How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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Four Methods of Compensation Compensation for defects, whether real or imagined, may be effected in the following ways :— 1. By training of the defective organ or faculty, in which case the function of the inferior organ may frequently become superior to that of a normal organ. 2. By substituting the function of another healthy organ for that of the inferior organ. 3. By the development of a situation in which the defective organ is advantageous. 4. By the construction of a “ psychic superstructure ” of compensation in which the whole organism reacts in such a way that the extraordinary sensitivity of the inferior organ or function is translated into socially useful behaviour. These four methods of compensation, any one of which is usually capable of producing a behaviour pattern that leads to a happy life, deserve a more detailed examination. To the man with poor eyesight the totality of life may be formulated in the phrase “ I want to see everything ”. Long before any physician can tell that a defect of the eyes exists, the young child with such a defect senses that he cannot see as well as his playmates, and concen¬ trates his energies upon the task of compensating for his poor eyesight by bettering his technique of seeing. It is notorious that many of the most famous painters and sculptors of all time have suffered from defective vision. The particular form that the compensation for this or any other defect takes, is determined by a host of other factors in the environment. Thus the son of a doctor might become a microscopist, using his technique in the handling of this delicate instrument to see where other eyes were blind, his goal being determined by the medical atmosphere in which he lived. The son of a business man, on the other hand, might more logically