Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/74

62 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 