which analysis seldom plays much part. I hope I will be forgiven the somewhat fatuous comment, that unless one makes a habit of using vision and judgment, one never learns to see, and never learns to decide.
I hope too that the reader is beginning to be convinced that a good deal may turn on sound instinctive judgment; and if alas he is unwise enough to get involved in litigation himself, the success of his case too may turn on the correctness of that first question. There is a story of the late Sir Norman Birkett; his first question to a scientific expert witness was, “What is the co-efficient of expansion of brass?”. I doubt if the question was relevant; no sensible forensic scientist would dream of carrying that information in his head; but it destroyed the witness's self-confidence, so the story goes. If sound instinctive judgment is so important, whether character or personality are real and can be seen with the naked eyes, and whether it is a relaxed consciousness which most often achieves sound judgment are very practical, important questions too.
This process of attempting to sum up the whole character, to see the shape of a person's soul, is what lovers do, as I indicated at the beginning of the Chapter. Again it is not, or it is not largely, an intellectual process. The more you analyse, the further you get away from the truth, because the more you lose sight of the wholeness, or the personality, which is the truth you are trying to see. The trouble is that not all lovers try to see the truth that is there; some prefer the truth they would like to be there, and project onto the beloved the attributes they would like the beloved to have. Some see faults as the hallmark of character. Some see evil as evidence of strength. As Chaucer says indulgently, “Nigh and sly wins over fair and square, who isn't there!” What you see depends on how you look; and the lover has not the advantage of the cynical detachment of the lawyer in Court. For the lover, too much is at stake.