The caveman within us

Front matter

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Contents

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Introduction xi

CHAPTER

Introduction

It is generally agreed that the great preponderance of human ills and ailments is due to disturbances of a neurotic character. The effects of these disturbances are so manifold and far-reaching that the real seat of the trouble is often obscured by the physical symptoms. Because these symptoms may express themselves through any organ, muscle or portion of the body, and simulate almost any known malady, the problem is an exceedingly intricate, and frequently a baffling one.

So-called " nervous exhaustion," neurasthenia and other neuroses of various types and degrees of morbidity are conceded to be the diseases most typical of our civilization. Notwithstanding their supremacy in the domain of pathology, it is the purpose of this book to show that these "nervous" afflictions are not in any way the inevitable result of cultural progress, but rather that they are excrescences to be avoided. Even more specifically, it is the object of this work to demonstrate liow they may be avoided.

These subtle and sinister disorders are in reality maladjustments of the mechanism of personality. They indicate a lack of coordination between the primitive and cultural components of xii INTRODUCTION

our nature. They represent a struggle between the Caveman and the Socialized Being. Paradoxically, these two constituents are one and indivisible, merged into a single organism, and yet each is as real in the distinctive characteristics that it manifests as though the span of a hundred thousand years separated their existence.

When two such heterogeneous factors — each with innate tendencies peculiar to itself — are incorporated into a single organic entity, it is evident than an intelligent understanding of the mechanism as a whole is not only desirable, but absolutely necessary, for internal harmony and efficient operation.

It is because of the necessity for realizing the importance of the human being's great primitive heritage as a dominant influence in the present, that I have stressed this phase of the subject, particularly in Chapter II. In order to obtain a true picture of the personality, it is essential that it should be shown in the perspective of its immense biological background.

Naturally, the researches of the psychoanalytic school have been drawn upon and the fundamental psychic laws brought into their proper relation with the findings of the experimental physiologists, and all of these are correlated with the accepted hypotheses of the leading biologists and anthropologists. The result is a many-sided view of the human organism, with all its dynamic ramifications.

INTRODUCTION xiii

But a complete exposition of the personality is hardly possible by setting forth merely the vital facts of biology, psychology and physiology. It is equally important to show the reactions of the inherent emotic^ 01 mature to social phenomena, and to fulfil this requirement I have drawn upon a wealth of historical and biographical material.

Throughout the entire period of history and, from what we may infer, long before that time, no phase of man's social life has found so rich a field for expression as the religious. Because the history of mankind has been woven into the warp and woof of innumerable supernatural beliefs, all of which, however, have so much in common, it is fitting that a chapter should be devoted to the appeal of religion to the emotional or primitive side of man.

Both ancient and modern man has been dominated by popular prejudices concerning his social traditions, his accepted ideas and ideals, and the prevailing institutions of his particular period. His emotional reaction to these social phenomena his given us, and continues to give us, epochs of witch-hunting, heresy-hunting, persecution for unorthodox ideas, tyrannous exhibitions of the crowd-spirit no less than of the autocrat, mass and class mobs, race riots and pogroms, puritanical obsessions and wholesale inhibitions. An understanding of these universal convulsive expressions is as necessary to an insight into the xiv INTRODUCTION

mechanism of personality as is a knowledge of the elementary facts of biology.

The two extremes in the gamut of human possibilities have been analyzed for the purpose of demonstrating that, under the cultural veneer, all human beings are essentially alike. The duality of personality is the unvarying law.

In the chapter on Genius, it will be seen that the world's greatest luminaries have revealed, behind their compelling brilliancy, a basically primitive human organism, which so often has reflected itself in their character and conduct. Not infrequently has the Caveman broken out in all his primordial abandon. Everywhere in the realm of Genius, he is in evidence. And from these peaks of human attainment down to the lowlands of halted development and chronic immaturity, there is the inevitable contrast in each individual of the primitive and the socialized nature. Only in the relative proportion of social adaptation is there endless variation.

As the possibility for individual happiness and health is bound up irretrievably with the question of environment, it will be perceived why social factors of necessity have been stressed. Too much importance cannot be laid on an understanding of one's relation to the powerful social forces that constitute the dynamics of environment.

When an individual has grasped the fact of the essential duality of his nature — and it is the intention that this book, by analyzing and clarifying

INTRODUCTION xv

so much of the mechanism of personality, will enable him clearly to visualize this phenomenon — he will have acquired the insight requisite to Self-understanding. He will understand the psychic and physical processes of the machine he is trying to run.

With this key to Self-understanding in his possession, he will be able to open the doors of Self-mastery and Self-expression. This means an undreamed of freedom from the myriad forms of so-called nervous afflictions, with their far-reaching symptoms of physical disability, and the achievement of a new and greater measure of health and efficiency.

"William J. Fielding.