Analyzing Character | Page 6

divine in
him.
The almost universal cry for leisure is due to the almost universal
unfitness of men and women for their tasks. The wise man knows that
there is no happiness in leisure. The only happiness is self-expression
in useful work. And so we come again to the problem of fitting the man
to his work. Every man is a bundle of possibilities. Every man has a
right to usefulness, prosperity and happiness. These are possible only
through knowledge of self, knowledge of others, knowledge of work,
and the ability to make the right combination of self and others and
work.
Man has learned much about the material universe. Nearly everything
has been analyzed and classified. Man weighs, measures, tests, and in
others ways scrupulously determines the fitness of every bit of material
that goes into a machine before it is built. There are scientific ways of
selecting cattle, horses, and even hogs for particular purposes.
Purchasing departments of great commercial and industrial institutions
maintain laboratories for the determination, with mathematical
exactitude, of the qualifications and fitness to requirements of all kinds
of materials, tools and equipment. And yet, when it comes to the choice
of his own life work, the guidance of his children in their vocations, or
the selection of employees and co-workers, the average man decides
the entire matter by almost any other consideration than scientifically

determined fitness. He takes counsel with personal prejudices, with
customs and traditions, with pride, or with fear--or he leaves the
decision to mere guess-work, or even chance.
It is time, therefore, that man should learn about himself and others,
and especially about those things which are vital to even a moderate
enjoyment of the good things of life.
Two diametrically opposite states of mind have been responsible for
this lack of careful study of the aptitudes, characteristics, and
qualifications of man and the ways of determining them in advance of
actual performance. The first of these has been characterized by loose
thinking, unscientific methods, arbitrary and complicated systems---
such as palmistry, astrology, physiognomy, phrenology, and others of
the same ilk. In these systems, some truth, patiently learned by sincere
and able workers, has been befogged and contaminated by hasty
conclusions of the incompetent and clever lies of charlatans. Thus the
whole subject has fallen into disrepute with intelligent people. Ever
since the earliest days of recorded history there have been attempts at
character reading. Many different avenues of approach to the subject
have been opened; some by sincere and earnest men of scientific minds
and scholarly attainments; some by sincere and earnest but unscientific
laymen; and some by mountebanks and charlatans. As the result of all
this study, research and empiricism, a great mass of alleged facts about
physical characteristics has been accumulated. When we began our
research seventeen years ago, we found a very considerable library
covering every phase of character interpretation, both scientific and
unscientific. A great deal has been added since that time. 'Much of this
literature is pseudo-scientific, and some of it is pure quackery.
The second state of mind is a reaction from the first. Some men of
science are timid about accepting or stating anything in regard to
character analysis. They demand more than conclusive proof; what they
insist upon is mathematical accuracy. Until a man can be analyzed in
such a way as to leave nothing to common sense or good judgment,
they hesitate to acknowledge that he can be analyzed at all. But in the
very nature of the case, the science of character analysis cannot be a
science in the same sense in which chemistry and mathematics are
sciences. So far our studies and experiences do not lead us to expect
that it ever can become absolute and exact. Human nature is

complicated by too many variables and obscured by too much that is
elusive and intangible. We cannot put a man on the scales and
determine that he has so many milligrams of common sense, or apply
the micrometer to him and say that he has so many millimetres of
financial ability. Human traits and human values are relative and can be
determined and stated only relatively. We shall, therefore, waste both
time and human values if we wait until our knowledge is
mathematically exact before we make it useful to ourselves and to
others.
The sciences of medicine, agriculture, chemistry and physics are not
yet exact. They are in a state of development. We have, however, the
good sense to apply them so far as we know them, and to accept new
discoveries, new methods, and new ways of applying them, as they
come to us. And so, in the study of ourselves, let us throw aside
traditions; let us forget the mountebanks and charlatans of the past; let
us not