THE LAWS OF SOCIAL ATTRACTION 359 



better conditions lift her to the plane of the normal man and give her 

 his characters. 



If sexual affinity is due to complementary defects and not to com- 

 plementary characters it is but an example of the general law of social 

 attraction. A social leader is not a man with additional powers to 

 those possessed by his followers. He has a full development of all the 

 possibilities of his heredity while they have many of these qualities, 

 dormant or partially developed. The defective have the capacity to 

 feel, but not the power to see or to express. They admire those who 

 can do what they desire and feel should be done, but which they can 

 not of themselves execute. Social affinity is thus the bond that unites 

 the defective to the normal. The defective follow leaders not because 

 they are imitative, but because they are stimulated and aroused. 

 Imitation is a habit that increases the regularity of life. Emotion and 

 hysteria result from defects that promote irregular spasmodic action. 

 They become social only through the presence of normal individuals 

 who subordinate the weak and defective to their own ideals. Eetarded 

 development, defects, lack of control, strong emotion and hysteria are 

 the roots out of which social attraction grows, and the resulting law is 

 quite as fundamental as is the law of imitation upon which so much 

 of social thought rests. 



The law of social affinity is a law not of human nature, but a law 

 of deficit: for defects are due not to heredity, but to a bad environ- 

 ment. It is said that a hive of bees is a group of degenerate creatures 

 in which just one individual is fully developed; the others are what 

 they are and do what they do because they have not had enough food. 

 A human society is not in so bad a shape, but individuals having their 

 innate powers fully developed are so rare that men regard them as 

 heroes or demigods. What these few become is the standard to which 

 all might attain if environment, health, nurture and education were 

 given them. We need better feeding more than better breeding. Were 

 a higher type of beings demanded it could be secured only through the 

 slow process of biological development, but if noble qualities are 

 already a gift of heredity kept from expressing themselves through 

 defective conditions, we have it in our power to lift the whole of 

 humanity to its natural level. Income and nurture lie at the basis of 

 social progress. To lose these essential conditions means a retarded 

 development, unrestrained emotions and a lack of rationality in action. 

 Eeason controls the normal man; primitive emotions and hysteria con- 

 trol the abnormal. 



Social attraction binds these defective creatures to their superiors 

 and thus preserves the race from social degeneration, but it does not 

 prevent physical degeneration. Sexual affinity is strongest between 

 those with complementary defects, and hence a steady decline in phys- 



