For the preface
As a rule, science regards the individual as a mere bothersome accident. Psychology, too, ordinarily treats him as something to be brushed aside so the main business of accounting for the uniformity of events can get under way. The result is that on all sides we see psychologists enthusiastically at work upon a somewhat shadowy portrait entitled “the generalized human mind.” Though serving well a certain purpose, this portrait is not altogether satisfying to those who compare it with the living individual models from which it is drawn. It seems unreal and esoteric, devoid of locus, self-consciousness, and organic unity—all essential characteristics of the minds we know.
With the intention of supplementing this abstract portrait by one that is more life-like, a new movement within psychological science has gradually grown up. It attempts in a variety of ways and from many points of view to depict and account for the manifest individuality of mind. This new movement has come to be known (in America) as the psychology of personality. Especially within the past fifteen years has its progress been notable.
Since it is young, this movement finds difficulty in evaluating its first achievements. Its research is plentiful but piecemeal; its theories are numerous but conflicting. Yet every year more and more psychological investigators are attracted to it, and colleges at a rapid rate are adding the study of personality to their psychological curricula. The result of this rising tide of interest is an insistent demand for a guide book that will define the new field of study—one that will articulate its objectives, formulate its standards, and test the progress made thus far.
In attempting to write such a book I have sought above all else to respect the many-sidedness of the subject-matter of this new science. An account written exclusively in terms of any single school of psychological doctrine would be far too narrow. Better to expand and refashion one’s theories until they do some measure of justice to the richness and dignity of human personality, than to clip and compress personality until it fits one closed system of thought.