A young Chinese girl, at school in an English-speaking country, approached me after I gave a talk at a conference and asked for my advice about what she should study. I knew nothing of her, except that she was pretty, with beautiful dark eyes, and was almost certainly of high intelligence. I was touched by her naive assumption that I would answer benevolently and in her best interests. It suggested that she had not yet encountered much of human malignity. ‘What are you interested in?’ I asked.

‘I was thinking of history and psychology.’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘definitely not psychology, at all costs not psychology.’

My answer emerged spontaneously, without any reflection – too spontaneously, in fact. I have never entirely overcome my early awareness that I was a child in a world of adults and th

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