The same one-sidedness and epigrammatic exaggeration can always be felt where whole groups of men are to be characterized. “The faults of the dwarf are sixty, of the red-haired man eighty, of the humpback a hundred, and of the one-eyed man innumerable.”
But let us rather turn to sayings in which the subtlety of psychological observation deserves admiration: “The drunkard, the careless, the insane, the fatigued, the angry, the hungry, the greedy, the timid, the hasty, and the lover know no law”; “If a man commits a crime, his voice and the colour of his face become changed, his look becomes furtive, and the fire is gone from his eye”; “The best remedy for a pain is no longer to think of it; if you think of it, the pain will increase”; “A greedy man can be won by money, an angry man by folding the hands, a fool by doing his will, and an educated man by speaking the truth”; “The wise man can recognize the inner thoughts of another from the colour of his face, from his look, from the sound of his words, from his walk, from the reflections in his eyes, and from the form of his mouth”; “The good and bad thoughts, however much they are hidden, can be discovered from a man when he talks in his sleep or in his drunkenness”; “The ignorant can be satisfied easily, and still more easily the well educated, but a man who has become confused by a little knowledge cannot be won over even by Brahma”; “Good people are pacified by fair treatment, even if they have been very angry, but not common people; gold, though it is hard, can be melted, but not grass”; “By too great familiarity we produce low esteem, by too frequent visits, indifference; in the Malaja mountains a beggar woman uses the sandalwood tree for firewood”; “The silly man steps in without being invited, talks much without being questioned, and trusts him who does not deserve confidence”; “New knowledge does not last in the mind of the uneducated any more than a string of pearls about the neck of a monkey”; “The inner power of great men becomes more evident in their misfortune than in their fortune; the fine perfume of aloes wood is strongest when it falls into the fire”; “The anger of the best man lasts an instant, of the mediocre man six hours, of the common man a day and a night, and the rascal will never get rid of it”; “The scholar laughs with his eyes, mediocre people show their teeth when they laugh, common people roar, and true men of wisdom never laugh”; “Truthfulness and cleverness can be found out in the course of a conversation, but modesty and restraint are visible at the first glance”; “Grief destroys wisdom, grief destroys scholarship, grief destroys endurance; there is no perturbation of the mind like grief.” Often we hardly know whether a psychological observation or a metaphor is given to us. In any case we may appreciate the fineness of a saying like this: “Even a most translucent, beautiful, perfectly round and charming pearl can be strung on a thread as soon as it has been pierced; so a mind which longs for salvation, perfectly pure, free from quarrel with any one and full of goodness, will nevertheless be bound down to the earthly life as soon as it quarrels with itself.” On the borderland of psychology we may find sayings like these: “As a tailor's needle fastens the thread in the garment, so the thread of our earthly life becomes fastened by the needle of our desires”; “An elephant kills us if he touches us, a snake even if he smells us, a prince even if he smiles on us, and a scoundrel even if he adores us.” But there is one saying which the most modern psychologist would accept, as it might just as well be a quotation from a report of the latest exact statistics. The Indian maxim says: “There is truth in the claim that the minds of the sons resemble more the minds of the fathers, those of the daughters more those of the mothers.”
We may leave the banks of the Ganges and listen to the wisdom of Europe. Antiquity readily trusted the wonderful knowledge of men which Homer displays. He has instinctively delineated the characters with the inner truth of life. How far was this art of the creative poet accompanied by the power of psychological abstraction? I do not think that we can find in the forty-eight books of Homer even a dozen contributions to our unwritten system of the naïve psychology of the nations. To be sure we ought not to omit in such a system the following reflections from the “Odyssey”: “Wine leads to folly, making even the wise to love immoderately, to dance, and to utter what had better have been kept silent”; or “Too much rest itself becomes a pain”; or still better, “The steel blade itself often incites to deeds of violence.” We may have more doubt whether it is psychologically true when we read: “Few sons are equal to their sires, most of them are less worthy, only a few are superior to their fathers”; or, “Though thou lovest thy wife, tell not everything which thou knowest to her, but unfold some trifle while thou concealest the rest.” From the “Iliad” we may quote: “Thou knowest the over-eager vehemence of youth, quick in temper, but weak in judgment”; or, “Noblest minds are easiest bent”; or, “With everything man is satiated—sleep, sweet singing, and the joyous dance; of all these man gets sooner tired than of war.” Some may even doubt whether Homer's psychology is right when he claims: “Even though a man by himself may discover the best course, yet his judgment is slower and his resolution less firm than when two go together.” And in the alcohol question he leaves us a choice: “Wine gives much strength to wearied men”; or if we prefer, “Bring me no luscious wines, lest they unnerve my limbs and make me lose my wonted powers and strength.”
It is not surprising that the theoretical psychology of the Bible is no less meagre. Almost every word which deals with man's mind reflects the moral and religious values and is thus removed from pure psychology into ethics. Or we find comparisons which suggestively illuminate the working of the mind without amplifying our psychological understanding. We approach empirical psychology most nearly in verses like these: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of the child, but the word of correction should drive it far from him”; or “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much”; or “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant”; or “The full soul loatheth an honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet”; or “For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was”; or “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.” But here we have almost overstepped the limits of real psychology; we are moving toward ethics. Nor can we call metaphors like this psychology: “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.”
Let us turn for a moment to the greatest knower of men in mediæval days, to Dante. How deeply his poetic eye looked into the hearts of men, how living are the characters in his “Divine Comedy”; and yet he left us hardly any psychological observations. Some psychology may be acknowledged in words like these: “The man in whose bosom thought on thought awakes is always disappointed in his object, for the strength of the one weakens the other”; “When we are wholly absorbed by feelings of delight or of grief, our soul yields itself to this one object, and we are no longer able to direct our thoughts elsewhere”; “There is no greater grief than to remember our happy time in misery.” It is hardly psychology if we hear, “The bad workman finds fault with his tools”; or, “Likeness ever gives birth to love”; or “The wisest are the most annoyed to lose time.”
From Dante we naturally turn to Shakespeare. We have so often heard that he is the greatest psychologist, and yet we ought not to forget that such a popular classification does not in itself really mean that Shakespeare undertakes the work of the psychologist. It does mean that he creates figures with the temperament, character, thought, and will so similar to life and so full of inner mental truth that the psychologist might take the persons of the poet's imagination as material for his psychological studies. But this by no means suggests that Shakespeare phrased abstract judgments about mental life; and as we seek his wisdom in his dramatic plays, it may be taken for granted that in this technical sense he must be a poor psychologist, because he is a great dramatist. Does not the drama demand that every word spoken be spoken not from the author's standpoint, but from the particular angle of the person in the play? And this means that every word is embedded in the individual mood and emotion, thought, and sentiment of the speaker. A truly psychological statement must be general and cannot be one thing for Hamlet and another for Ophelia. The dramatist's psychological sayings serve his art, unfolding before us the psychological individuality of the speaker, but they do not contribute to the textbooks of psychology, which ought to be independent of personal standpoints. And yet what a stream of verses flows down to us, which have the ring of true psychology!
“Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.”
“Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ.”
“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such sharp fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.”
“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”