Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/254

theory, showing them to be insignificant or irrelevant (you'd do that all right) and there you are. You'll do quite as good anthropological research as⁠———"

"Is there money in it?"

"I thought you were all right for money. No, if you're out for that, I should take to psycho-analysis. The system's the same, generally speaking, only instead of dealing with primitive man, whom you can disregard because he isn't there, you are dealing with a living man, who will probably tell you that you are a liar. Then you tell him that he is losing his temper, which is the sign of a strong inhibition somewhere, and that's just what you were saying all along. The beauty of psycho-analysis is that it's all 'Heads-I-win-tails-you-lose.' In medicine, your diagnosis of fever is a trifle disconcerted if the patient's temperature is sub-normal. In psycho-analysis you say, 'Ah, that just proves what I was saying.'"

"It seems to me that I have been neglecting all these openings for our young men."

"Well, I don't know, the psycho-business is getting a bit over-crowded nowadays. But there are still plenty of openings in the historical line. You can read what theories you like into history, as long as you are careful to neglect human probabilities, and take your evidence entirely from a selection of external facts. There is danger in it, of course; any day some fool may dig up a great chunk of Livy, and all your theories go wrong. Still, the obvious remedy for that is to say that Livy was lying on pur-