these fundamental scientific principles, but has been carefully verified
by investigation and observation in not only hundreds but thousands of
cases, and has been used daily for years under the trying conditions of
actual commercial practice, and this science has passed out of the merely
experimental stage.

CHAPTER II

HOW TO LEARN AND APPLY THE SCIENCE OF CHARACTER ANALYSIS

There are two ways to learn any science.

The first is to begin by collecting all possible facts, recording them and
verifying them under all possible conditions, until they are as thoroughly
established as any facts can be in our imperfect human understanding. The
collection of facts in this way requires the most painstaking research,
oftentimes including many thousands of observations. When all the facts
have been thus collected and verified, they are classified. Then they are
carefully analyzed and an effort is made to find some of the laws which
underlie them. Perhaps, instead of a definite law, all that can be at
first advanced is a hypothesis or theory. This hypothesis or theory having
been formulated, many thousands of observations are taken in an effort to
establish it as a definite law or a principle. Oftentimes whole new realms
have to be explored before this can be determined. Sometimes, after a
theory is advanced, perhaps seems to be approaching complete
establishment, some fact or set of facts is discovered which compels the
setting aside of all old theories and the formulation of a new one. When a
theory has been definitely established as a law, other laws are sought in
the same way until, finally, there are enough laws established to form the
basis of a general principle. Then more laws and more principles are added
in the same way until, finally, the body of knowledge has become
sufficiently accurate, sufficiently definite and sufficiently organized
and classified to be called a science.

HOW SCIENCE SLOWLY EVOLVES

This is the way in which all of the sciences known to man were first
learned; that is to say, they were learned by their formulators coincident
with the process of their formulation. This is a slow and laborious
process of learning. Few, if any, sciences have ever been thus mastered by
any one individual. Indeed, the certain establishment of a very few facts,
or, perhaps, only one important fact, the formulation of a theory, or the
final statement of a law is usually the limit of the contribution of any
one