Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/850

 834 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

first unconsciously, becomes the supreme motive. He is concerned with the question of the choice of a career and anxiety about making a living. His social ideals change ; even parents are subjected to criticism, and now, if ever, humanity in him steps up to a higher level.

Adolescence is marked by the dominance of sentiment over thought, often by intense emotionalism and perfervid psychic states. It is the age of noble enthusiasms and hero-worship, of ambition, of symbolism and allegory, of poetry, and of intellectual curiosity espe- cially concerning the ultimate problems of science and philosophy which are at once so tantalizing and so baffling. " Only if his lust to know nature and life is starved does his mind trouble him by in-growing."

Here, too, we see the beginning of the truly reflective con- sciousness. There is much more inner absorption, reverie, and introspection than before or after. Through the sex-factor there is a tremendous enlargement of the sphere of his interests, sometimes with an accompanying recoil of the individual upon himself as he realizes his immaturity and unfitness to cope with the new problems. It is a period at once of expansive growth and intensification of consciousness the intensive made necessary by the extensive development. " One of the most important and comprehensive modifications is that, whereas most sense-stimuli before this age tend strongly to provoke reflex reactions, after it these tend to be delayed or better organized, as if there were a marked increase of associative or central functions." These are the increased irradia- tions, and long-circuiting, of deliberation and reflection. Hence puberty is the real birthday of the imagination, because at this time there must be developed within the individual the machinery for controling and synthesizing this greatly enlarged physical and social environment into which he so abruptly enters.

There is hunger for a fuller and larger life. The adolescent wrestles with the greatest problems. There is a dawning interest in the generic. He begins to feel the need of relating himself to a wider universe of ends and interests. Relationship is emphasized. And he now insists upon explanation. Judgment is developed. He penetrates to the motives and deeper reasons for things. There is growth of the historic sense. There is a new interest in nature and man, both dominated by what may be called the humanistic point of view.