with food-getting, and with the conflict side of life. High courage is
praised and valued by society, and a man of courage is less imposed on
by others, and comes in for substantial recognition and the favor of
women. It is thus of advantage to act in such a way as to get public
approval and some degree of appreciation; and a degree of sensibility
on the score of the opinion of others, or at least a reckoning upon
this, is involved in the process of personal adjustment.

But the problem of personal adjustment at this point would seem
to call for more of intelligence than emotion; and we find, on the
contrary, an excess of sensibility and a mania for being well thought
of hardly to be explained as originating in the exigencies of tribal
organization, nor yet on the score of its service to the individual in
getting his food and living out his life. Why could not primitive man
live in society, be of the war-parties, plan ambuscades, develop his
fighting technique and gear, be a blood-brother to another man, show
his trophies, set a high value on his personality, and insist on
recognition and respect, without this almost pathological dependence
on the praise and blame of others?

Or if we approach the question from another standpoint and inspect our
states of consciousness, we find signs that we have a greater fund of
sensibility than is justified in immediate activity. We have the same
mania to be well thought of; we are unduly interested when we hear
that others have been talking about us; we are annoyed, even furious,
at a slight criticism, and are childishly delighted by a compliment
(without regard to our deserts); and children and adults alike
understand how to put themselves forward and get notice, and equally
well how to get notice by withdrawing themselves and staying away or
out of a game. We have a tendency to show off which is not apparently
genetically connected with exploit or organization, and we recognize
that this form of vanity is not consistent with the ordinary run of
our activities when we argue with ourselves that the opinion of this
or that person is of no consequence and attempt to think ourselves
into a state of indifference. Intellectually and deliberately our
attitude toward criticism from others would often be, if we could
choose, represented by Tweed's query: "What are you going to do about
it?" But actually it puts us to bed.

All of this seems to indicate that there is an element in sensibi