If the son of a splendidly developed prize fighter finds himself in an environment which countenances and lauds prize fighting, physical power will probably become his goal early in life. If his environment casts disobliging reflections on ring activities or if those activities have an unpleasant financial connotation for him, (father disabled and poor), the same boy will abstain from athletic training, remain physically undeveloped, perhaps even grow weak and stunted.
=The Glands.= As we shall see in another chapter, the various glands of our body have a good deal to do with the shaping of our personality but the pressure of the social herd within which we live is also a tremendous factor for it compels us to adopt as models for imitation certain physical and intellectual types which are acceptable to the herd.
The degree of the pressure exerted by the herd varies greatly with social conditions. The pressure is not the same in an Alaska camp and in a New England village. Unnoticeable in an artists' colony, it may become difficult to bear in a large family group including several members of the clergy.
Children become grown ups by imitating grown ups. A boy acquires a man's behavior by imitating his father. A girl acquires womanly manners by imitating her mother.
At the same time a boy with a strong organism and, consequently, a fair amount of self confidence, is not as slavish in his imitation of his father's ways as one who is cursed with a delicate constitution or who may have been made timid by fear-producing or humiliating experiences.
The former is more adventurous in every way and will, not only roam farther away from his home, but let his eyes also roam on men outside of the family circle, whom he will pick out as secondary models.
The weak boy, seeking safety and following the line of least effort, will cling to the closest model, his father, and in extreme cases, will identify himself with him.
=The Identification Mania.= An exaggerated mania for identification is always a symptom of weakness and inferiority.
The weak man joins numberless organisations and derives a great deal of pride from the mere fact of his membership in them. In general he will not allow anyone to discuss or criticise those organisations. The anonymous citizen of Chicago or Chillicothe is easily aroused by criticisms of his native city overheard elsewhere, for he identifies himself with his native city for lack of any distinction of his own. Members of so called "aristocratic" families, themselves incapable of any achievement, are most unbearable owing to their family pride. They obscurely feel that if their relationship to some more or less distinguished ancestor was taken away from them they would sink into complete obscurity. The stupid traveler who constantly flaunts the flag of his country wherever he happens to be, is also an inferior who is trying to claim all the virtues which the jingoes of his land consider as national characteristics.