White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1930-05-30
Why We Behave
Like Human Beings
B. GEORGE DORSEY. pb. D.. IL. D.
To Fear

| "A NURSE bathes child each day
- first tickling Its feet or pinchina
Its nose. A habit grows up, function
Ing like an instinct on reflex arcs
The mere sight Of the nurse calls out
gurgle or rage. If the nurse wears
blue dress habitually, the blue dress
Is enough. If the baby knows only one
blue dress and that blue dress always
means tickle or pinch, any blue dress
becomes enough for gurgle or fit.
We come to hate everything associ-
ated with our early hates; afraid of
everything associated with early fears.
The random fears and RACES come to
be attached to new objects not contem-
plated In the original scheme of kill-or.
cure emotional reinforcement. They
become specific. The baby is not nat
urally afraid Of lightning; 1t is afraid
Of sudden crash.
Our emotions are conditioned In the
same nursery in which our growing
body learns its first steps. AS the
movements Of motor mechanism be-
come habits and so function on
smooth-running reflex arcs, the emo.
tions themselves become organized !:
the live-or-die glands and the autonO-
mic nerves learn special modes of be-
havior. They take on habits, learn
new responses, acquire new friends,
new foes, new fears. The mouth wa
tiers under certain conditions Fear
Is called out under certain conditions.
Certain persons, things, situations, call
out tantrums, cries, RACES; others are
sources Of attachment, loves.
Practice makes perfect-hates and
fears as well as tennis players and
card sharps.
The function of emotion is quick ac-
ton and long memory. If am the
victim of a 500 counterfeit bill to
oblige stranger who needs change,
I am not likely to oblige the next
stranger requiring change. might
even stake 1t out on him." We do
such things. The horse buyer knows
that horse which has had the mango
does not forget it: 1t is tied in. He
strokes the flank of prospective pur-
chase. Lip quivers: that horse had
the mango.
Love, fear, and hate start out to-
gether; they grow up together. Mean
while, the reflex which enables the
new born to support it's body by its
hands soon disappears; the human
mother does not hang her baby on
limb to dry, nor does the infant have
to cling to her while she climbs tree.
The primitive hate and fear types of
behavior would also disappear If they
were not at once set to work.
The adjusting mechanism learns
only too blindly. Until we ourselves
are blind. Having eyes, we see not
what there is but what we think we
see. We see with a body that by ma
ture has huge capacity to hate that
which threatens us. to fear that which
endangers us, to love that which pro-
tects and feeds and tickles US. Our
ancestors had to have fear-response
to the new, the unexpected, the sud-
den, and the strange.
There is no reason why we should
jump, turn pale, sweat, gasp for
breath, close our eyes and open our
mouths, and feel creepy every time we
hear thunder or backfire, or are left
alone In the dark, or confront novel
and strange idea. Nor should the
same emotion that makes us fear the
novel and the strange impel us to hate
reason-even though reason interfere
with our routine behavior, including
attitudes, desires, ideals, ambitions,
and loves. We do not get jealous of
reason or want to fight it; but we do
get SO enraged at book that we
throw it in the fire, so mad at an opfn-
ion that we would like to cruelty the
man who expresses it.
The haunting fear in Dickens day
seems to have been poverty; the SUI
preme dread, the almshouse. What is
our haunting fear, our supreme dread?
Have we progressed very far?
With pep" we can make decisions,
use our heads; but when the visceral
nerves take charge, decisions are made
for us-we are as human as iron FL
ings around magnet or famished
hogs around swill barrel. A man
In towering rage" is more physical
ly fit for murder than one in cold
is what towering rage
is for, prepare the body for action
with adrenin. Hate is biologically
useful. Do we save 1t up for the hate
full occasions and get the work out of
It it can do, or squander 1t right and
left7
Our bottled emotions find curious
outlets: giggles, tears, laughter, shame.
remorse, rage, grief, love, fear, as the
case may be-; and take us to fights,
dances, games, theater, speculation,
futile argument, Monte Carlo, or the
count of Monte Cristo; or they may
end in hysteria phobias, manias.
The big question for each one of us
Is whether our acquired
repertoire Of specific loves, fears, and
hates will suffice to keep us on good
terms with ourselves and at peace with
the world. Many man loses his job
because his viscera have never been
educated nor his emotions trained.
Note, too, that, under stress Of strong
rage or fear. activity in the digestive
system closes down. predisposing to In
festival disorders including bacterial
toxins and consequently to other far
reaching organic changes. Love on