Short Cuts to Self Knowledge
Meet Yourself. By Prince Leopold Loewenstein and William Gerhardi. (Faber. 6s.) WIIOLES seem to be of two sorts ; there are those which are the sum of their pasts and those which are not. A machine is just the sum total ofthe various cranks, nuts, levers and screws which compose it, a bank balance of the various amounts which from different sources are paid into it. But a picture is, it is obvious, more than the sum total of the chemical constituents of the paints and the canvas used in its produc- tion, a symphony than the vibrations in the atmosphere set in motion by the instruments which play its notes. Hence it follows that descriptions in terms of chemistry of the paint and canvas, in terms of physics of the vibrations, are not equivalent to an account of the painting or the symphony.
What sort of whole is a human personality ? Dr rather, since hands are part of the body and hands arc our immediate concern, the body and mind which are or are owned by a human personality ? Both the books under consideration answer by implication that it is a whole of the first sort—inevitably, since both seek to throw light upon its nature by giving an account of its constituent parts. Dr. Wolff reads hands. Trained in medicine, she has made it her object to elevate palmistry into a science, known rather formidably as chirology. More precisely, chirology is defined both as "a methodical science and an interpretative art." The book consists of an account of Dr. Wolff's system, the readings of a number of specimen hands with interpretative commentary, and an intro- duction by Mr. Aldous Huxley. The hands read are for the most part those of famous persons—the Huxley brothers, Bernard Shaw, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and so on. - But the hands of more ordinary persons also appear grouped under headings. There are, for example, the hands of ten materialists, set off by those of ten idealists. The claim made by the pub- lishers on behalf of these readings is far-reaching. They are said to enable Dr. Wolff "to give an account of" the subject's " natural instincts and abilities and to indicate the more important spiritual events of his past and future life." Dr. Wolff herself is more modest. She disclaims all power to provide information about the body ; it is to psychology only that, in her view, chirology can contribute. What has hap- pened to him in the past, what sort of person the individual is in the present, and even what adventures he is likely to undergo in the future—these things she can within limits tell us; and, we have Mr. Aldous Huxley's word for it—it is, indeed, our only reason for concerning ourselves with such palpable nonsense— that she does in fact on occasion tell us.
That past events should leave their tokens in the shape of traces on the hand, I am prepared to believe. We know so little about the relation of the mind and the body, and that relation is by any account so odd, that until we are in a position to "iiiy -why an injection of sheep's pituitary should make a congenital idiot capable of doing mental arithmetic, we may as
• well simply accept the fact. But the claim to divine the future has the most disturbing implications. The main lines of-the hand remain, it appears, more or less unchanged throughout life. If you take prints over a series of years, you will see noticeable modifications of the pattern, but it will remain ftindamentally the same pattern. Very well, then, the traits and eientsivhich the chirologist, reading the hand in maturity - will describe ' as existing traits and past events, the same chirologist, reading the hand when its owner was four 'or five ' years old,-wouM have divined as future. This disturbing result arises, I think, from the assumption, implicit, as I have already pointed out, in all that is written upon the subject, that the character is reached by adding together character traits, that a Personality in fact is a whole which is the sum of its parts. If it is, then a logical development of Dr. Wolff's method should enable the chirologist to divine the whole of a person's character from the sum total of his character traits. If not, not. After reading Dr. Woltrs book, I incline to the view that what gets imprinted on the hand is like the representation of a piece of . writing that appears-on the blotting paper it is tliat."4s, an.imperfeetand incomplete.record of of what goes - on in the perannia!mol amrepaTed, to regal-4as highly plau- sible the view suggested by Mr. Aldous,Huxley, that the hand is not really read at all, but merely serves as an instrument for concentrating or focussing the attention of the chirologist, as the crystal focusses the attention of the crystal-gazer, pre- paratory to a direct reading of the mind by some faculty of extra-sensory intuition.
Prince Loewenstein and William Gerhardi are also scientists of character. They claim that the analytical system- on which the present book is based represents the nearest approach to an accurate characterology so far undertaken." And they, too, believe that the character is a whole which is completely made up of its component parts. There are, they hold, certain more or less constant elements and- sub-elements of character, and it is the enormous variety of their possible combinations which accounts for the differences between one individual and his fellows. The book provides an extremely ingenious method of enabling you to discover your own character and that of your friends by the method of question and answer. The reader is asked to answer an immense variety of questions—" Do you like your bath very hot ? " " Would you exult with Henley that you were ' the captain of your soul, the master of your fate ' ? " " Could you witness an execution ? "—and according to his replies he finds himself assigned to a certain character group. More questions take him into a sub-group of the original group ; more questions still into a group yet smaller. The process continues until, somewhere towards the end of the book, he is rewarded by an account of his character. My own expe- rience was unfortunate. Proceeding by way of the colour yellow and the River Isis, I found myself addressed as follows : " It is not by mere chance that one finds amongst people of your type many sportsmen, soldiers, engineers, pilots and racing motorists of both sexes ; for courage- is amongst the most important of your characteristics." Well, well ! One knows little enough about oneself admittedly, but " racing motorists of both sexes " !
Some of the character studies are extremely entertaining, and the book is well and amusingly written. It contains, for example, a beautiful sketch of the successful public schoolboy, a masterly diagnosis of " what is wrong with the times," and a brilliant analysis of Don Juanism, its causes and its effects. Put it at its lowest, and it is a first-rate parlour game for Christmas family gatherings ; but for my part—and here apparently I am true to my character group —I cannot find the self as interesting as the authors apparently do. " Sir," said Dr. Johnson, ".you have only two subjects —yourself and myself, and I am sick of both." I agree
Previous page
