CHARACTER ANALYSIS 1. Character and personality.—Some of the most important words in the English language are the hardest to define. Who can tell, for example, what happiness really is? Who can define love in a way that will satisfy a lover? Character is one of,these indefinable words. When you know what a man is, how he will think, feel and act under certain circum stances, or, as the psychologists say, how he will "react" under various stimuli, then you know his character.
Ability to judge character correctly is an essential to success in business. Most successful business men form quick and usually. correct judgments as to the capacity and quality of the men with whom they are thrown into contact. Just how they do it they selves cannot tell; indeed, this is a subject on which no scientist can yet speak with anything like for no complete and scientific study has yet been made of all the physical manifestations which ably accompany various mental traits. In our ments of character we must rely upon common sense rather than upon any scientific rules of observation. By common sense we mean those judgments or opinions which are generally accepted as true among people who are called sensible, the man who does not accept them as true being commonly known as a crank. Common sense is the unconscious fruit of a multitude of experiences and observations common to all the people in a community or country. Com mon sense is not carefully reasoned out. When a. man flies in the face of common sense we laugh at him and will not listen to his excuses. "He ought to have known better than to skate on such thin ice," we say when a man breaks thru and is nearly drowned. If he is an engineer and comes forward with a care fully prepared calculation showing that the ice was thick enough to support his weight, we are not at all interested or convinced—he is a mathematical crank and does not get our sympathy. Common sense is a despot who accepts no excuses.
2. Does character mark by the exercise of ordinary conunon sense we do often size up a stranger with a considerable degree of accuracy, it would seem to follow that character is somehow stamped upon the exterior. I do not see how we can
escape from this conclusion. An expert _breeder of horses, judging by marks not noticed by the average man, quickly discovers the quality and value of strange horses. The thorobred he recog,nizes at a glance; so he does the cayuse or the mixture of cavuse and thorobred. Judging two colts, he knows that one will make a safe family horse and that the other will be skittish, tricky and dangerous. The same is true of dog and cat fanciers. The animals are marked by their characters and the experts can read the rnarks.
When we consider that each of' our thoughts and emotions is the result of certain physiological changes which bring pressure of some kind to bear on what we call the will, either quieting it or arousing it to determined action, it would be strange if man's phys ical exterior and behavior did not correspond with his inner or mental experiences. We know well enough that certain violent emotions produce marked changes in the countenance and bearing of a man. We are all familiar with the signs of' anger, fear, doubt. In an emergency the timid or cowardly man involuntarily betrays himself, not by his reluctance to do something bold and brave, but by the look on his face when he tries to act bravely or boldly.
In the light of such well-known facts, all of which are matters of common sense, we are almost forced to conclude that a man's exterior reveals the character that is within him; that, therefore, if a man wants to be thought truthful by his fellows lie must be truth ful; that if he wishes to be thought brave lie must be brave; that if he wishes to be thought steadfast and purposeful he must be steadfast and purposeful; that if he wishes to be thought an ambitious man of' high ideals he must actually be that kind of man. In ways which science has not :„Tet classified or analyzed a man's character is stamped on his face, bearing and mariner of speech. It is worth while, therefore, for us to consider some of . those signs which help us to get an idea of a stranger's character.