Littell's Living Age/Volume 127/Issue 1634/Character Connoisseurs

From The Saturday Review.

CHARACTER CONNOISSEURS.

The vulgar tendency to simulate a knowledge about things where the requisite conditions of accurate information are clearly wanting has ever been a theme for philosophic satire. It is the recognition of this tendency which has led the thinking few to despise the opinion of the many as a spurious and counterfeit kind of cognition. From Plato, who distinctly excluded mere opinion from the category of certain knowledge, to the modern idealist who pays no heed to the strongest assurances of common sense, philosophers have made light of prevailing convictions on the ground that they are formed in haste and with no due appreciation of the conditions of a rational certainty. Not only so, but science itself, which might be supposed to maintain a more amicable attitude towards prevailing belief, has long since learnt to imitate philosophy in its contempt for vulgar ideas; and a scientific lecture would now be deemed wanting in spirit and point if it failed to illustrate by some startling example the wide opposition between the habitual inferences of common minds and the verified conclusions of the savant.

Nowhere perhaps does popular belief exhibit its hastiness and inadequacy more conspicuously than in the readiness of most persons to pronounce an opinion respecting the characters and motives of others. The confidence with which many a man and woman will talk about the desires and habits of a comparatively new acquaintance must strike a reflective mind as a signal illustration of the eagerness of mankind to seem wise. There are many whose modesty and good sense would prevent their giving an opinion on any point of scientific knowledge or æsthetic appreciation, who nevertheless feel no hesitation in passing judgment respecting matters of conduct of which their knowledge is infinitesimal. Numbers of people who do not in the least seem to be ashamed of ignorance respecting most matters of discussion, are quite sensitive as to their reputation for knowledge with respect to the intricacies of human character. When, for example, there is an addition to the society of a small town through the arrival of a new family, there is the greatest impatience to have a definite and fixed opinion respecting the idiosyncrasies of the new-comers. There will certainly be more than one knowing person whose supposed quickness of perception will at once enable them, satisfactorily to themselves, to define and characterize the man or woman about whom curiosity is naturally aroused. It is curious, too, to notice the readiness of others to accord to these persons the special faculty for intuition which they claim for themselves. It has often been remarked that the first condition of winning the confidence of others is to display a fair amount of self-confidence, and this truth is fully illustrated in the case of the people whom we are now considering. When a lady gives out among her acquaintance that she is an expert in matters of character and disposition, she speedily gains an enviable reputation for this kind of prescience. If there is any new character to be deciphered about which there hangs a certain mystery, she is the authority to whom all repair in order to acquire definite information. If a scandal is just germinating, and everybody is on tiptoe respecting its real nature and results, it is this connoisseur who is resorted to for a final solution of the problem. In this way people are sustained in the pleasing belief that they possess some easy avenue to the minds and hearts of their fellows, thanks to which they are enabled to dispense with the tardy methods of observation, comparison, and analysis, and to read a new character as confidently as an unfolded letter.

Yet it does not call for any remarkable powers of reflection to see that this intuitive kind of knowledge of others must be very delusive. For, first of all, human character is an exceedingly complex and variable thing, and cannot be known except after patient attention. The facile perusal of character of which we now speak always involves two inferences, either of which may be a mistaken one. In the first place, the self-styled observer argues that certain things which have held good of other people will hold good of the new character; and since it is exceedingly easy to mistake a quality of a certain order of minds for a universal attribute of mankind, there is always a chance of a wrong induction. In the next place, the observer is compelled to judge the whole of a character from a very few data; and here again there is ample room for error in reasoning that, because a person felt or acted so and so to-day, this must be his characteristic mode of feeling or acting. In other words, human nature is too variable, both as a whole, and within the limits of a single individual, to allow of the rapid kind of prevision of which we are speaking.

There is a second obstacle to this instantaneous reading of character which calls for special notice. Not only is character a phenomenon of great complexity, but it is also one in a high degree inaccessible. For, in the first place, all the thoughts and purposes of another have to be inferred from external signs; and this process, however carefully carried on, must always be liable to error. The real uniformities of connection between feeling and expression, for example, can only be known approximately after a wide and careful comparison of individual peculiarities. This reflection never occurs to the confident connoisseur of physiognomy, who fondly imagines that every moral peculiarity is distinctly indicated by some one form of facial structure or movement. In the second place, it should be remembered that all of us have a certain power of dissimulation, and most of us are accustomed to put some kind of watch on our words and actions. This is especially the case when we have to confront a new observer. We do not care, in most instances, to be conned too easily by our fellows. Nearly everybody is accustomed to some measure of reticence before strangers, while there are a few who, from a certain kind of pride and force of individuality, are wont even to mislead casual observers respecting their real aims and sentiments. Thus it happens that a person who is ready at a glance to classify any new variety of character runs the risk of accepting as an essential ingredient of the phenomenon something which is wholly adventitious. It may be said, of course, that the instances we have selected are exceptional ones, that the great majority of people are both too much alike and too transparent in their words and actions to occasion any serious difficulty to a skilful noter of men's natures and ways. That there is a certain force in this consideration may be readily granted. At the same time, this fact does not alter the truth of our contention, that in every hasty judgment of character there is always an element of risk which forbids the process being described as an intuitive one. So, too, we may concede that a certain few possess an indisputable faculty of quick perception of the complexities of human character. Yet when we come to analyze this faculty, we find that it resolves itself into a happy skill in conjecture, which no doubt includes a certain range of past observation as well as a quickness of imaginative insight into other persons' feelings, but which nevertheless always remains what Plato would have called an empirical knack, wholly destitute of the exact certainty of scientific inference. Those who see in this conjectural skill a mysterious power of intuition are dazzled by the instances of correct prediction which they happen to have witnessed, and fail to take account of the errors to which this process is certain to lead.

It would probably be an interesting inquiry to trace out the various impulses in human nature which serve to sustain and foster this impatience in the observation of others. Some of the principal influences at work will readily suggest themselves to a thoughtful mind. It is obvious that the mere gratification of pride which attends all consciousness of knowledge, real or imaginary, will not account for the peculiar force of this tendency. That is to say, though it is true that the motive of vanity leads men to imagine that they are conversant with many matters of which they are in reality profoundly ignorant, it does not explain why they should be especially liable to assume this appearance of intelligence with respect to their fellows. It is evident that these special influences must be looked for in the peculiarities of the relations which people hold to one another. The following suggestions may perhaps roughly indicate the character of these influences. First of all, it is manifestly of practical importance to everybody to gain some- thing like a definite opinion respecting those whom he has to meet in social inter- course. If, as some philosophers contend, the first motive of all inquiry is the need of a definite basis for action, we may understand how it is that most people are so eager to come to a decision respecting the dispositions of their acquaintances. Nothing is more embarrassing and annoying, for example, to a hospitably disposed lady than to have to do with a person whose tastes and ideas are shrouded in mystery. By the very painfulness of the situation she is driven to frame some hypothesis as to the person's real character, however little ground she may have for plausible conjecture. In this way people come to delude themselves that they have ascertained a man's real character, when they have simply been driven by the inconveniences of conscious ignorance to construct a purely hypothetical conception with regard to the object. Another influence at work in these cases is a form of the primitive fetichistic impulse to interpret everything outside one's own conscious life in terms of the same. The same tendency which accounts for the savage projecting his own feelings and intentions into tree or river accounts for people transferring their own modes of thought and sentiment to every new mind which comes under their notice. It is quite curious to remark the inveteracy of this habit, even after ample opportunity has been given for discovering the endless diversities of individual temperament. Possibly there is a charm to many persons in the spectacle of a mind retaining up to mature years the naïve belief that all the rest of the world must feel and act precisely as it does, and this æsthestic consideration may serve still further to confirm the habit. People are encouraged in the cultivation of this mode of regarding others by the reflection that it is taken to indicate a singular innocence of nature and a touching unfitness to deal with the harsh intricacies and contradictions of human character. However this may be, the habit does prevail in many minds, and is a fruitful source of hasty inference and delusive misconception. May one not see illustrations of this tendency in the great liability of both men and women to delude themselves with respect to the characters which they chose for the matrimonial relation? It is not only the innocent girl who commits this error by fondly imagining in the absence of evidence that her lover must necessarily share her own pure thoughts; the highly cultivated man too may fall into it by taking for granted that the young woman whom he selects as his most intimate companion feels the same high aspirations that he himself feels.

The other influences which appear to favour this impatience of belief with respect to the characters of others are special emotional forces. The operation of feeling in sustaining assurance even when there is the minimum of evidence has been a favourite theme of philosophers. There are two modes of this operation, according as the feeling predisposes to belief in any shape or favours some particular variety of conviction. Both of these modes may be illustrated in the class of beliefs of which we are now speaking. An example of the first is given us in the action of a love of power on our observation of others' characters. A readiness in unravelling the threads of human sentiment and purpose has always been looked on as a ground for self-gratulation and for the admiration of others. A man who thinks himself capable of divining instantaneously another's unspoken thoughts has not only the pleasing consciousness of power which every supposition of knowledge brings with it, but also a gratifying feeling of equality with this second person. That is to say, he thinks himself on a level with this other in respect to the knowledge of any thoughts or impulses which may occur to him. Not only so, but the assumption of this omniscient insight into character will pretty certainly inspire awe, if not dread, in many other minds, so that the man or woman who can make any pretensions to this fine penetration will be able to indulge in the most delicious emotions of power and superiority. A supposition so intensely gratifying as this must be will pretty certainly be secure from that close scrutiny and careful verification which alone would prove its validity. The feelings which predispose men to entertain à priori a certain kind of notion respecting the character of others are too numerous to be dwelt on here. It may suffice to mention a few of them. There is the desire for sympathy, which is very strong in most minds, and which prompts a person to anticipate that every new character will respond in a kind of grateful resonance to his individual sentiments. Then there are the impulses of love and admiration which predispose the mind to believe in human goodness and render it optimistic in its conceptions of character. On the other hand, there are the less pleasing sentiments of distrust, hostility, and contempt, which sustain the conception that everybody is mean and ignoble till he has proved himself to be the contrary. These and other feelings always dispose their possessors to form certain opinions respecting any new character long before they have the necessary foundation for such opinions. To any one who will give himself the trouble of working out the many and complicated influences which tend to produce conviction respecting matters of character, quite apart from the force of evidence, it cannot be surprising that people's judgments on the ideas and motives of others are often so crude and inexact, and so little deserving: to be called intuitions.