when he is forced to face the world unaided, he has not the
assets with which to do it. His equipment is inadequate. The
world is full of such floating wrecks, many of which owing to
favorable environment never reach a psychiatric clinic. The
war brought some interesting cases. One possibly may be
mentioned. The draft caught a man thirty-five years of age
of robust constitution. The father had died during the infancy
of this individual. The mother was distraught and petitioned
Congress and the President direct to get him out of the service
on the ground that he was "her baby" and that she had had to
sleep with him every night since his birth. While the thirty-five-
year-old baby was at home the mother kept herself well groomed
and was generally alert and cheerful. After his entrance into the
service she grew slovenly and despondent. Having some wealth
and influence she finally succeeded in getting her son discharged,
whereupon the happy relationship was again resumed. Without
much question another six months of life without the son would
have brought the mother to a clinic. Both of these individuals
have diseased personalities as ravaging in their effects as tuber-
culosis or cancer. But it is futile to hunt for any organic dis-
turbance. They are in the state they are in because of the kinds
of adjustment which were never put aside at normal times. The
proof that personality disturbances are due to long-continued
behavior complications and not to organic disturbances appears
from the fact that in many cases, under new and suitable environ-
ment the old reactions can be broken down and new ones
entrained. The individual is made over from a reaction stand-
point and takes his normal place in society. The re-training
("cure"), although more difficult, is neither more nor less mys-
terious and wonderful than teaching the infant to reach for candy
and to withdraw his hand from a candle flame.

Concluding Statements. --Our personality is thus the result
of what we start with and what we have lived through. It is the
"reaction mass" as a whole. The largest component of the mass
if we are normal consists of clean-cut and definite habit systems,
instincts that have yielded to social control and emotions which
have been tempered and modified by the hard knocks received
in the school of reality.

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