When a new method of scientific study comes to the fore in any field, its raison d’être can be explained only in relation to previous research. We shall try, then, to assess the value of nineteenth-century contributions to the knowledge of pagan religion among the Germanic peoples. At a first glance their value seems hardly to justify the tireless efforts of the illustrious scholars who devoted themselves to the task. The failure of so much scientific endeavor is no longer surprising, however, when we recall the character of that era. Opposing the bold and often fanciful syntheses of Romanticism, the nineteenth century advocated a rigorous analysis of the mythological tradition; it wanted first of all to discover what was authentic material in a confused mass of texts emanating from a period that was at once backward and colored by a long Christian tradition. A close examination, largely philological in nature, seemed to reveal that most of the myths and legends conserved in the rich literature of the Eddas consisted of mere fables or simple popular tales embellished with names of gods by adapting hands little concerned with the old pagan traditions.

The science of man has not, as yet, had its historian. This regrettable fact demonstrates that the human or cultural sciences have not attained their full growth. They rest upon a fragmentary and indecisive epistemology, the very idea of human reality being, in the minds of the specialists, still quite vague.

Nevertheless, this latecomer among the positive disciplines has had, throughout the ages, its prophets and its precursors; but their affirmation, isolated in the cultural context of the period, merely provide a steppingstone for the future. Several centuries ahead of his time, Ibn Khaldoun, in his Prolégomènes, defined the sociological and human reality of Arab civilization. With the appearance of Montaigne, Francis Bacon, and Jean Bodin, the Renaissance witnessed the first attempts to formulate a concrete anthropology and sociology. But the ways and means of this knowledge of man by man existed solely at the level of intuition. Even Vico was to rely only upon his own genius in order to evolve the total phenomenon of human reality in its becoming. A goodly number of the great historians of the nineteenth century, in Germany, in England, and in Spain, were to engage in a kind of doctrineless anthropology, entirely intuitive, extensions of which are encountered today in the works of an Ortega y Gasset, a Spengler or a Toynbee.

Human groups, such as families, tribes, and nations, are often perceived as possessing mental qualities and characteristics more or less common to the group as a whole. This ancient tendency to attribute properties of personality or individuality to human aggregates is particularly strong nowadays with regard to nations, the basic units of political action in this age of nationalism and internationalism.

In the recent UNESCO study by W. Buchanan and H. Cantril, How Nations See Each Other (1953), based on an eight-nation sample, few findings are more revealing than the low frequency of respondents who declare themselves unable to characterize their own nation. All but a very small proportion gave their views freely when asked to describe the character of their countrymen. When this same question was asked with regard to a series of other nationalities, the “Don't know” responses (“impossible to characterize”) were in some cases much more frequent—up to 71 per cent as in the case of the German sample in regard to the Chinese; in others again very low—down to 3 per cent as in the western European responses regarding the United States. These variations are assumed to reflect differences in the degree of familiarity of nations with each other, depending on their mutual relationships over time, their physical proximity or distance, and so on.

The massive literature of modern psychology, which embraces so many important and unimportant subjects, fails conspicuously to deal with one fundamental human problem—many would term it the fundamental human problem—death. Why, when there are libraries of books on every aspect of normal or abnormal character in infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and (more recently) old age, is the human adjustment to death ignored? An essay by Freud, several articles by Schilder, a volume by Anthony, and a few other scattered papers virtually exhaust the scientific literature on the subject. Does the vain Faustian spirit, searching ever for the light, fear to examine the heart of darkness? Or has society, uncloaking sexuality, put death in its place as a secret rite not to be discussed in public? Has psychology, like so much of physics, become a kind of dignified engineering, forsaking truth for utility and therefore disinterested in a matter about which nothing can be done? Or is it felt that inquiry can disclose no more than what has always been known—that all men are mortal?

In the prose commentary to Chapter VI of his poem De monade, Giordano Bruno designates Ficino as one of the princes of Platonism: “unus e principibus platonicis Ficinus.” Statements of this kind are all the more valuable because they are rare. Bruno seldom cites his sources; he utilizes his authors more often than he names them, and it requires a certain attentiveness to perceive that he knows Platonism and particularly Neo-Platonism only through and thanks to Ficino. On occasion Bruno makes use of Plotinus’ opinion, quoting texts that one would seek in vain in the Aeneid; they have been taken from the Ficinian commentaries. The same is true as regards Porphyry and Jamblichus.

So varied and complex is the world of games that there are many ways in which a study of it can be approached. Psychology, sociology, anecdotal history, pedagogy, and mathematics all share a domain whose unity ends by ceasing any longer to be perceptible. Works like Homo ludens by Huizinga, Jeu de l'enfant by Jean Chateau, and Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by J. von Neumann and O. Morgenstern are not addressed to the same readers, nor do they appear to deal with the same subject. Ultimately, this question arises: How much does one profit from the facilities or contingencies of vocabulary by continuing to act as though such different and almost incompatible inquiries are fundamentally concerned with a same specific activity? It is doubtful whether common characteristics permit one to define this specific activity and consequently whether it can legitimately constitute the object of a comprehensive study.

Planning is widely presumed to be alien to the moral assumptions of American democracy. Where tolerated it has come to be identified largely with the process of economizing, with what is so often the American approach to life: getting the most for your money. Thus the city planner, whose primary concern is with the practical problems of zoning, the routing of a new cross-town parkway, or the provision of parking space, is also a respected member of his community. Does he not help, after all, to conserve community values? His technical skills stand in the service of property and of the dominant class interests which control it. The planner in large industry or in the military finds himself much in the same position: goals are defined for him in advance; he is to work for the most rational solution. His status, therefore, is that of a high-class technician; and only in this role is he fully accepted by his culture.

Everyone knows of the existence of intelligence tests. This is, in fact, the only aspect of applied psychology that is familiar to the general public. However, not so many people know that these tests have been the object of protracted studies and are integrated into a highly mathematized conceptual system. Our intention is to give a summary outline of this area of research which attempts to analyze man's performance, particularly in the area of the intellect.

The normal process of thought is to go from the concrete to the abstract. Therefore it seems natural to base this outline on an actual example of research carried out in the domain of intelligence and motor co-ordination tests and to use these as a point of departure for more general principles. In the first place, the material used—the actual tests—has a history that is in itself revealing. Second, the method of analysis employed is also deserving of study because it implies a certain number of postulates that must be understood in order to interpret the results it makes possible. Let us familiarize ourselves, then, with a typical factor analysis like the one made at the University of Neuchâtel in 1956.