How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.

similar in our design and structure, because we grow according to the same general plan, and because, finally, we are inherently heir to certain weaknesses—and really, the similarities between human beings, despite the paradoxic dissimilarity of individual conduct, are far more numerous than their differences—the scope of our self-sculpture, and the craft of working out our lives into a happy design, are limited by nature to certain broad channels and to certain natural goals. Before we go into the discussion of individual patterns of life, we should clarify these innate similarities, so that we can trace the general pattern through the maze of individual differences. Indeed this general pattern of growth and personality evolution will be our guide to the under¬ standing of the most bizarre differences in individual conduct. There are twelve psychological laws that govern human conduct and development. We shall merely sketch these laws here, for we shall have the opportunity of developing each one separately in later chapters. Twelve Laws of Personality Evolution i. Every human being experiences his incompleteness as a child. He cannot talk and he cannot walk and he cannot satisfy his hunger, but he can see that his parents and other adults are capable of all these mysterious actions. Thus there arises a sense of incompleteness or inadequacy. The physiological basis of this law is the fact that the brain and apperceptive powers of the child develop out of all proportion to his motor ability to satisfy his wants. Also, the dependence of the human infant is relatively greater than the dependence of the young of any other species. 2. All human beings grow toward a goal of completeness and totality. The design which is sketched in in infancy is filled out in maturity. This goal is fixed in our unconscious because it is formulated before the advent of complete speech and full consciousness. The goal of totality may often be concretized in a vague formula :