ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 289 



" Social evolution," says James, " is a resultant of the inter- 

 action of two wholly distinct factors, — the individual, deriving his 

 peculiar gifts from the play of physiological and intra-social 

 forces, but bearing all the power of initiative and origination in 

 his hands; and, second, the social environment, with its power of 

 adopting or rejecting both him and his gifts. Both factors are 

 essential to change. The community stagnates without the 

 impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the 

 sympathy of the community." 1 



James has made another important contribution in his discus- 

 sion of the inner source of power of individuals, under the 

 caption, The Energies of Men. 2 His approach is through the 

 familiar experience of " warming up " to a job, physical or intel- 

 lectual, and especially through the experience of track athletes, 

 who after reaching a point of fatigue push on by sheer force of 

 will and tap a new level of energy, — a process known as " getting 

 second wind." " There may be layer after layer of this expe- 

 rience," says James, " a third and a fourth wind may supervene." 

 " Mental activity," he continues, " shows the phenomenon as well 

 as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very 

 extremity of fatigue distress, amounts of ease and power that we 

 never dreamed ourselves to own, — sources of strength habitually 

 not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the 

 obstructions, never pass those early critical points." 



James compares the phenomenon of " efficiency-equilibrium " 

 with that of nutritive equilibrium and holds that " few men 

 live at their maximum of energy, and second, that any one 

 may be in vital equilibrium at very different rates of energizing." 

 This opens up an ethical and sociological problem of great im- 

 portance. " In rough terms," he says, " a man who energizes 

 below his normal maximum fails by just so much to profit by his 

 chance at life; and a nation filled with such men is inferior to a 

 nation run at higher pressure. The problem is, then, how can 

 men be trained up to their most useful pitch of energy ? And 

 how can nations make such training most accessible to all their 

 sons and daughters ? " 



1 The Will to Believe, p. 232. 2 "The Energies of Men," Science, March, 1907. 



