From time immemorial there have been only two systems of education; one for those who come into the world designated by one set of characters as males, and another for those who are similarly assumed to be females. Almost at once the “boys” and the “girls” are dressed differently, learn to play different games, go through different courses of instruction, the girls being put to stitching and so forth. The intermediate individuals are placed at a great disadvantage. And yet the instincts natural to their condition reveal themselves quickly enough, often even before puberty. There are boys who like to play with dolls, who learn to knit and sew with their sisters, and who are pleased to be given girls’ names. There are girls who delight in the noisier sports of their brothers, and who make chums and playmates of them. After puberty, there is a still stronger display of the innate differences. Manlike women wear their hair short, affect manly dress, study, drink, smoke, are fond of mountaineering, or devote themselves passionately to sport. Womanish men grow their hair long, wear corsets, are experts in the toilet devices of women, and show the greatest readiness to become friendly and intimate with them, preferring their society to that of men.
Later on, the different laws and customs to which the so-called sexes are subjected press them as by a vice into distinctive moulds. The proposals which should follow from my conclusions will encounter more passive resistance, I fear, in the case of girls than in that of boys. I must here contradict, in the most positive fashion, a dogma that is authoritatively and widely maintained at the present time, the idea that all women are alike, that no individuals exist amongst women. It is true that amongst those individuals whose constitutions lie nearer the female side than the male side, the differences and possibilities are not so great as amongst those on the male side; the greater variability of males is true not only for the human race but for the living world, and is related to the principles established by Darwin. None the less, there are plenty of differences amongst women. The psychological origin of this common error depends chiefly on a fact that I explained in chap. iii., the fact that every man in his life becomes intimate only with a group of women defined by his own constitution, and so naturally he finds them much alike. For the same reason, and in the same way, one may often hear a woman say that all men are alike. And the narrow uniform view about men, displayed by most of the leaders of the women’s rights movement depends on precisely the same cause.
It is clear that the principle of the existence of innumerable individual proportions of the male and female principles is a basis of the study of character which must be applied in any rational scheme of pedagogy.
The science of character must be associated with some form of psychology that takes into account some theory of the real existence of mental phenomena in the same fashion that anatomy is related to physiology. And so it is necessary, quite apart from theoretical reasons, to attempt to pursue a psychology of individual differences. This attempt will be readily enough followed by those who believe in the parallelism between mind and matter, for they will see in psychology no more than the physiology of the central nervous system, and will readily admit that the science of character must be a sister of morphology. As a matter of fact there is great hope that in future characterology and morphology will each greatly help the other. The principle of sexually intermediate forms, and still more the parallelism between characterology and morphology in the widest application, make us look forward to the time when physiognomy will take its honourable place amongst the sciences, a place which so many have attempted to gain for it but as yet unsuccessfully.
The problem of physiognomy is the problem of the relation between the static mental forces and the static bodily forces, just as the problem of physiological psychology deals with the dynamic aspect of the same relations. It is a great error in method, and in fact, to treat the study of physiognomy, because of its difficulty, as impracticable. And yet this is the attitude of contemporary scientific circles, unconsciously perhaps rather than consciously, but occasionally becoming obvious as for instance in the case of the attempt of von Möbius to pursue the work of Gall with regard to the physiognomy of those with a natural aptitude for mathematics. If it be possible, and many have shown that it is possible, to judge correctly much of the character of an individual merely from the examination of his external appearance, without the aid of cross-examination or guessing, it cannot be impossible to reduce such modes of observation to an exact method. There is little more required than an exact study of the expression of the characteristic emotions and the tracking (to use a rough analogy) of the routes of the cables passing to the speech centres.
None the less it will be long before official science ceases to regard the study of physiognomy as illegitimate. Although people will still believe in the parallelism of mind and body, they will continue to treat the physiognomist as as much of a charlatan as until quite recently the hypnotist was thought to be. None the less, all mankind at least unconsciously, and intelligent persons consciously, will continue to be physiognomists, people will continue to judge character from the nose, although they will not admit the existence of a science of physiognomy, and the portraits of celebrated men and of murderers will continue to interest every one.
I am inclined to believe that the assumption of a universally acquired correspondence between mind and body may be a hitherto neglected fundamental function of our mind. It is certainly the case that every one believes in physiognomy and actually practises it. The principle of the existence of a definite relation between mind and body must be accepted as an illuminating axiom for psychological research, and it will be for religion and metaphysics to work out the details of a relationship which must be accepted as existing.
Whether or no the science of character can be linked with morphology, it will be valuable not only to these sciences but to physiognomy if we can penetrate a little deeper into the confusion that now reigns in order to find if wrong methods have not been responsible for it. I hope that the attempt I am about to make will lead some little way into the labyrinth, and will prove to be of general application.
Some men are fond of dogs and detest cats; others are devoted to cats and dislike dogs. Inquiring minds have delighted to ask in such cases, Why are cats attractive to one person, dogs to another? Why?
I do not think that this is the most fruitful way of stating the problem. I believe it to be more important to ask in what other respects lovers of dogs and of cats differ from one another. The habit, where one difference has been detected, of seeking for the associated differences, will prove extremely useful not only to pure morphology and to the science of character, but ultimately to physiognomy, the meeting-point of the two sciences. Aristotle pointed out long ago that many characteristics of animals do not vary independently of each other. Later on Cuvier, in particular, but also Geoffrey St. Hilaire and Darwin made a special study of these “correlations.” Occasionally the association of the characters is easy to understand on obvious utilitarian principles; where for instance the alimentary canal is adapted to the digestion of flesh, the jaws and body must be adapted for the capture of the prey. But association such as that between ruminant stomachs and the presence of cloven hoofs and of horns in the male, or of immunity to certain poisons with particular colouring of the hair, or among domestic pigeons of short bills with small feet, of long bills with large feet, or in cats of deafness with white fur and blue eyes—such are extremely difficult to refer to a single purpose.
I do not in the least mean to assert that science must be content with no more than the mere discovery of correlations. Such a position would be little better than that of a person who was satisfied by finding out that the placing of a penny in the slot of a particular automatic machine always was followed by the release of a box of matches. It would be making resignation the leading principle of metaphysics. We shall get a good deal further by such correlations, as, for instance, that of long hair and normal ovaries; but these are within the sphere of physiology, not of morphology. Probably the goal
