136 Heredity and Social Progress 



activity evoked we accept as evidence of char- 

 acter. Deficits arouse one part of a person ; 

 surpluses arouse another. The first ends in a 

 tradition, a morality, and other acquired charac- 

 ters ; the second is the source of new natural 

 characters not produced by the routine of life. 



Character represents the sum of psychic 

 forces adverse to environment; emotion has 

 its origin in the environmental elements ad- 

 verse to the being which seeks adjustment. 

 Character destroys adjustment by modifying 

 the environment, emotion by modifying men. 

 Neither emotion nor character completes itself 

 in mere adjustment to existent conditions. 

 When aroused by a surplus both impel toward 

 a super- adjustment which demands more ele- 

 ments for a complete harmony than are found 

 in the present wrought-out adjustment. The 

 equilibrium sought by character and by emo- 

 tion is not in the acquisition of the good, the 

 summum bonum of experience, but in some- 

 thing beyond the goal of conscious utilitarian- 

 ism. There is a super bonum which includes 

 this good and more, and only when surplus en- 

 ergy incites a movement toward this complete 



