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Show Why We Behave Like Human Beings Br GIORGE DORSiY. to 0. IX. D. Emergencies and How We Meet Them. EVKIlT living being has an Inborn emergency equipment. For count-less count-less beings the equipment Is Inadequate Inad-equate ; they go down like Dies before new foes, new diseases, new situations. A large percentage of all the human beings ever born died before maturity i the emergency may have been a rusty nail, a venturesome spirit, a backward disposition. Anything which threatens life or disturbs Its peace of mind or upsets the system Is sn emergency. Emergencies cannot be listed; they are too numerous. Nor can they be described de-scribed In general terms; they are Individually In-dividually discrete. Half a loaf Is always al-ways better than no bread, but there sre times when a half-loaf Is ths dynamic dy-namic equivalent of a human life, when half a minute spells victory or defeat, or life or death. There are few of us whose life at one time or another baa not hung by a thread. What do we do; what la our response re-sponse to crises T Fight or flee? It depends. The cry of "Women first 1" on the Titanic was enough to keep the men from fighting for the boats; life was not worth fighting for when the loser was a woman. Nor worth saving when s spar would only support one; s man let go of a spar that a woman might live I This Is human behavior at Its highest Possible because our Inborn emergency equipment can be trained, conditioned, educated, mnde to obey ths orders of our head. But It Is so well organized and so powerful power-ful that few can turn Its command over to the cortex, fewer still who can conquer It Greater Is he who con-quereth con-quereth self than be who tuketb seven cities! Greater, because self-preservation la the first law of nnture; and the higher high-er we climb in nature's scale, the better organized life becomes for self- preservation. Man has more means st his command for self-preservation than any other animal, largely because he has more ways of destroying his enemies. en-emies. Cities and the "taking of cities" arose In response to man's desire to anticipate emergencies. The difference between self-preservation and self-control la the differ- ence between all gorillas and some men. If man used only his Inborn emergency equipment In a fight with a gorilla, lie would lose or die of fright before the gorilla could lay hands on hlmi Fighting Instinct yes; and fleeing Instinct also. But a worm will turn. A rat will run for its life; cornered, It will fight for Its life. There Is another kind of response, the kind we keep on making during our unconquered-self lives.- We are dressing, already late for dinner. We break a shoestring; we cannot find a certain shirt stud; and then that crowning insult, we drop the collar button and It rolls under the bureau. Now we are mad. We roar like a ; caged Hon ; we say words, stump the floor, kick a chair, yank out the bureau. bu-reau. Battles have been lost on account ac-count of such trifias. What happened? Almost everything. Cpset literally. I.ost his head; that ! Is true also. Also lost his appetite. The wife Is so disgusted she loses her temper nnd culls him "brute." It Is a brute reaction. It Is a biologic bio-logic reaction; It requires neither learning nor headpiece. Out of our inborn emergency equipment we bnlld up our attitudes, fight windmills and straw men, and rip and roar up and down the world, or tremble like a leaf at every breath. e "Every little movement has a meaning mean-ing of Its own," as the old song declared; de-clared; It Is also true that every movement moves something. We are never more physiologically correct than when we sny, "That moves me." Between Be-tween birth snd death many are "moved" enough to dig a Panama canal, yet they never move themselves them-selves up out of the cellar of life. The difference between being moved to disgust at the sight of s dead cat , I and moving to remove the cat Is one , of life's little jokes that make bum an ' life so Interesting. We are moved with onstrlped or visceral muscle. We move with striped or skeletal muscles. To make a gesture Is to make an excuse for moving. We are moved with less effort than we move; our unstrlped muscles function func-tion without the cortex. They - run themselves, and If we are not In charge the; run us. In mobs and panics they run riot Emotions vary, tn Individuals, communities, com-munities, nations, races; sre under different degrees of control; are aroused by varying situations. Emotions Emo-tions are older than the human race; but outside the boman race put to no such sublime or ridiculous ends. We do not begin life with speclflc loves, hates, and fears. Some can go through life without set hates and loves. They can look people and things over and decide whether they ars worth, loving lov-ing or hating, and If they are, possess them or do their best to clear the earth of them. But as we are, not one In ten can love a Hindu or s Jap or the other political party. And much of thinking and talking Is in temw of hates and fears and loves. We rnnr-der rnnr-der at least something, If not somebody, some-body, every day. And lovethere are quite as many things to be loved as people. In fact, there. Is nothlns. It seems, that cannot come within range of our love, except our enemies. ( by George A. Dor.y.) |