738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cimens of good and bad-tempered persons, and all of us could proba- 

 bly specify not a few approriate test conditions to try the temper in 

 various ways, and elicit definite responses. There is no doubt that the 

 temper of a dog can be tested. Many boys do it habitually, and learn 

 to a nicety how much each will put up with, without growling or show- 

 ing other signs of resentment. They do the same to one another, and 

 gauge each other's tempers accurately. 



It is difficult to speak of tests of character without thinking of 

 Benjamin Franklin's amusing tale of the "Handsome and the De- 

 formed Leg," and there is no harm in quoting it, because, however 

 grotesque, it exemplifies the principle of tests. In it he describes two 

 sorts of people ; those who habitually dwell on the pleasanter circum- 

 stances of the moment, and those who have no eyes but for the un- 

 pleasing ones. He tells how a philosophical friend took special pre- 

 cautions to avoid those persons who, being discontented themselves, 

 sour the pleasures of society, offend many people, and make themselves 

 everywhere disagreeable. In order to discover a pessimist at first 

 sight, he cast about for an instrument. He of course possessed a ther- 

 mometer to test heat, and a barometer to tell the air-pressure, but he 

 had no instrument to test the characteristic of which we are speaking. 

 After much pondering he hit upon a happy idea. He chanced to have 

 one remarkably handsome leg, and one that by some accident was 

 crooked and deformed, and these he used for the purpose. If a stran- 

 ger regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted 

 him. If he spoke of it and took no notice of the handsome leg, the 

 philosopher determined to avoid his further acquaintance. Franklin 

 sums up by saying that every one has not this two-legged instrument, 

 but every one with a little attention may observe the signs of a carp- 

 ing and fault-finding disposition. 



This very disposition is the subject of the eighteenth " character " 

 of Theophrastus, who describes the conduct of such men under the 

 social conditions of the day, one of which is also common to our own 

 time and countrymen. He says that when the weather has been very 

 dry for a long time, and it at last changes, the grumbler, being unable 

 to complain of the rain, complains that it did not come sooner. The 

 British philosopher has frequent opportunities for applying weather 

 tests to those whom he meets, and with especial fitness to such as hap- 

 pen to be agriculturists. 



The points I have endeavored to impress are chiefly these : First, 

 that character ought to be measured by carefully recorded acts, repre- 

 sentative of the usual conduct. An ordinary generalization is nothing 

 more than a muddle of vague memories of inexact observations. It is 

 an easy vice to generalize. We want lists of facts, every one of which 

 may be separately verified, valued, and revalued, and the whole accu- 

 rately summed. It is the statistics of each man's conduct in small, 

 every-day affairs that will probably be found to give the simplest and 



