approach empirical psychology most
nearly in verses like these: "Foolishness is bound in the heart of the
child, but the word of correction should drive it far from him"; or
"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much;
and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much"; or
"Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant"; or
"The full soul loatheth an honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every
bitter thing is sweet"; or "For if any man be a hearer of the word and
not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass,
for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway forgetteth
what manner of man he was"; or "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by
the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." But here we
have almost overstepped the limits of real psychology; we are moving
toward ethics. Nor can we call metaphors like this psychology: "He
that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken
down and without walls."

Let us turn for a moment to the greatest knower of men in mediaeval
days, to Dante. How deeply his poetic eye looked into the hearts of
men, how living are the characters in his "Divine Comedy"; and yet he
left us hardly any psychological observations. Some psychology may be
acknowledged in words like these: "The man in whose bosom thought on
thought awakes is always disappointed in his object, for the strength
of the one weakens the other"; "When we are wholly absorbed by
feelings of delight or of grief, our soul yields itself to this one
object, and we are no longer able to direct our thoughts elsewhere";
"There is no greater grief than to remember our happy time in misery."
It is hardly psychology if we hear, "The bad workman finds fault with
his tools"; or, "Likeness ever gives birth to love"; or "The wisest
are the most annoyed to lose time."

From Dante we naturally turn to Shakespeare. We have so often heard
that he is the greatest psychologist, and yet we ought not to forget
that such a popular classification does not in itself really mean that
Shakespeare undertakes the work of the psychologist. It does mean that
he creates figures with the temperament, character, thought, and will
so similar to life and so full of inner mental truth that the
psychologist might take the persons of the poet's imagination as
material for his psychological studies. But this by no means suggests
that Shakespeare phrased abs