Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/28

 14 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

be resorted to? The answer is that the stimulus is not supplied us from without. Its appearance is never merely an adventitious coming. It is not thrust upon us. The process of our own activity determines its kind. It is like the activity poor and insufficient when it is poor and insufficient. The specialist finds sensations where other men discover nothing. We are not sur- prised that our activity finds nothing to feed upon, nothing which calls for thought in certain situations. After we have exhausted the desert we are lonesome, and smoke or drink for the new effects which they will bring to us. Now, the point at which stimuli fail and stimulants enter differs for different men in strict correspondence with their fund of interests, with the breadth of their past activity, i. e., with their education. One whose experi- ence of life has furnished him with few avenues of escape from himself will give up very soon. The man of larger responsibilities will hold out longer ; while the truly educated man, whose real interests should be almost infinite in their extent, will not soon fail to find, in any situation, sensations to relieve the tension which the on-flowing of his stream of activity supplies. Now, the pathos of the situation is in the fact that society has said unto some, "Work; others will think;" while nature has said: "The two processes are one. I have made an organism with an impul- sive nature, to meet the exigencies of a changing world." " But," it is said, "you are attacking divisions of labor." I am. I can- not understand how an organism which is both a brain and a hand can act as either one alone, without producing serious results. We are eager to recognize this fact in the case of the so-called brain-worker. A thousand forms of muscular exercise are provided for him, and everywhere he is urged to use them. But who has yet set up a gymnasium to exercise the brain of the hand-worker ? Where even is the principle recognized or treated seriously ? Until the problems of society become the problems of each member of society ; until the social life itself shall furnish adequate material to fund the energy of men ; until normal stimuli are provided, the abnormal, the false stimuli, will be in demand. For human energy will not be cribbed, cabined, or confined. If it functions normally, we call it good; if it