Analyzing Character by Arthur Newcomb (best ereader for epub .txt) 📕

It is a scientific fact that that which is sharp is penetrating and moves quickly; that which is blunt is non-penetrating and of necessity moves slowly. The needle darts through the cloth more quickly than the bodkin. The greyhound is swifter than the bulldog. The stiletto does quicker work than the bludgeon. This, of course, is only a symbolism which may make vivid the truth that the convex man works more rapidly than the concave.

In commercial work, the man who is successful in positions requiring quick decision and quick action has a convex profile, while the man whose duties call for patience, deliberation, reflection, and the ability to plod should have some modification of the concave form of profile.

SIZE

It is an old saying that large bodies move slowly. It would be more scientifically correct to say that large bodies get under way slowly. Difference in physical size between men is important in many ways. If, as William James says, "the causes of emotion are indubitably physiological," then the smaller the physical bulk which must be affected in order to have an intense emotion, the more quickly and easily is that intense emotion aroused.

Other things being equal, the small man is more excitable and becomes angry more easily than the large man. He also cools down more quickly. When the huge bulk of the big man becomes thoroughly aroused, thoroughly wrought up, it is time to get out of the way and stand from under.

STRUCTURE

Hall Caine, the novelist, has an immense head, a slender jaw, and a small, fragile body. James J. Jeffries, the pugilist, has a comparatively small head, a large jaw, and huge bones and muscles. Ex-President Taft has a comparatively small head, round face, round body, round arms and legs. These are differences in structure.

Hall Caine is of the mental type. He is by nature unfitted to be either a pugilist, a hammer-thrower, an explorer, a banker, or a judge. He is, however, pre-eminently fitted to dream dreams of truth and beauty, to construct those dreams into stories and plays. James J. Jeffries is by nature and physique fitted for the trade of boiler-maker, for the sport of pugilism, and for physical and manual accomplishment in general. Ex-President Taft is by nature and physique fitted to sit quietly in a big chair and direct the work of others, to administer affairs, to sit upon the bench and weigh impartially causes of dispute between his fellow men. As you see, these three are our old friends, the physically frail, the man of bone and muscle, and the fat man.

The assignment of vocation according to structure is but common sense. The dreamer has too slender a body for manual labor and is both too nervous and too impatient of confinement to sit in an easy chair or on the bench. The big, corpulent man enjoys the good things of life. He is well nourished and free from anxiety. He is, therefore, especially well fitted to judge calmly, deliberately and impartially. The man of bone and muscle is too busy with his physical activities for dreams and too impatient of confinement to sit in an easy chair or on the bench.

TEXTURE

Men also differ from one another very markedly in texture. This is easily observable in the texture of hair, skin, features, general body build, hands and feet. According to Prof. Ernst Haeckel, the skin is the first and oldest sense organ. Indeed, all the other sense organs and the nervous system and brain which have evolved in the use of them, are simply inturned and specialized skin cells. This being true, the texture of the entire organism, and especially the brain and nervous system, is accurately indicated by the texture of the skin and its appendages, the hair and nails.

Even the most casual observer notes the differences between the man with coarse hair, coarse skin, rugged features, large, loosely-built limbs, hands and feet, and the man with fine skin, silky hair, delicate, regular features, slender limbs, and finely moulded hands and feet. The individual of fine texture is sensitive and naturally refined. He loves beauty. He does his best work when he is creating something or handling something which is fine and beautiful. The coarse-textured individual is strong, vigorous, virile, and enduring. He can do hard, unpleasant work, can go through hardships, and can remain cheerful even in the midst of grimy, unpleasant and unlovely surroundings. For these reasons, fine-textured people do their best work in such lines as art, literature, music, jewelry, dry goods, millinery, and fine, delicate tools, machinery and materials; while we must rely upon coarse-textured people to do the heavy, hard, rough, pioneering and constructive work of the world. Even in art and literature coarse-textured people produce that which is either vigorous and virile or gruesome and horrible.

Because of their refined sensibilities, fine-textured people usually sympathize with the classes, the aristocracy; the coarse-textured people with the masses. It is a remarkable fact that practically all of our great liberators, radicals and revolutionists have been and are men of coarse texture. There is a great scientific truth underlying the saying amongst the people that certain ideas or books are "too fine-haired" for them.

PROPORTION

One of the most important of all the nine fundamental variables is proportion. This refers to proportion of one part of the body to another, of one part of the head to another. Each part of the body and of the head has its own particular function. Nature is orderly and systematic in all her work. She does not, therefore, try to digest food with the feet or pump blood with the hands. She does not try to use our stomachs as means of locomotion. Neither does she try to make us think with the backs of our heads.

No one needs to be told that the long, slender, wiry legs of the deer were made for swiftness, or that the huge, square, powerful jaw of the bulldog was made to shut down with a vise-like grip that death itself can scarcely relax. These are crude examples of proportion. In our study and research we have learned to associate many fine gradations of differences in proportion with their corresponding differences in mental aptitudes and character.

EXPRESSION

Everything about a man indicates his character. Color, form, size, structure, texture, consistency, and proportion indicate almost entirely the man's inherent qualities. It is important for us to determine, however, in sizing up men, what they have done with their natural qualifications. This we do by observing Expression and Condition.

The cruder, simpler emotions are so frankly expressed that even a child or an animal can tell instantly whether a man is happy or loving, grieved or angry. These emotions show themselves in the voice, in the eyes, in the expression of the mouth, in the very way the man stands or sits or walks, in his gestures—in fact, in everything he does. In the same way, all of the finer and more elusive thoughts and emotions express themselves in everything a man says or does. Even when he does his best to mask his feelings, he finds that, while he is controlling his eyes and his voice, his posture, gestures, and even handwriting are giving him away. No living man can give attention to all of the modes of expression at once, and the trained observer quickly learns to discriminate between those which are assumed for the purpose of deception and those which are perfectly natural.

Transient emotions have transient expression, but the prevailing modes of thought and feeling leave their unmistakable impress just as surely as does a prevailing wind mould the form of all the trees growing in its path. The man who is sly, furtive, secretive, and fundamentally dishonest need not deceive you with his carefully manufactured expression of open-eyed frankness and honesty. If you have ever been "taken in" by a confidence man or a swindler, you either gave very slight attention to his expression or, what is more likely, suspected him but hoped to "beat him at his own game."

CONDITION

Discriminating employers long ago learned to observe carefully the condition of every applicant. It is now a pretty well accepted fact that the accountant who neglects his finger nails will probably also neglect his entries; that the clerk who is slovenly about his clothes will also be slovenly about his desk and his papers; that the man who cannot be relied upon to keep his shoes shined and his collar clean is a very weak and broken reed upon which to lean for anything requiring accuracy and dependability.

HOW THE SCIENCE IS VERIFIED

We have presented to you, in a brief way, the fundamental principles of the science of character analysis and the nine fundamental variables in man to which those principles apply. Are we not justified in saying that a body of knowledge which has been so classified and organized that the main fundamental facts of it can be presented in a few pages, is, indeed, a science? Add to this the fact that every conclusion is not only based upon these fundamental scientific principles, but has been carefully verified by investigation and observation in not only hundreds but thousands of cases, and has been used daily for years under the trying conditions of actual commercial practice, and this science has passed out of the merely experimental stage.

There are two ways to learn any science.

The first is to begin by collecting all possible facts, recording them and verifying them under all possible conditions, until they are as thoroughly established as any facts can be in our imperfect human understanding. The collection of facts in this way requires the most painstaking research, oftentimes including many thousands of observations. When all the facts have been thus collected and verified, they are classified. Then they are carefully analyzed and an effort is made to find some of the laws which underlie them. Perhaps, instead of a definite law, all that can be at first advanced is a hypothesis or theory. This hypothesis or theory having been formulated, many thousands of observations are taken in an effort to establish it as a definite law or a principle. Oftentimes whole new realms have to be explored before this can be determined. Sometimes, after a theory is advanced, perhaps seems to be approaching complete establishment, some fact or set of facts is discovered which compels the setting aside of all old theories and the formulation of a new one. When a theory has been definitely established as a law, other laws are sought in the same way until, finally, there are enough laws established to form the basis of a general principle. Then more laws and more principles are added in the same way until, finally, the body of knowledge has become sufficiently accurate, sufficiently definite and sufficiently organized and classified to be called a science.

HOW SCIENCE SLOWLY EVOLVES

This is the way in which all of the sciences known to man were first learned; that is to say, they were learned by their formulators coincident with the process of their formulation. This is a slow and laborious process of learning. Few, if any, sciences have ever been thus mastered by any one individual. Indeed, the certain establishment of a very few facts, or, perhaps, only one important fact, the formulation of a theory, or the final statement of a law is usually the limit of the contribution of any one person to any science.

No science is independent. The science of physics, for example, could never have reached its present-day state of development if it had not laid heavy tribute