can be useful for the purposes of the business man.  Or here, too, we might begin with the consideration of the various ends and purposes.  The ends of commerce are different from those of industry, those of publishing different from those of transportation, those of agriculture different from those of mining; or, in the field of commerce, the purposes of the retailer are different from those of the wholesale merchant.  There can be no limit to such subdivisions; each particular industry has its own aims, and in the same industry a large variety of tasks are united.  We should accordingly be led to an ample classification of special economic ends with pigeonholes for every possible kind of business and of labor.  The psychologist would have to find for every one of these ends the right mental means.  This would be the ideal system of economic psychology.

But we are still endlessly far from such a perfect system.  Modern educational psychology and medical psychology have reached a stage at which an effort for such a complete system might be realized, but economic psychology is still at too early a stage of development.  It would be entirely artificial to-day to aim at such ideal completeness.  If we were to construct such a complete system of questions, we should have no answers.  In the present stage nothing can be seriously proposed but the selection of a few central purposes which occur in every department of business life, and a study of the means to reach these special ends by the discussion of some typical cases which may clearly illustrate the methods involved.

From this point of view we select three chief purposes of business life, purposes which are important in commerce and industry and every economic endeavor.  We ask how we can find the men whose mental qualities make them best fitted for the work which they have to do; secondly, under what psychological conditions we can secure the greatest and most satisfactory output of work from every man; and finally, how we can produce most completely the influences on human minds which are desired in the interest of business.  In other words, we ask how to find the best possible man, how to produce the best possible work, and how to secure the best possible effects.

PART I

THE BEST POSSIBLE MAN

IV

VOCATION AND FITNESS

Instead of lingering over theoretical discussions, we will move straight on toward our first practical problem.  The economic task, with reference to which we want to demonstrate the new psychotechnic method, is the selection of those personalities which by their mental qualities are especially fit for a particular kind of economic work.  This problem is especially useful to show what the new method can do and what it cannot do.  Whether the method is sufficiently developed to secure full results to-day, or whether they will come to-morrow, is unimportant.  It is clear that the success of to-morrow is to be hoped for, only if understanding and interest in the problem is already alive to-day.