444 



The Journal of Heredity 



modern conditions, even if he has to 

 break in some degree from his own Hnes 

 of work, in order to help in the supreme 

 problem of diagnosinj^ each individual, 

 and steerint,^ him toward his fittest 

 place, which is really the culminating^ 

 problem of efiiciency, because human 

 capacities are after all the chief national 

 resources. In connin*; only a few of the 

 some three thousand books and pam- 

 phlets on the war our library has made 

 a specialty of collectinj^, only one topic 

 has impressed me more than the 

 literature that enumerates the various 

 things which psychology is doing or 

 can do, not only for war itself, but for 

 the new social and industrial order 

 which characterizes the state of a 

 nation in war. JMust we not, therefore, 

 infer that such facts as these suggest 

 that we readjust the old differentiation 

 between pure and applied psychology, 

 and realize that research in the latter 

 field may be just as scientific as in any 

 other, and that the immediate utilit}' 

 of our resvilts is at least no longer a 

 brand of scientific inferiority ? 



3. We shall surely have a new and 

 larger psychology of war. The older 

 literature on it is already more or less 

 obsolete from almost every point of 

 view, and James' theory of a moral, and 

 Cannon's of a physiological, equivalent 

 of war seem now pallid and academic. 

 More in point are the reversionary con- 

 ceptions of Freund, Pfister and Patrick, 

 that it is more or less normal for man at 

 times to plunge back and down the 

 evolutionary ladder, and to immerse 

 himself in rank, primitive emotions and 

 to break away from the complex ccm- 

 ventions and routine of civilized life 

 and revert to that of the troglodytes in 

 the trenches, and to face the chance of 

 instant death when the struggle for 

 survival is at its maximum in the 

 bayonet charge. Lahy, Crile and per- 

 haps a score of others described, on the 

 basis of much observation and insight, 

 the stages of this recessional. First is 

 the general jjcrturbation at home when 

 mobilization is decreed, the fraterniza- 

 tion of all classes, normally more or 

 less aloof; the rank credulities and 

 superstitions that suddenly arise and 

 spread by psychic contagion, often to 



the clearest heads and coolest hearts, 

 on the basis of high expectant tension; 

 the mad rumors, fears, suggestions, 

 often so ])ainfu]ly acute that the call to 

 arms is a relief. 



A NEW LIFE 



Second comes the parting from home 

 and loved ones; the donning of the 

 uniform and with it the esprit de corps 

 of the Army; the inten.se activity of the 

 training camp ; the remarkable develop- 

 ment of powers of effort and of endur- 

 ance, which makes each often a marvel 

 to himself, a power by which those 

 from sedentary life often excel laborers 

 and peasants; the games, songs, theatri- 

 cals, often camp newspapers, in which 

 phenomena we see instinct seeking to 

 compensate, in Adler's sense, for a 

 deeper but repressed anxiety. Life at 

 this stage is so absorbing that the old 

 life at home pales, and loved ones are 

 thought of with surprising infrequency, 

 and it becomes harder to write to thern; 

 the sudden setting up, physical and 

 often moral, of flabby indi\'iduals, to 

 sleeplessness, heat, cold and hunger, 

 as the individual learns to draw upon 

 his phyletic reserve, and is often sur- 

 prised to find the largest drafts upon it 

 honored . 



Third, in the advance into the 

 trenches, where silence and immobility 

 are often necessary under the greatest 

 excitement, breaking down many a 

 nervous system, and when everything 

 else, past and future, is forgotten in 

 the struggle for present safety and 

 physical comfort, the long confinement 

 and constrained positions interspersed 

 with digging, bailing water, with some- 

 times personal draftings to carry des- 

 patches or rescue wounded friends from 

 the "hell-strip" between the most 

 advanced opposing lines, the acute 

 attention to the sound of projectiles 

 and their explosion, it is no wonder 

 that some grow mad and rush wildly 

 at the enemy and to certain death, or 

 else back to safety, while those with 

 stronger nerv'es develop with amazing 

 suddenness a callousness to danger, 

 fatigue, hunger, discomforts, while we 

 sometimes have the unique reaction of 



