Analyzing Character: The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social LifeBlackford, Katherine M. H. (Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Science
Analyzing Character: The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social Life
Blackford, Katherine M. H. (Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Characters and characteristics; Success
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 wait for the final work
of the mathematician; but, with plain common sense, let us apply such
knowledge as we have at hand. This knowledge should be the result of
careful observation, of a careful and prolonged study of all that science
has discovered in regard to man, his origin, his development, his history,
his body, and his mind. Every conclusion reached should be verified, not
in hundreds, but in thousands of cases, before it is finally accepted.
The perfection of such a science requires the united efforts of many
investigators, experimenters, and practical workers, such as teachers,
employers, social workers, parents, and men and women everywhere, each in
his own way and in the solution of his own problems. Were a uniform method
adopted and made a part of the vocational work of our social settlements,
our public schools, our colleges and universities, and other institutions,
also by private individuals in selecting their own vocations; were uniform
records to be made and every subject analyzed followed up, and his career
studied, we should, in one generation, have data from which any
intelligent, analytical mind could formulate a science of human analysis
very nearly approaching exactitude.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account