924.

T

28

A. K. Rogers: A Student's History of Philosophy, p. 400. 1921.

of being great." 29 Such zeal will not be denied. Great men are famous for their faults. Shortcomings, of course, stand out against the background of superiority. This contrast is the essence of compensation. As we have seen, deficiency has its part to play in the evolution of greatness. Weakness in the leader gives him a point of contact with his followers; compensation makes it possible for him to keep in advance of them. As Nietzsche puts it, "The greatest men may also perhaps have great virtues, but then they also have the opposites of these virtues. I believe that it is precisely out of the presence of these opposites, and of the feelings they suscitate, that the great man arises— for the great man is the broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart.” 30

The st

Since mot

them dow

CHAPTER V

THE SOURCES OF POWER

THE INERTIA OF HUMAN NATURE

action fo

the real

a man to

Allport

br mak under t

fallacy

HUMAN nature is characterized by a certain inertia. In dealing with people, "there is a human material to be reckoned with, having properties akin to inertia.” 1 The rustic philosopher has expressed this same observation in his own vernacular, "Sometimes I set and think; sometimes I just set." Since the libido is lazy it inclines to cling to the past. When difficulties arise which defy a ready adjustment, regression frequently takes place and the individual drifts back to the ways of behaving which characterized his childhood. He is childish when he gets "peeved," we say. It is easier to follow old habits than to form new ones, for the way of least resistance is dangerously attractive. structive work requires effort and a man does not exert himself unless there is some reason to do so, some need to fulfill,-perhaps a wife to prod him on to extend himself. It takes hunger or some other powerful urge to spur a man to action. Among the motives that inspire a man to avail himself of every opportunity to win success must be reckoned the drive to alleviate feelings of inferiority.

Con

1 W. E. Hocking: Human Nature and Its Remaking, p. 13.

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ized un this fal