238 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
no quality, in theory at any rate, that cannot thus be comparably 
expressed. 
In his conclusions he will beware of four temptations. First, he 
must never court the applause of the unlearned, and the sneers of the 
worldly-wise, by claiming to have caught a living soul, and to have 
caged it in a formula, however technical, however abstruse. The grow- 
ing mind is more than the sum of simple assignable elements; and all 
personal equations must issue ina surd. Similarly, he will avoid con- 
densing his data at any point into vague generalisations—the announce- 
ment of a type, an average, or a total. A composite of snapshots, each 
taken from a different angle—a side-view, a full-view, a half-turn, and 
the rest—is no photograph at all; only an indecipherable blur. Thirdly, 
he must everywhere shun the besetting sin of the mere literary 
biographer—the confusing of facts with hypotheses to explain those 
facts, or, worse still, the submission of bare subjective inferences 
fortified by a string of anecdotes; data and interpretations the scientist 
keeps rigidly apart. Finally, throughout his inquiry, he must neither 
correct nor criticise, but coldly and calmly observe. His interest lies 
in realities, not in values; and should be ‘ positive,’ as the philosophers 
say, not ‘ normative.’ The teacher may psychologise while he is teach- 
ing, but he must not teach while he is testing. Nor should he anticipate 
the judgment-day by seeking to award praise or blame. His humble 
function is that of the recording angel, who registers, like a watch or a 
weighing machine, without audible comment. 
There can be no denying that each inquiry will be slow, circuitous, 
and cumbersome. How long (it is sometimes asked) should it take to 
size up a single child? It was a tradition of the ancient world that no 
metamorphosis could hide a god from a god. And, upon a comple- 
mentary principle, it seems often assumed that no disguise or taciturnity 
can save defectives or delinquents from the penetration of the mental 
expert. He is expected to cast his eye round the classroom or the 
prison, and to make a darting snapshot diagnosis on the spot. Our 
school doctors are given about ten minutes to decide whether a boy is 
deficient or not. Our magistrates take fifteen or twenty to determine 
what is best for a first offender. But the laboratory tester thinks himself 
a miracle of swiftness if he has measured a child’s intelligence in less 
than an hour; and the psychoanalyst asks his startled patient for six 
months of separate weekly sittings to unravel a single complex. A 
longer period still was required by Shakespeare : 
‘Tt is not a year or two shows us a man.’ 
And Dr. Johnson thought the intimacy of a lifetime scarcely enough : 
‘God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his 
days.’ Whether they be normal or subnormal, backward, delinquent, 
or neurotic, or merely youthful applicants seeking their most appropriate 
career in after-life, we can deal with human beings fairly and efficiently 
only by making an intensive, individual study of each isolated mind; 
there is no other way. Human personality, with all its infinite variety, 
is the most important single factor in all our social life; and the 
expenditure of time, howeyer lavish, will never be lost. 
