The Human Character In All Its Aspects

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28268, 4 May 1957, Page 3

The Human Character In All Its Aspects

s, I fitninctd by H.L.G.) , ounct«r of Man. By En 1 I ! Monnier. Translate - I lais English by Cynthia Rom ‘ jurf. Rocklin. 341 pp. - ' ysi« remarkable book is a lane r ■ -jrk in psychological literatur, I .-j has already been recognise B > ,«“* in Euro P e - In Franc s is spite of its length (it is 8C 1 i rages in the original) and th - I&ttat it is by no means work, it has sold mor ' • xin 200,000 copies. Its impoi , I ÜBce lies first in its compre " r bareness: it is, in fact, a com p’ e ie statement of what moder t psychology knows about huma - in its aspects, bring > together and shaping int L eiterence not only the work c st si! the major figures since Freuc r but the knowledge that is usually 5 i ceJ? to be found dispersed in s raiety of scientific papers an, i pgvehologieal journals. Mor j g-in that, it also assembles rele nst fact and illustration, criti eisn and comment, from litera tare, politics, art, theology, ant i philosophy. But even more im 5 pertant than the impressive rang ifl f the book is its originality The author (who unfortunatel; ged at the age of 47 soon afte I eoir pie ting this massive work had both a mind of rare quality ind sn inspiring view of humai I nature which informs his whol< *s bock, giving it a depth and spiri ts 'teal quality that are totally ab fgnt from many more “detached' <• tnd studies of humai i- character. re I “No-one,” writes Emmanue l e Jfcnmier, “can deal objectively I man. It is so customary t( a particular standpoin ic by a shoV of science, that w< n " i prefer to declare openly that oui °“ '[laence, though honest, is none tn fee less a fighting science.” Ht d, wrote his book during the Ger Occupation from 1942-44 ad. though his purpose was partly an io fill a gap in French psychology literature, and he intendec ■fc'lfe be scientific, there was “ar ‘even more immediate purpose”: ( We have entered (he wrote) on< k-.af those periodic crises of humanity lln which man makes an agonisec en .attempt to preserve the traits of i ititage that is breaking up. or tc “® sccgnise the semblance of man ir P® the new countenance approaching. c " . Then, in the confusion of al ay ’attees, he must choose firmly al JO’ffcat it means to be a man, and s he 3UP of his time: then will it with . idefing, linking imagination with his “® Meity. We have chosen. This ” • ftuey is not solely a study of man a struggle for man. lz-' This kind of aim will no doub ilfenate at the outset thos< “'■itadents of psychology who be ,o-that there is no commor n’aground.between science and morai Wrfjgpentives. or between science niitac the life of the spirit. But il CjfeF persevere—as scientific :k. will impel them to do—--25 1 ® 1 Emmanuel Maunier’s enquiry ipjfey-ma/ come to a measuremen 1 id/ot agreement with his argument fek though science itself can give £ directives, its explorations ol human heart can so enlighten subject that they do point untetakeably toward certain direc--sres. And as -lor those readers She have already felt that mythology should concern itself 'with the ethical and spiritual implications of its discoveries, they Tjl seize on his book with an eagerness that will not be disraJWPointed. For he is never merely dyjferalistic; in fact he insists that ttjtbe attack on moral over-simpli-ity*ta;ion is as important as the atier|tek on medical over-simplifica-terjfiw; but he examines at a Profound level, and with a subtle befederstanding of the fragile meche rang ms of psychological processes, ityrhat actual authority the moral •ant of view can be said to have arjver the facts of characterology ?- is characteristic of Mounier’s - el fenking that he emphasises in his 3n feening chapter the mystery of ihe human personality: “the ferson is a source of liberty, and Beefore as obscure as the heart L«S< * flame.” The student of Maracter can clarify types and fractures of personality, but he told only regard such clarificaW as an approach toward the ftniral mystery; and only if he resell is fully engaged in “the «al adventure of man,” and is ftpable of a “widely active comprehension” and “that prudent

ignorance which is the beginning of wisdom, will he come near whf"* 5 >!" that a PP roa ch. And when his investigation into i ha J a £t er seaches5 eaches the verge of the ineffable, he will need more than a system of psychology. He will need in fact what Mounter calls a metapsychology" without which many . general psychologies, like r reud s. have foundered. Unlike Freud who, though he avoided making explicit the implications of his psychology, was nonetheless a determinist. Mounier rejects all behaviourist and mechanist interpretations of character. Character, in his view, cannot be imprisoned like a snapshot in the determinations either of he-edity or past history; effort lies at the heart of personal life, and every psychological situation or manifestation of personal behaviour must be seen in the light of the future it envisages. Character is dynamic, “not a fact but an act’; and to a large extent it may be said that “everyone receives the events he deserves.” Two of the most important factors in character discussed by Mourner are the degree of' emotivity, or vulnerability to disturbance, of the subject; and the force or weakness of the vital responses or psychic energy, with which he is endowed. He analyses the strengths and pitfalls of manv types of character under these and his analyses read as brilliantly as the great character studies of literature, sometimes—as m his moving contrast between the generous and the avaricious temperaments (“the most essen- . tial of psychological determina- ( ticns ’) -as sublimely as the most j inspiring passages of religious , writing. '

He descri'jes the struggle for adaptation to reality which every human being must conduct, ranging from the perfectly adjusted person (“not the best equipped tc deal with the higher tasks of humanity”) to the many forms of maladjusted personality seeking refuge in the flight from reality. This is followed by a consideration of the mastery of action and the powers of decision, and penetrating accounts of different forms of will power and temperaments of action. And in the chapters on "The Self Amongst Others” and The Affirmation of the Self’ his remarkable grasp of the complexity of life in movement, from the conscious zones to the unconscious depths, from social and political attitudes as they are affected by inner conflicts, to th° real inwardness of man which can still preserve outward social balance, is shown at its best. He accords also a full discussion tn the intelligence and its workings attackin" the “vast offensive against the intelligence” that has been waged since the beginning of the century, but brilliantly exposing the dangers that beset the intellectual separated from instinct, from responsibility, or from the demands of action and commitment. In the course of all these discussions, he throws out innumerable illuminating remarks: on education, on adolescence, on law and discipline, on art and the artistic temperament, crime and the criminal, on the modern poet’s preference for obscurity over clarity, on waves of national feeling traceable to psychological causes, the death-wish in civilisations, the collective unconscious and so on. But his book, though it touches on so much, is at all time* coherent, with every detail related to the grand design, and the whole reaching a magnificent culmination in the closing chapter on ‘‘Spiritual Life Within the Limits of Character.” If he examines the pitfalls of many religious states of mind with as much rigour as he has exercised in the foregoing chapters, he nevertheless finds in the greatest forms of religious experience and spiritual fulfilment something that does not make useless but consecrates the ‘‘long labour of preparation” of the psychologist by revealing to him that the self with its particularities can be entirely transcended, and disappear into the psychological “nada.” or nothing. In translating and abridging this massive and awe-inspiring work. Cynthia Rowland has been faced with many problems, which she has met with imagination and good sense. She has omitted some whole chapters dealing with the physical human background of characterology, from the influence of climate and geography to that of the endocrine glands, on the grounds that such material is more easilv available elsewhere than the other more strikingly original parts of Mounier’s work. And within the other chapters, she has omitted also many case-his-tories. more detailed references to the findings of other psychologists, and so on. But the content of each omission is indicated at the bottom of the page where it ( occurs, and the continuity of the , thought is never disturbed. Her translation is informed and care- ( ful. and it may lead many of those , readers who are competent to do ( so to turn to the original. ,