Human Character

Abstract

WE are accustomed to judge of a man's character by his behaviour, that is to say, by the manner in which he reacts to the countless vicissitudes of everyday existence. In our experience these reactions differ according to the individual, and we interpret this variability of response by saying that the characters of the individuals affected are correspondingly diverse. Although character is an attribute of the man himself, it can only be known by the man's actions, and is a rough description of the mental and nervous constitution on which the reactions depend. This constitution is partly inborn, partly acquired. The pattern of the cells and nerve paths which make up the central nervous system is already laid down before birth, but the resistance which any impulse meets with in its passage through the central nervous system is the resultant not only of the inherited pattern, but also of experience, every reaction which has occurred having left some trace of its passage and produced facilitation along certain paths and blocking of certain other paths.

Human Character.

By Hugh Elliot. Pp. xvi + 272. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1922.) 7s. 6d. net.