How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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unsolved long after the child realizes that adults in its environment communicate with each other by means of language. The relative dependency of the human child is much greater than that of the young of any other species. Civilization and culture have increased this period of dependency to such an extent that to-day, in an urban civilization, a human being has frequently passed through childhood, adolescence, and early maturity before he can begin life as an independent member of society. The longer the period of dependency, the deeper the realiza¬ tion of the individual’s inadequacy. This important biological fact, so frequently overlooked by psychologists of other schools, signifies precisely this : The human being is the only living organism that experiences a sense of its own inadequacy. We have thus two important factors which determine a sense of inferiority in the human race : the relative weakness and unpreparedness of the race as a whole to fight for existence, and the individual experience of inadequacy because of the biological phenomenon of an unequal development of his brain and his motor abilities. If our thesis, that nature tends to replace a “ minus ” with a “ double plus ” of compensation is true, we might expect to find that man has made important compensa¬ tions, both as a race and as an individual, for his sense of inferiority. This, indeed, is just what we find. We know that every living organism makes a characteristic response to the challenge of existence in an attempt to maintain itself securely and attain that most important goal of all living things, the maintenance of life. The tortoise hides behind his carapace when danger threatens; the hare trusts to his heels ; the chameleon adjusts his colour to his environment; the gorilla lives in solitary power, master of the jungle. Each in his own way works out an effective formula of behaviour in terms of his physical organization and the specific problems of his environment. It is impossible to conceive of a tortoise behaving like a hare; ludicrous to imagine a chameleon