Character Analysis by Types Not Reliable
Character analysis by "types" is unreliable. I believe as little in phrenology as in palm-reading. I have directed thousands of men in business. Personal experience has proved to me that the permanent structure of a particular human body is not an invariably true index to the characteristics of the inner, or ego man who owns that body.
He has had no control over the color of his hair or eyes. He cannot reshape the bones of his face, nor alter the bumps on his head. To believe that such permanent structural details of the "natural" outer man determine or denote the peculiar aptitudes of the inner man is to credit the exploded doctrine of fore-ordination.
Therefore, when you have gained the chance to present your capabilities for sale to a chosen prospect with whom you believe you will have the best opportunities to succeed, and when you are swiftly shaping your presentation plans to fit his personality, don't size up merely the factors of his make-up with which he was born. You will be apt to mistake his true character if you have come to his office with the delusion that the blonde type of man is fundamentally different in nature from the brunette type. Get out of your head any misconception that a man is foredoomed to practically certain failure in a particular career because he has a big nose, sloping brow, and receding chin; and that another man with a snub nose, bulging forehead, and protruding jaw is destined almost surely to succeed if he selects a certain vocation. No "mind man" with a normal, healthy body is limited in his possibilities of success by being born with red, or black, or tow hair; or because the bones of his head happen to be shaped in a particular way. The ego is the master, not the slave, of the body.
True Signs of Character
The true signs of character are to be read only in the words, tones, and movements of a man—and in his muscle structure as he has developed it or has left it undeveloped. We already have seen in a previous chapter how a mind center and its co-ordinated set of muscles develop each other. So the positive characteristics of the inner man are revealed clearly by the muscle structure built up by his habits of thinking and feeling and action. On the other hand, his deficiency in certain mental and emotional development is indicated negatively by his lack of the muscle structure that naturally would be co-ordinate with such development.
The relation of muscular development to mental development, as explained in an earlier chapter, suggests the one sure way to judge a man's habits of thinking. Observe discriminatingly his various muscle structures, and his muscle activities in detail. The development of certain sets of muscles proves a co-ordinate development of the mind centers most directly connected with these muscle structures. Similarly the mental action of a man is indicated by his physical manifestations with his muscles in movements.
Hence if you learn to read the mental significance of particular muscle structures and of particular muscle actions, you will be able to size up both the habits of thought (individual characteristics) of a man, and what he happens to be thinking at the time you come to present your services or ideas for sale.
Recapitulation
Before going on with our study of the subject of this chapter, let us summarize the preceding pages to make sure that we know thoroughly the somewhat difficult but very important ground we have gone over thus far.