The Foundations of Personality by Abraham Myerson (color ebook reader .TXT) 📕

XII. THE METHODS OF PURPOSE-WORK CHARACTERS

XIII. THE QUALITIES OF THE LEADER AND THE FOLLOWER

XIV. SEX CHARACTERS AND DOMESTICITY

XV. PLAY, RECREATION, HUMOR AND PLEASURE SEEKING

XVI. RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS. DISHARMONY IN CHARACTER

XVII. SOME CHARACTER TYPES

THE FOUNDATIONS OF PERSONALITY

Man’s interest in character is founded on an intensely practical

need. In whatsoever relationship we deal with our fellows, we

base our intercourse largely on our understanding of their

characters. The trader asks concerning his customer, “Is he

honest?” and the teacher asks about the pupil, “Is he earnest?”

The friend bases his friendship on his good opinion of his

friend; the foe seeks to know the weak points in the hated one’s

make-up; and the maiden yearning for her lover whispers to,

herself, “Is he true?” Upon our success in reading the character

of others, upon our understanding of ourselves hangs a good deal

of our life’s success or failure.

Because the feelings are in part mirrored on the face and body,

the experience of mankind has become crystallized in beliefs,

opinions and systems of character reading which are based on

physiognomy, shape of head, lines of hand, gait and even the

method of dress and the handwriting. Some of these all men

believe in, at least in part. For example, every one judges

character to a certain extent by facial expression, manner,

carriage and dress. A few of the methods used have become

organized into specialties, such as the study of the head or

phrenology, and the study of the hand or palmistry. All of these

systems are really “materialistic” in that they postulate so

close a union of mind and body as to make them inseparable.

But there are grave difficulties in the way of character-judging

by these methods. Take, for example, the study of the physiognomy

as a means to character understanding. All the physiognomists, as

well as the average man, look upon the high, wide brow as related

to great intelligence. And so it is—sometimes. But it is also

found in connection with disease of the brain, as in

hydrocephalus, and in old cases of rickets. You may step into

hospitals for the feebleminded or for the insane and find here

and there a high, noble brow. Conversely you may attend a

scientific convention and find that the finest paper of the

meeting will be read not by some Olympian-browed member, but by a

man with a low, receding forehead, who nevertheless possesses a

high-grade intellect.

So for centuries men have recognized in the large aquiline nose a

sign of power and ability. Napoleon’s famous dictum that no man

with this type of proboscis is a fool has been accepted by many,

most of whom, like Napoleon probably, have large aquiline noses.

The number of failures with this facial peculiarity has never

been studied, nor has any one remarked that many a highly

successful man has a snub nose. And in fact the only kind of a

nose that has a real character value is the one presenting no

obstruction to breathing. The assigned value given to a “pretty”

nose has no relation to character, except as its owner is vain

because of it.

One might go on indefinitely discussing the various features of

the face and discovering that only a vague relationship to

character existed. The thick, moist lower lip is the sensual lip,

say the physiognomists, but there are saints with sensual lips

and chaste thoughts. Squinty eyes may indicate a shifty

character, but more often they indicate conjunctivitis or some

defect of the optical apparatus. A square jaw indicates

determination and courage, but a study of the faces of men who

won medals in war for heroism does not reveal a preponderance of

square jaws. In fact, man is a mosaic of characters, and a fine

nature in one direction may be injured by a defect in another;

even if one part of the face really did mean something definite,

no one could figure out its character value because of the

influence of other features—contradictory, inconsistent,

supplementary. Just as the wisest man of his day took bribes as

Lord Chancellor, so the finest face may be invalidated by some

disharmony, and a fatal weakness may disintegrate a splendid

character. Moreover, no one really studies faces disinterestedly,

impartially, without prejudice. We like or dislike too readily,

we are blinded by the race, sex and age of the one studied, and,

most fatal of all, we judge by standards of beauty that are

totally misleading. The sweetest face may hide the most arrant

egoist, for facial beauty has very little to do with the nature

behind the face. In fact, facial make-up is more influenced by

diet, disease and racial tendency than by character.

It would be idle to take up in any detail the claims of

phrenologist and palmist. The former had a very respectable start

in the work of Broca and Gall[1] in that the localization of

function in the various parts of the brain made at least partly

logical the belief that the conformation of the head also

indicated functions of character. But there are two fatal flaws

in the system of phrenological claims. First, even if there were

an exact cerebral localization of powers, which there is not, it

would by no means follow that the shape of the head outlined the

brain. In fact, it does not, for the long-headed are not

long-brained, nor are the short-headed short-brained. Second, the

size and disposal of the sinuses, the state of nutrition in

childhood have far more to do with the “bumps” of the head than

brain or character. The bump of philoprogenitiveness has in my

experience more often been the result of rickets than a sign of

parental love.

[1] It is to be remembered that phrenology had a good standing at

one time, though it has since lapsed into quackdom. This is the

history of many a “short cut” into knowledge. Thus the wisest men

of past centuries believed in astrology. Paracelsus, who gave to

the world the use of Hg in therapeutics, relied in large part for

his diagnosis and cures upon alchemy and astrology.

Without meaning to pun, we may dismiss the claims of palmistry

offhand. Normally the lines of the hand do not change from birth

to death, but character does change. The hand, its shape and its

texture are markedly influenced by illness,[1] toil and care. And

gait, carriage, clothes and the dozen and one details by which we

judge our fellows indicate health, strength, training and

culture, all of which are components of character, or rather are

characters of importance but give no clue to the deeper-lying

traits.

[1] Notably is the shape of the hand changed by chronic heart and

lung disease and by arthritis. But the influence of the

endocrinal secretions is very great.

As a matter of fact, judgment of character will never be attained

through the study of face, form or hand. As language is a means

not only of expressing truth but of disguising it, so these

surface phenomena are as often masks as guides. Any sober-minded

student of life, intent on knowing himself or his fellows, will

seek no royal road to this knowledge, but will endeavor to

understand the fundamental forces of character, will strive to

trace the threads of conduct back to their origins in motive,

intelligence, instinct and emotion.

We have emphasized the practical value of some sort of character

analysis in dealing with others. But to know himself has a hugely

practical value to every man, since upon that knowledge depends

self-correction. For “man is the only animal that deliberately

undertakes while reshaping his outer world to reshape himself

also.”[1] Moreover, man is the only seeker of perfection; he is a

deep, intense critic of himself. To reach nobility of character

is not a practical aim, but is held to be an end sufficient in

itself. So man constantly probes into himself—“Are my purposes

good; is my will strong—how can I strengthen my control, how

make righteous my instincts and emotions?” It is true that there

is a worship—and always has been—of efficiency and success as

against character; that man has tended to ask more often, “What

has he done?” or, “What has he got?” rather than, “What is he?”

and that therefore man in his self-analysis has often asked, “How

shall I get?” or, “How shall I do?” In the largest sense these

questions are also questions of character, for even if we discard

as inadequate the psychology which considers behavior alone as

important, conduct is the fruit of character, without which it is

sterile.

[1] Hocking.

This book does not aim at any short cuts by which man may know

himself or his neighbor. It seeks to analyze the fundamentals of

personality, avoiding metaphysics as the plague. It does not

define character or seek to separate it from mind and

personality. Written by a neurologist, a physician in the active

practice of his profession, it cannot fail to bear more of the

imprint of medicine, of neurology, than of psychology and

philosophy. Yet it has also laid under contribution these fields

of human effort. Mainly it will, I hope, bear the marks of

everyday experience, of contact with the world and with men and

women and children as brother, husband, father, son, lover,

hater, citizen, doer and observer. For it is this plurality of

contact that vitalizes, and he who has not drawn his universals

of character out of the particulars of everyday life is a

cloistered theorist, aloof from reality.

CHAPTER I. THE ORGANIC BASIS OF CHARACTER

The history of Man’s thought is the real history of mankind. Back

of all the events of history are the curious systems of beliefs

for which men have lived and died. Struggling to understand

himself, Man has built up and discarded superstitions, theologies

and sciences.

Early in this strange and fascinating history he divided himself

into two parts—a body and a mind. Working together with body,

mind somehow was of different stuff and origin than body and had

only a mysterious connection with it. Theology supported this

belief; metaphysics and philosophy debated it with an acumen that

was practically sterile of usefulness. Mind and body “interacted”

in some mysterious way; mind and body were “parallel” and so set

that thought-processes and brain-processes ran side by side

without really having anything to do with one another.[1] With

the development of modern anatomy, physiology and psychology, the

time is ripe for men boldly to say that applying the principle of

causation in a practical manner leaves no doubt that mind and

character are organic, are functions of the organism and do not

exist independently of it. I emphasize “practical” in relation to

causation because it would be idle for us here to enter into the

philosophy of cause and effect. Such discussion is not taken

seriously by the very philosophers who most earnestly enter into

it.

[1] William James in Volume 1 of his “Psychology” gives an

interesting resume of the theories that consider the relationship

of mind (thought and consciousness) to body. He quotes the

“lucky” paragraph from Tyndall, “The passage from the physics of

the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is

unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite

molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not

possess the intellectual organ, or apparently any trace of the

organ which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning

from one to the other.” This is the “parallel” theory which

postulates a hideous waste of energy in the universe and which

throws out of count the same kind of reasoning by which Tyndall

worked on light, heat, etc. We cannot understand the beginning

and