Upon what does the displacement and the rationalization depend? No doubt the general answer is that the selection of certain public objects depends upon the “historical” accident of the patterns offered by the personal environment of the individual at critical phases of growth. It is safe to predict that more politicians rise from families with political traditions than without them. But this very broad conclusion requires no technique of intensive investigation of individual instances to support it. If the psychopathological approach to the individual is worth the trouble, it must disclose a variety of relatively novel circumstances which dispose individuals to adopt, reject, or modify the patterns of act and phrase which are offered in the environment. Provisionally, we may assume that the puberty phase of biological growth, which coincides with increasing social demands, may be the period in which the attitudes toward the invisible environment most rapidly crystallize. The details may be more hopefully dealt with if somewhat homogeneous groups of politicians are investigated for the purpose of bringing out significant differences in their developmental history. The agitators are the first to whom special attention will be paid. CHAPTER VI POLITICAL AGITATORS The essential mark of the agitator is the high value which he places on the emotional response of the public. Whether he attacks or defends social institutions is a secondary matter. The agitator has come by his name honestly, for he is enough agitated about public policy to communicate his excitement to those about him. He idealizes the magnitude of the desirable social changes which are capable of being produced by a specific line of social action. From the standpoint of the administrative mind, we may say that an agitator is one who exaggerates the difference between one rather desirable social policy and another, much as the lover, according to Shaw, is one who grossly exaggerates the difference between one woman and another. Whether agitators behave like physicians or surgeons, as Munro would have it, they are united in expecting much good to come from single acts of innovation. The agitator easily infers that he who disagrees with him is in communion with the devil, and that opponents show bad faith or timidity. Agitators are notoriously contentious and undisciplined; many reforming ships are manned by mutineers. The agitator is willing to subordinate personal considerations to the superior claims of principle. Children may suffer while father and mother battle for the “cause.” But the righteous will not cleave to their families when the field is ripe for the harvest. Ever on the alert for pernicious intrusions of private interest into public affairs, the agitator sees “unworthy” motives where others see the just claims of friendship. Believing in direct, emotional responses from the public, the agitator trusts in mass appeals and general principles. Many of his kind live