A real assumption of responsibility for success of course cannot be risked by the psychologist, inasmuch as the man who may be fitted for a task by his mental working dispositions may nevertheless destroy his chances for success by secondary personal traits.  He may be dishonest, or dissipated, or a drinker, or a fighter, or physically ill.  Finally, we ought not to forget that all such efforts to adjust to one another the psychological traits and the requirements of the work can never have reference to the extreme variations of human traits.  The exceptionally talented man knows anyhow where he belongs, and the exceptionally untalented one will be excluded anyhow.  The psychological aid in the selection of the fit refers only to the remaining four fifths of mankind for whom the chances of success can indeed be increased as soon as the psychological personal equation is systematically and with scientific exactitude brought into the calculation of the life development.  How far a part of this effort will have to be undertaken by the school is a social problem which must be considered from various points of view.  Its discussion would lead us beyond the limits of our present inquiry, but it seems probable that the real psychological laboratory experiment in the service of vocational guidance does not belong in the schoolroom itself, but ought to be left to special municipal institutions.

XII

INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS

One point here must not be overlooked.  The effort to discover the personal structure of the individual in the interest of his vocational chance does not always necessarily involve a direct analysis of his individuality, as material of some value can be gained indirectly.  Such indirect knowledge of a man’s mental traits may be secured first of all through referring the man to the groups to which he belongs and inquiring into the characteristic traits of those groups.  The psychology of human variations gives not only an account of the differences from person to person, but studies no less the psychical inequalities of the races, of the nations, of the ages, of the professions, and so on.  If an economic activity demands a combination of mental traits, we may take it for granted that an individual will be fit for the work as soon as we find out that he belongs to a group in which these required mental traits habitually occur.  Such a judgment based on group psychology can of course be no more than a mere approach to a solution of the problem, as the psychical qualities may vary strongly in the midst of the group.  The special individual may happen to stand at the extreme limit of the group, and the traits which are usually characteristic of it may be very little developed or entirely lacking in his special case.  We may know that the inhabitants of a special country are rather alert, and yet the particular individual with whom we have to deal may be clumsy and phlegmatic.  The interests of economy will, therefore, be served by such considerations of group psychology only if the employment, not of a single person, but of a large number, is in question, as it is most probable that the average character will show itself in a sufficient degree as soon as many members of the group are involved.