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.” 
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 P”’ 
1 The Will to Believe, p. 232. ? “The Energies of Men,” Science, March, 1907. 
