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Modern Psychometrics

This popular text introduces the reader to all aspects of psychometric assessment,
including its history, the construction and administration of traditional tests, and the
latest techniques for psychometric assessment online.
Rust, Kosinski, and Stillwell begin with a comprehensive introduction to the
increased sophistication in psychometric methods and regulation that took place
during the 20th century, including the many benefits to governments, businesses, and
customers. In this new edition, the authors explore the increasing influence of the
internet, wherein everything we do on the internet is available for psychometric analysis,
often by AI systems operating at scale and in real time. The intended and unintended
consequences of this paradigm shift are examined in detail, and key controversies, such
as privacy and the psychographic microtargeting of online messages, are addressed.
Furthermore, this new edition includes brand-new chapters on item response theory,
computer adaptive testing, and the psychometric analysis of the digital traces we all leave
online.
Modern Psychometrics combines an up-to-date scientific approach with full
consideration of the political and ethical issues involved in the implementation of
psychometric testing in today’s society. It will be invaluable to both undergraduate and
postgraduate students, as well as practitioners who are seeking an introduction to modern
psychometric methods.

John Rust is the founder of The Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge,
UK. He is a Senior Member of Darwin College, UK, and an Associate Fellow of the
Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge, UK.

Michal Kosinski is an Associate Professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford

Graduate School of Business, USA.

David Stillwell is the Academic Director of the Psychometrics Centre at the University
of Cambridge, UK. He is also a reader in computational social science at the Cambridge
Judge Business School, UK.
Modern Psychometrics
The Science of Psychological Assessment

Fourth Edition

John Rust, Michal Kosinski, and

David Stillwell
Fourth edition published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 John Rust, Michal Kosinski and David Stillwell
The right of John Rust, Michal Kosinski, and David Stillwell to be identified as authors of
this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published in 1989
Third edition published by Routledge 2009
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rust, John, 1943- author. | Kosinski, Michal, author. | Stillwell, David, author.
Title: Modern psychometrics : the science of psychological assessment/John Rust, Michal
Kosinski and David Stillwell.
Description: Fourth edition. | Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY:
Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020034344 (print) | LCCN 2020034345 (ebook) | ISBN
9781138638631 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138638655 (paperback) | ISBN
9781315637686 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Psychometrics.
Classification: LCC BF39 .R85 2009 (print) | LCC BF39 (ebook) | DDC 150.28/
7--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034344
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034345

ISBN: 978-1-138-63863-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-63865-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-63768-6 (ebk)

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by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents

Preface to the fourth edition xii

1 The history and evolution of psychometric testing 1

Introduction 1
What is psychometrics? 1
Psychometrics in the 21st century 2
History of assessment 4
Chinese origins 4
The ability to learn 5
The 19th century 7
Beginnings of psychometrics as a science 7
Intelligence testing 8
Eugenics and the dark decades 9
Psychometric testing of ability 11
The dark ages come to an end 11
An abundance of abilities 12
Tests of other psychological constructs 13
Personality 13
Integrity 14
Interests 16
Motivation 16
Values 16
Temperament 17
Attitudes 17
Beliefs 18
Summary 18

2 Constructing your own psychometric questionnaire 20

The purpose of the questionnaire 20
Making a blueprint 20
vi Contents
Content areas 21
Manifestations 21
Writing items 24
Alternate-choice items 24
Multiple-choice items 24
Rating-scale items 25
All questionnaires 26
Knowledge-based questionnaires 26
Person-based questionnaires 27
Designing the questionnaire 28
Background information 28
Instructions 28
Layout 29
Piloting the questionnaire 30
Item analysis 31
Facility 31
Discrimination 32
Distractors 33
Obtaining reliability 33
Cronbach’s alpha 34
Split-half reliability 34
Assessing validity 35
Face validity 35
Content validity 35
Standardization 36

3 The psychometric principles 38

Reliability 38
Test–retest reliability 38
Parallel-forms reliability 39
Split-half reliability 40
Interrater reliability 40
Internal consistency 40
Standard error of measurement (SEM) 41
Comparing test reliabilities 42
Restriction of range 42
Validity 43
Face validity 43
Content validity 43
Predictive validity 43
Concurrent validity 44
 Contents vii
Construct validity 44
Differential validity 45
Standardization 45
Norm referencing 46
Criterion referencing 51
Equivalence 52
Differential item functioning 55
Measurement invariance 55
Adverse impact 56
Summary 57

4 Psychometric measurement 58
True-score theory 58
Identification of latent traits with factor analysis 60
Spearman’s two-factor theory 60
Vector algebra and factor rotation 62
Moving into more dimensions 64
Multidimensional scaling 65
Application of factor analysis to test construction 66
Eigenvalues 66
Identifying the number of factors to extract using the Kaiser criterion 66
Identifying the number of factors to extract using the Cattell scree test 67
Other techniques for identifying the number of factors to extract 67
Factor rotation 67
Rotation to simple structure 69
Orthogonal rotation 69
Oblique rotation 69
Limitations of the classical factor-analytic approach 70
Criticisms of psychometric measurement theory 70
The Platonic true score 71
Psychological vs. physical true scores 71
Functional assessment and competency testing 72
Machine learning and the black box 74
Summary 74

5 Item response theory and computer adaptive testing 76

Introduction 76
Item banks 76
The Rasch model 77
viii Contents
Assessment of educational standards 77
The Birnbaum model 78
The evolution of modern psychometrics 78
Computer adaptive testing 79
Test equating 79
Polytomous IRT 79
An intuitive graphical description of item response theory 80
Limitations of classical test theory 80
A graphical introduction to item response theory 82
The logistic curve 82
3PL model: difficulty parameter 83
3PL model: discrimination parameter 84
3PL model: guessing parameter 84
The Fisher information function 85
The test information function and its relationship to the standard
error of measurement 86
How to score an IRT test 88
Principles of computer adaptive testing 89
Summary of item response theory 91
Confirmatory factor analysis 92

6 Personality theory 93
Theories of personality 94
Psychoanalytic theory 94
Humanistic theory 96
Social learning theory 97
Behavioral genetics 98
Type and trait theories 100
Different approaches to personality assessment 101
Self-report techniques and personality profiles 101
Reports by others 103
Online digital footprints 103
Situational assessments 104
Projective measures 104
Observations of behavior 104
Task performance methods 105
Polygraph methods 105
Repertory grids 106
Sources and management of bias 106
Self-report techniques and personality profiles 107
Reports by others 107
Online digital footprints 108
Situational assessments 108
 Contents ix
Projective measures 108
Observations of behavior 108
Task performance methods 109
Polygraph methods 109
Repertory grids 109
Informal methods of personality assessment 109
State vs. trait measures 110
Ipsative scaling 110
Spurious validity and the Barnum effect 111
Summary 112

7 Personality assessment in the workplace 113

Prediction of successful employment outcomes 114
Validation of personality questionnaires previously used in employment 114
Historical antecedents to the five-factor model 114
Stability of the five-factor model 115
Cross-cultural aspects of the five-factor model 115
Scale independence and the role of facets 117
Challenges to scale construction for the five-factor model 117
Impression management 118
Acquiescence 118
Response bias and factor structure 118
Development of the five OBPI personality scales 119
Assessing counterproductive behavior at work 120
The impact of behaviorism 120
Prepsychological theories of integrity 121
Modern integrity testing 121
Psychiatry and the medical model 122
The dysfunctional tendencies 123
The dark triad 125
Assessing integrity at work 125
The OBPI integrity scales 126
Conclusion 127

8 Employing digital footprints in psychometrics 129

Introduction 129
Types of digital footprints 131
Usage logs 131
Language data 131
Mobile sensors 131
Images and audiovisual data 132
Typical applications of digital footprints in psychometrics 132
x Contents
Replacing and complementing traditional measures 132
New contexts and new constructs 132
Predicting future behavior 133
Studying human behavior 133
Supporting the development of traditional measures 133
Advantages and challenges of employing digital footprints in
psychometrics 134
High ecological validity 134
Greater detail and longitude 135
Less control over the assessment environment 135
Greater speed and unobtrusiveness 136
Less privacy and control 136
No anonymity 137
Bias 138
Enrichment of existing constructs 139
Developing digital-footprint-based psychometric measures 139
Collecting digital footprints 139
Preparing digital footprints for analysis 141
Reducing the dimensionality of the respondent-footprint matrix 143
Building prediction models 150
Summary 151

9 Psychometrics in the era of the intelligent machine 152

History of computerization in psychometrics 152
Computerized statistics 153
Computerized item banks 153
Computerized item generation 154
Automated advice and report systems 154
The evolution of AI in psychometrics 155
Expert systems 156
Neural networks (machine learning) 157
Parallel processing 158
Predicting with statistics and machine learning 159
Explainability 161
Psychometrics in cyberspace 162
What and where is cyberspace? 162
The medium is the message 163
Moral development in AI 164
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development 165
Do machines have morals? 166
 Contents xi
The laws of robotics 167
Artificial general intelligence 167
Conclusion 168

References 169
Index 172
Preface to the fourth edition

It is now 30 years since the first edition of Modern Psychometrics was published, and in that
time the science has continued to make great strides. Many of the future possibilities
tentatively discussed in the first and second editions are now accepted realities. Since the
publication of the third edition in 2009, the internet has completely revolutionized our
lives. Psychometrics has played a major part in this, much of it good, some not so good.
Psychometric profiles derived from our online digital activity are the subject of constant
AI scrutiny, providing corporations, political parties, and governments with tools to
nudge us for their own benefit and not always in our best interest. But also,
psychographic microtargeting of information based on these profiles enables
individualized learning, information retrieval, and purchasing of preferred products on
a scale previously undreamed of. It is the engine that drives the big tech money machine
and the digital economy.
At the same time, psychometrics continues to play a central role in improving
examination systems in our schools and universities, recruitment and staff development
in human-resources management, and development of research tools for academic
projects. This book is intended to provide both a theoretical underpinning to
psychometrics and a practical guide for professionals and scholars working in all these
fields. In this new edition we outline the history and discuss central issues such as IQ and
personality testing and the impact of computer technology. It is increasingly recognized
that modern psychometricians, because their role is so central to fair assessment and
selection, must not only continue to take a stand on issues of racism and injustice but also
contribute to debates concerning privacy and the regulation of corporate and state
power.
The book includes a practical step-by-step guide to the development of a
psychometric test. This enables anyone who wishes to create their own test to plan,
design, construct, and validate it to a professional standard. Knowledge-based tests of
ability, aptitude, and achievement are considered, as well as person-based tests of
personality, integrity, motivation, mood, attitudes, and clinical symptoms. There is
extensive coverage of the psychometric principles of reliability, validity, standardization,
and bias, knowledge of which is essential for the testing practitioner, whether in school
examination boards, human-resources departments, or academic research. The fourth
edition has been extensively updated and expanded to take into account recent
developments in the field, making it the ideal companion for those wishing to
achieve qualifications of professional competence in testing.
But today, no psychometrics text would be complete without extensive coverage of
key issues in testing in the online environment made possible by advances in internet
 Preface to the fourth edition xiii
technology. Computer adaptive testing and real-time item generation are now available
to any psychometrician with the necessary know-how and access to the relevant
software, much of it open source, such as Concerto (The Psychometrics Centre, 2019).
Psychometric skills are currently in enormous demand, not just from classic markets but
also for new online applications that require understanding and measuring the unique
traits of individuals, such as the provision of personalized health advice, market research,
online recommendations, and persuasion. The fourth edition extends coverage of these
fields to provide advice to computer scientists and AI specialists on how to develop and
understand computer adaptive tests and online digital-footprint analysis.
The groundwork for the collaboration that led to this fourth edition was established in
The Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge. We were very fortunate to
have been supported by an amazing team, without whose enthusiasm, creativity,
ambition, and drive many of the revolutionary developments in psychometrics would
not have been possible. Among them are Iva Cek, Fiona Chan, Tanvi Chaturvedi,
Kalifa Damani, Bartosz Kielczewski, Shining Li, Przemyslaw Lis, Aiden Loe, Vaishali
Mahalingam, Sandra Matz, Igor Menezes, Tomoya Okubo, Vesselin Popov, Luning
Sun, Ning Wang and Youyou Wu. Many have now dispersed to all corners of the
world, but their work continues, and there is much more yet to do. Finally, thanks
are due to Peter Hiscocks and Christoph Loch, who facilitated the move of the
The Psychometrics Centre to the Judge Business School, and to Susan Golombok, the
original coauthor, for her generosity and support in the preparation of this new edition.
1 The history and evolution
of psychometric testing

Introduction
People have always judged each other in terms of their skills, potential, character,
motives, mood, and expected behavior. Since the beginning of time, skill in this practice
has been passed on from generation to generation. Being able to evaluate our friends,
family, colleagues, and enemies in terms of these attributes is fundamental to us as human
beings. Since the introduction of the written word, these opinions and evaluations have
been recorded, and our techniques for classifying, analyzing, and improving them have
become not just an art but also a technology that has played an increasing role in how
societies are governed. Triumphing in this field has been the secret of success in war,
business, and politics. As with all technologies, it has been driven by science—in this
case, the science of human behavior, the psychology of individual differences, and, when
applied to psychological assessment, psychometrics.
In the 20th century, early psychometricians played a key role in the development of
related disciplines such as statistics and biometrics. They also revolutionized education by
introducing increasingly refined testing procedures that enabled individuals to demonstrate
their potential from an early age. Psychometrics required statistical and computational
know-how, as well as data on a large scale, before its impact could be felt. Today, we think
of big data in terms of the technological revolution, but large-scale programs implementing
the analysis of human data on millions of individuals date back to over 100 years ago in the
form of early national censuses and military recruitment. These early scientists did not see
their subject as just an interesting academic discipline; they were also fascinated by its
potential to improve all our lives. And indeed, in most ways it has, but it has been a long
and rocky road—with many false starts, and indeed disasters, on the way. In this chapter,
we start with definitions, followed by an evaluation of future potential, a history, a warning
about past missteps, applause for current successes, and an invitation to learn from history’s
lessons. It is said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Let
us all make sure that this does not happen, but rather that we can bring about a future that
sees human potential expand to the stars.

What is psychometrics?
Psychometrics is the science of psychological assessment, and has traditionally been seen
as an aspect of psychology. But its impact has been much broader. The scientific
principles that underpin psychometrics apply equally to other forms of assessment such
as educational examinations, clinical diagnoses, crime detection, credit ratings, and staff
2 History and evolution of psychometric testing
recruitment. The early psychometricians were equally at home in all of these fields.
Since then, paths have often diverged, but they have generally reunited as the im-
portance of advances made in one context come to the attention of workers in other
areas. Currently, great strides are being made in the application of machine-learning
techniques and big-data analytics—particularly in the analysis of the digital traces we all
leave online—and these are beginning to have a significant impact across a broad range
of applications. These are both exciting and disturbing times.
We experience psychometric assessment in many of our activities, for example:

• We are tested throughout our education to inform us, our parents, teachers, and
policy makers about our progress (and the efficiency of teaching).
• We are assessed at the end of each stage of education to provide us with academic
credentials and inform future schools, colleges, or employers about our strengths and
weaknesses.
• We must pass a driving test before we are allowed to drive a car.
• Many of us need to pass a know-how or skills test to be able to practice our
professions.
• We are assessed in order to gain special provisions (e.g., for learning difficulties) or to
obtain prizes.
• When we borrow money or apply for a mortgage, we must complete credit scoring
forms to assess our ability to repay the debt.
• We are tested at work when we apply for a promotion and when we seek
another job.
• Our playlists are analyzed to assess our music tastes and recommend new songs.
• Our social media profiles are analyzed—sometimes without our consent—to
estimate our personality and choose the advertisements that we are most likely
to click.

Assessment can take many forms: job interviews, school examinations, multiple-choice
aptitude tests, clinical diagnoses, continuous assessment, or analysis of our online foot-
prints. But despite the wide variety of applications and manifestations, all assessments
should share a common set of fundamental characteristics: they should strive to be ac-
curate, measure what they intend to measure, produce scores that can be meaningfully
compared between people, and be free from bias against members of certain groups.
There are good assessments and bad assessments, and psychometrics is the science of how
to maximize the quality of the assessments that we use.

Psychometrics in the 21st century

Psychometrics depends on the availability of data on a large scale, and so it is no surprise
that the advent of the internet has massively boosted its influence. If we had to date the
internet, we would probably start at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear
Research, in Geneva, with Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the World Wide Web in
1990; he linked the newly developed hypertext markup language (HTML) to a graphic
user interface (GUI), thereby creating the first web pages. Since then, the web has
expanded to make Marshall McLuhan’s “global village” a reality (McLuhan, 1964). The
population of this global village grew from a handful of academics in the early 1990s to a
diverse and vibrant community of one billion users in 2005, and to over four billion users
 History and evolution of psychometric testing 3
(representing more than 50% of the world’s population) in 2020. Thus, within less than
20 years, the new medium of cyberspace came into existence, creating a completely new
science with new disciplines, new experts, and, of course, new problems. Some aspects
of this new science are exceptional. While the science of biology is only 300 years old,
and that of psychology considerably younger, both their subjects of study—humans and
life itself—have existed for millions of years. Not so the internet. Hence the cyberworld
is unique, and it is hard to predict what to expect of its future. It is also a serious
disruptor; it has completely changed the nature of its adjacent disciplines, especially
computer and information sciences, but also psychology and its progeny, psychometrics.
By the year 2000, the migration of psychometrics into the online world was well
underway, producing both new opportunities and new challenges, particularly for global
examination organizations such as the Educational Testing Service (ETS) at Princeton
and Cambridge Assessment in the UK. On the positive side, gone were the massive
logistical problems involved in securely delivering and recovering huge numbers of
examination papers by road, rail, and air from remote parts of the world. But the
downside was that examinations needed to take place at fixed times during the school
or working day, and it became possible for candidates in, say, Singapore to contact
their friends in, say, Mexico with advance knowledge of forthcoming questions.
Opportunities for cheating were rife. To counter these challenges, the major ex-
amination boards and test publishers turned to the advantages offered by large item banks
and computer adaptive testing, the psychometricians’ own version of machine learning.
However, it was the development of the app—an abbreviation of “application” used to
describe a piece of software that can be run through a web browser or on a mobile
phone—that was to prove the most disruptive to traditional ways of thinking about
psychometric assessment.
One such app was David Stillwell’s myPersonality, published on Facebook in
2007 (Stillwell, 2007; Kosinski, Stillwell, & Graepel, 2013; Youyou, Kosinski, &
Stillwell, 2015). It offered its users a chance to take a personality test, receive
feedback on their scores, and share those scores—if they were so inclined—with
their Facebook friends. It was similar to countless other quizzes widely shared on
Facebook around that time, yet it employed an established and well-validated
personality test taken from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), an open-
source repository established in the 1990s for academic use as a reaction to test
publishers’ domination of the testing world. The huge popularity of myPersonality
was unforeseen. Within a few years, the app had collected over six million per-
sonality profiles, generated by enthusiasts who were interested to see the sort of
results and feedback about themselves that had previously only been available to
psychology professionals. It was one of psychometrics’ first encounters with the
big-data revolution.
But the availability of psychometric data on such a grand scale was to have un-
expected consequences. Many saw opportunities for emulating the procedure in online
advertising, destined to become the major source of revenue for the digital industry.
Once the World Wide Web existed, it could be searched or trawled by search engines,
the most ubiquitous of which is Google. In the mid-1990s, search engines simply
provided information. By 2010 they did so with a scope and accuracy that exceeded all
previous expectations; information on anything or anyone was ripe for the picking.
But those who wished to be found soon became active players on the scene—it was the
advertising industry’s new paradise. The battle to reach the top in search league
4 History and evolution of psychometric testing
tables—or, at the very least, the first results page—began in earnest. Once online
advertising entered the fray, it became a new war zone. The battle for the keywords
had begun. Marketing was no longer about putting up a board on the high street; it was
about building a digital presence in cyberspace that would bring customers to you in
droves. By the early 2000s, no company or organization could afford not to have a
presence in cyberspace. For a high proportion of customers, companies without some
digital presence simply ceased to exist.
While web pages were the first universally available data source in cyberspace, social
networks soon followed, and these opened a whole new world of individualized personal
information about their users that was available for exploitation. Not only was standard
demographic information such as age, marital status, gender, occupation, and education
available, but there were also troves of new data such as the words being used in status
updates and tweets, images, music preferences, and Facebook Likes. And these data
sources soon became delicious morsels in a new informational feeding frenzy. They were
mined extensively by tech companies and the marketing industry to hone their ability to
target advertisements to the most relevant audiences—or, to put it another way, to those
who might be most vulnerable to persuasion. The prediction techniques used were the
same as those that had been used by psychometricians for decades: principal component
analysis, cluster analysis, machine learning, and regression analysis. These were able to
predict a person’s character and future behavior with far more accuracy than simple
demographics. Cross-correlating demographics with traditional psychometric data, such
as personality traits, showed that internet users were giving away much more in-
formation about their most intimate secrets than they realized. Thus, online psycho-
graphic targeting was born. This new methodology, creating clickbait and directing
news feeds using psychological as well as demographic data, was soon considered to be
far too powerful to exist in an unregulated world. But this will prove one day to have
been just the midpoint in a journey that began many centuries ago.

History of assessment

Chinese origins
Employers have assessed prospective employees since the beginnings of civilization, and have
generated consistent and replicable techniques for doing this. China was the first country to
use testing for the selection of talents (Jin, 2001; Qui, 2003). Earlier than 500 BCE,
Confucius had argued that people were different from each other. In his words, “their nature
might be similar, but behaviors are far apart,” and he differentiated between “the superior and
intelligent” and “the inferior and dim” (Lun Yu, Chapter Yang Huo). Mencius (372–289
BCE) believed that these differences were measurable. He advised: “assess, to tell light from
heavy; evaluate, to know long from short” (Mencius, Chapter Liang Hui Wang). Xunzi
(310–238 BCE) built upon this theory and advocated the idea that we should “measure a
candidate’s ability to determine his position [in the court]” (Xun Zi, Chapter Jun Dao).
Thus, over 2,000 years ago, much of the fundamental thinking that today underpins
psychometric testing was already in place, as were systems that used this in the selection
of talents. In fact, there is evidence that talent selection systems appeared in China even
before Confucius. In the Xia Dynasty (c. 2070–1600 BCE), the tradition of selecting
officers by competition placed heavy emphasis on physical strength and skills, but by the
time of the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BCE) the content of the tests had changed. The
 History and evolution of psychometric testing 5
emperor assessed candidates not only based on their shooting skills but also in terms of
their courteous conduct and good manners. From then on, the criteria used for the
selection of talent grew to include the “Six Skills”: arithmetic, writing, music, archery,
horsemanship, and skills in the performance of rituals and ceremonies; the “Six
Conducts”: filial piety, friendship, harmony, love, responsibility, and compassion; and
the “Six Virtues”: insight, kindness, judgment, courage, loyalty, and concord. During
the Warring States period (475–271 BCE), oral exams became more prominent. In the
Qin Dynasty, from 221 BCE, the main test syllabus primarily consisted of the ability to
recite historical and legal texts, calligraphy, and the ability to write official letters and
reports. The Sui (581–618 CE) and Tang Dynasties (618–907 CE) saw the introduction
of the imperial examinations, a nationwide testing system that became the main method
of selecting imperial officials. Formal procedures required—then as they do now—that
candidates’ names should be concealed, independent assessments by two or more as-
sessors should be made, and conditions of examination should be standardized. The
general framework of assessment set down then—including a “syllabus” of material that
should be learned and rules governing an efficient and fair “examination” of candidates’
knowledge—has not changed for 3,000 years. While similar but less sophisticated fra-
meworks may have existed in other ancient civilizations, it was models based on the
Chinese system that were to become the template for the modern examination system.
The British East India Company, active in Shanghai, introduced the Chinese system
to its occupied territories in Bengal in the early 19th century. Once the company was
abolished in 1858, the system was adopted by the British for the Indian Civil Service. It
subsequently became the template for civil service examinations in England, France, the
USA, and much of the rest of the world.

The ability to learn

It has long been recognized by teachers that some students are more capable of learning
than others. In Europe in 375 BCE, for example, Socrates asked his student Glaucon:

When you spoke of a nature gifted or not gifted in any respect, did you mean to say
that one man will acquire a thing hastily, another with difficulty; a little learning will
lead the one to discover a great deal; whereas the other, after much study and
application, no sooner learns than he forgets; or again, did you mean that the one has
a body that is a good servant of his mind, while the body of the other is a hindrance
to him? – Would not these be the sort of differences which distinguish the man
gifted by nature from the one who is ungifted?
Plato, (449a–480a) Respublica V)

This view of the ability to learn, generally referred to as intelligence, was very
familiar to European scientists in the 19th century—almost all would have studied Greek
at school and university. Intelligence was not education but educability, and represented
an important distinction between the educated person and the intelligent person. An
educated person is not necessarily intelligent, and an uneducated person is not necessarily
unintelligent.
In medieval Europe, the number of people entitled to receive an education was
very small. However, the Reformation and then the Industrial Revolution were
transformative. In Europe, the importance of being able to read the Bible in a native
6 History and evolution of psychometric testing
language, and the need to learn how to operate machines, led to popular support for a
movement to provide an education for all—regardless of social background. One
consequence was that more attention was drawn to those who continued to find it
difficult to integrate into everyday society. The 19th century saw the introduction of the
asylum system, in which “madhouses” were replaced by “lunatic asylums” for the
mentally ill and “imbecile asylums” for those with learning difficulties. These words,
obviously distasteful today, were then in common usage: the term “lunatic” in law and
the term “imbecile” in the classification system used by psychiatrists. Indeed, the term
“asylum” was intended to be positive, denoting a place of refuge (as in “political asylum”
today).
The need to offer provision for those who had difficulty with the learning process
focused attention on how such people could be identified and how their needs
best accommodated. In pre-Victorian England, Edward Jenner (the advocate of
vaccination) proposed a four-stage hierarchy of human intellect, in which he
confounded intelligence and social class. Jenner (1807) summarized the attitude of
the time. In “Classes of the Human Powers of Intellect,” published in the popular
magazine The Artist, he wrote:

“I propose therefore to offer you some thought on the various degrees of power
which appear in the human intellect; Or, to speak more correctly, of the various
degrees of intellectual power that distinguish the human animal. For though all men
are, as we trust and believe, capable of the divine faculty of reason, yet it is not to all
that the heavenly beam is disclosed in all its splendour.

1 In the first and lowest order I place the idiot: the mere vegetative being, totally
destitute of intellect.
2 In the second rank I shall mention that description of Being just lifted into
intellectuality, but too weak and imperfect to acquire judgement; who can
perform some of the minor offices of life – can shut a door – light a fire –
express sensations of pain, etc., and, although faintly endowed with perceptions
of comparative good, is yet too feeble to discriminate with accuracy. A being of
this degree may, with sufficient propriety, be denominated the silly poor
creature, the dolt.
3 The third class is best described by the general term of Mediocrity and includes
the large mass of mankind. These crowd our streets, these line our queues, these
cover our seas. It is with this class that the world is peopled. These are they who
move constantly in the beaten path; these support the general order which they
do not direct; these uphold the tumult which they do not stir; these echo the
censure or the praise of that which they are neither capable of criticising nor
admiring.
4 The highest level is Mental Perfection; the happy union of all the faculties of
the mind, which conduce to promote present and future good; all of the
energies of genius, valour and judgement. In this class are found men who,
surveying truth in all her loveliness, defend her from assault, and unveil her
charms to the world; who rule mankind by their wisdom, and contemplate
glory, as the Eagle fixes his view on the Sun, undazzled by the rays that
surround it.”
 History and evolution of psychometric testing 7
The 19th century
The era of European colonialism saw the spread of the Western education system to the
colonized world, but uptake was slow, and ideas taken from perceptions of social status in
Europe were often transferred to the subjected populations. Charles Darwin, for example—a
giant figure of that age, whose theory of evolution had considerable implications for how
differences both between and within species would be understood—was among those who
held this Eurocentric approach, something that perturbed the development of evolutionary
science in a way that would increasingly be recognized as racist. In The Descent of Man, first
published in 1871, Darwin argued that the intellectual and moral faculties had been gradually
perfected through natural selection, stating as evidence that “at the present day, civilized
nations are everywhere supplanting barbarous nations.” Darwin’s view that natural selection
in humans was an ongoing process, with “the savage” and “the lower races” being evo-
lutionary inferior to “the civilized nations,” had considerable influence. But it was not a view
that was shared by every scientist of that time. Others chose to differ, including Alfred
Wallace, Darwin’s copresenter of papers to the the seminal 1858 meeting of the Linnean
Society of London that introduced the idea of natural selection through survival of the fittest
(Wallace, 1858). Wallace took issue with his former colleague, believing Darwin’s arguments
for differences between the races to be fundamentally flawed. His observations in Southeast
Asia, South America, and elsewhere convinced him that so-called “primitive” peoples all
exhibited a high moral sense. He also drew attention to the ability of children from these
groups to learn advanced mathematics, having taught five-year-olds in Borneo how to solve
simultaneous equations, and pointed out that no evolutionary pressure could have ever been
exerted on their ancestors in this direction by the natural environment. In Wallace’s view,
the evolutionary factors that had led to the development of intelligence and morality in
humanity had happened in the distant evolutionary past and were shared by all humans.

Beginnings of psychometrics as a science

The evolution of the human intellect was also of particular interest to Darwin’s cousin, Sir
Francis Galton, who in 1869 published Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and
Consequences. He had first carried out a study of the genealogy of famous families in 1865,
based on a compendium by Sir Thomas Phillipps entitled The Million of Facts (Galton,
1865). Galton argued that genius, genetic in origin, was to be found in these families. But
when he spoke of genius, he was considering much more than mere intellect. He believed
that these people were superior in many other respects, be it the ability to appreciate music
or art, performance in sport, or even simply physical appearance. In 1883, in order to collect
data to validate his idea, he established his Anthropometric Laboratory at the International
Health Exhibition at South Kensington, London, in which people attending the exhibition
could have their characteristics measured for three pence (about two US dollars at today’s
prices). In the late 1880s, the American psychophysicist James McKeen Cattell, recently
arrived in Cambridge from Wundt’s psychophysics laboratory in Germany, introduced
Galton to many of Wundt’s psychological testing instruments, which he added to his
repertoire. Hence mental testing—psychometrics—was born. The data generated from
Galton’s studies provided the raw material for his development of many key statistical
methods such as standard deviation and correlation. Karl Pearson, an acolyte of Galton,
added partial and multiple correlation coefficients, as well as the chi-square test, to the
techniques available. In 1904, Charles Spearman, an army officer turned psychologist,
8 History and evolution of psychometric testing
introduced procedures for the analysis of more complex correlation matrices and laid down
the foundations of factor analysis. Thus by the end of the first decade of the 20th century,
the fundamentals of psychometric theory were in place. The groundwork had also been laid
for the subsequent development of many new scientific endeavors: the statistical sciences,
biometrics, latent variable modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

Intelligence testing
The main impetus to provide an intelligence test specifically for educational selection
arose in France in 1904, when the minister of public instruction in Paris appointed a
committee to find a method that could identify children with learning difficulties. It was
urged that “children who failed to respond to normal schooling be examined before
dismissal and, if considered educable, be assigned to special classes.” (Binet and Simon,
1916). Drawing from item types already developed, the psychologist Alfred Binet and his
colleague Théodore Simon put together a standard set of 30 scales that were quick and
easy to administer. These were found to be very successful at differentiating between
children who were seen as bright and children who were seen as dull (by teachers), and
between children in institutions for special educational needs and children in mainstream
schools. Furthermore, the scores of each child’s scales could be compared with those of
other children of the same or similar age, thus freeing the assessment from teacher bias.
The results of Binet’s testing program not only provided guidance on the education of
children at an individual level but also influenced educational policy.
The first version of the Binet–Simon Scale was published in 1905, and an updated
version followed in 1908 when the concept of “mental age” was introduced—this being
the age for which a child’s score was most typical, regardless of their chronological age. In
1911, further amendments were made to improve the ability of the test to differentiate
between education and educability. Scales of reading, writing, and knowledge that had
been incidentally acquired were eliminated. The English-language derivative of the
Binet–Simon test, the Stanford–Binet, is still in widespread use today as one of the primary
assessment methods for the identification of learning difficulties in children.
Binet’s tests emphasized what he called the higher mental processes that he believed
underpinned the capacity to learn: the execution of simple commands, coordination,
recognition, verbal knowledge, definitions, picture recognition, suggestibility, and the
completion of sentences. In their book The Development of Intelligence in Children, first
published in 1916, Binet and Simon, using the language of the time, stated their belief
that good judgment was the key to intelligence:

It seems to us that in intelligence there is a fundamental faculty, the alteration or the

lack of which, is of the utmost importance for practical life. This faculty is judgment,
otherwise called good sense, practical sense, initiative, the faculty of adapting one’s self
to circumstances. To judge well, to comprehend well, to reason well, these are the
essential activities of intelligence. A person may be a moron or an imbecile if he is
lacking in judgment; but with good judgment he can never be either. Indeed, the rest
of the intellectual faculties seem of little importance in comparison with judgment.
(Binet and Simon, 1916)

The potential of intelligence testing to identify intellectual capacity in adults as well as

children was soon recognized, and the First World War saw the introduction of such a
 History and evolution of psychometric testing 9
program in the US on a grand scale. A committee under the chairmanship of Robert
Yerkes, president of the American Psychological Association, was established. It was
tasked with devising tests of intelligence that would be positively correlated with Binet’s
scales but adapted for group use and simple to administer and score. The tests should
measure a wide range of abilities, be resilient to malingering and cheating, be in-
dependent of school training, and have a minimal need for writing. In seven working
days, they constructed 10 subtests with sufficient items for 10 different forms. These
were piloted with 500 participants from a broad range of backgrounds, including in-
stitutions for people with special educational needs, patients at a psychiatric hospital,
army recruits, officer trainees, and high school students. The entire process was com-
pleted in less than six months. By the end of the war, these tests, known as Army Alpha
and Army Beta, had been administered at the rate of 200,000 per month to nearly two
million American recruits.
Following from the popularity and success of the army tests, the mantle for mass testing
for an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) was taken up by the US College Board, which in 1926
introduced the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), designed to facilitate entry into colleges
throughout the US. Adopted first by Harvard and then by the University of California, by
1940 the SAT had become the standard admission test for practically all US universities.
The aim was to create a level playing field on which every child leaving high school with
an IQ above a certain level could have the opportunity to benefit from tertiary education.
The development of meritocratic education rapidly spread around the world, and the old
world order—in which education depended on birth and economic privilege—began its
decline.
However, the success of the new system was not universal. While more gifted in-
dividuals benefited, particularly among ethnic minorities and the working class, the effect
on the majority in such groups was counterproductive. Large differences in average
group scores on these tests remained, resulting in considerable group differences in
admission rates, particularly to elite schools and universities, and consequently in em-
ployment and entry to professions. The impact of social background factors on test scores
went largely unrecognized, and one form of elite was replaced by another. The bene-
ficiaries were predominantly middle class and white. It seemed that IQ testing, while
perhaps a panacea, was not a panacea for all.
Early attempts to address the discriminating consequences of group differences in IQ
test scores when used for selection purposes focused on several strategies. Predominant
was a shift away from a single measure, referred to as general intelligence or “g,” toward
separate measures for different IQ intellectual abilities such as numerical or verbal, tai-
lored more specifically to the requirements of the training course or employment po-
sition in question. There was also increased attention in law to the extent to which any
psychometric testing procedures would impact constitutional rights, particularly under
the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment.

Eugenics and the dark decades

But despite the enormous success of Alfred Binet and his successors in addressing
the requirements of the education system, for many this was just a sideshow. The
originator of the science was Galton, not Binet, and Galton’s true interest was not
psychometrics—or even anthropometrics per se; rather, his concern was that the
quality of the human race, particularly its intelligence, was degenerating as those of
10 History and evolution of psychometric testing
lower intelligence were having more children and passing on more and more of their
“inferior” genes through succeeding generations. In 1883 he coined the terms “eu-
genics” (defining it as “the conditions under which men of high type are produced”)
and “dysgenics” (the opposite of eugenics). Galton’s academic influence was con-
siderable, culminating in the establishment of a eugenics department at University
College London. But it was much more than just a theory. In many countries, its
ambitions were soon implemented in policy. In 1907, the USA was the first country to
undertake compulsory sterilization programs for eugenics purposes. The principal
targets were the “feebleminded” and the mentally ill, but also included under many
state laws were people who were deaf, blind, epileptic, and physically disabled. Native
Americans were sterilized against their will in many states, often without their
knowledge, while they were in hospital for some other reason (e.g., after giving birth).
Some sterilizations also took place in prisons and other penal institutions, targeting
criminality. Over 65,000 individuals were sterilized in 33 states under state compulsory
sterilization programs. These were last carried out in 1981.
Assessment of intelligence played a key part in many of these programs. Indeed, many
early intelligence tests were designed with a eugenics agenda in mind. By 1913, Henry
Goddard had introduced them to the evaluation process for potential immigrants at Ellis
Island in New York, and in 1919 Lewis Terman stated in his introduction to the first
edition of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales (his own translations of Binet’s scales
into English):

It is safe to predict that in the near future intelligence tests will bring tens of
thousands of … high-grade defectives under the surveillance and protection of
society. This will ultimately result in the curtailing of the reproduction of feeble-
mindedness and in the elimination of enormous amounts of crime, pauperism, and
industrial inefficiency. It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the high-grade cases,
of the type now so frequently overlooked, are precisely the ones whose guardianship
it is most important for the state to assume.
(Terman, 1919)

In 1927, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
was the first to advocate sterilization in Germany. The year 1934 saw the introduction of
the country's Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Defects; and in
1935 this law was amended to allow abortion for the “hereditarily ill,” including the
“social feebleminded” and “asocial persons.” Two years later came the introduction of
Sonderkommission 3 (Special Commission Number 3), under which all local authorities
in Germany were required to submit a list of all children of African descent. All such
children were to be medically sterilized. We all know what followed. In 1939, eu-
thanasia was legalized for psychiatric patients (including homosexual people) in psy-
chiatric hospitals; and in 1942, the same methods were extended to Roma and Jewish
people in concentration camps in what became the Holocaust.
Debates about the implementation of eugenics generally ended with the Second
World War. However, widespread beliefs among white communities about differ-
ences between races did not end. The decolonization process had yet to begin, and
many people—not just in the USA but also in Africa and elsewhere—continued to
attribute African and African-American academic underachievement to inherited IQ
differences. Martin Luther King Jr. did not have his dream until the early 1960s, and
 History and evolution of psychometric testing 11
it was not until 1994 that apartheid was finally abolished in South Africa. Until that
time, arguments over whether inherited differences in intelligence could be a
possible cause of group differences continued to stir up controversy among academics
in both the USA and Europe, culminating in the publication of Herrnstein and
Murray’s The Bell Curve in 1994, in which the authors argued that poor and
ethnically diverse inner-city communities were a “cognitive underclass” formed by
the interbreeding of people of poorer genetic stock. But there was light at the end of
the tunnel.

Psychometric testing of ability

The dark ages come to an end

The year 1984 saw the publication of James Flynn’s (Flynn, 1984) first report on
what subsequently became known as the “Flynn effect,” the term used to describe
the now well-documented year-by-year rise in IQ scores that dates back to the early
20th century, when the practice of IQ testing first began. By examining these
changes, it was possible to extrapolate across the entire life of the test. Flynn showed
that, on average, IQ scores increased by 0.3 to 0.4 IQ point every year and had been
doing so for at least the past 100 years. Various theories have been put forward to
explain this phenomenon, including improved nutrition and increasing familiarity
with the testing process. For his part, Flynn (2007, 2016) argued that the change was
due to the way in which the scientific method had influenced education. Today, we
are more rational thinkers than were our ancestors, because the requirements of an
industrialized and increasingly technical world force us to be just that. It is interesting
that Flynn does not believe that we are actually more intelligent today, in the
traditional sense of the word. If that were so, the logic of the finding would be that
almost half of our great-grandparents’ generation would be diagnosed as having
severe learning difficulties by today’s standards. Rather, it is what we need to
comprehend scientfically that has changed. Today, most primary school children
understand that the correct answer to the question “What do dogs and rabbits have in
common?” is that they are both mammals. It is unlikely that our great-grandparents
would think this was a matter of any consequence. They might choose the wrong
answer—for example, “Dogs chase rabbits”—and fail to understand why this might
be considered wrong. Flynn’s (2007, 2016) work has increasingly focused on the
interplay between intelligence test scores and education—not just across time, but
also between the level of education provided by each countries schools and colleges,
which has historically varied enormously.
As well as being an interesting phenomenon in its own right, it was clear that the
average IQ of African-Americans in the 2000s was higher than the average IQ of white
Americans in the 1970s. Further research by Flynn extended this work beyond the
USA and found similar results in many other countries across all the continents. This
evidence of the equally enormous impact of environmental factors on IQ scores of all
groups rendered unnecessary any need to explain group differences in terms of ge-
netics. Today, the controversy has been largely forgotten. The world has become
increasingly multicultural and global in outlook. Moreover, in both the USA and
Europe, the enormous professional success of immigrant groups that had previously
been excluded speaks for itself.
12 History and evolution of psychometric testing
An abundance of abilities
Today, intelligence testing is conceptualized more broadly and assessed in a variety of
more positive ways. A popular view is exemplified by the work of Robert Sternberg
(1990) in his triarchic model. Sternberg suggested three major forms of intelligence:
analytic, creative, and practical.
Those with analytic intelligence do well on IQ tests, appear “clever,” are able to
solve preset problems, learn quickly, appear knowledgeable, are able to automate their
expertise, and normally pass exams easily. While analytic intelligence—measured by
classical IQ tests—is important, it is not always the most relevant. He gives an apocryphal
example of a brilliant mathematician who appeared to have no insight at all into human
relationships, to such an extent that when his wife left him unexpectedly, he was
completely unable to come up with any meaningful explanation.
Doubts about the sufficiency of the classical notion of IQ have often been expressed in
the business world. It has been pointed out that to do well on a test of analytic in-
telligence, a candidate must demonstrate the ability to solve problems set by others, such
as in a test or examination. A successful business entrepreneur, however, needs to ask
good questions rather than supply good answers. It is the ability to come up with good
questions that characterizes the creative form of intelligence.
People with practical intelligence are “streetwise.” They want to understand and can
stand back and deconstruct a proposal or idea, they will question the reasons for wanting
to know, and they can integrate their knowledge for a deeper purpose. Hence, they are
often the most successful in life. They know the right people, avoid making powerful
enemies, and are able to work out the unspoken rules of the game.
Howard Gardner (1983) also argued that there were multiple intelligences, each linked
with an independent and separate system within the human brain. These were linguistic,
logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal
intelligence. Gardner emphasized the distinctive nature of some of these intelligences and
their ability to operate independently of each other. For example, bodily-kinesthetic in-
telligence, representing excellence in sporting activities, is a new concept within the field,
as are interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence—representing the ability to
understand other people and the ability to have insight into one’s own feelings, respec-
tively. The MSCEIT is an ability-based test designed to measure emotional intelligence.
Most tests today under the name of emotional intelligence are not in fact tests of in-
telligence at all, but rather assess the personality traits of those who are said to be sensitive
to the feelings of others. The MSCEIT stands in contrast to these others in that there are
predefined right and wrong answers in terms of, say, whether a person’s recognition of
anger in someone else is correct or incorrect.
It has been argued that many of Sternberg’s and Gardner’s diverse forms of in-
telligence are not really new. Many correspond with traditional notions that were
already tested within IQ tests. Aristotle himself emphasized the importance of dis-
tinguishing between wisdom and intelligence, while creativity tests have been around
for about 70 years. Nevertheless, their approaches have had an important role in de-
constructing the idea that academic success is the sole form of intellectual merit. One
result is that today, intelligence testing is conceptualized more broadly and is assessed in
a more strategic manner. There is increased emphasis on a diversity of talents, enabling
all to identify their strengths as well as areas that they are more likely to find chal-
lenging. Tests of specific forms of intelligence—such as numeracy, verbal proficiency,
 History and evolution of psychometric testing 13
and critical thinking—remain central to assessment for entry to specific professional
training programs that depend on skills in these areas. In addition, broad-spectrum
assessments of the many fundamental cognitive skills that underpin key learning pro-
cesses play an increasing role in targeting specific remedial learning programs to those
who most need them. For example, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth
Edition (WISC-V), contains specific subtests of:

• Similarities, vocabulary, information, and comprehension (to assess verbal concept

formation)
• Block design and visual puzzles (to assess visual spatial processing)
• Matrix reasoning, figure weights, picture concepts, and arithmetic (to assess
inductive and quantitative reasoning)
• Digit span, picture span, and letter-number sequencing (to assess working memory)
• Coding, symbol search, and cancellation (to assess processing speed)

The WISC-V is in widespread use around the world by educational psychologists who
work with children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, and autism.
But we should not forget that while the idea of “g,” a single score of general in-
telligence, has fallen out of favor, the underlying concept of IQ has captured the popular
imagination (as have astrological terms before it), and wishing it away is unlikely to be
successful. It has entered everyday language, and it is surprising how many people think
they know their own IQ, even though they are generally wrong. The idea is particularly
likely to remain popular with those who have attained high scores on IQ tests. Societies
such as MENSA have grown throughout the world, and perhaps we should not
begrudge the pleasure and pride felt by their members.

Tests of other psychological constructs

Psychometric intelligence tests assess optimal performance, as do all tests of intelligence,
ability, competence, or achievement. What these all have in common is that candidates
are expected to achieve the highest score that they can and need to be sufficiently
motivated to do so. Typically, in a classical psychometric test of this type, it is a simple
question of how many of the questions they can answer correctly. The higher the
number of correct answers, the higher the score. However, psychometric methods can
also be applied to the assessment of other psychological characteristics in which people
differ from each other, such as personality, integrity, interests, motivation, values,
temperament, attitudes, and beliefs.

Personality
Psychometric personality testing, like psychometric intelligence testing, can trace its roots back
to Galton—not just the statistical methods, but also his lexical hypothesis (Galton, 1884).
Galton proposed that consequential differences between people should be reflected in lan-
guage, and that the more important the difference, the more likely it is to be encoded as a
single word: if we differ in some way, and such a difference matters, we will—sooner or
later—come up with a word capturing this difference. This is why most languages have terms
such as respectfulness, gregariousness, or intelligence. If, on the other hand, a particular trait
does not vary much between people, or it varies yet is inconsequential, it is less likely to be
14 History and evolution of psychometric testing
captured with a single term. This is why most languages do not have terms describing “the
ability to count” (nearly everyone can do it) or “not having a favorite color” (perhaps sur-
prisingly, that seems not to be an important individual characteristic). Galton identified about
1,000 such terms describing differences, based largely on his knowledge of English, German,
and other European languages. Later, Allport and Odbert (1936) carried out a systematic
survey of the English language and listed about 18,000 personality-descriptive terms, or words
that could be used to describe a characteristic of a person. They grouped them into four
categories: personal traits, temporary moods or activities, judgments of personal conduct, and
capacities and talents. After laboriously omitting words that were rarely used or little un-
derstood, obvious synonyms, as well as “non-neutral” words such as “good” and “bad,” they
were left with a list of approximately 4,500 “neutral” words that they then categorized ac-
cording to their meaning to produce a smaller number of personality constructs.
Following this early work based on researchers’ intuition, psychologists began to
apply a data-driven approach to grouping those words into categories. They employed
factor analysis, a statistical procedure in which correlated variables are combined into
factors, originally developed in the context of intelligence assessment (factor analysis
is discussed in Chapter 4). One of the most influential factor-analytic theorists in this
field, Raymond Cattell, asked people to rate their friends—and themselves—on 200
personality-descriptive terms from the Allport and Odbert list. By analyzing those ratings
using factor analysis, Cattell discovered that people were not described by random sets of
personality-descriptive terms, but that there were clear patterns. For example, people
rated as “warm” were often rated as “easygoing” and “gregarious,” and rarely by words
such as “reserved,” “cool,” or “impersonal.” Overall, the factor analysis conducted by
Cattell produced the 16 personality factors (also known as the 16PF) in Table 1.1.
Hans Eysenck (1967), a prominent personality theorist, also used factor analysis, but
instead of the 16 factors favored by Cattell, he argued that the structure of personality is more
usefully described by two dimensions that he called neuroticism and extraversion. The
dimension of neuroticism represents the difference between people who are anxious and
moody on one end and calm and carefree on the other, whereas extraversion distinguishes
between those who are sociable and like parties (extroverts) and those who are quiet,
introspective, and reserved (introverts). Eysenck’s model did not contradict Cattell's: in fact,
Cattell’s 16PF can be further reduced to produce Eysenck’s two factors. It is largely a matter
of personal preference whether a researcher will opt for a larger number of factors, to give a
wider description of personality, or a smaller number, to produce fewer factors that are more
robust. However, in recent years, psychologists have come to favor five personality factors:
openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism have
become ubiquitous in the literature; they are generally referred to as the “OCEAN” or
“five-factor” model. This model is discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.

Integrity
In many occupational settings, it is the integrity of the job applicant, rather than their
personality per se, that is of interest. A lack of integrity in this context might refer to drug
taking, previous criminal activity, or barefaced lying concerning a previous work record
or the possession of a qualification. The subject of truth-telling has long been a primary
concern of legal, police, and security systems all over the world, and during the past
century, lie-detector tests using a polygraph entered widespread use among these ser-
vices. Such devices assess physiological activity such as heart rate, blood pressure,
Another random document with
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forme e d’espressione! Non mai gli era parsa così degna d’essere
amata, d’esser preposta a supremo scopo d’un’esistenza mortale!
Ella non era più la fanciulla, ch’egli ben conosceva: era il simbolo
della grazia, l’incarnazione tipica dell’Eterna Bellezza, era l’Unica,
era l’Eletta, era la Dea. — Oh, uno sguardo, un solo sguardo
lusinghevole di lei! Egli avrebbe sacrificato tutta la sua vita per uno
sguardo lusinghevole di lei, che fosse venuto in quel momento
solenne a ricercarlo!
Ma la giovinetta pareva che lo avesse affatto dimenticato, pareva
che ignorasse la sua presenza alla festa familiare: tremante di
commozione, guardava fisa il padre o la madre con occhi pieni di
gratitudine e d’affetto, e non si stancava di scoccare su le loro
guance quei baci sonori, che avevano nell’anima del giovine un’eco
spasimosa.
Quando la signora Teresa si levò e uscì dalla stanza, Aurelio anche
si mosse: fece qualche passo verso la finestra quasi cercando un
soffio d’aria libera, poi, vedendosi inosservato, infilò pianamente la
porta e riparò solo nel salotto.
Si lasciò cader di peso sul divano. Si prese il capo fra le palme, con
atto disperato. Un ardore molesto gli infocava le tempia. Il cuore gli
pulsava in petto con una violenza non mai avuta. I fumi del vino si
spandevan torbidi e foschi intorno a lui, annebbiandogli la visione
delle cose, dandogli a intervalli il senso ingrato della vertigine. —
Egli si sentiva solo, affranto e desolato: egli soffriva terribilmente, e
nessuno era presso di lui a confortarlo! Il suo dolore si dissipava
inutile e indifferente nell’impassibilità dello spazio, come quello d’un
qualunque bruto ferito a morte in una foresta!... Egli, certo, avrebbe
potuto spegnersi così, senza che un’anima buona fosse accorsa in
suo aiuto, senza turbare con il suo gemito indistinto la gioja
romorosa di coloro che gli eran vicini!....
Impeti subitanei di collera sorgevano nel suo spirito a ogni scoppio
d’ilarità nella stanza contigua; supremi abbattimenti lo prendevano
appena l’ira cessava. E intanto un desiderio folle si faceva strada tra
le tenebre di quel tumulto selvaggio dell’anima, usciva a poco a poco
dal caos delle imagini oscure, si rischiarava, splendeva, scintillava
come astro solitario in un cielo tempestoso: il desiderio di Flavia,
d’una parola benevola di lei, d’una sua carezza su la fronte accesa,
d’uno di quei baci inebrianti, ch’ella aveva pocanzi prodigati con
tanto trasporto a’ suoi parenti. — Oh, perchè ella non veniva?
perchè tardava tanto? Non sapeva ella forse ch’era là, solo, triste,
afflitto da un’angoscia senza nome, ad aspettarla? E la sua pietà,
sempre sì docile all’appello dei sofferenti, non si risvegliava dunque
per la prima volta al suo grido disperato di soccorso?
Un passo leggero che s’avvicinava lo fece sussultare di sgomento e
di giubilo. Egli non respirava più: il suo sangue pareva si fosse d’un
tratto arrestato nelle vene. Era lei? Certo, era lei; doveva esser lei.
La gioja ineffabile del suo cuore non poteva ingannarlo. Egli l’aveva
invocata; ella, ecco, accorreva. — Oh, caderle ai piedi e morire!....
Qualcuno era entrato nel salotto.
Aurelio tolse con lento atto il viso alterato e livido dalla stretta delle
mani, e guardò d’innanzi a sè, come un sonnambulo strappato
repentinamente al suo sogno.
— Signor Aurelio, che cos’ha? — disse spaurita Luisa, avvicinandosi
a lui con vivacità.
Egli continuava a fissarla senza parlare. — Ohimè, l’ultima speranza
andava miseramente tradita. Il mondo non aveva più luce! La sua
vita non aveva più scopo! L’inganno era mortale e palese: un riso
acuto, a lui ben noto, si levò nella stanza vicina e venne a colpirlo
d’improvviso come un’irrisione del Destino.
Luisa sedette al suo fianco, gli prese amorevolmente la mano.
— Signor Aurelio, per carità risponda: si sente male? Ha bisogno di
qualche cosa? Risponda!
— Grazie, signorina, grazie! — egli riuscì a mormorare, rialzando il
capo — Non è nulla: un po’ d’emicrania....
— Faceva forse troppo caldo nella sala da pranzo. Io stessa non ne
poteva più! Vuole che apra le finestre? L’aria libera le farà bene.
Vuole che le ordini qualche cosa di caldo? Vuole che chiami donna
Marta?....
Ella parlava concitatamente, assai commossa, con una specie
d’affanno appassionato nella voce e nel respiro. E intanto gli
stringeva forte la mano, e lo guardava con gli occhi inumiditi, gonfii di
pietà e di tenerezza. «Non è lei! Non è lei! Non è lei!» ripeteva
spasimando l’anima del giovine, mentre quelle dolci parole si
disperdevano vane e sciupate, come semi sparsi sopra un terreno
sterile. — Oh, fosse stata Flavia, la consolatrice! Su la Terra non vi
sarebbe stato un uomo più divinamente felice di lui!
— Grazie, è inutile, signorina, — disse Aurelio, levandosi
d’improvviso in piedi. — Proverò a uscire, proverò a far due passi nel
cortile.... Grazie!
Studiando il passo, senza più rivolgersi, s’avviò verso la porta.
L’aperse. Vide le tenebre spalancate d’innanzi a sè; vi si gittò
perdutamente come in un abisso.
 IX.
Il Sogno.

E il gran Sogno fatalmente si svolse.

Il padre Boris era ritornato a Milano; gli ospiti eran partiti. La solita
pace regnava nel palazzo antico, mentre in torno l’opera alacre degli
agricoltori ferveva, ornando i campi rasati d’accese frange d’oro,
empiendo la purezza degli spazii di strepito giulivo. Dall’alba
all’imbrunire, le canzoni della mietitura, disperse di qua e di là su i
colli ubertosi, ondeggiavan nel silenzio, e davano all’orecchio che le
ascoltava un senso di vastità singolare; il buon odor cereale e
l’olezzo del fieno fresco imbalsamavano alternativamente l’aria,
assumendo negli aridi meriggi intensità quasi d’essenze. La festa
dell’ultima ricolta si celebrava così sotto il sole benefico d’agosto, tra
gli inni, tra i profumi, tra i colori smaglianti, in una semplicità
solennemente primitiva di riti e di costumi. E gli inni eran d’amore, e i
profumi eran di vita, e i colori eran di gioja.
Aurelio, dal balconcino della sua camera o nel parco o durante le
peregrinazioni su le colline circostanti, assisteva al grandioso
spettacolo, commosso, attonito, maravigliato. Non mai come in quei
giorni egli s’era sentito così posseduto dal fascino della Natura
feconda; non mai come in quei giorni s’era sentito legato da vincoli
così stretti alla grande madre Terra. Egli, atomo d’un tutto, pareva
fondersi e confondersi tra quelle manifestazioni vaste e benigne,
dimentico d’ogni cosa, conscio soltanto della sua piccolezza e della
sua vanità in un mondo attivo e produttivo, dove la vita si svolgeva
gloriosamente sopra una distesa senza confini. Il suo corpo
illanguidito dalla canicola, il suo spirito ottuso dal desiderio, si
sottraevano ogni dì più al dominio della ragione e della volontà. Egli
non poteva più fermare a lungo la sua attenzione su i soggetti dei
propri studii: appena faceva uno sforzo mediocre d’applicazione, una
stanchezza dianzi sconosciuta gli pesava sul cervello, ed egli
doveva arrestarsi d’un tratto nel suo lavoro, come chi si trovi
d’improvviso su la soglia d’una stanza buja. Passava perciò lunghe
ore nell’inerzia più assoluta, distratto, vuoto, come estatico,
seguendo con l’orecchio il ritmo d’un qualche canto campestre, o
accompagnando con gli sguardi il fumo d’una sigaretta che si
smarriva sottilmente nell’aria cristallina.
Una moltitudine di sensazioni minute, spontanee, incoscienti
componeva in quei giorni l’esistenza materiale di lui. Il suo essere
era simile a una pagina bianca su cui una penna segnasse a caso
piccoli segni indecifrabili: si difformava e s’alterava continuamente
alla minima impressione d’un soffio, d’un profumo, d’un suono, d’un
bagliore. D’avanti a un prato raso di fresco, macchiato dai cumuli più
smorti del fieno, d’avanti a un campo popolato di spigolatrici chine in
fila su le glebe, d’avanti a un albero carico di frutti, al gorgheggio
d’un uccello tra il fogliame d’una siepe, alla voce d’un bambino in
una cascina solitaria, egli si soffermava attento e turbato, come al
cospetto d’un fatto straordinario o d’una cosa supremamente
mirabile. Le imagini delle sembianze esteriori si succedevano per tal
modo inattese nella sua mente, senz’ordine e senza logica,
convertendosi in idee fuggevoli, in confuse astrazioni, in pallidi
raziocinii che non duravano un attimo e si disperdevano. E sotto
questa sorta di velario sensibile e sempre mutabile, ch’era come la
superficie della sua anima, una calda corrente di tenerezza passava,
profonda, invisibile, violenta, — il bisogno istintivo e fatale di pace, di
felicità, d’amore.
Dalle campagne, illustrate magnificamente dal sole, animate
dall’opera umana, gli veniva assai di sovente l’esempio seduttore:
era la Terra stessa, sgravata, nuda e come distesa per un nuovo
amplesso ferace, la quale descriveva alla sua fantasia con muto
languido atto l’insuperabile voluttà del creare; era quella gente umile
e travagliata da ogni tristizia, che gli gittava sul viso l’alito ardente
della sacra febbre, il soffio infocato dell’immortale desiderio. Talvolta,
percorrendo le viottole perdute, egli aveva sorpreso, nascosto in una
macchia, qualche ruvido idillio; talvolta aveva sentito nel silenzio,
dietro una fitta cortina arborea, il susurro di due voci diverse,
interrotto a tratti dai baci; talvolta aveva visto nei campi, integre nella
luce, due alte figure, prossime e sole, esprimere con gli sguardi
l’impazienza della loro mutua simpatia. Il giovine osservava e
ascoltava con l’avidità d’un sitibondo che oda il croscio d’un’acqua
sotterranea. E torbide visioni gli si levavano nello spirito, mentre
un’angoscia soffocante agitava tutti gli elementi della sua sostanza;
poichè egli intendeva di trovarsi in fine d’innanzi al segreto del suo
scontento e della sua fragilità.
A quelle sollecitazioni della Natura imperiosa, il cuore pareva gli
divenisse gonfio e convulso; il sangue gli affluiva a fiotti al cervello;
l’anima gli si ammorbidiva e si scioglieva come fusa da un calore
supremo. Alcune frasi liriche, inaspettate, s’abbozzavano nel suo
pensiero, illuminandolo con la fugacità frenetica di lampi: «Avere una
donna propria, un’amante.... Smarrire ogni senso nella
contemplazione de’ suoi sguardi inamorati.... Perdersi con lei in
quelle selve folte e mute, che ammantano le valli.... Amare, amare
molto, fino alla stanchezza, fino all’esaurimento, fino alla distruzione,
fino alla morte!» Era il gran Sogno che si svolgeva, il Sogno
dell’eterna passione vitale. Era una brama indomabile
d’integrazione, di struggimento, di congiunzione che lo accendeva,
ch’esaltava la sua anima per modo che ogni imagine vi si
riproduceva alterata sotto forma di poesia. Omai egli si sentiva
languire nella solitudine, spasimava di desiderio, agognava
febbrilmente a utilizzare la sua effimera giovinezza, a crescere, a
fruttare, a concedersi e a possedere, in un immenso slancio verso la
Voluttà che integra e che crea. E l’imagine di Flavia, della Donna
conosciuta e vicina, gli sorgeva alta e fulgida nella mente come un
sole nel cielo del suo Destino.
Dalla sera del pranzo in casa Boris, nuovi impulsi eran sopravvenuti
a spingere irresistibilmente il giovine verso la fanciulla: innanzi tutto,
la gelosia viva contro il pretendente noto e disprezzato; poi, la
curiosità di sapere s’ella accettava quest’uomo e se accettandolo lo
amava; in fine, l’ambizione virile di contenderla a questo, di
strappargliela, di trionfare su lui con le proprie qualità e i proprii
meriti. L’impresa gli si presentava oltremodo facile e d’esito quasi
sicuro: il rivale era partito, era lontano, probabilmente senza alcun
rapporto epistolare con Flavia; e non sarebbe riapparso a Cerro che
tra una quindicina di giorni al più presto. Durante la sua assenza,
egli era bene il padrone incontrastato della situazione: avrebbe
potuto agevolmente insinuarsi nelle grazie di lei, vincerne le solite
ritrosie, cancellarle dalla memoria gli ingrati residui del loro breve
passato. Sarebbe certo riuscito, con la sua esperienza psicologica e
le virtù della sua persona, a insignorirsi del cuore ancor titubante
della giovinetta, e a scacciarne ogni altra imagine, ogni altro ideale,
ogni estranea speranza. Non era ella forse già sul punto di cedere,
prima ch’egli avesse deliberato d’evitarla e di fuggirla? E quella sera
sul lago deserto, quando gli aveva stretto con tanta effusione la
mano, non aveva ella confessato in modo indubbio la sua nascente
simpatia per lui? Bastava dunque ch’egli si riaccostasse con una
mossa abile a Flavia; bastava che sapesse riprendere il filo degli
avvenimenti da quell’ultimo tenero colloquio avuto con lei in
solitudine, ed era sicuro che ogni causa di dissidio sarebbe d’un
tratto venuta a mancare ed egli l’avrebbe avuta di nuovo pienamente
in suo potere.
La preoccupazione di questo disegno astuto, la speranza ambigua di
poter contrastare al rivale quel bene a cui egli volontariamente aveva
rinunciato, permanevano costanti nel fondo della sua anima, dove
l’azione della coscienza non giunge che a lunghi intervalli e sotto
forma di rimproveri fievoli e inerti. A volte, com’era tratto a riflettere
su qualche atto preciso dalla sua vita indisciplinata, Aurelio riusciva
bene a intendere la bieca intenzione del suo piano, la slealtà de’ suoi
propositi di conquista; riusciva a intendere ch’egli agiva sotto
l’impulso d’un sentimento invido e geloso e che di là della vittoria sul
rivale egli non vedeva e non considerava mai la conseguente
necessità d’una riparazione verso la fanciulla. Allora aveva momenti
terribili di rammarico e di rivolta morale: come un peccatore credente
che si confessi, egli esagerava il rilievo della sua colpa, e giurava a
sè medesimo di mutar linea di condotta, e s’imponeva, convinto
d’eseguirle, penitenze e rinunce esemplari. Ma il vento della
passione si riversava fulmineo sul suo capo, dissipando in un colpo
le nebbie momentanee delle riflessioni, dei rimorsi e dei buoni
proponimenti. Quella specie di sovreccitazione inconscia e
impaziente, ch’era in quei giorni lo stato abituale del suo spirito,
s’impossessava novamente di lui. Egli ricominciava a sognare, a
correre verso la mèta oscura, contro la quale si sentiva spinto come
da una volontà estranea alla sua, a inebriarsi di frasi sonore, di
morbide fantasticherie, d’imaginose aspettazioni di felicità.
Per tre giorni egli non poté avvicinar Flavia se non alla presenza
delle altre signore, in giardino o sul rialto. Nell’impossibilità di parlarle
da solo a sola, d’investigare il mistero dell’anima sua, Aurelio
sofferse veramente torture senza nome. Seduto un po’ lontano dal
crocchio, come per il passato, egli rimaneva intere ore fermo e
silenzioso al suo posto di guardia, osservando con occhi distratti le
cose circostanti o fingendo d’ascoltare i discorsi interminabili delle
quattro donne. Nulla nel suo aspetto che indicasse un turbamento,
un’angustia, la più leggera impazienza; eppure dentro di lui ferveva
una continua tempesta d’idee oblique e di sentimenti dolorosi.
Talvolta era una malinconia profonda, che lo prendeva durante quei
ritrovi, come un desiderio tragico di riposo e di morte; talvolta era
un’irritazione maligna, come una smania di vendetta e di crudeltà
contro la fanciulla che pareva incurante di lui, o contro le estranee
che gli paralizzavano ogni tentativo; talvolta in vece era un senso
gelido di apatia e di malessere, che gli rendeva intollerabili e quasi
odiose tutte quelle donne e tutte quelle ciance.
Flavia d’altra parte, forse consapevole del suo nuovo valore e delle
mutate intenzioni del giovine, sembrava che si piacesse di fomentare
la sua ansietà e d’esasperare per gusto felino i nascosti tormenti del
suo cuore. Sempre appostata accanto alla madre o alla cugina, non
gli si rivolgeva che assai di rado, e solo per indirizzargli
fuggevolmente un’insipida domanda o per lanciare qualche frizzo
mordace contro le sue teorie su la donna e su la società. In verità,
ella poteva dirsi maestra nell’arte d’usare l’ironia e il sarcasmo:
sapeva cogliere ogni più vaga occasione nel discorso comune per
colpire direttamente dove voleva; sapeva dare a una semplice frase
un senso recondito e affatto diverso dal letterale, con un gesto, con
un atteggiamento del viso, con un’inflessione della voce; sapeva
trovare l’epiteto pungente e cortese, che, mentre passa per gli
astanti inosservato, fa impallidire colui al quale si rivolge. E i suoi
dileggi maliziosi venivan sempre accompagnati dal sorriso più dolce
e più benigno.
Sotto le sferzate subitanee che lo ferivano nel più vivo della sua
sostanza, Aurelio, costretto a tacere o a ricercare una difesa blanda
e rispettosa, fremeva di rabbia e di dolore; ma provava anche, al
risveglio de’ suoi istinti pugnaci, un sollievo particolare, una specie di
scossa violenta e non disaggradevole, come chi esca da una
camera afosa all’aria gelata della via. Più che le irrisioni, più che gli
scherni, più che le ingiurie, egli aborriva il contegno freddo e
indifferente di Flavia: eran la gioconda loquacità di lei, la calma
imperturbabile della sua faccia, sopra tutto il suo riso schietto e
squillante che provocavano in lui i più lividi rancori, le più fosche
idee, i più desolati abbandoni, spingendolo talvolta fin sul confine
della demenza.
La pena era così amara ch’egli pensava di non poterla oltre tollerare.
Ma omai egli era già al punto in cui l’amarezza sprona, in cui
l’ostacolo cimenta, in cui la passione si pasce sia pur di strazii, di
ripulse, d’umiliazioni. Egli partiva da quei convegni stanco, tediato,
oppresso, ma sempre più infervorato del suo piano, sempre più
acceso dal desiderio e dalla gelosia. Tutte le forze del suo orgoglio
s’erano omai concentrate in una mira unica e costante. Le grandi
indignazioni generavano le maggiori tenerezze. L’odio medesimo
non serviva se non a inasprire l’avidità del sentimento, a rendergli
più attraente la visione prossima della preda. E il pensiero del tempo
perduto lo faceva perseverare e ostinarsi nella sua impresa, come il
denaro divorato dalla Fortuna trascina fatalmente dietro di sè il
giocatore che spera di riaverlo.
Quel giorno, dopo la colazione, Aurelio era salito nella sua camera in
balìa d’un’inquietudine straordinaria. Dopo aver tentato in vano di
continuare la lettura d’un libro, che nei dì precedenti lo aveva molto
appassionato, era uscito all’aperto sul balconcino, e v’era rimasto a
lungo, magnetizzato dalla gran luce del pomeriggio. Il suo cervello
aveva vibrazioni continue, pareva còrso da brividi infocati; i palpiti
del suo cuore eran lenti e faticosi, come trattenuti nello sforzo da una
difficoltà. Un sentimento inafferrabile teneva tutto il suo essere, il
sentimento d’una necessità urgente, d’un’imminenza assai grave,
d’un’occasione propizia, sospesa sopra di lui, che il minuto
fuggevole avrebbe potuta irremissibilmente distruggere per la sua
felicità.
Quando udì salire dal basso un suono di pianoforte, Aurelio si
mosse. L’intenzione oscura che lo agitava si dichiarò su l’istante. Egli
voleva veder Flavia nel giardino, in quell’angolo romito al rezzo degli
ultimi abeti, dove l’aveva trovata sola la prima volta; voleva
confidarle tutti i suoi pensieri, tutte le sue pene, per strappare a lei
una confessione esplicita che in un qualunque modo mettesse fine
alla crescente angoscia del suo spirito.
Discese precipitosamente le scale. Salì in corsa a traverso il bosco
senz’incontrar nessuno. L’affanno l’obbligò a sostare qualche attimo
al crocicchio delle due viottole, d’avanti all’antica erma dal volto
corroso e dai seni intatti, come gonfii d’un desiderio immortale. —
Oh, le memorie di quel calmo giorno lontano! Dov’era mai la sua
pace? Dove, la sua gagliarda indifferenza? Dove, i suoi puri sogni di
gloria? — Procedette poi a passo anche più spedito verso l’altura,
quasi lo chiamasse, da quell’ombra, il vivido raggio di sole che
illuminava a traverso un pertugio la sommità del sentiere.
Flavia era là, seduta sotto i pini, un po’ abbandonata su sè stessa,
tenendo su le ginocchia un ricamo che osservava con intensa
attenzione. D’innanzi a lei era disteso l’ampio scialle a mo’ di
tappeto, tutto coperto di scatole, scatolette, astucci, astuccini, e
d’un’infinità di fascetti colorati. Un’altra sediuola portatile all’opposto
lembo dello scialle indicava il posto di Luisa, discesa per l’esercizio
quotidiano di pianoforte.
Vedendola così vicina e così sola, sembrò al giovine che la sua
mente per prodigio si vuotasse e ogni sua energia venisse d’un tratto
a mancare. Rimase immobile allo sbocco del sentiere, incerto
ancora se dovesse avvicinarlesi o retrocedere rapidamente prima
d’essere scoperto. — Perchè era salito lassù? Che cosa avrebbe
potuto dire a Flavia? Con che parole avrebbe incominciato? Egli
s’era lasciato trasportare da un cieco impulso; e non aveva avuto il
tempo di prepararsi al difficile colloquio, di concretare un abile
pretesto di discorso o una qualunque giustificazione della sua
presenza a quell’ora, in quel luogo! Egli si trovava di fronte a lei,
dubbioso, inetto, disarmato, come un capitano che non abbia
preveduto l’incontro d’un nemico formidabile! Che fare? Come
presentarsi? E come allontanarsi? — Nella sua grande confusione,
la fuga gli sembrava impresa quasi più ardua dell’attacco.
Ella alzò per caso gli occhi dal telajo, e lo scorse.
— Signor Aurelio! — esclamò, piacevolmente stupita.
— Buon giorno, signorina, — egli disse, levandosi il cappello e
avanzando. Poi chiese con atto di maraviglia: — Sola?
— Sola, lo vede. Luisa, come sempre a quest’ora, è alla tortura
dell’odioso strumento.
— Difatti..... — egli mormorò.
Voleva dire: «Difatti l’ho sentita studiare dalla mia camera.» Ma si
trattenne in tempo, con il lieve tremito di chi stia per tradirsi o per
isvelare un interno segreto. In vece domandò, concitatamente:
— Ella non ama dunque la musica, signorina?
— Poco. Almeno amo poco la musica ch’io debbo eseguire: al
contrario in teatro mi piace assai, forse perchè mi piace molto il
teatro. Se sapesse quanto han fatto la mamma e il babbo per
invogliarmi a imparare il pianoforte! Essi mi avrebber voluta una
grande pianista; io però li ho scoraggiti presto con la mia inettitudine
e con la mia negligenza.
— E ora, non suona mai?
— Mai, mai!... Ma prego, conte, s’accomodi, — ella aggiunse con
cortesia, indicandogli la sediuola disoccupata, d’onde tolse un pajo
di forbici e un rocchetto di filo d’oro.
Aurelio sedette, dopo un’esitazione breve.
Egli era alfine presso di lei, solo, assolutamente libero, come aveva
desiderato, come aveva voluto. In torno, il bosco d’abeti si piegava
discretamente in arco, formando una profonda nicchia verde, una
specie di parete alta e opaca, che s’apriva soltanto da una parte
quasi per ricevere i riflessi aurei del poggio ammantato dal sole. Il
silenzio della campagna circostante proteggeva il luogo nascosto,
che pareva creato per un qualche alto mistero. Su le vette degli
alberi e sul culmine del colle si distendeva l’etereo manto azzurro, il
muto e deserto paese dell’Eternità e della Gloria, a cui volano
disperdendosi i sogni dell’umanità insodisfatta. — Egli era alfine
presso di lei, solo, assolutamente libero, come aveva desiderato,
come aveva voluto!
Perchè dunque temeva? E da che proveniva l’angustia del suo
cuore? E perchè non osava? perchè lasciava trascorrere inutili
quegli istanti preziosi di solitudine? Ohimè, la sua mente era vuota,
la sua volontà assopita! Egli s’abbandonava alla corrente come un
uomo che disperi di salvarsi!
Parlarono un tempo incalcolabile di cose indifferenti, con lunghi
intervalli di mutismo. Flavia gli mostrò, perchè l’ammirasse, il suo
ricamo, una combinazione a bastanza armonica di tinte languide, di
viola smorto, di verde smorto, d’oliva smorto, disposte a fiamma e
orlate d’oro. Egli, confuso e timido, teneva gli occhi fissi sul lavoro
paziente, e, per dire qualche parola, chiedeva spiegazioni su lo stile,
sul tempo che occorreva per compirlo, su l’uso ch’ella ne avrebbe
poi fatto. In tanto dentro di lui, i rimproveri sorgevano, a uno a uno,
implacabilmente, a similitudine di spettri maligni che uscissero alla
luce da una porta misteriosa; e una voce corrucciata ripeteva ognor
più forte la sollecitazione: — «Agisci! Spiègati! Domanda! Il tempo
fugge, e tu non sai se domani ti sarà concessa un’occasione
altrettanto propizia. Puoi tu sopportare oltre la tortura che ti ha
dilaniato in questi giorni passati? Puoi tu vivere di timori e non di
speranze? Pensaci: meglio, mille volte meglio lo schianto della più
cruda certezza all’angoscia del dubbio sempre crescente. Quando tu
conoscerai tutta la verità, allora soltanto potrai trovare la via di
scampo, che ora la tua vista ottenebrata non discerne.»
Il giovine ascoltava e fremeva. Durante un silenzio più prolungato, gli
parve alfine di poter sciogliere la lingua, d’aver trovato un appicco
facile per il discorso che voleva tenere; credette che un’ispirazione
buona fosse venuta a scuotere il torpore del suo spirito. Egli non
sapeva ancor bene quale fosse questa ispirazione; ma sentiva che il
momento era giunto per tentar la sorte e si diceva che una volta
gittato il dado la partita sarebbe stata senz’altro risolta. Alcune
parole si precisarono nella sua mente; egli le ripetè più volte con il
pensiero, senza poterle pronunciare. — E poi? E poi? — In fine, con
la voce tremante, abbassando gli occhi, mormorò:
— Signorina, avrei bisogno di parlarle.
Flavia, intenta al suo lavoro, alzò lentamente il capo e fissò Aurelio
con aria sospettosa, interrogando.
— Dica pure, — fece ella dopo una pausa, poi ch’egli non
accennava a proseguire.
Un nuovo e più grave eclisse oscurò per qualche istante lo spirito di
lui. — Che cosa dire? Come incominciare? Era dunque necessario
rispondere? Egli non sapeva più nulla, nulla; ignorava per fino dove
e con chi fosse; egli pensava a cose estranee; egli ora era tutto
occupato a considerare attentamente il disegno d’un gran fiore
giallo, che s’ergeva alto su l’erba del prato. Come staccare gli
sguardi da quel fiore? Come concentrare la mente sopra un
determinato soggetto?
Gli occhi di Flavia, che lo fissavan sempre con un’espressione acuta
d’impazienza e d’interrogazione, l’obbligarono a troncare
quell’indugio ingiustificabile. Egli parlò pianamente, cercando le
parole, arrestandosi a ogni frase, quasi aspettando da lei
un’interruzione che gli risparmiasse lo sforzo supremo di concludere.
— Signorina — incominciò — ella deve scusare la mia curiosità... È
stata lei a risvegliarla... con la sua schiettezza, con la sua
espansività, con la fiducia di cui si compiacque d’onorarmi fin dai
primi tempi della nostra conoscenza.... Io vorrei farle una
domanda.... una domanda forse un poco indiscreta.... forse
inopportuna... e forse no... Ma desidererei, prima di rivolgergliela,
una promessa da parte sua... desidererei ch’ella m’assicurasse di
rispondermi francamente, senza timori e senza reticenze... perchè
dalla sua risposta può dipendere... io saprei... In breve, signorina, mi
permette di farle questa domanda?
Flavia, rassicurata dal lungo preambolo, lo ascoltava sempre più
indulgente nell’aspetto, sempre più benevola, con un lieve sorriso di
sodisfazione su le labbra. Ella aveva in quel momento la coscienza
della sua superiorità di fronte a quell’uomo forte, intelligente e
coltissimo, che balbettava con lei come un bambino; e cedeva senza
riflettere al sentimento insidioso di pietà e di condiscendenza, che
suscita assai di sovente nelle donne l’omaggio timido o servile.
Rispose:
— M’interroghi pure quanto vuole; io cercherò d’esser più franca che
m’è possibile.
Il giovine, osservandola di sottecchi, s’avvide del suo mutamento e
fu investito come da un soffio subitaneo di speranza e d’audacia.
Rialzò con un moto brusco il capo e rivolse sicuro gli occhi verso
quelli di lei.
— La porta del suo cuore, — egli domandò, con accento leggero, —
è dunque sempre chiusa, anzi murata, come due mesi or sono?
Il dado era gittato. Ogni ansietà non aveva più ragion d’essere:
Aurelio si sentiva calmo, sereno, quasi indifferente, pronto a
sopportare qualunque più fiero colpo. E la fanciulla, offesa dalla
forma della richiesta e ancor più dalla espressione con cui era stata
proferita, aveva cessato di sorridere e sosteneva gagliardamente lo
sguardo di lui.
Si fissarono così un poco senza parlare, in atto di sfida. L’eterno odio
dei sessi, fatto di diffidenza, di paura e d’orgoglio, irritò e disgiunse le
loro anime, le quali un istante prima eran già in atto di fondersi.
Parve che ciascuno di essi volesse penetrare con gli occhi
nell’intimo dell’altro, senz’esserne a sua volta investigato; parve,
come in un duello, che ciascuno, raccolto nella posizione forte di
guardia, indugiasse a muoversi per la tema di scoprirsi o nella
speranza di sorprendere l’avversario con una botta fulminea.
Ella in fine si risolse a parlare.
— Io le risponderò, — disse con la voce grave, — come lei ha già
risposto a una mia domanda altrettanto indiscreta: schiettamente,
più che mai.
Aurelio la guardò, impassibile. Le parole crudeli non gli suscitarono
in quel momento nessuna commozione: le ascoltò sorridendo, e
concluse in tono scherzoso, ironicamente:
— Me ne rallegro molto con lei, signorina. E le chiedo perdono
d’aver dubitato della sua coerenza.
Più tardi però, quando fu solo, quando l’imagine dell’amata si sostituì
alla sensazione e la fantasia smussò gli spigoli pungenti della realità,
egli, ripensando a quell’ultimo colloquio avuto con Flavia, ebbe le ore
più torbide e più agitate della sua vita. L’idea d’aver sciupato
un’occasione favorevole, d’aver distrutto con un movimento brusco e
temerario l’incanto che stava già per avvolgerli entrambi, lo rese folle
d’ira, di rimorso, di dolore. Il flutto di tenerezza e di passione, ond’era
invaso, sommerse i piccoli rancori, gli impulsi vendicativi, le ribellioni
dell’amor proprio; ed egli non sentì più se non lo schianto atroce
della delusione, l’angosciosa tristezza del suo povero amore
incorrisposto e spregiato.
Su le prime accettò senza discutere il senso letterale delle parole di
Flavia, e giudicò irreparabile e definitivo uno stato di cose che era
fuori del suo potere e della sua volontà. «Ella non l’amava; lo aveva
respinto: ogni speranza dunque era omai perduta per lui.» Egli si
vide, per il capriccio d’una sorte cattiva o per una tragica
disposizione della Natura, perennemente solo e abbandonato tra
esseri estranei o nemici. Pensò che la vita a tal prezzo non valeva la
pena d’esser vissuta; pensò che la gloria era vana, l’umanità era
trista, l’avvenire incommutabile o non meritevole d’esser commutato.
Uno scontento immane del mondo e di sè stesso s’impadronì di tutte
le sue facoltà. Egli rimase soffocato nella stretta di tanta
desolazione, maledicendo all’esistenza e alle sue miserie, anelando
inutilmente a un Bene, ch’era l’Amore e poteva anche esser la
Morte.
Ma una reazione benefica, il ritorno spontaneo e naturale
dell’illusione dopo lo scoramento supremo, non tardò a risollevare il
suo spirito e a infondervi di nuovo il soffio vivificatore della speranza.
Le sue abitudini di riflessione e d’analisi lo spinsero in buon punto a
ricercare sotto il velame delle parole il loro senso recondito e a
costruire pazientemente quelle ipotesi ch’eran per lui meno avverse
e meno scoraggianti. — Era dunque ben certo che Flavia non
l’amava? La sua ripulsa sdegnosa non poteva esser dettata da un
tardo desiderio di rivincita, dall’istinto femminile di difendersi con la
bugia, con l’astuzia, con l’offesa? E non l’aveva egli forse provocata
e meritata quella ripulsa, con la sua domanda importuna e piena di
sarcasmo? — Aurelio ricordò il sorriso che aveva a grado a grado
modificato l’espressione della fanciulla, mentr’egli parlava a frasi
interrotte e la corda della tenerezza vibrava ancora nel suo balbettìo
confuso: Flavia certamente in quell’attimo aspettava da lui una
qualche appassionata rivelazione, e l’aspettava palpitando
d’impazienza e di piacere. S’egli, in vece d’inorgoglirsi e di
reprimersi, avesse aperto con lealtà il suo cuore, probabilmente ella
non avrebbe mutato contegno e non gli avrebbe risposto in tal guisa.
«Ella dunque lo amava; ella non aveva inteso di respingerlo; ella
poteva sempre divenire, quando egli lo volesse, la donna tua.» Un
impeto folle di gioja trasportò la sua anima dagli abissi della
disperazione al colmo della fiducia in sè stesso e nel suo destino.
Egli tremò di soavità, pensando d’essere amato. Egli, imaginando
l’avvenire, credette che la sua vita interna acquistasse d’improvviso
un’accelerazione prodigiosa. La gloria era in lui; il trionfo della sua
persona empiva di letizia l’universo. Ogni cosa si rischiarava; ogni
ostacolo cedeva, come disperso dalla passione soverchiatrice. Gli
passava da presso la Felicità, ed egli udiva bene nel silenzio il
rombo delle sue ali; egli sentiva l’aria scossa e turbata dall’eterna
Chimera proteiforme, dietro cui gli uomini volan travolti, come foglie
nel vento d’un traino impetuoso.
Ma i dubbii e i timori lo circuirono da capo, appena l’analisi si spinse
un poco oltre lo scopo per cui era fatta. Chi cerca il conforto negli
artifizii del raziocinio corre gli stessi rischi di colui che cerca un
tesoro nascosto nel fondo d’una palude. Il pensiero, nella sua
indagine, non può d’un tratto arrestarsi contento alla migliore ipotesi,
e trova sempre accanto a questa un’interpretazione contraria che ne
abolisce ogni valore di certezza e ogni virtù di consolazione. —
L’imagine del pretendente venne a frammescolarsi allora alle sue
considerazioni, e distrusse con il suo solo apparire tutto l’edificio
delle liete aspettative. Non era dunque possibile che il sorriso di
Flavia fosse dedicato a costui? Non era possibile che un’analogia di
situazione o di parole le avesse risvegliato nella mente il ricordo del
fidanzato lontano, illuminandole il volto di dolcezza e di bontà? E
l’ultima sua risposta non poteva essere in vece una superba
menzogna, ch’ella aveva detto volontariamente, per nascondere a
un estraneo il geloso segreto del suo cuore? Tutto ciò era possibile,
ed era più disperante d’ogni altra supposizione! La gelosia
rinasceva; l’odio contro il rivale noto e disprezzato saettava dentro di
lui; il desiderio della fanciulla, inacerbito da quell’odio e da quella
gelosia, diveniva uno spasimo inumano, una follia cupa e maligna
che fomentava nel suo spirito i più temerarii e i più obliqui
divisamenti.
Nei dì successivi il dibattito continuò viepiù fiero: ogni frase, ogni
gesto di Flavia assunse nella sua imaginazione due sensi
contradittorii, ai quali egli rimaneva a lungo aggrappato come agli orli
d’una voragine. «Ella lo amava? Amava quell’altro o rimaneva fedele
al primo che aveva amato?» Egli rispose mille volte,
successivamente, a queste diverse domande con la stessa
affermazione convinta, interpretando una parola di lei scelta a caso
nel corso d’una conversazione indifferente, una sua occhiata
fuggevole o un tremito delle sue palpebre, un sospiro, un sorriso o
un silenzio.
Non si eran più trovati soli dopo d’allora. Aurelio per una settimana
non aveva osato ripresentarsi a lei in quel luogo determinato, a
quell’ora fissa del giorno. Si vedevan dunque, come per il passato, ai
convegni comuni, dove non riuscivano a scambiare che qualche
breve discorso o di quando in quando qualche sguardo eloquente.
Una mutazione sensibile era però avvenuta nel contegno di Flavia:
ella aveva deposto la sua maschera sarcastica e lo trattava ora con
la massima cortesia, sempre un po’ fredda nell’aspetto ma con
inflessioni di voce sottilmente insinuanti e con una certa gravità di
linguaggio che dimostrava una deferenza insolita per lui, un rispetto
nuovo per i suoi principii e per le sue ambizioni. Una sera che donna
Marta si lagnava del nipote e delle sue trascuratezze verso di lei, ella
disse inaspettatamente, senz’ombra d’ironia:
— Per carità, contessa, non si lamenti! Io so che il signor Aurelio le
vuole molto bene. E poi, creda a me, noi donne non abbiamo il diritto
di pretendere dagli uomini, che hanno un ideale e interamente vi si
consacrano, più di quanto essi ci possono concedere. Se noi
vogliamo esser per loro un appoggio e non un ostacolo, è
giuocoforza che ci pieghiamo alle loro esigenze e accettiamo senza
protesta il posto ch’essi ci assegnano nella loro vita. Il signor Aurelio
avrà certo uno splendido avvenire; farà un grande onore al suo
casato: ella dovrebbe esserne superba e non chiedergli di più.
E un’altra sera che tutte a vicenda avevan pianto su la loro sorte,
ella disse anche, rivolgendosi a lui direttamente:
— Chi proprio deve esser felice tra noi è lei, conte; lei, che non ha
pensieri, non soggiace alla comune debolezza dei sentimenti, e vive
una vita speciale, tranquillo, sereno, appartato in mezzo alle sue
idee, come in un mondo creato a sua imagine e somiglianza. Ella
non sa quanto io la invidii, certe volte. Se fossi nata uomo, avrei
voluto essere come lei, forte, solo, libero e sdegnoso d’ogni giogo.
Non sospettava dunque ancora la fiamma divoratrice che gli ardeva
nel cuore? O diceva queste cose per accertarsene, per studiare sul
suo viso l’effetto che avevano dentro di lui?
Così passò un’altra settimana, e il piano di conquista imaginato da
Aurelio rimaneva tuttora allo stato di mera intenzione, sempre più
incerto e più difficile. Le sue speranze s’estinguevano,
progressivamente; il suo sogno di felicità andava avvolgendosi ogni
dì più in cupe ombre, da cui l’imagine di Flavia usciva a pena visibile,
tentatrice e irreale come un’apparizione d’incubo. Tutta la sua
giornata non era omai che una lunga agonia. Egli, come pensava al
giorno in cui il rivale sarebbe ritornato, si sentiva morire d’ansia e di
raccapriccio. E quel giorno era vicino; e ogni ora inerte, anzi ogni
attimo, che il suo cuore pulsando annunziava perduto, lo
approssimava di più! Che fare adunque? Che tentare? Eppure
qualche cosa ancora bisognava fare e tentare, prima di risolversi
all’ultima rinuncia, prima d’abbandonare il campo all’odiato vincitore.
In tanto, l’ora era giunta per lui del grande verace amore di sua vita.
Pareva che sotto l’azione del fuoco violento, tutto il suo essere si
fosse trasmutato, dilatato oltre i limiti consueti, alleggerito, e
arricchito di nuove e sconosciute proprietà. Pareva che fosse
sopravvenuta in lui un’altra anima in luogo della sua propria,
un’anima sensitiva e imaginosa che, avendo a sdegno le nozioni
precise e le fredde astrazioni, amava appassionatamente le cose
incerte, mobili e colorite, i facili errori della fantasia, i trepidi voli
dell’idea nell’aria crepuscolare dei sogni e delle leggende. Egli si
rinnovava; egli aveva cessato d’essere pensatore per divenire
artista. Egli sentiva ora il bisogno d’adornarsi, d’abbellire tutto ciò
ch’era intorno a lui, di vivere una vita estetica, composta di
sensazioni armoniche e ritmate.
La sua squallida camera, già ingombra di libri e di fogli gittati qua e
là in disordine, s’assestò, si trasformò, apparve sotto un aspetto
nuovo, femminilmente gradevole. Egli prese dalle stanze superflue
alcuni tappeti, un grande specchio e due o tre quadri, e ve li dispose
con cura, quelli sul suolo e questi su le pareti; con un drappo,
scoperto nella chiesuola annessa al palazzo, si foggiò un ricco
padiglione sopra il capezzale del letto; discese in giardino, e colse
molte rose, alcuni mazzi di fiori campestri, alcune fronde d’edera per
riempire i vasi polverosi e ornare con essi la tavola da lavoro, il
vecchio canterano e la specchiera. Persino nel suo modo di vestire e
d’atteggiarsi, egli dimostrò una sollecitudine non mai avuta, una
preoccupazione assidua e intensa di piacere, un gusto raffinato nella
scelta delle forme e delle sfumature, il cui segreto non avrebbe mai
sospettato di poter conoscere. E per occupare i suoi ozii agitati, si
fece mandare dalla città diversi libri di liriche, che lesse per la prima
volta, fremendo, esaltandosi, spasimando, quasi gli rivelassero nel
loro linguaggio poetico e ardente l’ardore e la poesia de’ suoi
sentimenti inesprimibili.
Alte idee, in vero, sorgevan nella sua intelligenza, mentr’egli
compiva inconscio la profonda metamorfosi. «Perché non debbo io
amare?» egli si domandava. «Perché questa rinuncia, questa
mortificazione, questa restrizione? Non sono io giovine? Non son
forse degno del supremo godimento della vita? L’attimo è fuggevole;
e dopo l’attimo vengono ininterrotte le tenebre del nulla. Posso io
sacrificare questo attimo a un avvenire, di cui non avrò mai più
visione, nè coscienza? Posso io ragionevolmente opprimere e
disconoscere i diritti di questa carne mortale, che forse è tutta
quanta la mia sostanza?» Egli anche pensava: «Io ho saputo fino a
oggi trionfare de’ miei sensi, per esser libero e consacrarmi
interamente alla preparazione d’una vasta coltura e d’una chiara
comprensione della vita. E per trionfare de’ miei sensi, ho giudicato
l’Amore un’inferiorità, una bruttura, un pericolo. Ma se mi fossi
ingannato? Se le commozioni dell’Amore, ch’io non ho voluto
conoscere, fossero diverse da quelle che ho supposte, e