Behavior and Violence: Where Are We in Respect to Some Basic Issues? Santiago Genovés, Samuel Stearns Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Volume 20, Number 1, Autumn 1976, pp. 20-29 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.1976.0016

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/405608/summary

Access provided at 7 Nov 2019 04:02 GMT from University of Toledo

BEHAVIOR AND VIOLENCE: WHERE ARE WE IN RESPECT TO SOME BASIC ISSUES?* SANTIAGO GENO VÉ'St

/. Are Aggression and Violence Ineradicable? It is reasonable to believe that with the appearance of coins in Asia Minor about 700 b.c. man arrived at the possibility of solving peacefully many states of human intraspecific friction and violence. The use of coins facilitated a fair and convenient way of exchanging material goods so that much friction could be avoided. However, we have made little

headway, through coins, toward avoidance of intraspecific violence. It can be said, then, that although we possess much more flexible and sophisticated coin systems for goods interchange, the marrow of the problem is not as economically based as it is believed to be. The cadavers of those who have died in the human conflicts of this century, if placed in a line head to toe, would go nearly five times around the earth. In Western countries a man killed another man on an average of every

minute during the past 150 years, every 20 seconds during the past 50 years.

There is a belief among many nonscientists and among some scientists that aggression and violence are ineradicable biological characteristics of man. A number of us possess contrary evidence and believe that the state of affairs can be changed by continued research on the causes of human violence.

Let us consider four general factors which affect our specific research and in varying degrees many other research undertakings. 1. Population growth. Whether the current rate of growth of the

world's population, which will multiply our numbers sixfold in the next century, will be curbed by us or whether we face catastrophe, it seems

that friction bears a direct relationship to the space allowed each individual on this unique raft called earth. Recent experiments on crowding in other animal species have implications for man. The causes of aggres*This is an updated version of the introduction to the behavior and violence symposium

as part of the AAAS-CONACYT meetings, Mexico City, July 1973. tlnstituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Mexico 20, D. F. My deep appreciation and gratitude to Dwight Ingle for making my English more readable. 20 I Santiago Genovés · Behavior and Violence

sion and violence probably lie in the social development of a species within a given space and environment rather than in the genetic makeup of the species. We shall not attempt to go here into any depth in respect to the many-sided demographic explosion. We want only to stress that population density plays an important role in friction and violence origins and development. 2.Explosion of ignorance. Scientific information, as measured by

journal publication, has increased exponentially at the rate of 10 to 1 in the last 50 years and may accelerate in the future. There are published yearly in the world about 1 million scientific papers in about 85,000 specializedjournals [I]. It does not seem that the mental capacity of man to retain and associate data is being enhanced at a similar rate. We may be going headlong into an explosion of ignorance. In order to keep pace with the development of understanding and valid conclusions, it becomes necessary to integrate the natural and the social sciences. Each encompasses a number of multivaried disciplines. We lack a culture of intercommunication, and it is an important mental error of our time when, pari passu, the impossibility of utilizing all the relevant information published in our journals is already here. Consciousness of ignorance coupled with lack of communication breeds frustration and leads to external conflict inside and outside the sciences.

3.Sterile rhetoric in science. To quote from the 1969 symposium

"Threats and Promises of Science" within the conference "Science for

Mankind" [2]: "The scientists . . . made an appalling job of it. . . . What they had to say, was as confused and illogical a tangle of specious rhetoric as has ever emerged from a community of scholars. Science

then, requires a new spokesman—one who is not content to hand out the traditional arrogant rhetoric which is, at best, irrelevant to the issues at stake." The report in Science by McElheny about the Aspen Conference is rather similar [3].

In studies of human aggression and violence, or in discussing the meaning of natural selection, race, survival of the fittest, intelligence,

intraspecific and interspecific behavior, population control, animal ter-

ritoriality, innate behavior, women's liberation, etc., some scientists and

more pseudoscientists are handing out large amounts of inaccurate and irrelevant information.

Some decades ago, I believed that science would bring about a new

order of freedom and justice. Science has brought improved health and material comforts to about one-half the people of the world. It has not brought freedom from violence or the evolution of morality. Since we

have been unable to live up to the faith placed in us, we scientists are sometimes unduly arrogant. It is hard for us to state clearly to nonscientists that we do not know everything about the limitations and meanings of our findings. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Autumn 1976 | 21

4. Presumptuous social science diagnoses. Many social scientists claim that they possess the ability to diagnose human behavioral phenomena equal to the insights of students of the natural sciences within their fields. The qualitative nature of many social ills does not often lend itself to quantitative analysis. This limitation has much to do with the birth of the counterculture and with the lack of understanding about the functions that science and technology have in the search for human wellbeing and happiness. Science and technology are erroneously conceived as the source of conflict and friction. Diagnoses by social scientists are often as untenable in social terms as in biological terms, although ex-

pressed with assurance and pretense of validity. Population growth, the explosion of ignorance, our incapacity to solve many human problems, and failure to communicate outside our field of study—and, at times, even within it—have brought disbelief in our own value and lend support to those few who believe in the fatalism of man's inherent aggressive nature.

//. Evolution of Biological Ideas and of Behavioral Research on

Conflict Situations Following the Spencerian erroneous extensions and interpretations of the Darwinian world, in respect to the roles of competition and cooperation for survival, Kropotkin, at the turn of the century, began to bring forth balanced views. And then, with long strides, came Dollard et al. [4]. Until recently we moved within the framework and boundaries of their inhibition-frustration-aggression theory.

For human biology and physical anthropology, the most important insight into the need for studies of behavior came with Roe and Simpson''s Behavior and Evolution [5]. It proved indispensable to integrate

behavioral research in order to unravel evolutionary questions in general and questions about human evolution in particular. This advance was bolstered by Washburn's edition ?? Social Life of Early Man [6].

In 1945, Leroi-Gourhan published Milieu et techniques [7]. In the same

year the Institut Français de Polemologie for the Scientific Study of War, Peace, and Human Conflict was founded. The ground was ripe: in 1952

Lorenz came out with King Solomon's Ring [8], in 1958 Scott with Aggres-

sion [9], and in 1963 Lorenz with On Aggression [10].

Then came a plethora of conferences, symposia, papers, and books on

aggression and related subjects. A number of books, some inventive [11],

others dramatizing and extrapolating from the works of others [12-14], and still others with too drastic conclusions have gained popular success [15, 16]. In the first plenary session of the International Society for Research on Aggression (Toronto, 1974), ample reference was made as 22 I Santiago Genovés · Behavior and Violence

much to the advantages of popularizing what we know as to the harm of buttressing erroneous popular ideas and beliefs on aggression. With some exceptions, the integration of biology with social sciences came first from biologists and was followed by some anthropologists and sociologists. Dormant centers for the advancement of intercultural

studies, for nonviolent conflict resolutions, peace research, group dynamics, etc., have acquired new life, generating hundreds of papers having to do with behavior and violence.1 Psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, neurophysiologists, neuropsychiatrists, etc., are among those making the largest contributions to the literature. Starting with the reports of Kinsey et al. [22, 23], studies of sex behavior throw light on the role of sex in inhibition-frustration complexes, and in different types of maladjustment and violence. Some follow Freudian lines, others depart from them.

Inspired by and reviving Reich [24], some authors bring forth the relationship of sex discrimination to discontent among the women of the world. It is only a small step to the development of new individual and group mores and dynamics as an aid to understanding sexually oriented violence. But these hypotheses need verification.

Crisis in vital cycles, including circadian and circannual biological

rhythms, provide evidence of stresses hitherto unsuspected. These must

be considered in studies of human behavior and possibly in connection with the friction which we know as the generation gap.2

'See, among others in the last years, the Journal of Peace Research, published under the auspices of the International Peace Research Association, Oslo; Etudes pol'emologiques

published by L'Institut Français de Polemologie, Paris; the publications of the following: The H. S. Truman Research Centre, Jerusalem; the Research Center for Group Dynamics,

Ann Arbor, Michigan; the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, London—whose annotated list of publications 1956-1970 contains 623 titles; the Grubb Institute of Behavioral Studies; the Rice Institute, Texas; the Institute for Behavioral Research, Maryland; also, the constitution of the International Society for Research on Aggression, December 1972, and its journal, Aggressive Behavior, vol. 1 (1974), etc. A good integrative

analysis and appropriate bibliography in this field appears in Megargee and Hokanson 1970. Of interest is research leading to increased knowledge about human behavior in long-term confinement, that is, for space flights; Lindsley [17] contains possibly the most up-to-date material and bibliography. About other aspects of confinement, see Genovés [18-21].

2Which, indeed, must be deeply studied today in connection with frictional phenomena, in spite of the fact that it is not a new process. We know that ancient Near Eastern mythology was highly pervaded by generational slaughter, as was, much later, Greek

mythology. The Egyptian Fifth Dynasty (3450 b.c.) ruled very clearly in favor of utter obedience by the younger generation. Scorn for their elders rang explicitly rife in Athens by the first half of the fourth century b.c. So, the phenomenon is not a new one. Mead has done a service to science in pointing out the ever-widening generational distance. But

when she reaches untenable limits, as in a recent editorial in Science [25], the answer of

Brown seems appropriate. He begins by quoting Mead: "In the past, there were always some elders who knew more—in terms of experience, than any children. Today there are

none. . . . There are no elders who know what those who have been reared in the last 20

years know about what the next 20 years will be." And then he writes: "It is obvious,

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Autumn 1976 | 23

Geneticists are unraveling the genetic bases of human behavior. Back in the forties, Fuller and Thompson published the first textbook on the subject [27] although Galton; Muller; Burt and Howard; Newman;

Freeman; and Holzinger, etc., were pioneers. The field has provided a

wealth of data, but some early conclusions have required modification.

The XYY karyotype has not proven to be an important cause of criminality. It is no longer believed that much human behavior is instinctive [28]. Some behavior, once called instinctive, is learned [29]. Some bioso-

cial phenomena, together with some political and economic developments, are associated with discontent, friction, and violence. Such is

found throughout the world, in universities and beyond. Analyses have made evident the need to understand the modal personality of activists and have shown that the familiar hypotheses of their character and motivations are incorrect [19, 30, 31]. The generation gap, new sexual mores, states of unrest and protest,

based in part on uncontrolled technological development, have appeared as the follow-up of a budding process [32-34]. Individuals and groups are consciously unsatisfied and seek to change the world. This from parameters beyond and outside explicit political links. As biological evolution gains popular acceptance and religious beliefs dwindle, the foregoing is perhaps influenced by the fundamental dissatisfaction of man with the universe, that is, by the growing conscious inconformity of man with his mortal condition.

It is a pity that some eminent ethologists fail to realize that these phenomena are essentially human and have no counterparts in the rest of the animal kingdom. Straightforward inferences from other animals to man do not always seem legitimate. This is, of course, without ad-

vocating the existence of any outmoded cerebral Rubicon in man's brain evolution, or any hiatus in the evolution of the animal kingdom. Recent findings in biochemistry, neurophysiology, and related fields provide pointers for possible ethological relationships beyond the classical morphologically established taxonomic parameters. A wide biological basis for the integration of a vast variety of data has been laid by Monod [35] and Jacob [36]. This is in spite of some valid criticisms by Oraison [37] and Barthélémy [38]. Recent ethological findings may have implications for jurisprudence and political thought. This is an open and fruitful field for aggressive and violent human behavior set against laws and rules. It is a pity that some authors in the therefore, that the children who alone know both the present and future, should be the professors, and the professors, who do not know, should certainly sit under them as students. Since Mead herself is clearly included in her all-inclusive group of elders, we

expect to hear no more from heT, since she admits, that all children know more than she knows. Good bye, Margaret!!!" [26].

24 I Santiago Genovés · Behavior and Violence

field are basing their ideas on popular books rather than on scientific data. Myrdal has made it clear that the role of economics in peacemaking has been overemphasized [39]. There are six pertinent points which need clarification. I shall attempt this with five of them and only state the sixth: 1.Man the killer. This characterization of man appears in some scientific literature and is supported by the fiction of cinema and literature. Although Keyes Roper [40] was rightly criticized by Brace [41] on methodological and inferential grounds, I believe that she was correct in stating that we have no good evidence for the existence of intrahuman killing in the Pleistocene epoch. 2.Race and racism. There is wide misunderstanding, mainly among social scientists, about the meaning of a number of biological concepts

which lead to wrong sociological interpretations. The first statement on race by UNESCO (1950) implied that all racial groups are equally endowed with the genetic bases of abilities. It was based more on political than scientific consideration. The second (1952) and the third (1964)

recognized individual and group differences that cannot be pinpointed in respect to particular intellectual achievements. Some scholars still

cling to a faith in measurements of skull capacity, nose length, etc., and in statements by "authorities," and insist that all groups of man are equal in intellectual capacity. Others, enlarging on the well-known papers by Jensen [42-44] are convinced that some racial and ethnic groups are

superior to others. We need more research, as Genovés [45], Bodmer

and Cavalli-Sforza [46], Valentine and Valentine [47], and many others maintain. No statement (I was among those who drew up the 1964

statement), no ill-oriented and ill-interpreted tests, no well-meant but authoritarianly based antiracism writings, will mask the fact that there exist genetic differences among various human groups. When these are construed to represent differences in intellectual abilities, this is a source of friction and unrest. We know little about the biological and social

cultural interactions which are the bases of intelligence. We know still less of how these bases of intelligence have changed in the course of the history of adaptations called human evolution. 3.Intraspecific and interspecific. We plant maize in Mexico. We water it. When it is grown, we cut and eat it. This is not a crime. Chickens eat

worms and we eat chicken. Lions eat gazelles. This may be termed aggressive behavior, but certainly not killing for the sake of killing. It is in fact growth and survival through interspecific feeding habits. 4.Survival of the strongest instead of survival of the fittest. In regard to the incorrectly interpreted Darwinian concept, Neel and Schull make it clear that if the strong were always fighting the weak would inherit, if not the earth, at least the wives of the strong [48]. Biological fitness must Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Autumn 1976 | 25

represent differential fertility and not temporal strength or equally temporal social values. It depends on the number of genes that we pass on to the gene pool of the next generation, nothing else. 5.Child hostility. Although it may seem an exaggeration, only the atomic bomb which fell on Hiroshima compares, perhaps, to the cultural bombing to which the child is subjected in the first years of his life. We pass on to a child all of our traditions, beliefs, customs, moral codes, preconceptions, habits, etc. When he rebels against so many impacts from without—some very unfair—we judge him to be hostile and may write that he or she is "innately violent, like other animals." We forget that each child is a Segismund, a Casper Hauser. The paramount role of body pleasure in childhood and adolescence has recently been shown [49]. With the word "hostility," we come to our sixth point.

6.Chaotic terminology. It is now 36 years since Dollard and his colleagues wrote about frustration and aggression [4]. Seventeen years ago, Scott defined his meaning of "agonistic" [9]. Buss regards aggression as an instrumental response that administers punishment, or one that subjects another organism to anxious stimuli [50]. Feibleman defines it in terms of a drive to dominate the environment [51]. Garattini and Sigg

include 36 papers on aggressive behavior [52]. The word "aggressive" denotes different meanings to scientists of different disciplines. Even

among ethologists, the word has varying meanings. What is meant by threat, attack, display, tension, activism, fear, conflict, fighting, agonistic, aggression, aggressiveness, violence, hostility, friction, etc., in terms of how individuals behave in situations of stress? These words need clear definition, especially when used in conjunction with the word "innate." It is my opinion that unless we develop a flexible but standardized terminology, progress in this field of behavioral studies will remain hampered. I will not go further into this question, except to state that, in recent years, I have read much of the comprehensive literature on violence [see 52-81]. Even leaving aside the

more than 7,000 volumes published in the last 5 years on aggression and violence, the situation is chaotic.

This is a difficult field, but it is rewarding and of major importance. Students of human behavioral evolution must be wary of analogies be-

tween human violence and that of other animals. While no matter how

much a tree grows, always the top will somehow be connected with the deepest root, it is no less truthful that, as the tree grows, the top becomes further away from its roots. Culture grows much faster than biological evolution and embraces more of the causes of violence in man.

We confirmed in the RA expeditions and in the Acali experiment that

at times nonverbal communication is the most meaningful and that work is one of its media. It was Engels who wrote that apes become men 26 I Santiago Genovés · Behavior and Violence

through work [82]. As apes do not talk, we must infer that Engels meant "through silent work." This may not be true for species, but it seems valid for individual humans.

Research on man and related animal species may one day rule out that extreme form of violence called war, specific to the monkey that learned to talk, but could not always understand his fellowmen. REFERENCES

1.O. Lukasiewicz. Trans. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 34:373, 1972.

2.Science Journal, 6:3, 1970.

3.V. K. McElheny. Science, 169:1187, 1970.

4.J. Dollard, L. W. Doob, N. E. Miller, C. H. Mowrer, and R. R. Sears. Frustration and aggression. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1939. 5.A. Roe and G. G. Simpson (eds.). Behavior and evolution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1958.

6.S. L. Washburn (ed.). Social life of early man. New York: Viking, 1961.

7.A. Leroi-Gourhan. Milieu et techniques. Paris: Albin Michel, 1945.

8.K. Lorenz. King Solomon's ring. New York: Thomas & Cromwell, 1952. 9.J. P. Scott. Aggression. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1958. 10.K. Lorenz. On aggression. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963. 11.Report from Iron Mountain on the possibility and desirability of peace. New York: Dial, 1967.

12.R. Ardrey. The territorial imperative. New York: Delta, 1966. 13.R. Ardrey. African genesis. New York: Laurel, 1967. 14.R. Ardrey. The social contract. New York: Atheneum, 1970.

15.D. Morris. The naked ape. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. 16.D. Morris. The human zoo. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1969.

17.D. B. Lindsley. Human factors in long-duration space-flights. Washington:

Natl. Acad. Sci., 1972. 18.S. Genovés. Acali. Barcelona: Planeta, 1975. 19.S. Genovés. Excelsior, Diorama, November 7, 1972.

20.S. Genovés. INSERM et CNRS, p. 277, 1971. 21.S. Genovés. Perspect. Biol. Med., 14:538, 1971.

22.A. C. Kinsey, W. B. Pomeroy, and C. E. Martin. Sexual behavior in the

human male. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1948.

23.A. C. Kinsey, W. B. Pomeroy, C. E. Martin, and P. H. Gebhard. Sexual

behavior in the human female. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953.

24.W. Reich. The sexual revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1945. 25.M. Mead. Science, vol. 164, 1969. 26.M. V. Brown. Science, 164:1225, 1969.

27.J. L. Fuller and R. Thompson. Behavior genetics. 2d ed. New York: Wiley, 1960.

28.L. Eisenberg. Science, 176:123, 1971.

29.J. P. Hailman. Sci. Amer., 221:98, 1969. 30.N. S. Caplan and J. M. Paige. Sci. Amer., 219:15, 1968. 31.J. L. Horn and P. D. Knott. Science, 171:977, 1971. 32.J. Ortega y Gasset. The revolt of the masses. New York: Norton, 1932. 33.A. Camus. L'Homme révolté. Paris: Gallimard, 1957.

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Autumn 1976 I 27

34.H. Marcuse. One-dimensional man. London: Beacon, 1964.

35.J. Monod. Le Hasard et la nécessité. Paris: Seuil, 1970. 36.F. Jacob. La Logique du vivant. Paris: Gallimard, 1970. 37.M. Oraison. Le Hasard et la vie. Paris: Seuil, 1971.

38.M. Barthélemy-Madaule. L'Ideologie du hasard et de la nécessité. Paris: Seuil, 1972. 39.G. Myrdal. Sci. Amer., 226:15. 1972.

40.M. Keyes Roper. Curr. Anthropof, 10:427, 1969. 41.L. Brace. Curr. Anthropof, 10:451, 1969. 42.A.Jensen. Harvard Ed. Rev., 39:1, 1969. 43.A.Jensen. N.Y. Times Magazine, September 21, 1969.

44.A. Jensen. Educability and group differences. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.

45.S. Genovés. Science, 133:760, 1961. 46.W. F. Bodmer and L. L. Cavalli-Sforza. Sci. Amer., 223:19, 1970.

47.C. Valentine and B. Valentine. Curr. Anthropof 16:120, 1975.

48.J. V. Neel and W. V. Schull, Perspect. Biol. Med., 11:565, 1968. 49.J. W. Prescott. Futurist. April 64-74, 1975.

50.A. H. Buss. The psychology of aggression. New York: Wiley, 1961. 51.J. K. Feibleman. Perspect. Biol. Med., 9:537, 1966. 52.S. Garattini and E. N. Sigg (eds.). Aggressive behaviour. Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica, 1969. 53.J. P. Scott. Animal behavior. New York: Doubleday, 1963.

54.J. D. Carthy and F. J. Ebling (eds.). The natural history of aggression. London and New York: Academic Press, 1964.

55.M. Schwebel (ed.). Behavioral science and human survival. Palo Alto, Calif: Science and behavior, 1965.

56.W. Sluckin. Imprinting and early learning. Chicago: Aldine, 1965.

57.K. Lorenz. Evolution and modification of behavior. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1965.

58.K. Lorenz. Essais sur le comportement animal et humain. Paris: Seuil, 1970.

59.K. Lorenz. Studies in animai and human behavior, vol. 1. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1970.

60.K. Lorenz. Studies in animai and human behavior, vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1971.

61.C. C. Clement and D. B. Lindsley (eds.). Aggression and defense. Brain function. Berkeley: Univ. Calif Press, 1967. 62.M. Fried, H. Marvin, and R. Murphy (eds.). The anthropology of armed conflict and aggression. New York: Natural History Press, 1969. 63.A. Storr. Human aggression. New York: Atheneum, 1968. 64.K. E. Moyer. Trans. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 31:104, 1969.

65.R. N. Ondarza, S. Genovés, S. Lisker, and R. de la Fuente. La Agresividad en el hombre, 2:25, 1970.

66.A. Mitscherlich. Die Idee des Friedens und die menschliche Aggressivität. Frankfort: Scherkampt, 1969. 67.El Correo. UNESCO, 23:1, 1970.

68.I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt. Ethology: the biology of behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.

69.I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt. Love and hate: the natural history of behavior patterns. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971.

70.E. I. Megargee and J. E. Hokanson. The dynamics of aggression. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.

28 I Santiago Genovés · Behavior and Violence

71.N. Chalmers, R. Drawlay and P. R. Rose (eds.). The biological bases of behaviour. London: Harper & Row, 1971. 72.R. W. Johnson. Aggression in man and animals. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1972.

73.J. M. R. Delgado. Control fisico de la mente: hacia una sociedad

psicocivilizada. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1969.

74.J. M. R. Delgado. Planificación cerebral del hombre futuro. Madrid: Juan March, 1973.

75.R. Clarke. The science of war and peace. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972. 76.S. Genovés. Is peace inevitable? Aggression, evolution and human destiny. New York: Walker, 1970.

77.D. Richter (ed.). The challenge of violence. Gateshead-on-Tyne: Northumberland, 1972.

78.G. Usdin (ed.). Perspectives on violence. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1972. 79.P. P. G. Bateson and P. H. Klopfer (eds.). Perspectives in ethology. New York: Plenum, 1973.

80.K. Lorenz and P. Leyhausen. Motivation of human and animal behavior:

an ethological view. New York: Van Nostrand, 1973.

81.G. Rochlin. Man's aggression. The defense of the self. Boston: Gambit, 1973.

82.F. Engels, Sobre la literatura y el arte. Mexico: Masas, 1938.

SENILITY

Not like the ancient hero making myth which bards will later earn their supper with, nor like the young men swift in crooked streets astounding Pamplona with their daring feats, nor like the matador who face to face

meets legend and is gored or kills with grace— but lost in the twisted labyrinth of mind, time's minotaur pursuing close behind,

I grope in vain for light or silken thread yet stray more deeply in the maze instead. Samuel Stearns, M.D.

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Autumn 1976 | 29