find people of greater integrity and sensitivity than the majority,
who for this very reason are incapable of accepting the cultural
opiate, while at the same time they are not strong and healthy
enough to live soundly "against the stream."
The foregoing discussion on the difference between neurosis
and the socially patterned defect may give the impression that if
society only provides the remedies against the outbreak of mani-
fest symptoms, all goes well, and it can continue to function
smoothly, however great the defects created by it. History shows
us, however, that this is not the case.
It is true indeed, that man, in contrast to the animal, shows an
almost infinite malleability; just as he can eat almost anything,
live under practically any kind of climate and adjust himself to it,
there is hardly any psychic condition which he cannot endure,
and under which he cannot carry on. He can live free, and as a
slave. Rich and in luxury, and under conditions of half-
starvation. He can live as a warrior, and peaceably; as an exploiter
and robber, and as a member of a co-operating and loving fel-
lowship. There is hardly a psychic state in which man cannot
live, and hardly anything which cannot be done with him, and
for which he cannot be used. All these considerations seem to
justify the assumption that there is no such thing as a nature
common to all men, and that would mean in fact that there is no
such thing as a species "man," except in a physiological and
anatomical sense.
Yet, in spite of all this evidence, the history of man shows that
we have omitted one fact. Despots and ruling cliques can succeed
in dominating and exploiting their fellow man, but they cannot
prevent reactions to this inhuman treatment. Their subjects
become frightened, suspicious, lonely and, if not due to external
reasons, their systems collapse at some point because fears, sus-
picions and loneliness eventually incapacitate the majority to
function effectively and intelligently. Whole nations, or social
groups within them, can be subjugated and exploited for a long