Evening star., 1934-12-28
TRIUMPH OF MIND
TOLD BY DR.. WHITE
Human Beings Maintain Po-
sition of Superiority,
Scientists Hear.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
STAFF Correspondent of The Star.


PITTSBURGH, December 2s.-
Mans self-esteem promises to be a
major factor in raising him to un-
dreamed-of heights in the future, DR..
William A. White, superintendent OF
st. Elizabeth's Hospital, declared last
night in the chief address before the
American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science.
In possession of a mind which has
been built up through millions OF
years of successful conflict with hos
tile environments, the race has an
instrument well adapted to meet new
and threatening situations. Besides
this, the Washington phychiatrist said,
the story of history has been that
human beings never have been will
ing to accept position OF inferiority
in the universe.
Whenever human superiority has
been threatened, mans essential ego
tism found way to circumvent the
threat. Thus in the Middle Ages men
rested secure in the belief that they
and their world represented the CEN
ter of creation, with everything else
subsidiary to it. Along came the
astronomers with proof that the earth
was the merest atom in the universe
and its inhabitants, Of course, more
inconsequential still.
1t was a serious blow to egotism.
Man responded by developing modern
astronomy, thus proving that he was
still superior, since he alone, in all
&c ND
Masters Life Secrets.
Still he looked upon himself as
special form of life. Along came evo-
luton to prove that he was only
part of the great biological pattern.
He saved his self-esteem by becom-
ing biologist and mastering many of
the secrets of life so that he re-
manned supreme. But still he exulted
in the possession of something unique
"a mind.
Now, says DR.. White, the psycholo-
gistS are destroying this claim by
showing that even the mind itself is
an accumulation of the vast past of
human evolution. Man is responding
by trying to master the secrets of
the mind, that he may retain his
self-esteem, and in this line may ex-
pect greater advances than have at
tended any of his other adjustments.
All men are brothers under the
skin, DR.. White insisted. All individ-
ual and racial differences are under
laid by a vast ocean of common hu-
manity.
Millions Of years of racial expert
ence. DR.. White said, have laid down
fundamental structure of the hu-.
man mind-a world within which is
constantly in conflict and interaction
with the world without and which
acts in accordance with the lessons
learned from the successes of the past
and laid down as permanent features
in the "organ of the unconscious"
LikenesseS Great.
"We are all kin in a much more
concrete way than We had hitherto
supposed" DR.. White said. The diff
ferences by which we know one man
from another, such as our friends
from our enemies, people of different
races and languages, and the indi-
vidual differences of the psychologists,
are inconsiderable as compared with
our likenesses which have been laid
down as permanent possessions of
result of millions of years Of preceding
life experiences in conflict with hos
tile environment. The reason we are
here today Is that, by and large, this
struggle for life as it has pushed its
way upward through the cons Of time
has been a successful one, and those
results of experience which have sur
vival value have been somehow pre-
served"
The constant struggle for equili-
brium between the world without and
the unconscious structure of the mind,
DR.. White said, comes strikingly to
the surface in the mental diseases,
with which he is primarily concerned.
Essentially the same results are
reached by disintegration Of the one
as Of the other. A person of per-
fectly sound mind in the neighbor-
hood of bursting shell is beset by a
sensation of helplessness. The mind
loses all its moorings in this unfa-
miliar world. But the same phenom-
enon Is encountered often at st. Eliza
beth's in connection with the so-called
''nihilistic delusions'' of the insane.
These, he said, accompany cases Of
progressive deterioration Of the brain
and ARE expressed by the patient in
terms of destruction OF the universe.
The patient feels that all things
about him are crumbing away and
disintegrating. He feels the same ap-
prehension, fear and confusion which
such q disintegrating universe forces
upon him. And so he comes by dif-
ferent route to the same net result
reached by the individual In the
midst of a great catastrophe
Loses Identity.
One Of the earliest symptoms Of in
sanity encountered at St. Elizabeth's,
DR.. White said, Is a phenomenon
known as Representation" in
which the patient has lost his feeling
of personal identity and feels perhaps
that he is not himself. The person
who is moving into a psychosis de-
velops as his first symptoms disinte-
erations Of a mild degree Of both the
world within and the world without"
In mental disease, DR.. White said,
there is a growing tendency for per-
sons to think and act like children or
primitives, since the upper layers OF
the inherited structure OF the mind
deteriorate first Highly complicated
thought processes drop away and the
person returns to forms OF expression
dominated by feeling.
Peary Claim Upheld.
Because his watch happened to be
% seconds fast, while he thought 1t
was seconds slow on his final dash
to the North Pole, the claim Of Ad-
miral Robert E. Peary to one OF the
greatest geographical discoveries IN
history Is confirmed beyond question,
DR.. William H. Hobbs Of the Unlver-
sity Of Michigan. close friend OF
Peary and himself an authority on
the Far North, told the association
last night.
Peary, in his observations Of the
sun to determine his location when