HOW GLANDS INFLUENCE THE NORMAL BODY 119 



diversity and variability of each individual and his traits stands 

 explained and understandable. The normal, as the perfect or 

 nearly perfect balance of forces in the organism, at any given 

 moment, emerges as a more definite and real concept than that 

 which would abstract it from a curve of variations. Moreover, 

 since the directive forces within the organism are pre-eminently 

 the internal secretions, the normal becomes definable as their 

 harmonious balancing or equilibrium, a state which tends not to 

 undo (as the abnormal does) but to prolong itself. 



The potential combinations and compensations, antagonisms 

 and counteractions, attainable within the endocrine glands as an 

 interlocking directorate, point the cause for the elusive quality 

 of the normal. Tall men and short men, blonde women and 

 dumpy women, lanky hatchet-faced people, stout moon-faced 

 people, Falstaff and Queen Elizabeth, George Washington and 

 Abraham Lincoln, Disraeli and Walt Whitman, Caesar and 

 Alexander, as well as Mr. Smith and Miss Jones come within 

 the range of the normal. There are all kinds and conditions 

 and sorts of men and women, and all kinds and sorts and con- 

 ditions of the normal, because an incalculable number of har- 

 monious relations and interactions between the endocrines are 

 possible, and do actually occur. The standard of the normal 

 must obviously not be a single standard, but a series of stand- 

 ards, depending upon which glands predominate, and how the 

 others adapt themselves to its predominance. Adrenal-centered 

 types, thyroid-centered types, pituitary-centered types, thymus- 

 centered types, as well as hyphenated compounds of these, such 

 as the pituitary-adrenal types, exist as normals. They can be 

 conceived of as normal types because they exist as normal types. 



The Skeletal Types 



Now men, for as long as we have any knowledge of their 

 thoughts and classifications and attitudes, have been accustomed 

 to first think of one another, to classify and size one another 

 as tall or short, slender or broad, thin or corpulent. The bio- 

 logical necessity, indeed, instinct of the one animal to relate 

 the other animal to aggressive or harmless agencies in his sur- 

 roundings, accounts for this. Relatively, of course, for all these 

 modes of description imply offensive or defensive possibilities of 

 the stimulus for the recorder in relation to himself. The interest 

 in stature is fundamental, and has persisted in the most civilized 



