The net result of the interplay of instincts and influences which determine the existence of a community is shown in the general expression on the faces of the people.  This is an index which cannot lie and cannot be gainsaid.  It is fairly easy, and extremely interesting, to decipher.  It is so open, shameless, and universal, that not to look at it is impossible.  Yet the majority of persons fail to see it.  We hear of inquirers standing on London Bridge and counting the number of motor-buses, foot-passengers, lorries, and white horses that pass over the bridge in an hour.  But we never hear of anybody counting the number of faces happy or unhappy, honest or rascally, shrewd or ingenuous, kind or cruel, that pass over the bridge.  Perhaps the public may be surprised to hear that the general expression on the faces of Londoners of all ranks varies from the sad to the morose; and that their general mien is one of haste and gloomy preoccupation.  Such a staring fact is paramount in sociological evidence.  And the observer of it would be justified in summoning Heaven, the legislature, the county council, the churches, and the ruling classes, and saying to them:  “Glance at these faces, and don’t boast too much about what you have accomplished.  The climate and the industrial system have so far triumphed over you all.”

VI

When we come to the observing of the individual—­to which all human observing does finally come if there is any right reason in it—­the aforesaid general considerations ought to be ever present in the hinterland of the consciousness, aiding and influencing, perhaps vaguely, perhaps almost imperceptibly, the formation of judgments.  If they do nothing else, they will at any rate accustom the observer to the highly important idea of the correlation of all phenomena.  Especially in England a haphazard particularity is the chief vitiating element in the operations of the mind.

In estimating the individual we are apt not only to forget his environment, but—­really strange!—­to ignore much of the evidence visible in the individual himself.  The inexperienced and ardent observer, will, for example, be astonishingly blind to everything in an individual except his face.  Telling himself that the face must be the reflection of the soul, and that every thought and emotion leaves inevitably its mark there, he will concentrate on the face, singling it out as a phenomenon apart and self-complete.  Were he a god and infallible, he could no doubt learn the whole truth from the face.  But he is bound to fall into errors, and by limiting the field of vision he minimises the opportunity for correction.  The face is, after all, quite a small part of the individual’s physical organism.  An Englishman will look at a woman’s face and say she is a beautiful woman or a plain woman.  But a woman may have a plain face, and yet by her form be entitled to be called beautiful, and (perhaps) vice versa.