[377] The witness before the court TESTS something. But the test method uses those elements of man which can be mechanized, which can be brought down to the functions of an artificial brain^a, or of a Frankenstein, or of a product which acts like a man but does not have the elements of spontaneity. Now there are many of these elements, and by skillful order of the test you can find out the quickness of reaction, the ability of perception, and many other things like that; but if you don't count on one thing, in all these test methods: you don’t count on the possibility of man, in the next moment

AFTER the test, to create in himself something which had not been reached before by the test method and which changes all the results of the test method. If you, as business executive, accept some worker for a difficult task and have him tested by the work-psychologist, then you can see tendencies in him which in this moment are predominant. But it may be that the same day, he experiences something at home which produces in him a catastrophic reaction and to which he must make a creative answer--or it might be a destructive answer. In both cases the test is valid only in a limited way. Of course the Tendenz [tendency] of interest and skill are still there, but they are changed in the totality of the personality^b. Now this means that we have to say:

it is a highly abstract group of functions which are under inquiry--but no more than this. The center of the personality is never under inquiry. And if you want to have a person for something in which life-elements play a role, the limits of the test method have come. Imagine for a moment the absurdity that you choose your husband or your wife on the basis of a family tester (which perhaps will be a job for tomorrow!). Now if you do this, then you will