The comparisons which may be made among personalities on the basis of the nature of the substitutive reactions which arise when they are subjected to similar conditions may be illustrated on the gross level by citing some “experiments” which society has tried. Mr. A is a member of the city council in one of our large cities. On two occasions, when he was defeated for re-election, he developed autistic reveries to such an extent that he was confined in a sanitarium under the care of a psychiatrist. Thus Mr. A met a deprivation in the sphere of his orientation to social objects (political activity) by developing exaggerated autistic reveries (depressive preoccupations). The case of A may be thrown up against that of Mr. B. When Mr. B lost out in his campaign for re-election to the legislature, he began to worry about his health, and although the physicians could find no adequate physical basis for his trouble, he developed a host of gastro-intestinal disturbances which incapacitated him from regular professional life. His substitutive reaction was somatic. Another man, a Mr. C, was defeated and spent most of his time writing a subsequently well-recognized book on political theory. His substitutive reaction was in the sphere of consecutive, theoretical, adjustive thinking. It will be remembered that one of our driving administrators, J, had his administrative duties curtailed and immediately took the wife of another for his mistress showing that his object orientation in the world of affairs was a substitute for his object orientation in the sexual field. From this point of view, we are able to examine the relative function which political activities and preoccupations play in the personality integration of the individual. For one it is an alternative to mental disorder, for another it is an alternative to physical disease, for another an alternative to aggressive sexuality. Now it is of interest and importance to observe that the study of the life-histories of these men showed that their mode of meeting the world had become organized rather early. The man who developed somatic symptoms had shown a physical upset after losing a contest for the presidency of his class in college, and also in adolescent and preadolescent deprivation situations. Alexander traced the basis for the personality splitting in J to very early childhood.