THE APPLICANT’S POINT OF VIEW 373 
or imagination not in the fact that he lacks these fine 
qualities, but in that he confines them to certain orderly- 
channels. The scientist may exercise just as fine an in 
sight and imagination in his dealings with people as the 
man who is not scientific, and yet he achieves results 
which are systematic and which lend themselves to a 
practical and relatively stable classification. The sci 
entist is sometimes considered unimaginative simply be 
cause imagination has come to be identified with a kind 
of glorified disorder. If to classify individuals is to for 
feit insight into their nature, then the imaginative but 
unscientific mind is probably much the less penetrating 
of the two. For the chances are that the classifications of 
the scientist are far more subtle than the crude categories 
of the undisciplined imagination. 
Moreover, the attempt to get at the viewpoint of an 
individual by an act c c the imagination has certain very 
serious limitations. Such an attempt results very often 
in a somewhat distorted view of oneself or in a fantastic 
mixture of oneself and the other individual. The belief 
that one can, at will, imagine oneself in the position of 
another and at the point of view of another is one of the 
most dangerous and fallacious beliefs in existence. The 
very first teachings of psychology are diametrically anti 
thetical to such an assumption; for the uncertainties and 
quirks to which the human mind is subject are such as to 
make it difficult enough for it to maintain a consistent 
viewpoint of itself. Most of the faults of the old meth 
ods of employment rest upon this fallacy; for hitherto 
the task of interviewing and “sizing up” applicants has 
been left largely to the unchecked and unguided imagina 
tion or judgment of isolated individuals. The entire aim 
of employment psychology is to substitute for this individ