Signs and Wonders by J.D. Beresford

Nothing is more dispiriting than the practice of classifying humanity according to "types. " Your professional psychologist does it for his own purposes. This is his way of collating material for the large generalisation he is always chasing. His ideal is a complete record. He would like to present us as so many samples on a labelled card -- the differences between the samples on any one card being ascribed to an initial carelessness in manufacture. His method is the apotheosis of that of the gay Italian fortune-teller one used to see about the streets, with her little cage of love-birds that sized you up and picked you out a suitable future. Presently, we hope, the psychologist will be able to do that for us with a greater discrimination. He will take a few measurements, test our reaction times, consult an index, and hand us out an infallible analysis of our "type. " After that we shall know precisely what we are fitted for, and whether our ultimate destination is the Woolsack or the Workhouse.

But your psychologist has his uses, and it is the amateur in this sort, particularly the novel-writing amateur, who arouses our protest. He -- I use the pronoun asexually -- does not spend himself in prophecy, but he deals us out into packs with an air of knowing just where we belong. And his novels prove how right he was, because you can prove anything in a novel. His readers like this method. It is easy to understand, and it provides them with an articulate description of the inevitable Jones.