ABSTRACT
A psychologist may speak of bad habits or an evil temperament, in so far as he can prove that they hamper the individual’s attainment of a certain goal. But his statement that this goal, for example, a personality without fear, a personality suitable for democracy or for a rationalist society, is the desirable goal of living, has only the validity of common social approval or of his own guess as a citizen or a philosopher. Human nature being what it is, the psychologist, who, among scientists, is most near to ethical issues, appears often tempted to statements on what constitutes the good personality or the good society. Abnormal behaviour is a rather artificially—legally and socially—cut-off portion of the total behaviour studied under personality, and it is of particular value to study it, as such, only when it presents an especially advantageous avenue to the understanding of personality.
