132 MAN --AN ADAPTIVE MECHANISM 



The expression and attitude of the activated and ex- 

 hausted Marathon runner differ little from those of in- 

 dividuals overcome by terror or grief ; or from the ex- 

 pression of exhaustion portrayed in the picture of the 

 English suffragist who has undergone both psychic and 

 physical activation to the utmost in her struggle for a 

 moral cause. (Fig. 12.) Were only the faces of these 

 persons seen, it would be difficult in many cases to 

 determine whether they were making extreme physical 

 exertion, experiencing pain or under the domination of 

 anger or hate. The tense rigidity of the muscles of 

 the face, the almost inevitable showing of the teeth and 

 fixing of the jaws and the contortion of the body are 

 alike in all. 



Moreover, there is a striking similarity between the 

 attitude and the expression of the individual activated 

 by horror and the frightened cat, with its back hunched 

 rigidly in apprehension of the attack of a dog (Fig. 13) ; 

 between the athlete making his supreme effort and the 

 eagerness of the leopard stalking its prey through the 

 forest. There is little in the picture of the exhausted 

 runner or in that of the woman prostrated by grief to 

 indicate that in one case the exhaustion is " physical' ' 

 and in the other "mental." 



It is interesting also to contrast these pictures of 

 individuals exhausted by extreme mental and physi- 

 cal activation with those of animals and men in a 

 placid state of both mind and body. (Figs. 14 and 1 .">.) 

 Contrast, for instance, the rigidity and muscular tense- 

 ness of the lion attacking its prey, its claws imbedded 

 in the thick muscles of the neck and back of its vic- 

 tim, with the soft, sensuous attitude of the tigress caress- 



