HOW TO ANALYZE PEOPLE ON SIGHT



HOW TO ANALYZE PEOPLE ON SIGHT

Through the Science of Human Analysis

The Five Human Types

by

ELSIE LINCOLN BENEDICT and RALPH PAINE BENEDICT



Printed and Bound By The Roycrofters at Their Shops In East Aurora N. Y.

Copyright, 1921 By Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

All rights reserved



WE THANK YOU

To the following men and women we wish to express our appreciation for their share in the production of this book:

To DUREN J. H. WARD, PH. D., formerly of the Anthropology Department of Harvard University, who, as the discoverer of the fourth human type, has added immeasurably to the world's knowledge of human science.

To RAYMOND H. LUFKIN, of Boston, who made the illustrations for this volume scientifically accurate.

To THE ROYCROFTERS, of East Aurora, whose artistic workmanship made it into a thing of beauty.

And last but not least,

To SARAH H. YOUNG, of San Francisco, our Business Manager, whose efficiency correlated all these and placed the finished product in the hands of our students.

THE AUTHORS

New York City, June, 1921

DEDICATED TO OUR STUDENTS



CONTENTS

Page

HUMAN ANALYSIS 11

CHAPTER I THE ALIMENTIVE TYPE 37 "The Enjoyer"

CHAPTER II THE THORACIC TYPE 83 "The Thriller"

CHAPTER III THE MUSCULAR TYPE 133 "The Worker"

CHAPTER IV THE OSSEOUS TYPE 177 "The Stayer"

CHAPTER V THE CEREBRAL TYPE 217 "The Thinker"

CHAPTER VI TYPES THAT SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT MARRY EACH OTHER 263

CHAPTER VII VOCATIONS FOR EACH TYPE 311



What Leading Newspapers Say About Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Her Work

"Over fifty thousand people heard Elsie Lincoln Benedict at the City Auditorium during her six weeks lecture engagement in Milwaukee."— Milwaukee Leader, April 2, 1921.

"Elsie Lincoln Benedict has a brilliant record. She is like a fresh breath of Colorado ozone. Her ideas are as stimulating as the health-giving breezes of the Rockies."—New York Evening Mail, April 16, 1914.

"Several hundred people were turned away from the Masonic Temple last night where Elsie Lincoln Benedict, famous human analyst, spoke on 'How to Analyze People on Sight.' Asked how she could draw and hold a crowd of 3,000 for a lecture, she said: 'Because I talk on the one subject on earth in which every individual is most interested—himself.'"—Seattle Times, June 2, 1920.

"Elsie Lincoln Benedict is a woman who has studied deeply under genuine scientists and is demonstrating to thousands at the Auditorium each evening that she knows the connection between an individual's external characteristics and his inner traits."—Minneapolis News, November 7, 1920.

"Elsie Lincoln Benedict is known nationally, having conducted lecture courses in many of the large Eastern cities. Her work is based upon the practical methods of modern science as worked out in the world's leading laboratories where exhaustive tests are applied to determine individual types, talents, vocational bents and possibilities."—San Francisco Bulletin, January 25, 1919.



It's not how much you know but what you can DO that counts



Human Analysis—The X-Ray

Modern science has proved that the fundamental traits of every individual are indelibly stamped in the shape of his body, head, face and hands—an X-ray by which you can read the characteristics of any person on sight.

The most essential thing in the world to any individual is to understand himself. The next is to understand the other fellow. For life is largely a problem of running your own car as it was built to be run, plus getting along with the other drivers on the highway.

From this book you are going to learn which type of car you are and the main reasons why you have not been getting the maximum of service out of yourself.

Also you are going to learn the makes of other human cars, and how to get the maximum of co-operation out of them. This co-operation is vital to happiness and success. We come in contact with our fellowman in all the activities of our lives and what we get out of life depends, to an astounding degree, on our relations with him.

Reaction to Environment

The greatest problem facing any organism is successful reaction to its environment. Environment, speaking scientifically, is the sum total of your experiences. In plain United States, this means fitting vocationally, socially and maritally into the place where you are.

If you don't fit you must move or change your environment to fit you. If you can't change the environment and you won't move you will become a failure, just as tropical plants fail when transplanted to the Nevada desert.

Learn From the Sagebrush

But there is something that grows and keeps on growing in the Nevada desert—the sagebrush. It couldn't move away and it couldn't change its waterless environment, so it did what you and I must do if we expect to succeed. It adapted itself to its environment, and there it stands, each little stalwart shrub a reminder of what even a plant can do when it tries!

Moving Won't Help Much

Human life faces the same alternatives that confront all other forms of life—of adapting itself to the conditions under which it must live or becoming extinct. You have an advantage over the sagebrush in that you can move from your city or state or country to another, but after all that is not much of an advantage. For though you may improve your situation slightly you will still find that in any civilized country the main elements of your problem are the same.

Understand Yourself and Others

So long as you live in a civilized or thickly populated community you will still need to understand your own nature and the natures of other people. No matter what you desire of life, other people's aims, ambitions and activities constitute vital obstructions along your pathway. You will never get far without the co-operation, confidence and comradeship of other men and women.

Primitive Problems

It was not always so. And its recentness in human history may account for some of our blindness to this great fact.

In primitive times people saw each other rarely and had much less to do with each other. The human element was then not the chief problem. Their environmental problems had to do with such things as the elements, violent storms, extremes of heat and cold, darkness, the ever-present menace of wild beasts whose flesh was their food, yet who would eat them first unless they were quick in brain and body.

Civilization's Changes

But all that is changed. Man has subjugated all other creatures and now walks the earth its supreme sovereign. He has discovered and invented and builded until now we live in skyscrapers, talk around the world without wires and by pressing a button turn darkness into daylight.

Causes of Failure

Yet with all our knowledge of the outside world ninety-nine lives out of every hundred are comparative failures.

The reason is plain to every scientific investigator. We have failed to study ourselves in relation to the great environmental problem of today. The stage-setting has been changed but not the play. The game is the same old game—you must adjust and adapt yourself to your environment or it will destroy you.

Mastering His Own Environment

The cities of today look different from the jungles of our ancestors and we imagine that because the brain of man overcame the old menaces no new ones have arisen to take their place. We no longer fear extermination from cold. We turn on the heat. We are not afraid of the vast oceans which held our primitive forebears in thrall, but pass swiftly, safely and luxuriously over their surfaces. And soon we shall be breakfasting in New York and dining the same evening in San Francisco!

Facing New Enemies

But in building up this stupendous superstructure of modern civilization man has brought into being a society so intricate and complex that he now faces the new environmental problem of human relationships.

The Modern Spider's Web

Today we depend for life's necessities almost wholly upon the activities of others. The work of thousands of human hands and thousands of human brains lies back of every meal you eat, every journey you take, every book you read, every bed in which you sleep, every telephone conversation, every telegram you receive, every garment you wear.

And this fellowman of ours has multiplied, since that dim distant dawn, into almost two billion human beings, with at least one billion of them after the very things you want, and not a tenth enough to go around!

Adapt or Die

Who will win? Nature answers for you. She has said with awful and inexorable finality that, whether you are a blade of grass on the Nevada desert or a man in the streets of London, you can win only as you adapt yourself to your environment. Today our environmental problem consists largely of the other fellow. Only those who learn to adapt themselves to their fellows can win great or lasting rewards.

Externals Indicate Internal Nature

To do this it is necessary to better understand our neighbors—to recognize that people differ from each other in their likes and dislikes, traits, talents, tendencies and capabilities. The combination of these makes each individual's nature. It is not difficult to understand others for with each group of these traits there always goes its corresponding physical makeup—the externals whereby the internal is invariably indicated. This is true of every species on the globe and of every subdivision within each species.

Significance of Size, Shape and Structure

All dogs belong to the same species but there is a great difference between the "nature" of a St. Bernard and that of a terrier, just as there is a decided difference between the natures of different human beings. But in both instances the actions, reactions and habits of each can be accurately anticipated on sight by the shape, size and structure of the two creatures.

Differences in Breed

When a terrier comes into the room you instinctively draw away unless you want to be jumped at and greeted effusively. But you make no such movement to protect yourself from a St. Bernard because you read, on sight, the different natures of these two from their external appearance.

You know a rose, a violet, a sunflower and an orchid and what perfume you are sure to find in each, by the same method. All are flowers and all belong to the same species, just as all human beings belong to the same species. But their respective size, shape and structure tell you in advance and on sight what their respective characteristics are.

The same is true of all human beings. They differ in certain fundamentals but always and invariably in accordance with their differences in size, shape and structure.

The Instinct of Self-Preservation

The reason for this is plain. Goaded by the instinct of self-preservation, man, like all other living things, has made heroic efforts to meet the demands of his environment. He has been more successful than any other creature and is, as a result, the most complex organism on the earth. But his most baffling complexities resolve themselves into comparatively simple terms once it is recognized that each internal change brought about by his environment brought with it the corresponding external mechanism without which he could not have survived.

Interrelation of Body and Brain

So today we see man a highly evolved creature who not only acts but thinks and feels. All these thoughts, feelings and emotions are interrelated.

The body and the mind of man are so closely bound together that whatever affects one affects the other. An instantaneous change of mind instantly changes the muscles of the face. A violent thought instantly brings violent bodily movements.

Movies and Face Muscles

The moving picture industry—said to be the third largest in the world—is based largely on this interrelation. This industry would become extinct if something were to happen to sever the connection between external expressions and the internal nature of men and women.

Tells Fundamentals

How much do external characteristics tell about a man? They tell, with amazing accuracy, all the basic, fundamental principal traits of his nature. The size, shape and structure of a man's body tell more important facts about his real self—what he thinks and what he does—than the average mother ever knows about her own child.

Learning to Read

If this sounds impossible, if the seeming incongruity, multiplicity and heterogeneity of human qualities have baffled you, remember that this is exactly how the print in all books and newspapers baffled you before you learned to read.

Not long ago I was reading stories aloud to a three-year old. She wanted to "see the pictures," and when told there were none had to be shown the book.

"What funny little marks!" she cried, pointing to the print. "How do you get stories out of them?"

Printing looked to all of us at first just masses of meaningless little marks.

But after a few days at school how things did begin to clear up! It wasn't a jumble after all. There was something to it. It straightened itself out until the funny little marks became significant. Each of them had a meaning and the same meaning under all conditions. Through them your whole outlook on life became deepened and broadened—all because you learned the meaning of twenty-six little letters and their combinations!

Reading People

Learning to read men and women is a more delightful process than learning to read books, for every person you see is a true story, more romantic and absorbing than any ever bound in covers.

Learning to read people is also a simpler process than learning to read books because there are fewer letters in the human alphabet. Though man seems to the untrained eye a mystifying mass of "funny little marks," he is not now difficult to analyze.

Only a Few Feelings

This is because there are after all but a few kinds of human feelings. Some form of hunger, love, hate, fear, hope or ambition gives rise to every human emotion and every human thought.

Thoughts Bring Actions

Now our actions follow our thoughts. Every thought, however transitory, causes muscular action, which leaves its trace in that part of the physical organism which is most closely allied to it.

Physiology and Psychology Interwoven

Look into the mirror the next time you are angry, happy, surprised, tired or sorrowful and note the changes wrought by your emotions in your facial muscles.

Constant repetition of the same kinds of thoughts or emotions finally makes permanent changes in that part of the body which is physiologically related to these mental processes.

The Evolution of the Jaw

The jaw is a good illustration of this alliance between the mind and the body. Its muscles and bones are so closely allied to the pugnacity instinct center in the brain that the slightest thought of combat causes the jaw muscles to stiffen. Let the thought of any actual physical encounter go through your mind and your jaw bone will automatically move upward and outward.

After a lifetime of combat, whether by fists or words, the jaw sets permanently a little more upward and outward—a little more like that of the bulldog. It keeps to this combative mold, "because," says Mother Nature, the great efficiency expert, "if you are going to call on me constantly to stiffen that jaw I'll fix it so it will stay that way and save myself the trouble."

Inheritance of Acquired Traits

Thus the more combative jaw, having become permanent in the man's organism, can be passed on to his children.

Right here comes a most interesting law and one that has made possible the science of Human Analysis:

Law of Size

The larger any part or organ the better its equipment for carrying out the work of that organ and the more does it tend to express itself. Nature IS an efficiency expert and doesn't give you an oversupply of anything without demanding that you use it.

Jaws Becoming Smaller

Our ancestors developed massive jaws as a result of constant combat. As fast as civilization decreased the necessity for combat Nature decreased the size of the average human jaw.

Meaning of the Big Jaw

But wherever you see a large protruding jaw you see an individual "armed and engined," as Kipling says, for some kind of fighting. The large jaw always goes with a combative nature, whether it is found on a man or a woman, a child, a pugilist or a minister.

Exhibit A—The Irishman

The large jaw, therefore, is seen to be both a result and a cause of certain things. As the inheritance of a fighting ancestor it is the result of millions of years of fighting in prehistoric times, and, like any other over-developed part or organ, it has an intense urge to express itself. This inherent urge is what makes the owner of that jaw "fight at the drop of the hat," and often have "a chip on his shoulder."

Natural Selection

Thus, because every external characteristic is the result of natural laws, and chiefly of natural selection, the vital traits of any creature can be read from his externals. Every student of biology, anatomy, anthropology, ethnology or psychology is familiar with these facts.

Built to Fit

Man's organism has developed, altered, improved and evolved "down through the slow revolving years" with one instinctive aim—successful reaction to its environment. Every part has been laboriously constructed to that sole end. Because of this its functions are marked as clearly upon it as those of a grain elevator, a steamship or a piano.

Survival of the Fittest

Nature has no accidents, she wastes no material and everything has a purpose. If you put up a good fight to live she will usually come to your rescue and give you enough of whatever is needed to tide you over. If you don't, she says you are not fit to people the earth and lets you go without a pang. Thus she weeds out all but the strong—and evolution marches on.

Causes of Racial Characteristics

This inherent potentiality for altering the organism to meet the demands of the environment is especially noticeable in races and is the reason for most racial differences.

Differences in environment—climate, altitude and topography necessitated most of these physical differentiations which today enable us to know at a glance whether a man belongs to the white race, the yellow race, or the black race. The results of these differentiations and modifications will be told in the various chapters of this book.

Types Earlier than Races

The student of Human Analysis reads the disposition and nature of every individual with ease regardless of whether that individual be an American, a Frenchman, a Kaffir or a Chinaman, because Human Analysis explains those fundamental traits which run through every race, color and nationality, according to the externals which always go with those traits.

Five Biological Types

Human Analysis differs from every other system of character analysis in that it classifies man, for the first time, into five types according to his biological evolution.

It deals with man in the light of the most recent scientific discoveries. It estimates each individual according to his "human" qualities rather than his "character" or so-called "moral" qualities. In other words, it takes his measure as a human being and determines from his externals his chances for success in the world of today.

These Rules Work

Every rule in this book is based on scientific data, has been proved to be accurate by investigations and surveys of all kinds of people in all parts of the world.

These rules do not work merely part of the time. They work all the time, under all conditions and apply to every individual of every race, every color, every country, every community and every family.

Through this latest human science you can learn to read people as easily as you read books—if you will take the little time and pains to learn the rules which compose your working alphabet.

Do What We Want to Do

It is easy to know what an individual will do under most circumstances because every human being does what he wants to do in the way he prefers to do it most of the time. If you doubt it try this test: bring to mind any intimate friends, or even that husband or wife, and note how few changes they have made in their way of doing things in twenty years!

Preferences Inborn

Every human being is born with preferences and predilections which manifest themselves from earliest childhood to death. These inborn tendencies are never obliterated and seldom controlled to any great extent, and then only by individuals who have learned the power of the mind over the body. Inasmuch as this knowledge is possessed by only a few, most of the people of the earth are blindly following the dictates of their inborn leanings.

Follow Our Bents

In other words, more than ninety-nine per cent of all the people you know are following their natural bents in reacting to all their experiences—from the most trivial incidents to the most far-reaching emergencies.

"Took It" From Grandmother

The individual is seldom conscious of these habitual acts of his, much less of where he got them. The nearest he comes is to say he "got it from his father" or "she takes it from grandmother." But where did grandmother get it?

Man No Mystery

Science has taken the trouble to investigate and today we know not only where grandmother got it but what she did with it. She got it along with her size, shape and structure—in other words, from her type—and she did just what you and everybody else does with his type-characteristics. She acted in accordance with her type just as a canary sings like a canary instead of talking like a parrot, and just as a rose gives off rose perfume instead of violet.

This law holds throughout every species and explains man—who likes to think himself a deep mystery—as it explains every other creature.

The Hold of Habit

Look around you in shop, office, field or home and you will find that the quick, alert, impulsive man is acting quickly, alertly and impulsively most of the time. Nothing less than a calamity slows him down and then only temporarily; while the slow, patient, mild and passive individual is acting slowly, patiently, mildly and passively in spite of all goads. Some overwhelming passion or crisis may speed him up momentarily but as soon as it fades he reverts to his old slow habits.

Significance of Fat, Bone and Muscle

Human Analysis is the new science which shows you how to recognize the slow man, the quick man, the stubborn man, the yielding man, the leader, the learner, and all other basic kinds of men on sight from the shape, size and structure of their bodies.

Certain bodily shapes indicate predispositions to fatness, leanness, boniness, muscularity and nervousness, and this predisposition is so much a part of the warp and woof of the individual that he can not disguise it. The urge given him by this inborn mechanism is so strong as to be practically irresistible. Every experience of his life calls forth some kind of reaction and invariably the reaction will be similar, in every vital respect, to the reactions of other people who have bodies of the same general size, shape and structure as his own.

Succeed at What We Like

No person achieves success or happiness when compelled to do what he naturally dislikes to do. Since these likes and dislikes stay with him to the grave, one of the biggest modern problems is that of helping men and women to discover and to capitalize their inborn traits.

Enthusiasm and Self-Expression

Every individual does best those things which permit him to act in accordance with his natural bents. This explains why we like best those things we do best. It takes real enthusiasm to make a success of any undertaking for nothing less than enthusiasm can turn on a full current.

We struggle from the cradle to the grave for self-expression and everything that pushes us in a direction opposed to our natural tendencies is done half-heartedly, inefficiently and disgruntledly. These are the steps that lead straight to failure. Yet failure can be avoided and success approximated by every normal person if he will take the same precaution with his own machinery that he takes with his automobile.

Learn to Drive Your Car

If you were presented with a car by your ancestors—which is precisely what happened to you at birth—you would not let an hour go by without finding out what make or type of car it was. Before a week elapsed you would have taken the time, labor and interest to learn how to run it,—not merely any old way, but the best way for that particular make of car.

Five Makes of Human Cars

There are five makes or types of human cars, differing as definitely in size, shape and structure as Fords differ from Pierce-Arrows. Each human type differs as widely in its capacities, possibilities and aptitudes as a Ford differs from a Pierce-Arrow. Like the Ford or Pierce the externals indicate these functional differences with unfailing accuracy. Furthermore just as a Ford never changes into a Pierce nor a Pierce into a Ford, a human being never changes his type. He may modify it, train it, polish it or control it somewhat, but he will never change it.

Can Not be Deceived

The student of Human Analysis cannot be deceived as to the type of any individual any more than you can be deceived about the make of a car.

One may "doll up" a Ford to his heart's content—remove the hood and top and put on custom-made substitutes—it is still a Ford, always will be a Ford and you can always detect that it is a Ford. It will do valuable, necessary things but only those things it was designed to do and in its own particular manner; nor could a Pierce act like a Ford.

Are You a Ford or a Pierce?

So it is with human cars. Maybe you have been awed by the jewels and clothes with which many human Fords disguise themselves. The chances are that you have overlooked a dozen Pierces this week because their paint was rusty. Perchance you are a Pierce yourself, drawing a Ford salary because you don't know you are a high-powered machine capable of making ten times the speed you have been making on your highway of life.

Superficialities Sway Us

If so your mistake is only natural. The world classifies human beings according to their superficialities. To the world a human motorcycle can pass for a Rolls-Royce any day if sufficiently camouflaged with diamonds, curls, French heels and plucked eyebrows.

Bicycles in Congress

In the same manner many a bicycle in human form gets elected to Congress because he plays his machinery for all it is worth and gets a hundred per cent service out of it. Every such person learned early in life what kind of car he was and capitalized its natural tendencies.

Don't Judge by Veneer

Nothing is more unsafe than to attempt to judge the actual natures of people by their clothes, houses, religious faith, political affiliations, prejudices, dialect, etiquette or customs. These are only the veneer laid on by upbringing, teachers, preachers, traditions and other forces of suggestion, and it is a veneer so thin that trifles scratch it off.

The Real Always There

But the real individual is always there, filled with the tendencies of his type, bending always toward them, constantly seeking opportunities to run as he was built to run, forever striving toward self-expression. It is this ever-active urge which causes him to revert, in the manifold activities of everyday life, to the methods, manners and peculiarities common to his type.

This means that unless he gets into an environment, a vocation and a marriage which permits of his doing what he wants to do he will be miserable, inefficient, unsuccessful and sometimes criminal.

Causes of Crime

That this is the true explanation of crime has been recognized for many years by leading thinkers. Two prison wardens—Thomas Tynan of Colorado and Thomas Mott Osborne of Sing Sing—effectively initiated penal reforms based upon it.

Every crime, like every personal problem, arises from some kind of situation wherein instinct is thwarted by outside influence.

Human Analysis teaches you to recognize, on sight, the predominant instincts of any individual—in brief, what that individual is inclined to do under all the general situations of his life. You know what the world tries to compel him to do. If the discrepancy between these two is beyond the reach of his type he refuses to do what society demands. This and this only is back of every human digression from indiscretion to murder.

It is as vain to expect to eradicate these inborn trends and put others in their places as to make a sewing machine out of an airplane or an oak out of a pine. The most man can do for his neighbor is to understand and inspire him. The most he can do for himself is to understand and organize his inborn capacities.

Find Your Own Type

The first problem of your happiness is to find out what type you are yourself—which you will know after reading this book—and to build your future accordingly.

Knowing and Helping Others

The second is to learn how to analyze others to the end that your relationships with them may be harmonious and mutually advantageous.

Take every individual according to the way he was born, accept him as that kind of mechanism and deal with him in the manner befitting that mechanism. In this way and this only will you be able to impress or to help others.

In this way only will you be able to achieve real success. In this way only will you be able to help your fellowman find the work, the environment and the marriage wherein he can be happy and successful.

The Four C's

To get the maximum of pleasure and knowledge out of this interesting course there are four things to remember as your part of the contract.

Read CONCENTRATEDLY

Think of what you are reading while you are reading it. Concentration is a very simple thing. The next C is

Observe CAREFULLY

Look at people carefully (but not starefully) when analyzing them. Don't jump at conclusions. We humans have a great way of twisting facts to fit our conclusion as soon as we have made one. But don't spend all your time getting ready to decide and forget to decide at all, like the man who was going to jump a ditch. He ran so far back to get a good start each time that he never had the strength to jump when he got there. Get a good start by observing carefully. Then

Decide CONFIDENTLY

Be sure you are right and then go ahead. Make a decision and make it with the confidence that you are right. If you will determine now to follow this rule it will compel you to follow the first two because, in order to be sure you are right, to be certain you are not misjudging anybody, you will read each rule concentratedly and observe each person carefully beforehand.

Practise CONSTANTLY

"Practice makes perfect." Take this for your motto if you would become expert in analyzing people. It is one easily followed for you come in contact with people everywhere—at home, amongst your business associates, with your friends and on the street. Remember you can only benefit from a thing as you use it. A car that you never took out of the garage would be of no value to you. So get full value out of this course by using it at all times.

These Rules Your Tools

These rules are scientific. They are true and they are true always. They are very valuable tools for the furtherance of your progress through life.

An understanding of people is the greatest weapon you can possess. Therefore these are the most precious tools you can own. But like every tool in the world and all knowledge in the world, they must be used as they were built to be used or you will get little service out of them.

You would not expect to run a car properly without paying the closest attention to the rules for clutches, brakes, starters and gears. Everything scientific is based not on guesses but laws. This course in Analyzing People on Sight is as scientific as the automobile. It will carry you far and do it easily if you will do your part. Your part consists of learning the few simple rules laid down in this book and in applying them in the everyday affairs of your life.

Fewer and Truer

Many things which have been found to be true in almost every instance could have been included in this course. But we prefer to make fewer statements and have those of bedrock certainty. Therefore this course, like all our courses, consists exclusively of those facts which have been found to be true in every particular of people in normal health.

IMPORTANT

The Five Extremes

This book deals with PURE or UNMIXED types only. When you understand these, the significance of their several combinations as seen in everyday life will be clear to you.

The Human Alphabet

Just as you can not understand the meaning of a word until you know the letters that go into the makeup of that word, you cannot analyze people accurately until you get these five extreme types firmly in your mind, for they are your alphabet.

Founded in Five Biological Systems

Each PURE type is the result of the over-development of one of the five biological systems possessed by all human beings—the nutritive, circulatory, muscular, bony or nervous.

Therefore every individual exhibits to some degree the characteristics of all the five types.

The Secret of Individuality

But his PREDOMINANT traits and INDIVIDUALITY—the things that make him the KIND of man he is—agree infallibly with whichever one of the five systems PREDOMINATES in him.

Combinations Common in America

The average American man or woman is a COMBINATION of some two of these types with a third discernible in the background.

To Analyze People

To understand human beings familiarize yourself first with the PURE or UNMIXED types and then it will be easy and fascinating to spell out their combinations and what they mean in the people all about you.

Postpone Combinations

Until you have learned these pure types thoroughly it will be to your advantage to forget that there is such a thing as combinations. After you have these extreme types well in mind you will be ready to analyze combinations.

The Five Types

Science has discovered that there are five types of human beings. Discarding for a moment their technical names, they may be called the fat people, the florid people, the muscular people, the bony people and the mental people.

Each varies from the others in shape, size and structure and is recognizable at a glance by his physique or build. This is because his type is determined by the preponderance within his body of one of the five great departments or biological systems—the nutritive, the circulatory, the muscular, the bony or the nervous.

At Birth

Every child is born with one of these systems more highly developed, larger and better equipped than the others.

Type Never Disappears

Throughout his life this system will express itself more, be more intense and constant in its functioning than the others and no manner of training, education, environment or experience, so long as he remains in normal health, will alter the predominance of this system nor prevent its dictating his likes, dislikes and most of his reactions.

Effect of Eating

If you do not understand why the overaction of one bodily system should influence a man's nature see if you can't recall more than one occasion when a square meal made a decided difference in your disposition within the space of thirty minutes.

If one good meal has the power to alter so completely our personalities temporarily, is it then any wonder that constant overfeeding causes everybody to love a fat man? For the fat man is habitually and chronically in that beatific state which comes from over-eating.



CHAPTER I

The Alimentive Type

"The Enjoyer"

Note: Bear in mind at the beginning of this and every other chapter, that we are describing the extreme or unmixed type. Before leaving this book you will understand combination types and should read people as readily as you now read your newspaper.

Those individuals in whom the alimentive system is more highly developed than any other are called Alimentives. The alimentive system consists of the stomach, intestines, alimentary canal and every part of the assimilative apparatus.

Physical Rotundity

A general rotundity of outline characterizes this type. He is round in every direction. Fat rolls away from his elbows, wrists, knees and shoulders. (See Chart 1)

The Fat, Overweight Individual

Soft flesh thickly padded over a small-boned body distinguishes the pure Alimentive type. In men of this type the largest part of the body is around the girth; in women it is around the hips. These always indicate a large nutritive system in good working order. Fat is only surplus tissue—the amount manufactured by the assimilative system over and above the needs of the body.

Fat is more soft and spongy than bone or muscle and lends to its wearer a softer structure and appearance.

Small Hands and Feet

Because his bones are small the pure Alimentive has small feet and small hands. How many times you have noted with surprise that the two hundred pound woman had tiny feet! The inconvenience of "getting around" which you have noticed in her is due to the fact that while she has more weight to carry she has smaller than average feet with which to do it.

The Pure Alimentive Head

A head comparatively small for the body is another characteristic of the extreme Alimentive. The neck and lower part of the head are covered with rolls of fat. This gives the head the effect of spreading outward from the crown as it goes down to the neck, thus giving the neck a short, disproportionately large appearance.

The Round-Faced Person

A "full-moon" face with double or triple chins gives this man his "baby face." (See Chart 2) Look carefully at any extremely fat person and you will see that his features are inclined to the same immaturity of form that characterizes his body.

Very few fat men have long noses. Nearly all fat men and women have not only shorter, rounder noses but shorter upper lips, fuller mouths, rounder eyes and more youthful expressions than other people—in short, the features of childhood.

The entire physical makeup of this type is modeled upon the circle—round hands with dimples where the knuckles are supposed to be; round fingers, round feet, round waist, round limbs, sloping shoulders, curving thighs, bulging calves, wrists and ankles.



Wherever you see curves predominating in the physical outlines of any person, that person is largely of the Alimentive type and will always exhibit alimentive traits.

The Man of Few Movements

The Alimentive is a man of unhurried, undulating movements. The difficulty in moving large bodies quickly necessitates a slowing down of all his activities. These people are easeful in their actions, make as few moves as possible and thereby lend an air of restfulness wherever they go.

Because it is difficult to turn their heads, extremely fat people seldom are aware of what goes on behind them.

The Fat Man's Walk

Very fat people waddle when they walk, though few of them realize it. They can not watch themselves go by and no one else has the heart to impart bad news to this pleasant person.

Spilling Over Chairs

The fat man spills over chairs and out of his clothes. Big arm chairs, roomy divans and capacious automobiles are veritable dykes to these men. Note the bee-line the fat person makes for the big leather chair when he enters a room!

Clothes for Comfort

The best that money can buy are the kinds of clothes purchased by the Alimentive whenever he can afford them. And it often happens that he can afford them, especially if the Cerebral system comes second in his makeup. If he is in middle circumstances his clothes will be chosen chiefly for comfort. Even the rich Alimentive "gets into something loose" as soon as he is alone. Baggy trousers, creased sleeves, soft collars and soft cuffs are seen most frequently on fat men.

Comfort is one of the very first aims of this type. To attain it he often wears old shoes or gloves long past their time to save breaking in a new pair.

Susceptible to Cold

Cold weather affects this type. If you will look about you the first cold day of autumn you will note that most of the overcoats are on the plump men.

How the Fat Man Talks

Never to take anything too seriously is an unconscious policy of fat people. They show it plainly in their actions and speech. The very fat man is seldom a brilliant conversationalist. He is often a "jollier" and tells stories well, especially anecdotes and personal experiences.

Doesn't Tell His Troubles

He seldom relates his troubles and often appears not to have any. He avoids references to isms and ologies and gives a wide berth to all who deal in them. Radical groups seldom number any extremely fat men among their members, and when they do it is usually for some other purpose than those mentioned in the by-laws.

The very fat man dislikes argument, avoids disagreeing with you and sticks to the outer edges of serious questions in his social conversation.

The Fat Man "Lives to Eat"

Rich food in large quantities is enjoyed by the average fat man three times a day and three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Between meals he usually manages to stow away a generous supply of candy, ice cream, popcorn and fruit. We have interviewed countless popcorn and fruit vendors on this subject and every one of them told us that the fat people kept them in business.

Visits the Soda Fountain Often

As for the ice cream business, take a look the next time you pass a soda fountain and note the large percentage of fat people joyfully scooping up mountains of sundaes, parfaits and banana splits. You will find that of those who are sipping things through straws the thin folks are negotiating lemonades and phosphates, while a creamy frappe is rapidly disappearing from the fat man's glass.

The Deep Mystery

"What do you suppose is making me so plump?" naively inquires the fat man when it finally occurs to him—as it did to his friends long before—that he is surely and speedily taking on flesh.

If you don't know the answer, look at the table of any fat person in any restaurant, cafe or dining room. He is eating with as much enthusiasm as if he had just been rescued from a forty-day fast, instead of having only a few hours before looked an equally generous meal in the eye and put it all under his belt. The next time you are at an American plan hotel where meals are restricted to certain hours note how the fat people are always the first ones into the dining room when the doors are opened!

Fat-Making Foods

Butter, olive oil, cream, pastry and starches are foods that increase your weight just as fast as you eat them, if your assimilative system is anything like it should be. Though he is the last man in the world who ought to indulge in them the fat man likes these foods above all others and when compelled to have a meal without them feels as though he hadn't eaten at all.

Why They Don't Lose Weight

We had a friend who decided to reduce. But in spite of the fact that she lived on salads almost exclusively for a week she kept right on gaining. We thought she had been surreptitiously treating herself to lunches between meals until some one noticed the dressing with which she drowned her lettuce: pure olive oil—a cupful at a sitting—"because," she said "I must have something tasty to camouflage the stuff."

An Experiment

Once in California, where no city block is complete without its cafeteria, we took a committee from one of our Human Analysis classes to six of these big establishments one noontime. To illustrate to them the authenticity of the facts we have stated above we prophesied what the fat ones would select for their meals.

Without exception their trays came by heaped with pies, cake, cream, starchy vegetables and meat, just as we predicted.

A Short Life But a Merry One

According to the statistics of the United States Life Insurance Companies fat people die younger than others. And the Insurance Companies ought to know, for upon knowing instead of guessing what it is that takes us off, depends the whole life insurance business. That they consider the extremely fat man an unsafe risk after thirty years of age is a well-known fact.

"I am interrupted every day by salesmen for everything on earth except one. But the life insurance agents leave me alone!" laughed a very fat young lawyer friend of ours the other morning—and he went on ordering ham and eggs, waffles, potatoes and coffee!

That he is eating years off his life doesn't trouble the fat man, however. He has such a good time doing it!

"I Should Worry," Says the Fat Man

It was no accident that "Ish ka bibble" was invented by the Hebrew. For this race has proportionately more fat people in it than any other and fat people just naturally believe worry is useless. But the fat man gets this philosophy from the same source that gives him most of his other traits—his predominating system.

Digestion and Contentment

The eating of delicious food is one of the most intense and poignant pleasures of life. The digestion of food, when one possesses the splendid machinery for it which characterizes the Alimentive, gives a deep feeling of serenity and contentment.

Since the fat man is always just going to a big meal or in the process of digesting one he does not give himself a chance to become ill natured. His own and the world's troubles sit lightly upon him.

The Most Popular Type Socially

"The life of the party" is the fat man or that pleasing, adaptable, feminine creature, the fat woman. No matter what comes or goes they have a good time and it is such an infectious one that others catch it from them.

Did you ever notice how things pick up when the fat ones appear? Every hostess anticipates their arrival with pleasure and welcomes them with relief. She knows that she can relax now, and sure enough, Fatty hasn't his hat off till the atmosphere shows improvement. By the time Chubby gets into the parlor and passes a few of her sunny remarks the wheels are oiled for the evening and they don't run down till the last plump guest has said good night.

So it is no wonder that fat people spend almost every evening at a party. They get so many more invitations than the rest of us!

Likes Complacent People

People who take things as they find them are the ones the Alimentive prefers for friends, not only because, like the rest of us, he likes his own kind of folks, but because the other kind seem incongruous to him. He takes the attitude that resistance is a waste of energy. He knows other and easier ways of getting what he desires.

There are types who take a lively interest in those who are different from them, but not the Alimentive. He prefers easy-going, hospitable, complacent friends whose homes and hearts are always open and whose minds run on the simple, personal things.

The reason for this is obvious. All of us like the people, situations, experiences and environments which bring out our natural tendencies, which call into play those reflexes and reactions to which we tend naturally.

Chooses Food-Loving Friends

"Let's have something to eat" is a phrase whose hospitality has broken more ice and warmed more hearts than any other, unless perchance that rapidly disappearing "let's have something to drink." The fat person keeps at the head of his list those homey souls who set a good table and excel in the art of third and fourth helpings.

Because he is a very adaptable sort of individual this type can reconcile himself to the other kind whenever it serves his purpose. But the tenderest spots in his heart are reserved for those who encourage him in his favorite indoor sport.

When He Doesn't Like You

A fat man seldom dislikes anybody very hard or for very long.

Really disliking anybody requires the expenditure of a good deal of energy and hating people is the most strenuous work in the world. So the Alimentive refuses to take even his dislikes to heart. He is a consistent conserver of steam and this fact is one of the secrets of his success.

He applies this principle to everything in life. So he travels smoothly through his dealings with others.

Holds Few Grudges

"Forget it" is another phrase originated by the fat people. You will hear them say it more often than any other type. And what is more, they excel the rest of us in putting it into practice. The result is that their nerves are usually in better working order. This type runs down his batteries less frequently than any other.

Avoids the "Ologists"

When he takes the trouble to think about it there are a few kinds of people the Alimentive does not care for. The man who is bent on discussing the problems of the universe, the highbrow who wants to practise his new relativity lecture on him, the theorist who is given to lengthy expatiations, and all advocates of new isms and ologies are avoided by the pure Alimentive. He calls them faddists, fanatics and fools.

When he sees a highbrow approaching, instead of having it out with him as some of the other types would, he finds he has important business somewhere else. Thus he preserves his temperature, something that in the average fat man seldom goes far above normal.

No Theorist

Theories are the bane of this type. He just naturally doesn't believe in them. Scientific discoveries, unless they have to do with some new means of adding to his personal comforts, are taboo. The next time this one about "fat men dying young" is mentioned in his presence listen to his jolly roar. The speed with which he disposes of it will be beautiful to see!

"Say, I feel like a million dollars!" he will assure you if you read this chapter to him. "And I'll bet the folks who wrote that book are a pair of grouches who have forgotten what a square meal tastes like!"

Where the T-Bones Go

When you catch a three-inch steak homeward bound you will usually find it tucked under the arm of a well-rounded householder. When his salary positively prohibits the comforts of parlor, bedroom and other parts of the house the fat man will still see to it that the kitchen does not lack for provender.

Describes His Food

The fat person likes to regale you with alluring descriptions of what he had for breakfast, what he has ordered for lunch and what he is planning for dinner—and the rarebit he has on the program for after the theater.

Eats His Way to the Grave

Most of us are committing suicide by inches in one form or another—and always in that form which is inherent in our type.

The Alimentive eats his way to the grave and has at least this much to say for it: it is more delightful than the pet weaknesses by which the other types hasten the final curtain.

Diseases He Is Most Susceptible To

Diabetes is more common among this type than any other. Apoplexy comes next, especially if the fat man is also a florid man with a fast heart or an inclination to high blood pressure. A sudden breaking down of any or several of the vital organs is also likely to occur to fat people earlier than to others. It is the price they pay for their years of over-eating.

Overtaxed heart, kidneys and liver are inevitable results of too much food.

So the man you call "fat and husky" is fat but not husky, according to the statistics.

Fat Men and Influenza

During the historic Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 more fat people succumbed than all other types combined. This fact was a source of surprise and much discussion on the part of newspapers, but not of the scientists. The big question in treating this disease and its twin, Pneumonia, is: will the heart hold out? Fat seriously handicaps the heart.

The Fat Man's Ford Engine

The human heart weighs less than a pound but it is the one organ in all our machinery that never takes a rest. It is the engine of the human car, and what a faithful little motor too—like the Ford engine which it so much resembles. If you live to be forty it chugs away forty years, and if you stay here ninety it stretches it to ninety, without an instant of vacation.

But it must be treated with consideration and the first consideration is not to overwork it. A Ford engine is large enough for a Ford car, for Fords are light weight. As long as you do not weigh too much your engine will carry you up the hills and down the dales of life with good old Ford efficiency and at a pretty good gait.

Making a Truck out of Your Ford

But when you take on fat you are doing to your engine what a Ford driver would be doing to his if he loaded his car with brick or scrap iron.

A Ford owner who intended to transport bricks the rest of his life could get a big-cylinder engine and substitute it for the original but you can't do that. This little four-cylinder affair is the only one you will ever have and no amount of money, position or affection can buy you a new one if you mistreat it. Like the Ford engine, it will stand for a good many pounds of excess baggage and still do good work. But if you load on too much and keep it there the day will come when its cylinders begin to skip.

You may take it to the service station and pay the doctors to grind the valves, fix your carbureter and put in some new spark plugs. These may work pretty well as long as you are traveling the paved highway of Perfect Health; you may keep up with the procession without noticing anything particularly wrong.

But come to the hill of Pneumonia or Diabetes and you are very likely not to make the grade.

Don't "Kill Your Engine"

The records in America show that thousands of men and women literally "kill their engines" every year when they might have lived many years longer.

How Each Finds Happiness

We live for happiness and each type finds its greatest happiness in following those innate urges determined by the most highly-developed system in its makeup.

The Alimentive's disposition, nature, character and personality are built by and around his alimentary system. He is happiest when gratifying it and whenever he thwarts it he is miserable, just as the rest of us are when we thwart our predominant system.

The World Needs Him

This type has so many traits needed by the world, however, and has such extreme capacity for enjoying life that the race, not to mention himself, would profit greatly by his denying himself excessive amounts of food.

Enjoyment the Keynote of This Type

The good things of life—rich, abundant food and everything that serves the personal appetites—are the cravings of this type.

He purchases and uses more of the limousines, yachts and chefs than any other three types combined, and gets more for his money out of them than others do. The keynote of his nature is personal enjoyment. His senses of touch and taste are also especially acute.

The Fat Man Loves Comfort

You can tell a great deal about a man's type by noting for what classes of things he spends most of his extra money.

The Alimentive may have no fire insurance, no Liberty bonds, no real estate but he will have all the modern comforts he can possibly afford.

Most of the world's millionaires are fat and Human Analysis explains why. We make few efforts in life save to satisfy our most urgent demands, desires, and ambitions. Each human type differs in its cravings from each of the others and takes the respective means necessary to gratify these cravings.

The Alimentive craves those luxuries, comforts and conveniences which only money can procure for him.

The Fat Millionaire

When the Alimentive is a man of brains he uses his brains to get money. No fat person enjoys work but the greater his brain capacity the more will he forego leisure to make money.

When the Fat Man is in Average Circumstances

Any man's money-making ambitions depend largely on whether money is essential to the satisfaction of his predominating instincts.

If he is fat and of average brain capacity he will overcome his physical inertia to the point of securing for himself and his family most of the comforts of modern life.

The average-brained fat man composes a large percentage of our population and the above accounts for his deserved reputation as a generous husband and father.

The Fat Man a Good Provider

The fat man will give his last cent to his wife and children for the things they desire but he is not inclined as much as some other types to hearken to the woes of the world at large. The fat man is essentially a family man, a home man, a respectable, cottage-owning, tax-paying, peaceable citizen.

Not a Reformer

He inclines to the belief that other families, other communities, other classes and other countries should work out their own salvation and he leaves them to do it. In all charitable, philanthropic and community "drives" he gives freely but is not lavish nor sentimental about it. It is often a "business proposition" with him.

When the Fat Man is Poor

Love of ease is the fat man's worst enemy. His inherent contentment, accentuated by the inconvenience of moving about easily or quickly, constantly tempts him to let things slide. When he lacks the brain capacity for figuring out ways and means for getting things easily he is never a great success at anything.

When the extremely fat man's mentality is below the average he often refuses to work—in which case he becomes a familiar figure around public rest rooms, parks and the cheaper hotel lobbies. Such a man finally graduates into the class of professional chair-warmers.

Fat People Love Leisure

A chance to do as we please, especially to do as little hard work as possible, is a secret desire of almost everybody. But the fat man takes the prize for wanting it most.

Not a Strenuous Worker

He is not constructed to work hard like some of the other types, as we shall see in subsequent chapters. His overweight is not only a handicap in that it slows down his movements, but it tends to slow down all his vital processes as well and to overload his heart. This gives him a chronic feeling of heaviness and inertia.

Everybody Likes Him

But Nature must have intended fat people to manage the rest of us instead of taking a hand at the "heavy work." She made them averse to toil and then made them so likable that they can usually get the rest of us to do their hardest work for them.

The World Managed by Fat People

When he is brainy the fat man never stays in the lower ranks of subordinates. He may get a late start in an establishment but he will soon make those over him like him so well they will promote him to a chief-clerkship, a foremanship or a managership. Once there he will make those under him so fond of him that they will work long and hard for him.

Fat Men to the Top

In this way the fat man of real brains goes straight to the top while others look on and bewail the fact that they do most of the actual work. They fail to recognize that the world always pays the big salaries not for hand work but for head work, and not so much for working yourself as for your ability to get others to work.

The Popular Politician

This capacity for managing, controlling and winning others is what enables this type to succeed so well in politics. The fat man knows how to get votes. He mixes with everybody, jokes with everybody, remembers to ask how the children are—and pretty soon he's the head of his ward. Almost every big political boss is fat.

Makes Others Work

One man is but one man and at best can do little more than a good man-size day of work. But a man who can induce a dozen other man-machines to speed up and turn out a full day's work apiece doesn't need to work his own hands. He serves his employer more valuably as an overseer, foreman or supervisor.

The Fat Salesman

"A fat drummer" is such a common phrase that we would think our ears deceived us did anyone speak of a thin one. Approach five people and say "A traveling salesman," each will tell you that the picture this conjures in his imagination is of a fat, round, roly-poly, good natured, pretty clever man whom everybody likes.

For the fat men are "born salesmen" and they make up a large percentage of that profession. Salesmanship requires mentality plus a pleasing personality. The fat man qualifies easily in the matter of personality. Then he makes little or much money from salesmanship, according to his mental capacity.

The Drummers' Funny Stories

You will note that the conversation of fat people is well sprinkled with funny stories. They enjoy a good joke better than any other type, for a reason which will become more and more apparent to you.

That salesmen are popularly supposed to regale each customer with yarns till he gasps for breath and to get his signature on the dotted line while he is in that weakened condition, is more or less of a myth. It originated from the fact that most salesmen are fat and that fat people tell stories well.

Jokes at Fat Men's Expense

"Look at Fatty," "get a truck," and other jibes greet the fat man on every hand. He knows he can not proceed a block without being the butt of several jokes, but he listens to them all with an amiability surprising to other types. And this good nature is so apparent that even those who make sport of him are thinking to themselves: "I believe I'd like that man."

The Fat Man's Habits

"Never hurry and never worry" are the unconscious standards underlying many of the reactions of this type. If you will compile a list of the habits of any fat person you will find that they are mostly the outgrowths of one or both of these motives.

Won't Speed Up

You would have a hard time getting an Alimentive to follow out any protracted line of action calling for strenuosity, speed or high tension. He will get as much done as the strenuous man when their mentalities are equal—and often more. The fat person keeps going in a straight line, with uniform and uninterrupted effort, and does not have the blow-outs common to more fidgety people. But hard, fast labor is not in his line.

Loves Comedy

All forms of mental depression are foreign to fat people as long as they are in normal health. We have known a fat husband and wife to be ejected for rent and spend the evening at the movies laughing like four-year-olds at Charlie Chaplin or a Mack Sennett comedy. You have sometimes seen fat people whose financial condition was pretty serious and wondered how they could be so cheerful.

Inclined to Indolence

Fat people's habits, being built around their points of strength and weakness, are necessarily of two kinds—the desirable and the undesirable.

The worst habits of this type are those inevitable to the ease-loving and the immature-minded.

Indolence is one of his most undesirable traits and costs the Alimentive dear.

In this country where energy, push and lightning-like efficiency are at a premium only the fat man of brains can hope to keep up.

The inertia caused by his digestive processes is so great that it is almost insurmountable. The heavy, lazy feeling you have after a large meal is with the fat man interminably because his organism is constantly in the process of digesting large amounts of food.

Likes Warm Rooms

Love of comfort—especially such things as warm rooms and soft beds—is so deeply imbedded in the fiber of this type that he has ever to face a fight with himself which the rest of us do not encounter. This sometimes leads the excessively corpulent person to relax into laziness and slovenliness. An obese individual sometimes surprises us, however, by his ambition and immaculateness.

But such a man or woman almost always combines decided mental tendencies with his alimentiveness.

Enjoys Doing Favors

The habits which endear the fat person to everyone and make us forget his faults are his never-failing hospitality, kindness when you are in trouble, his calming air of contentment, his tact, good nature and the real pleasure he seems to experience when doing you a favor.

His worst faults wreak upon him far greater penalties than fall upon those who associate with him, something that can not be said of the faults of some other types.

Likes Melody

Simple, natural music is a favorite with fat people. Love songs, rollicking tunes and those full of melody are most popular with them. An easy-to-learn, easy-to-sing song is the one a fat man chooses when he names the next selection.

They like ragtime, jazz and music with a swing to it. Music the world over is most popular with fat races. The world's greatest singers and most of its famous musicians have been fat or at least decidedly plump.

Goes to the Cabaret

The fat person will wiggle his toes, tap his fingers, swing his fork and nod his head by the hour with a rumbling jazz orchestra.

When the Alimentive is combined with some other type he will also enjoy other kinds of music but the pure Alimentive cares most for primal tunes and melodies.

Likes a Girly-Show

A pretty-girl show makes a hit with fat women as well as with fat men. Drop into the "Passing Show" and note how many fat people are in the audience. Drop into a theater the next night where a tragedy is being enacted and see how few fat ones are there.

The One Made Sport Of

Fat people enjoy helping out the players, if the opportunity offers. All show people know this.

When one of those tricks is to be played from the foot-lights upon a member of the audience the girl who does it is always careful to select that circular gentleman down front. Let her try to mix up confetti or a toy balloon with a tall skinny man and the police would get a hurry call!

When we describe the bony type you will note how very different he is from our friend the fat man.

A Movie Fan

"The fat man's theater" would be a fitting name for the movie houses of the country. Not that the fat man is the only type patronizing the cinema. The movies cover in one evening so many different kinds of human interests—news, cartoons, features and comedy—that every type finds upon the screen something to interest him.

But if you will do what we have done—stand at the doorway of the leading movie theaters of your city any evening and keep a record of the types that enter you will find the plump are as numerous as all the others combined.

Easy Entertainment

The reason for this is plain to all who are acquainted with Human Analysis: the fat man wants everything the easiest possible way and the movie fulfils this requirement more fully than any other theatrical entertainment. He can drop in when he feels like it and there is no waiting for the show to start, for one thing.

This is a decided advantage to him, for fat people do not like to depend upon themselves for entertainment.

The Babies of the Race

The first stage in biological evolution was the stage in which the alimentary apparatus was developed. To assimilate nutriment was the first function of all life and is so still, since it is the principal requirement for self-preservation.

Being the first and most elemental of our five physiological systems the Alimentive—when it overtops the others—produces a more elemental, infantile nature. The pure Alimentive has rightly been called "the baby of the race." This accounts for many of the characteristics of the extremely fat person, including the fact that it is difficult for him to amuse himself.

He of all types likes most to be amused and very simple toys and activities are sufficient to do it.

Loves the Circus

A serious drama or "problem play" usually bores him but he seldom misses a circus.

The fat person expresses his immaturity also in that he likes to be petted, made over and looked after.

Like the infant he demands food first. Almost the only time a fat man loses his temper is when he has been deprived of his food. The next demand on his list is sleep, another characteristic of the immature.

Give a fat man "three squares" a day and plenty of sleep in a comfortable bed, and he will walk off with the prize for good humor three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. Next to sleep he demands warm clothing in winter and steam heat when the wintry winds blow.

Fat People at the Beach

If it were not for the exertion required in getting to and from the beaches, dressing and undressing, and the momentary coldness of the water, many more Alimentives would go to the beaches in Summer than do.

Not Strenuous

Anything, to be popular with the Alimentive, must be easy to get, easy to do, easy to get away from, easy to drop if he feels like it. Anything requiring the expenditure of great energy, even though it promises pleasure when achieved, is usually passed over by the fat people.

The Art of Getting Out Of It

"Let George do it" is another bit of slang invented by this type. He seldom does anything he really hates to do. He is so likable he either induces you to let him out of it or gets somebody to do it for him. He just naturally avoids everything that is intense, difficult or strenuous.

The Peaceable Type

If an unpleasant situation of a personal or social nature arises—a quarrel, a misunderstanding or any kind of disagreement—the fat man will try to get himself out of it without a discussion.

Except when they have square faces (in which case they are not pure Alimentives), extremely fat people do not mix up in neighborhood, family, church, club or political quarrels. It is too much trouble, for one thing, and for another it is opposed to his peaceable, untensed nature.

Avoids Expensive Quarrels

The fat man has his eye on personal advantages and promotions and he knows that quarrels are expensive, not alone in the chances they lose him, but in nerve force and peace of mind.

The fat man knows instinctively that peace times are the most profitable times and though he is not for "peace at any price" so far as the country is concerned, he certainly is much inclined that way where he is personally concerned. You will be amused to notice how this peace-loving quality increases as one's weight increases. The more fat any individual is the more is he inclined to get what he wants without hostility.

The Real Thing

The favorite "good time" of the Alimentive is one where there are plenty of refreshments. A dinner invitation always makes a hit with him, but beware that you do not lure a fat person into your home and give him a tea-with-lemon wisp where he expected a full meal!

Always Ready for Food

Substantial viands can be served to him any hour of the day or night with the certainty of pleasing him. He loves a banquet, provided he is not expected to make a speech. The fat man has a harder time than any other listening to long speeches.

The fashion of trying to mix the two most opposite extremes—food and ideas—and expecting them to go down, was due to our misunderstanding of the real nature of human beings. It is rapidly going out, as must every fashion which fails to take the human instincts into account.

Avoids Sports

No prizes lure a fat man into strenuous physical exercise or violent sports. Although we have witnessed numerous state, national and international tennis, polo, rowing, sprinting, hurdling and swimming contests, we have seen not one player who was fat enough to be included in the pure Alimentive type.

The grand-stands, bleachers and touring cars at these contests contained a generous number of fat people, but their conversation indicated that they were present more from personal interest in some contestant than in the game itself.

The nearest a fat man usually comes to taking strenuous exercise is to drive in an open car. The more easeful that car the better he likes it. He avoids long walks as he would the plague, and catches a street car for a two-block trip.

The Personal Element

Due to his immaturity, the fat person gives little thought to anything save those things which affect him personally.

The calm exterior, unruffled countenance and air of deliberation he sometimes wears, and which have occasionally passed for "judicial" qualities, are largely the results of the fact that the Alimentive refuses to get stirred up over anything that does not concern him personally.

This personal element will be found to dominate the activities, conversation and interests of the Alimentive. For him to like a thing or buy a thing it must come pretty near being something he can eat, wear, live in or otherwise personally enjoy. He confines himself to the concrete and tangible. But most of all he confines himself to things out of which he gets something for himself.

Reading

The fat man is no reader but when he does read it is nearly always something funny, simple or sentimental. In newspapers he reads the "funnies." Magazine stories, if short and full of sentiment, attract him. He seldom reads an editorial and is not a book worm. The newspaper furnishes practically all of the fat man's reading. He seldom owns a library unless he is very rich, and then it is usually for "show."

Avoids Book Stores

In making the investigations for this course, we interviewed many clerks in the bookstores of leading cities throughout the United States. Without exception they stated that few extremely fat people patronized them. "I have been in this store seventeen years and I have never sold a book to a two hundred and fifty pounder," one dealer told us. All this is due to the fact with which we started this chapter—that the fat man is built around his stomach—and stomachs do not read!

Naturally Realistic

The fat man has the child's natural innocence and ignorance of subtle and elusive things. He has the same interest in things and people as does the child; the child's indifference to books, lectures, schools and everything abstract.

Physical Assets

"I believe I could digest nails!" exclaimed a fat friend of ours recently. This perfect nutritive system constitutes the greatest physical superiority of the Alimentive. So highly developed is his whole stomach department that everything "agrees" with him. And everything tends to make him fat.

As Irvin Cobb recently said: "It isn't true that one can't have his cake and eat it, too, for the fat man eats his and keeps it—all."

Physical Liabilities

A tendency to over-eat results naturally from the highly developed eating and digesting system of this type but this in turn overtaxes all the vital organs, as stated before. Also, the fat man's aversion to exercise reduces his physical efficiency.

The pure Alimentive and the alimentively-inclined should learn their normal weight and then keep within it if they desire long lives.

Social Assets

Sweetness of disposition is one of the most valuable of all human characteristics. Fat people possess it more often and more unchangingly than any other type. Other social assets of this type are amenableness, affability, hospitality and approachableness.

Social Liabilities

Gaining his ends by flattery, cajolery, and various more or less innocent little deceptions are the only social handicaps of this type.

Emotional Assets

His unfailing optimism is the most marked emotional quality of this type. Nothing can be so dark that the fat person doesn't find a silver edge somewhere. So in disaster we always send for our fat friends. In the presence of an amply-proportioned individual everything looks brighter. Hope springs eternal in human breasts but the springs are stronger in the plump folks than in the rest of us.

Money spending is also a marked feature of the fat man. His emotions are out-going, never "in-growing." A stingy fat man is unknown.

Emotional Liabilities

A tendency to become spoiled, to pout, and to take out his resentments in babyish ways are the emotional weaknesses of this type. These, as you will note, are the natural reactions of childhood, from which he never fully emerges.

Business Assets

The ability to make people like him is the greatest business and professional asset of this type, and one every other type might well emulate. One average-minded fat man near the door of a business establishment will make more customers in a month by his geniality, joviality and sociableness than a dozen brilliant thinkers will in a year. Every business that deals directly with the public should have at least one fat person in it.

Business Liabilities

A habit of evading responsibility and of "getting out from under" constitutes the inclination most harmful to the business or professional ambitions of this type. Again it is the child in him trying to escape the task set for it and at the same time to avoid punishment.

Domestic Strength

Love of home is a distinguishing domestic trait of all fat people. The fat man's provision for his family is usually as complete as his circumstances will permit and he often stretches it a point.

As parents fat men and women are almost too easy-going for their own future happiness, for they "spoil" their children. But they are more loved by their children than any other type. Being so nearly children themselves they make equals of their children, enter into their games and live their lives with them.

Domestic Weakness

Dependence on others, the tendency of allowing one's self to be supported by brothers or sisters or wife, is the chief domestic weakness of fat people. They should begin early in life to depend upon themselves and make it a practice to carry their share of family responsibilities.

Should Aim At

Developing more of his mental powers with a view to using his head to lessen the manual work he so dislikes, and cultivating an interest in the more mature side of the world in which he lives should be two of the aims of all extremely fat people.

Should Avoid

"Letting down," soft snaps and temptations to evade responsibility should be avoided by the fat. Elbert Hubbard said, "Blessed is the man who is not looking for a soft snap, for he is the only one who shall find it." This explains why the fat man, unless brainy, seldom lands one.

Strongest Points

Optimism, hospitality and harmony are the strongest points in the fat man's nature. Upon them many a man has built a successful life. Without them no individual of any type can hope to be happy.

His popularity and all-around compatibility give the fat man advantages over other types which fairly compensate for the weak cogs in his machinery.

Weakest Points

Self-indulgence of all kinds, over-eating, over-sleeping, under-exercising and the evasion of responsibilities are the weakest points of this type. Despite his many strong points his life is often wrecked on these rocks. He so constantly tends to taking the easy way out. Day by day he gives up chances for ultimate success for the baubles of immediate ease.

He is the most likable of all the types but his indolence sometimes strains even the love of his family to the breaking point.

How to Deal with this Type Socially

Feed him, give him comfortable chairs—the largest you have—and don't drag him into long discussions of any kind. This is the recipe for winning the fat man when you meet him socially.

And whatever you do, don't tell him your troubles! The fat man hates trouble, smothers his own, and you only make him ill at ease when you regale him with yours.

Don't walk him any more than is absolutely necessary. Let him go home early if he starts. He enjoys his sleep and doesn't like to have it interfered with.

Make your conversation deal with concrete personal things and events. Stay away from highbrow subjects. The best places to eat and the best shows of the week are safe subjects to introduce when with very fat people.

How to Deal with this Type in Business

Don't give him hard manual tasks. If you want this kind of work done get some one other than an extremely fat man to do it. If you hire a fat man blame yourself for the result.

Give your fat employee a chance to deal with people in a not-too-serious way, but hold him strictly to the keeping of his records, reports and working hours. If this fat person is a dealer, a merchant or a tradesman keep him to his word. Start out by letting him know you expect the delivery of just what he promises. Don't let him "jolly" you into relinquishing what is rightfully yours. And keep in mind always that the fat person is usually good at heart.

Remember, the chief distinguishing marks of the Alimentive in the order of their importance are ROUNDED OUTLINES, IMMATURE FEATURES and DIMPLED HANDS. A person who has these is largely of the Alimentive type, no matter what other types may be included in his makeup.



CHAPTER II

The Thoracic Type

"The Thriller"

Individuals in whom the circulatory system (heart, arteries and blood vessels) and the respiratory system (lungs, nose and chest) are more highly developed than any other systems, have been named the Thoracics.

This name comes from the fact that the heart and lungs (which constitute the most important organs of these two closely-allied systems) are housed in the thorax—that little room made by your ribs for the protection of these vital organs.

Physical Resilience

A general elasticity of structure, a suggestion of sinews and physical resilience characterizes this type.

The Florid-Faced, High-Chested Individual

What is known as a "red face," when accompanied by a high chest, always signifies large thoracic tendencies. The high color which in an adult comes and goes is a sure indication of a well developed circulatory system, since high color is caused by the rapid pumping of blood to the tiny blood vessels of the face.

People with little blood, weak hearts or deficient circulation are not florid and must be much overheated or excited to show vivid color in their cheeks.

Betray Their Feelings

On the other hand, the slightest displeasure, enjoyment, surprise or exertion brings the blood rushing to the face and neck of him who has a large, well-developed blood-system. How many times you have heard such a one say: "I am so embarrassed! I flush at every little thing! How I envy the rest of you who come in from a long walk looking so cool!"