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The
Mystery of the Human Temperaments*
By RUDOLF
STEINER
“When it is a case of mastering life, we must listen for
life's secrets, and these lie behind the sense-perceptible.”
*A public lecture given in the winter of
1908-09.
T IS an oft-repeated and a justifiable opinion, with
regard to all the realms of human spiritual life, that man's greatest
riddle here in our physical life is man himself. And we may
truly say that a large part of our scientific activity, of our
reflection, and of much besides in man's life of thought, is applied
to the solving of this human riddle, to discerning a little wherein
the essence of human nature consists. Natural science and
spiritual science try to solve from different sides this great
riddle comprised in the word Man. In the main, all the more
profound natural scientific research seeks to attain its final
goal by bringing together all the processes of nature, and so forth,
in order to comprehend the external laws. And all spiritual
science seeks the sources of existence for the sake of
comprehending, of fathoming, man's being and destiny. If then, on the
one hand, it is unquestioned that in general man's greatest riddle is
man himself, we may say that in relation to life this expression may
have a still deeper significance, in that it is necessary on the
other hand to emphasize what each of us feels upon meeting another
person: namely, that fundamentally each single person is in turn an
enigma for others and for himself because of his special nature and
being. Ordinarily, when we speak of this human enigma, we have in
mind man in general, man without distinction regarding this or that
individuality; and certainly many problems appear for us when we wish
to understand human nature in general. But today we have not to do
with the general riddles of existence, but rather with that enigma,
not less significant for life, which each person we meet
presents to us. For how endlessly varied are human beings in their
deepest individual essence!
When we survey human life we shall have to be especially
attentive to this riddle which each person presents, for our entire
social life, our relation of man to man, must depend more upon how in
individual cases we are able to approach with our feeling, with our
sensibility, rather than merely with our intelligence, that
individual human enigma which stands before us so often each day,
with which we have to deal so often. How difficult it is regarding
the people we meet to come to a clear knowledge of the various sides
of their nature, and how much depends in life upon our coming to such
clear knowledge regarding those people with whom we come in touch. We
can of course only approach quite gradually the solution of the whole
riddle of the human individual, of which each person presents a
special phase, for there is a great gap between what is called human
nature in general and that which confronts us in each human
individual.
Spiritual science, or as we call it more recently,
Anthroposophy, will have a special task precisely regarding this
individual enigma — man. Not only must it give us information
about what man is in general, but it must be, as you know, a
knowledge which flows directly into our daily life, into all our
sensibilities and feelings. Since our feelings and sensibilities are
unfolded in the most beautiful way in our attitude toward our fellow
men, the fruit of spiritual science, of spiritual scientific
knowledge, will be revealed the most beautifully in the view we take
of our fellow men because of this knowledge.
When in life a person stands before us, we must always,
in the sense of this spiritual science, or Anthroposophy, take into
consideration that what we perceive outwardly of the person is
only one part, only one member, of the human being. To
be sure, an outer material view of man regards as the whole
man what this outer perception and the intellect connected with it
are able to give us. Spiritual science shows us, however, that the
human being is something very, very complicated. And often, when one
goes more deeply into this complexity of human nature, the individual
is then also seen in the right light. Spiritual science has the task
of showing us what the innermost kernel of the human being is; what
we can see with the eyes and grasp with the hands is only the outer
expression, the outer shell. And we may hope to come to an
understanding of the external also if we are able to penetrate into
the spiritual inner part.
In the great gap between what we may call human nature
in general and what confronts us in each individual, we see
nevertheless many homogeneous characteristics in whole human groups.
To these belong those human qualities which today form the subject of
our consideration, and which we usually call the temperament.
We need only utter the word ‘temperament’ to see that
there are as many riddles as men. Within the basic types, the basic
colorings, we have such a multiplicity and variety among individuals
that we can indeed say that the real enigma, of existence is
expressed in the peculiar basic disposition of the human being which
we call temperament. And when the riddles intervene directly in
practical life, the basic coloring of the human being plays a role.
When a person stands before us, we feel that we are confronted by
something of this basic disposition. Therefore it is to be hoped that
spiritual science is able to give also the necessary information
about the nature of the temperaments. For though we must admit that
the temperaments spring from within, they nevertheless express
themselves in the whole external appearance of the individual. By
means of an external observation of nature, however, the riddle of
man is not to be solved; we can approach the characteristic coloring
of the human being only when we learn what spiritual science has to
say about him.
It is of course true that each person confronts us with
his own temperament, but we can still distinguish certain groups of
temperaments. We speak chiefly of four types, as you know: the
sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the
melancholic temperament. And even though this classification is not
entirely correct in so far as we apply it to individuals — in
individuals the temperaments are mixed in the most diverse way, so we
can only say that one temperament or another predominates in certain
traits — still we shall in general classify people in four
groups according to their temperaments.
The fact that the temperament is revealed on the one
side as something which inclines toward the individual, which makes
people different, and on the other side joins them again to groups,
proves to us that the temperament must on the one side have something
to do with the innermost essence of the human being, and on the other
must belong to universal human nature. Man's temperament, then, is
something which points in two directions; and therefore it will be
necessary, if we wish to solve the mystery, to ask on the one hand:
In how far does the temperament point to what belongs to universal
human nature? and then again on the other: How does it point
to the essential kernel, to the actual inner being of the individual?
If we put the question, it is natural that spiritual
science seems called upon to give enlightenment, for spiritual
science must lead us to the innermost essential kernel of the human
being. As he confronts us on earth, he appears to be placed in a
universality, and again on the other side he appears as an
independent entity. In the light of spiritual science man stands
within two life streams which meet when he enters earth existence.
And here we are at the focal point of the consideration of human
nature according to the methods of spiritual science. We learn that
we have in the human being, first of all, that which places him in
his line of heredity. The one stream leads us from the
individual man back to his parents, grandparents, and further
ancestors. He shows the characteristics inherited from father,
mother, grandparents, and all preceding ancestors farther and farther
back. And these attributes he transmits again to his descendants.
That which flows down from ancestors to the individual man we
designate in life and in science as inherited attributes and
characteristics. A man is placed in this way within what we may
call the line of heredity; and it is known that an individual bears
within him, even in the very kernel of his being, qualities which we
must certainly trace back to heredity. Very much about an individual
is explicable if we know his ancestry, so to speak. How deeply true
are the words uttered with regard to his own personality by Goethe,
who had such a deep knowledge of the soul:
My father gave my build to me,
Toward life my solemn bearing,
From mother comes my gayety
And my delight in yarning.
Here we see how this great knower of
human nature has to point even to moral qualities when he wishes to
refer to inherited characteristics. Everything we find as transmitted
from ancestors to descendants interprets for us the individual person
in a certain respect, but only in a certain respect; for what he has
inherited from his ancestors gives us only one side of the
human being. Of course the present-day materialistic conception would
like to seek in the line of ancestry for everything under the sun,
would like even to trace back a man's spiritual being (his spiritual
qualities) to ancestry; and it never wearies of declaring that even a
man's qualities of genius are explicable if we find signs,
indications, of such characteristics in this or that ancestor. Those
who hold such a view would like to compile the human personality, so
to speak, from what is found scattered among the ancestors. Anyone
who penetrates more deeply into human nature will of course be struck
by the fact that beside these inherited attributes, in each man
something confronts us which we cannot characterize otherwise than by
saying: That is his very own; we cannot say, as a result of close
observation, that it is transmitted from this or that ancestor.
Spiritual science comes in here and tells us what it has to
say about it. Today we are able to present only sketchily what is
involved in these questions, to indicate only sketchily the findings
of spiritual science.
Spiritual science tells us: Certainly it is true that
the human being is placed in the stream which we may call the stream
of heredity, the stream of inherited attributes. Besides that,
however, something else appears in an individual, namely, the
innermost spiritual kernel of his being. In this are united what
the individual brings with him from the spiritual world and what the
father and mother, the ancestors, are able to give to him. With that
which flows down in the stream of the generations is united something
else which has its origin, not in the immediate ancestors, the
parents, and not in the grandparents, but which comes from quite
other realms, something which passes from one existence to another.
On the one side we may say: A man has this or that from his
ancestors. But if we watch an individual develop from childhood on,
we see how from the center of his nature something evolves which is
the fruit of foregoing lives, something he never can have inherited
from his ancestors.
What we see in the individual, when we penetrate to the
depths of his soul, we can only explain to ourselves when we know a
great comprehensive law, which is really only the consequence of many
natural laws. It is the law of repeated earth lives, so
greatly tabooed at the present time. This law of re-embodiment, the
succession of earth lives, is only a specific case of a general
cosmic law.
It will not appear so paradoxical to us when we think
the matter over. Let us observe a lifeless mineral, a rock
crystal. It has a regular form. If it is destroyed, nothing of its
form remains which could pass over to other rock crystals. The new
rock crystal receives nothing of its form. Now if we rise from the
world of minerals to the world of plants, it becomes clear to
us that a plant cannot originate according to the same law as a rock
crystal. A plant can originate only when it is derived from the
parent plant. Here the form is maintained and passes over to the
other entity. If we rise to the animal world, we find that a
development of species takes place. We see that the 19th
century considered this discovery of the development of the species
as among its greatest results. Not only does one form proceed from
another, but each animal in the body of the mother repeats the
earlier forms, the lower evolutionary phases of his ancestors. Among
the animals we have a rising gradation of species. Among human
beings, however, we have not only a gradation of species, a
development of kinds, but we have a development of the individual.
What a man acquires in the course of his life through education,
through experience, is just as little lost as the animal's succession
of ancestors.
A time will come when a man's essential core is traced
back to a previous existence. It will be recognized that the human
being is a fruit of an earlier existence. This law will have a
peculiar destiny in the world, a destiny similar to that of another
law. The opposition against which this teaching has to assert itself
will be overcome, just as the opinion of the scientists of earlier
centuries was overcome: that the living can originate from the
lifeless. Even into the 17th century the learned and the unlearned
had no doubt whatever that from ordinary lifeless things not only
lower animals could be evolved, but that earthworms, even fish, could
originate from ordinary river slime. The first who declared
energetically that the living can originate only from the living was
the great Italian natural scientist, Francesco Redi (1627 to 1697),
who showed that the living derives only from the living. That
is a law which is only the forerunner of another: namely, that the
soul-spiritual derives from the soul-spiritual. On account of
this teaching he was attacked, and only with difficulty escaped the
fate of Giordano Bruno. Today burning is no longer the custom; but
anyone who appears with a new truth today, for instance, anyone who
wishes to trace back the soul-spiritual element to the
soul-spiritual, would not be burned, to be sure, but would be looked
upon as a fool. A time will come when it will be considered nonsense
to think that a man lives only once, that there is not something
permanent which unites itself with his inherited characteristics.
Spiritual science shows how that which is our own nature
unites with what is given to us by heredity. That is the other stream
into which the individual is placed, the stream with which the
present civilization does not wish to have anything to do. Spiritual
science leads us to the great facts of so-called re-embodiment, of
reincarnation, and of karma. It shows us that we have to take
into consideration the innermost essential kernel of man as that
which descends from the spiritual world and unites with something
which is given by the line of heredity, unites with what it is
possible for the father and mother to give to the individual. For the
spiritual scientist that which originates from the line of heredity
envelops this essential kernel with outer sheaths. And as we must go
back to father and mother and other ancestors for what we see in the
physical man as form and stature, and so forth, for the
characteristics which belong to his outer being, so we must go back
to something entirely different, to an earlier life, if we wish to
comprehend a man's innermost being; perhaps far, far back, beyond all
hereditary transmission, we may have to seek the human being's
spiritual kernel which has existed for thousands of years, and which
during these thousands of years has entered again and again into
existence, again and again has led an earth-life, and now in the
present existence has united itself again to what it is possible for
father and mother to give. Every single human being, when he enters
into physical life, has a succession of lives behind him. And this
has nothing to do with what belongs to the line of heredity. We
should have to go back more than centuries if we wished to
investigate what was his former life when he passed through the gate
of death. After he has passed through the gate of death he lives in
other forms of existence in the spiritual world. And when again the
time comes to experience a life in the physical world, he seeks his
parents. Thus we must go back to the spirit of man and his earlier
incarnations, if we wish to explain what in him confronts us now as
the soul-spiritual part. We must go back to his earlier incarnations,
to what he acquired in course of them. We have to consider how he
lived at that time, what he brought with him, as the causes of what
the individual possesses today in the new life as tendencies,
dispositions, abilities for this or that. For each person brings with
him from his former life certain qualities of his life. Certain
qualities and his destiny he brings with him to a certain degree.
According as he has performed this or that deed, he calls forth the
reaction, and feels himself thus to be surrounded by the new life. So
he brings with him from earlier incarnations the inner kernel of his
being and envelops it with what is given him by heredity.
Certainly this one thing should be mentioned, because it
is important, since actually our present time has little inclination
to recognize this inner kernel of being, or to look upon the idea of
reincarnation as anything but a fantastic thought. It is considered
today to be poor logic, and we shall hear materialistic thinkers
objecting over and over again that what is in man arises entirely
through heredity. Just look at the ancestors, he says, and you will
discover that this or that trait, this or that peculiarity, existed
in some ancestor, that all the individual traits and qualities can be
explained by tracing them in the ancestors. The spiritual scientist
can also point to that fact, and he has done so. For example, in a
musical family musical talent is inherited, etc. That is all supposed
to support the theory of heredity. Indeed, the law is expressed point
blank, that seldom does genius appear at the beginning of a
generation; genius stands at the end of a line of heredity. And that
is supposed to be a proof that genius is inherited. Here one proceeds
from the standpoint that some person has a definite characteristic —
he is a genius. Someone traces back the peculiar abilities of the
genius, seeks in the past among his ancestors, finds in some ancestor
signs of a similar characteristic, picks out something here and
there, finds this quality in one, that in another, and then shows how
they finally flowed together in the genius who appeared at the end of
the generation; and he infers from it that genius is transmitted. For
anyone whose thinking is direct and logical that could at best prove
the opposite. If finding qualities of genius among the ancestors
proves anything, what does it prove? Surely nothing else than that
man's essential being is able to express itself in life according to
the instrument of the body. It proves nothing more than that a man
comes out wet if he falls into the water. Really it is no more
intelligent than if some one wishes to call our special attention to
the fact that if a man falls into the water he gets wet. It is only
natural that he takes up something of the element into which he is
placed. Surely it is quite self-evident that the qualities of the
ancestors would be carried by that which has flowed down through the
line of heredity, and has finally been given through father and
mother to the particular human being who has descended from the
spiritual world. The individual clothes himself in the sheaths which
are given to him by his ancestors. What is intended to be presented
as proof of heredity could much better be looked upon as proof that
it is not heredity. For if genius were inherited, it would have to
appear at the beginning of the generations and not stand at the end
of a line of heredity. If anyone were to show that a genius has sons
and grandchildren to whom the qualities of genius are transmitted,
then he would be able to prove that genius is inherited; but that is
just not the case. It is limping logic which wishes to trace back
man's spiritual qualities to the succession of ancestors. We must
trace back spiritual qualities to that which a man has brought with
him from his earlier incarnations.
If now we consider the one stream, that which lives in
the line of heredity, we find that there the individual is drawn into
a stream of existence through which he gets certain qualities: We
have before us some one possessing the qualities of his family, his
people, his race. The various children of the same parents have
characteristics conditioned in this way. If we consider the true
individual nature of a human being, we must say that the
soul-spiritual essential kernel is born into the family, the people,
the race; it envelops itself with what is given by the ancestors, but
it brings with it purely individual characteristics. So we must ask
ourselves: How is harmony established between a human essence which
perhaps has acquired centuries earlier this or that quality and the
outer covering with which it is now to envelop itself, and which
bears the characteristics of family, people, race, and so forth? Is
it possible for harmony to exist here? Is it not something in the
highest sense individual which is thus brought into earth life, and
is not the inherited part at variance with it? Thus the great
question arises: How can that which has its origin in quite other
worlds, which must seek father and mother for itself, unite with the
physical body? How can it clothe itself with the physical attributes
through which the human being is placed within the line of
heredity?
We see then in a person confronting us the flowing
together of two streams; of these two streams each human being is
composed. In him we see on the one side what comes to him from his
family, and on the other what has developed from the individual's
innermost being; namely, a number of predispositions,
characteristics, inner capacities and outer destiny. An agreement
must be effected. We find that a man must adapt himself to this
union, in accordance with his innermost being on the one side, and on
the other in accordance with that which is brought to him from the
line of heredity. We see how a man bears to a great degree the
physiognomy of his ancestors; we could put him together, so to speak,
from the sum of his various ancestors. Since at first the inner
essential kernel has nothing to do with what is inherited, but must
merely adapt itself to what is most suitable to it, we shall see that
it is necessary for a certain mediation to exist for that which has
lived perhaps for centuries in an entirely different world and is
again transplanted into another world; the spirit being of man must
have something here below to which it is related; there must be a
bond, a connecting link, between the special individual human being
and humanity in general, into which he is born through family,
people, race.
Between these two, namely what we bring
with us from our earlier life and what our family, ancestors and race
imprint upon us, there is a mediation, something which bears more
general characteristics, but at the same time is capable of being
individualized. That which occupies this position between the line
of heredity and the line which represents our individuality is
expressed by the word TEMPERAMENT.
In that which confronts us in the temperament of a person we have
something in a certain way like a physiognomy of his innermost
individuality. We understand thus how the individuality colors, by
means of the qualities of temperament, the attributes inherited in
the succession of generations. Temperament stands right in the
middle between what we bring with us as individuals and what
originates from the line of heredity. When the two streams unite, the
one stream colors the other. They color each other reciprocally. Just
as blue and yellow, let us say, unite in green, so do the two streams
in man unite in what we call temperament. That which mediates between
all inner characteristics which he brings with him from his earlier
incarnation, on the one side, and on the other what the line of
heredity brings to him, comes under the concept temperament. It now
takes its place between the inherited characteristics and what he has
absorbed into his inner essential being. It is as if upon its descent
to earth this kernel of being were to envelop itself with a spiritual
nuance of that which awaits it here below, so that in proportion as
this kernel of being is able best to adapt itself to this covering
for the human being, the kernel of being colors itself according to
that into which it is born and to a quality which it brings with it.
Here shine forth the soul qualities of man and his natural inherited
attributes. Between the two is the temperament — between that
by which a man is connected with his ancestors and that which he
brings with him from his earlier incarnations. The temperament
balances the eternal with the transitory.
This balancing occurs through the fact that what we have
learned to call the members of human nature come into relation with
one another in a quite definite way. We understand this in detail,
however, only when we place before our mind's eye the complete human
nature in the sense of spiritual science. Only from spiritual science
is the mystery of the human temperament to be discovered.
This human being as he confronts us in life, formed by
the flowing together of these two streams, we know as a four-membered
being. So we shall be able to say when we consider the entire
individual: This complete human being consists of the physical
body, the etheric body or body of formative forces, the
astral body, and the ego.
In that part of man perceptible to the outer senses,
which is all that materialistic thought is willing to recognize, we
have first, according to spiritual science, only a single member of
the human being, the physical body, which man has in common
with the mineral world. That part which is subject to physical
laws, which man has in common with all environing outer nature, the
sum of chemical and physical laws, we designate in spiritual science
as the physical body.
Beyond this, however, we recognize higher
super-sensible members of human nature which are as actual and
essential as the outer physical body. As first super-sensible member,
man has the etheric body, which becomes part of his organism and
remains united with the physical body throughout the entire life;
only at death does a separation of the two take place. Even this
first super-sensible member of human nature — in spiritual
science called the etheric or life body; we might also call it the
glandular body — is no more visible to our outer eyes than are
colors to those born blind. But it exists, actually and perceptibly
exists, for that which Goethe calls the eyes of the spirit,
and it is even more real than the outer physical body, for it is the
builder, the moulder, of the physical body. During the entire time
between birth and death this etheric or life body continuously
combats the disintegration of the physical body. Any kind of mineral
product of nature — a crystal, for example — is so
constituted that it is permanently held together by its own forces,
by the forces of its own substance. That is not the case with the
physical body of a living being; here the physical forces work in
such a way that they destroy the form of life, as we are able to
observe after death, when the physical forces destroy the life-form.
That this destruction does not occur during life, that the physical
body does not conform to the physical and chemical forces and laws,
is due to the fact that the etheric or life-body is ceaselessly
combating these forces.
The third member of the human being we recognize in the
bearer of all pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, instincts, impulses,
passions, desires, and all that surges to and fro as sensations and
ideas, even all concepts of what we designate as moral ideals, and so
on. That we call the astral body. Do not take exception to this
expression. We could also call it the “nerve-body.”
Spiritual science sees in it something real, and knows indeed that
this body of impulses and desires is not an effect of the physical
body, but the cause of this body. It knows that the soul-spiritual
part has built up for itself the physical body.
Thus we already have three members of the human being,
and as man's highest member we recognize that by means of which he
towers above all other beings, by means of which he is the crown of
earth's creation: namely, the bearer of the human ego, which gives
him in such a mysterious, but also in such a manifest way, the power
of self-consciousness.
Man has the physical body in common with his
entire visible environment, the etheric body in common
with the plants and animals, the astral body with the
animals. The fourth member, however, the ego, he has for
himself alone; and by means of it he towers above the other
visible creatures. We recognize this fourth member as the ego-bearer,
as that in human nature by means of which man is able to say “I”
to himself, to come to independence.
Now what we see physically, and what the intellect which
is bound to the physical senses can know, is only an expression of
these four members of the human being. Thus, the expression of the
ego, of the actual ego-bearer, is the blood in its
circulation. This “quite special fluid” is the expression
of the ego. The physical sense expression of the astral body
in man is, for example, among other things, the nervous system.
The expression of the etheric body, or a part of this
expression, is the glandular system; and the physical body
expresses itself in the sense organs.
These four members confront us in the human being. So we
shall be able to say, when we observe the complete human being, that
he consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego.
That which is primarily physical body, which the human being carries
in such a way that it is visible to physical eyes, clearly bears,
first of all, when viewed from without, the marks of heredity. Also
those characteristics which live in man's etheric body, in that
fighter against the disintegration of the physical body, are in the
line of heredity. Then we come to his astral body, which in its
characteristics is much more closely bound to the essential kernel of
the human being. If we turn to this innermost kernel, to the actual
ego, we find what passes from incarnation to incarnation, and appears
as an inner mediator, which rays forth its essential qualities.
Now in the whole human nature all the separate
members work into each other; they act reciprocally. Because two
streams flow together in man when he enters the physical world, there
arises a varied mixture of man's four members, and one, so to speak,
gets the mastery over the others, and impresses its color upon them.
Now according as one or another of these members comes especially
into prominence, the individual confronts us with this or that
temperament. The particular coloring of human nature, what we call
the actual shade of the temperament, depends upon whether the forces,
the different means of power, of one member or of another
predominate, have a preponderance over the others. Man's
eternal being, that which goes from incarnation to incarnation, so
expresses itself in each new embodiment that it calls forth a certain
reciprocal action among the four members of human nature: ego, astral
body, etheric body and physical body; and from the interaction of
these four members arises the nuance of human nature which we
characterize as temperament.
When the essential being has tinged the physical and
etheric bodies, that which arises because of the coloring thus given
will act upon each of the other members; so that the way an
individual appears to us with his characteristics depends upon
whether the inner kernel acts more strongly upon the physical body,
or whether the physical body acts more strongly upon it. According to
his nature the human being is able to influence one of the four
members, and through the reaction upon the other members the
temperament originates. The human essential kernel, when it comes
into re-embodiment, is able through this peculiarity to introduce
into one or another of its members a certain surplus of activity.
Thus it can give to the ego a certain surplus strength; or again, the
individual can influence his other members because of having had
certain experiences in his former life.
When the ego of the individual has become so
strong through its destiny that its forces are noticeably
dominant in the fourfold human nature, and it dominates the other
members, then the choleric temperament results. If the person
is especially subject to the influence of the forces of the astral
body, then we attribute to him a sanguine temperament. If
the etheric or life-body acts excessively upon the
other members, and especially impresses its nature upon the person,
the phlegmatic temperament arises. And when the physical body
with its laws is especially predominant in the human nature, so that
the spiritual essence of being is not able to overcome a certain
hardness in the physical body, then we have to do with a
melancholic temperament. Just as the eternal and the
transitory intermingle, so does the relation of the members to one
another appear.
I have already told you how the four members express
themselves outwardly in the physical body. Thus, a large part of the
physical body is the direct expression of the physical life
principle of man. The physical body as such comes to expression
only in the physical body; hence it is the physical body which
gives the keynote in a melancholic.
We must regard the glandular system as the
physical expression of the etheric body. The etheric body
expresses itself physically in the glandular system. Hence in a
phlegmatic person the glandular system gives the
keynote in the physical body.
The nervous system and, of course, what occurs
through it we must regard as the physical expression of the astral
body. The astral body finds its physical expression in the
nervous system; therefore in a sanguine person the nervous
system gives the keynote to the physical body.
The blood in its circulation, the force of the
pulsation of the blood, is the expression of the actual ego.
The ego expresses itself in the circulation of the blood, in the
predominating activity of the blood; it shows itself especially in
the fiery vehement blood. One must try to penetrate more subtly into
the connection which exists between the ego and the other members of
the human being. Suppose, for example, that the ego exerts a peculiar
force in the life of sensations, ideas, and the nervous system;
suppose that in the case of a certain person everything arises from
his ego, everything that he feels he feels strongly, because his ego
is strong — we call that the choleric temperament. That which
has received its character from the ego will make itself felt as the
predominating quality. Hence, in a choleric the blood system
is predominant.
The choleric temperament will show itself as active in a
strongly pulsating blood; in this the element of force in the
individual makes its appearance, in the fact that he has a special
influence upon his blood. In such a person, in whom spiritually the
ego, physically the blood, is particularly active, we see the
innermost force vigorously keeping the organization fit. And as he
thus confronts the outer world, the force of his ego will wish to
make itself felt. That is the effect of this ego. By reason of this,
the choleric appears as one who wishes to assert his ego in all
circumstances. All the aggressiveness of the choleric, everything
connected with his strong will-nature, may be ascribed to the
circulation of the blood.
When the astral body predominates in an individual, the
physical expression will lie in the functions of the nervous system,
that instrument of the rising and falling waves of sensation; and
that which the astral body accomplishes is the life of thoughts, of
images, so that the person who is gifted with the sanguine
temperament will have the predisposition to live in the surging
sensations and feelings and in the images of his life of ideas.
We must understand clearly the relation of the astral
body to the ego. The astral body functions between the nervous system
and the blood system. So it is perfectly clear what this relation is.
If only the sanguine temperament were present, if only the nervous
system were active, being quite especially prominent as the
expression of the astral body, then the person would have a life of
shifting images and ideas; in this way a chaos of images would come
and go. He would be given over to all the restless flux from
sensation to sensation, from image to image, from idea to idea.
Something of that sort appears if the astral body predominates, that
is, in a sanguine person, who in a certain sense is given over to the
tide of sensations, images, etc., since in him the astral body and
the nervous system predominate. It is the forces of the ego which
prevent the images from darting about in a fantastic way. Only
because these images are controlled by the ego does harmony and order
enter in. Were man not to check them with his ego, they would surge
up and down without any evidence of control by the individual.
In the physical body it is the blood which principally
limits, so to speak, the activity of the nervous system. Man's blood
circulation, the blood flowing in man, is that which lays fetters, so
to speak, upon what has its expression in the nervous system; it is
the restrainer of the surging feelings and sensations; it is the
tamer of the nerve-life. It would lead too far if I were to show you
in all its details how the nervous system and the blood are related,
and how the blood is the restrainer of this life of ideas. What
occurs if the tamer is not present, if a man is deficient in red
blood, is anemic? Well, even if we do not go into the more minute
psychological details, from the simple fact that when a person's
blood becomes too thin, that is, has a deficiency of red corpuscles,
he is easily given over to the unrestrained surging back and forth of
all kinds of fantastic images, even to illusion and hallucination —
you can still conclude from this simple fact that the blood is the
restrainer of the nerve-system. A balance must exist between the ego
and the astral body — or speaking physiologically, between the
blood and the nervous system — so that one may not become a
slave of his nervous system, that is, to the surging life of
sensation and feeling.
If now the astral body has a certain excess of activity,
if there is a predominance of the astral body and its expression, the
nerve-system, which the blood restrains to be sure, but is not
completely able to bring to a condition of absolute balance, then
that peculiar condition arises in which human life easily arouses the
individual's interest in a subject, but he soon drops it and quickly
passes to another one; such a person cannot hold himself to an idea,
and in consequence his interest can be immediately kindled in
everything which meets him in the outer world, but the restraint is
not applied to make it inwardly enduring; the interest which has been
kindled quickly evaporates. In this quick kindling of interest and
quick passing from one subject to another we see the expression of
the predominating astral element, the sanguine temperament. The
sanguine person cannot linger with an impression, he cannot hold fast
to an image, cannot fix his attention upon one subject. He hurries
from one life impression to another, from perception to perception,
from idea to idea; he shows a fickle disposition. That can be
especially observed with sanguine children, and in this case it may
cause one anxiety. Interest is easily aroused, a picture begins
easily to have an effect, quickly makes an impression, but the
impression soon vanishes again.
When there is a strong predominance in an individual of
the etheric or life-body — that which inwardly regulates the
processes of man's life and growth — and the expression of this
etheric body — that system which brings about the feeling of
inner well-being or of discomfort — then such a person will be
tempted to wish just to remain in this feeling of inner comfort. The
etheric body is a body which leads a sort of inner life, while the
astral body expresses itself in outer interests, and the ego is the
bearer of our activity and will, directed outward. If then this
etheric body, which acts as life-body, and maintains the separate
functions in equilibrium, an equilibrium which expresses itself in
the feeling of life's general comfort — when this
self-sustained inner life, which chiefly causes the sense of inner
comfort, predominates, then it may occur that an individual lives
chiefly in this feeling of inner comfort, that he has such a feeling
of well-being, when everything in his organism is in order, that he
feels little urgency to direct his inner being toward the outer
world, is little inclined to develop a strong will. The more inwardly
comfortable he feels, the more harmony will he create between the
inner and outer. When this is the case, when it is even carried to
excess, we have to do with a phlegmatic person.
In a melancholic we have seen that the physical body,
that is, the densest member of the human being, rules the others. A
man must be master of his physical body, as he must be master of a
machine if he wishes to use it. But when this densest part rules, the
person always feels that he is not master of it, that he cannot
manage it. For the physical body is the instrument which he should
rule completely through his higher members. But now this physical
body has dominion and sets up opposition to the others. In this case
the person is not able to use his instrument perfectly, so that the
other principles experience repression because of it, and disharmony
exists between the physical body and the other members. This is the
way the hardened physical system appears when it is in excess. The
person is not able to bring about flexibility where it should exist.
The inner man has no power over his physical system; he feels inner
obstacles. They show themselves through the fact that the person is
compelled to direct his strength upon these inner obstacles. What
cannot be overcome is what causes sorrow and pain; and these make it
impossible for the individual to look out upon his contemporary world
in an unprejudiced way. This constraint becomes a source of inner
grief, which is felt as pain and listlessness, as a sad mood. It is
very easy to feel that life is filled with pain and sorrow. Certain
thoughts and ideas begin to be enduring; the person becomes gloomy,
melancholic. There is a constant arising of pain. This mood is caused
by nothing else than that the physical body sets up opposition to the
inner ease of the etheric body, to the mobility of the astral body,
and to the ego's certainty of its goal.
And if we thus comprehend the nature of the temperaments
through sound knowledge, many a thing in life will become clear to
us; but it will also become possible to handle in a practical
way what we otherwise could not do. Look at much which directly
confronts us in life! What we see there as the mixture of the four
members of human nature meets us clearly and significantly in
the outer picture. We need only observe how the temperament
comes to expression externally.
Let us, for instance, take the choleric person,
who has a strong firm center in his inner being. If the ego
predominates, the person will assert himself against all outer
oppositions; he wants to be in evidence. This ego is the restrainer.
Those pictures are consciousness-pictures. The physical body is
formed according to its etheric body, the etheric body according to
its astral body. This astral body would fashion man, so to speak, in
the most varied way. But because growth is opposed by the ego in its
blood forces, the balance is maintained between abundance and variety
of growth. So when there is a surplus of ego, growth can be retarded.
It positively retards the growth of the other members; it does not
allow the astral body and the etheric body their full rights. In the
choleric temperament you are able to recognize clearly in the outer
growth, in all that confronts us outwardly, the expression of what is
inwardly active, the actual deep inner force-nature of the man, of
the complete ego. Choleric persons appear as a rule as if growth had
been retarded. You can find in life example after example; for
instance, from spiritual history the philosopher, Johann Gottlieb
Fichte, the German choleric. Even in external appearance he is
recognizable as such, since in his outer form he gave the impression
of being retarded in growth. Thereby he reveals clearly that the
other members of his being have been held back by the excess of ego.
Not the astral body with its forming capacity is the predominant
member, but the ego rules, the restrainer, the limiter of the
formative forces. Hence we see as a rule in those who are
preeminently men of strong will, where the ego restrains the free
formative force of the astral body, a small compact figure. Take
another classical example of the choleric: Napoleon, the
“little General,” who remained so small because
the ego held back the other members of his being. There you have the
type of the retarded growth of the choleric. There you can see how
this force of the ego works out of the spirit, so that the innermost
being is manifest in the outer form. Observe the physiognomy of the
choleric! Take in comparison the phlegmatic person! How indefinite
are his features; how little reason you have to say that such a form
of forehead is suited to the choleric. In one organ it is shown
especially clearly whether the astral body or the ego works
formatively, that is in the eye, in the steady, assured aspect of the
eye of the choleric. As a rule we see how this strongly-kindled inner
light, which turns everything luminously inward, sometimes is
expressed in a black, a coal-black eye, because, according to a
certain law, the choleric does not permit the astral body to color
that very thing which his ego-force draws inward, that which is
colored in another person. Observe such an individual in his whole
bearing. One who is experienced can almost tell from the rear view
whether a certain person is a choleric. The firm walk proclaims the
choleric, so to speak. Even in the step we see the expression of
strong ego-force. In the choleric child we already notice the firm
tread; when he walks on the ground, he not only sets his foot on it,
but he treads as if he wanted to go a little bit farther, into the
ground.
The complete human individual is a copy of this
innermost being, which declares itself to us in such a way. But
naturally, it is not a question of my maintaining that the choleric
person is short and the sanguine tall. We may compare the form of a
person only with his own growth. It depends upon the relation of the
growth to the entire form.
Notice the sanguine person! Observe what a
strange glance even the sanguine child has; it quickly lights upon
something, but just as quickly turns to something else; it is a merry
glance; an inner joy and gaiety shine in it; in it is expressed what
comes from the depths of the human nature, from the mobile astral
body, which predominates in the sanguine person. In its mobile inner
life this astral body will work upon the members; and it will also
make the person's external appearance as flexible as possible.
Indeed, we are able to recognize the entire outer physiognomy, the
permanent form and also the gestures, as the expression of the
mobile, volatile, fluidic astral body. The astral body has the
tendency to fashion, to form. The inner reveals itself outwardly;
hence the sanguine person is slender and supple. Even in the slender
form, the bony structure; we see the inner mobility of the astral
body in the whole person. It comes to expression for example in the
slim muscles. It is also to be seen in his external expression. Even
one who is not clairvoyant can recognize from the rear whether a
person is of sanguine or choleric temperament; and to be able to do
this one need not be a spiritual scientist. In a sanguine person we
have an elastic and springing walk. In the hopping, dancing walk of
the sanguine child we see the expression of the mobile astral body.
The sanguine temperament manifests itself especially strongly in
childhood. See how the formative tendency is expressed there; and
even more delicate attributes are to be found in the outer form. If
in the choleric person we have sharply-cut facial features, in the
sanguine they are mobile, expressive, changeable. And likewise there
appears in the sanguine child a certain inner possibility to alter
his countenance. Even to the color of the eyes we could confirm the
expression of the sanguine person. The inwardness of the ego-nature,
the self-sufficient inwardness of the choleric, meets us in his black
eye. Look at the sanguine person in whom the ego-nature is not so
deep-rooted, in whom the astral body pours forth all its mobility —
there the blue eye is predominant. These blue eyes are closely
connected with the individual's invisible inner light, the light of
the astral body.
Thus many attributes could be pointed out which reveal
the temperament in the external appearance. Through the four-membered
human nature we learn to understand clearly this soul riddle of the
temperaments. And indeed, a knowledge of the four temperaments,
springing from a profound perception of human nature, has been handed
down to us from ancient times. If we thus understand human nature,
and know that the external is only the expression of the spiritual,
then we learn to understand man in his relation even to the
externalities, to understand him in his whole process of becoming;
and we learn to recognize what we must do concerning ourself and the
child with regard to temperament. In education especially notice must
be taken of the kind of temperament that tends to develop in the
child. For life's wisdom, as for pedagogy, an actual living knowledge
of the nature of the temperaments is indispensable, and both would
profit infinitely from it.
And now let us go further. Again we see how the
phlegmatic temperament also is brought to expression in the
outer form. In this temperament there predominates the activity of
the etheric body, which has its physical expression in the glandular
system and its soul expression in a feeling of ease, in inner
balance. If in such a person everything is not only normally in order
within, but if, beyond this normality, these inner formative forces
of ease are especially active, then their products are added to the
human body; it becomes corpulent, it expands. In the largeness of the
body, in the development of the fatty parts, we see that which the
inner formative forces of the etheric body are especially working on.
The inner sense of ease of the phlegmatic person meets us in all
that. And who would not recognize in this lack of reciprocal action
between the inner and the outer the cause of the ofttimes slovenly,
dragging gait of the phlegmatic person, whose step will often not
adapt itself to the ground; he does not step properly, so to speak;
does not put himself in relation to things. That he has little
control over the forms of his inner being you can observe in the
whole man. The phlegmatic temperament confronts one in the immobile,
indifferent countenance, even in the peculiarly dull, colorless
appearance of the eye. While the eye of the choleric is fiery and
sparkling, we can recognize in that of the phlegmatic the expression
of the etheric body, focused only upon inner ease.
The melancholic is one who cannot completely
attain mastery over the physical instrument, one to whom the physical
instrument offers resistance, one who cannot cope with the use of
this instrument. Look at the melancholic, how he generally has a
drooping head, has not the force in himself to stiffen his neck. The
bowed head shows that the inner forces which adjust the head
perpendicularly are never able to unfold freely. The glance is
downward, the eye sad, unlike the black gleam of the choleric eye. We
see in the peculiar appearance of the eye that the physical
instrument makes difficulties for him. The walk, to be sure, is
measured, firm, but not like the walk of the choleric, the firm tread
of the choleric; it has a certain kind of dragging firmness.
All this can be only indicated here; but the life of the
human being will be much, much more understandable to us if we work
in this way, if we see the spirit activating the forms in such a way
that the external part of the individual can become an expression of
his inner being. So you see how significantly spiritual science can
contribute to the solution of this riddle; but only if you face
the whole reality, to which the spiritual also belongs, and do not
stop merely with the physical reality, can this knowledge be
practically applied in life. Therefore only from spiritual
science can this knowledge flow in such a way as to benefit the whole
of humanity as well as the individual.
Now if we know all that, we can also learn to apply it.
Particularly it must be of interest to learn how we can handle the
temperaments pedagogically in childhood. For in education the
kind of temperament must be very carefully observed; with children it
is especially important to be able to guide and direct the developing
temperament. But later also it is still important, for anyone in
self-education. For the person who wishes to train himself it is
invaluable that he observe what is expressed in his temperament.
I have pointed out to you here the fundamental types,
but naturally in life they do not often appear thus pure. Each person
has only the fundamental tone of a temperament, besides which he has
something of the others. Napoleon, for example, had in him much of
the phlegmatic temperament, although he was a choleric. If we would
govern life practically, it is important to be able to allow that
which expresses itself physically to work upon our soul.
How important this is we can see best of all if we
consider that the temperaments can degenerate, that what may appear
to us as one-sidedness can also degenerate. What would the world be
without the temperaments — if people had only one temperament?
The most tiresome place you could imagine! The world would be dreary
without the temperaments, not only in the physical, but also in the
higher sense. All variety, beauty, and all the richness of life are
possible only through the temperaments. Do we not see how everything
great in life can be brought about just through the one-sidedness of
the temperaments, but also how these can degenerate in their
one-sidedness? Are we not troubled about the child because we see
that the choleric temperament can degenerate to malice, the sanguine
to fickleness, the melancholic to gloom, etc.?
In the question of education in particular, and also in
self-education, will not the knowledge and estimation of the
temperaments be of essential value to the educator? We must not be
misled into depreciating the value of the temperament because it is a
one-sided characteristic. In education the important thing is not
to equalize the temperaments, to level them, but to bring them into
the right track. We must clearly understand that the temperament
leads to one-sidedness, that the most radical phase of the
melancholic temperament is madness; of the phlegmatic, imbecility; of
the sanguine, insanity; of the choleric, all those explosions of
diseased human nature which result in frenzy, and so forth. Much
beautiful variety results from the temperaments, because opposites
attract each other; nevertheless, the deification of the
one-sidedness of temperament very easily causes harm between birth
and death. In each temperament there exists a small and a great
danger of degeneracy. With the choleric person there is the
danger that in youth his ego will be determined by his irascibility,
by his lack of self-control. That is the small danger. The great
danger is the folly which wishes to pursue, from the impulse of his
ego, some kind of individual goal. In the sanguine temperament
the small danger is that the person will lapse into fickleness. The
great danger is that the rising and falling tide of sensations may
result in insanity. The small danger for the phlegmatic is
lack of interest in the outer world; the great danger is stupidity or
idiocy. The small danger in the melancholic is gloominess, the
possibility that he may not be able to extricate himself from what
rises up within him. The great danger is madness.
When we contemplate all that, we shall see that a
tremendously significant task in practical life lies in the directing
and guiding of the temperaments. It is important for the educator to
be able to say to himself: What will you do, for example, in the case
of a sanguine child? Here one must try to learn from the knowledge of
the entire nature of the sanguine temperament how to proceed. If
other points of view must be considered concerning the education of
the child, it is also necessary that temperament, as a subject in
itself, be taken into account. But in order to guide the
temperaments the principle to be observed is that we must always
reckon with what is there and not with what is not there.
We have a child of sanguine temperament before
us, which could easily degenerate into fickleness, lack of interest
in important things, and, instead, become quickly interested in other
things. The sanguine child is the quickly comprehending, but also the
quickly forgetting child, whose interest it is difficult to hold upon
anything whatever, just because interest in one subject is quickly
lost and passes over to another. This can grow into the most
frightful one-sidedness, and it is possible to notice the danger if
we look into the depths of human nature. In the case of such a child
a material-minded person will immediately come forward with a
prescription and say: If you have a sanguine child to bring up, you
must bring it into reciprocal activity with other children. But a
person who thinks realistically in the right sense says: If you begin
with the sanguine child by working upon forces which it does not at
all possess, you will accomplish nothing with it. You could exert
your powers ever so seriously to develop the other members of human
nature, but these simply do not predominate in this child. If a child
has a sanguine temperament, we cannot help him along in development
by trying to beat interests into him; we cannot pound in something
different from what his sanguine temperament is. We should not ask,
What does the child lack? What are we to beat into him? But we should
ask, What as a rule does a sanguine child possess? And that is what
we must reckon with. Then we shall say to ourselves: We do not alter
these characteristics by trying to induce any sort of opposite
quality in this child. With regard to these things which are rooted
in the innermost nature of man we must take into consideration that
we can only bend them. Thus we shall not be building upon what the
child does not possess, but upon what he does possess. We shall build
exactly upon that sanguine nature, upon that mobility of the astral
body, and not try to beat into him what belongs to another member of
human nature. With a sanguine child who has become one-sided we must
just appeal to his sanguine temperament.
If we wish to have the right relation with this child,
we must take special notice of something. For from the first it
becomes evident to the expert that if the child is ever so sanguine,
there is still something or other in which he is interested, that
there is one interest, one genuine interest for each
sanguine child. It will generally be easy to arouse interest in this
or that subject, but it will quickly be lost again. There is one
interest, however, which can be enduring even for the sanguine child.
Experience shows this; only it must be discovered. And that which is
found to hold a special interest must be kept in mind. And whatever
it is that the child does not pass by with fickle interest we must
try to bring before him as a special fact, so that his temperament
extends to something which is not a matter of indifference to him.
Whatever he delights in, we must try to place in a special light; the
child must learn to use his sanguineness. We can work in such a
way that we begin first of all with the one thing that can always be
found, with the forces which the child has. He will not be able to
become lastingly interested in anything through punishment and
remonstrance. For things, subjects, events, he will not easily show
anything but a passing, changeable interest; but for one personality,
especially suited to a sanguine child — experience will show
this — there will be a permanent, continuous interest, even
though the child is ever so fickle. If only we are the right
personality, or if we are able to bring him into association with the
right personality, the interest will appear. It is only necessary to
search in the right way. Only by the indirect way of love for one
personality, is it possible for interest to appear in the
sanguine child. But if that interest, love for one person, is kindled
in him, then through this love straightway a miracle happens. This
love can cure a child's one-sided temperament. More than any other
temperament, the sanguine child needs love for one personality.
Everything must be done to awaken love in such a child. Love is the
magic word. All education of the sanguine child must take this
indirect path of attachment to a certain personality. Therefore
parents and teachers must heed the fact that an enduring interest in
things cannot be awakened by drumming it into the sanguine child, but
they must see to it that this interest is won by the roundabout way
of attachment to a personality. The child must develop this personal
attachment; one must make himself lovable to the child; that is one's
duty to the sanguine child. It is the responsibility of the teacher
that such a child shall learn to love the personality.
We can still further build up the education upon the
child's sanguine nature itself. The sanguine nature reveals itself,
you know, in the inability to find any interest which is lasting. We
must observe what is there. We must see that all kinds of things are
brought into the environment of the child in which he has shown more
than the ordinary interest. We should keep the sanguine child busy at
regular intervals with such subjects as warrant a passing interest,
concerning which he is permitted to be sanguine, so to speak,
subjects not worthy of sustained interest. These things must be
permitted to affect the sanguine nature, permitted to work upon the
child; then they must be removed so that he will desire them again,
and they may again be given to him. We must cause these things to
work upon the child as the objects of the ordinary world work upon
the temperament. In other words, it is important to seek out for a
sanguine child those objects toward which he is permitted to be
sanguine.
If we thus appeal to what exists rather than to
something which does not exist, we shall see — and practical
experience will prove it — that as matter of fact the sanguine
force, if it becomes one-sided, actually permits itself to be
captured by serious subjects. That is attained as by an indirect
path. It is good if the temperament is developed in the right way
during childhood, but often the adult himself has to take his
education in hand later in life. As long, indeed, as the temperaments
are held in normal bounds, they represent that which makes life
beautiful, varied, and great. How dull would life be if all people
were alike with regard to temperament. But in order to equalize a
one-sidedness of temperament, a man must often take his
self-education in hand in later life. Here again one should not
insist upon pounding into oneself, as it were, a lasting interest in
any sort of thing; but he must say to himself: According to my nature
I am sanguine; I will now seek subjects in life which my interest may
pass over quickly, in which it is right that the interest should not
be lasting, and I will just occupy myself with that in which I may
with complete justification lose interest in the very next moment.
Let us suppose that a parent should fear that in his
child the choleric temperament would express itself in a
one-sided way. The same treatment cannot be prescribed as for the
sanguine child; the choleric will not be able easily to acquire love
for a personality. He must be reached through something else in the
influence of person upon person. But in the case of the choleric
child also there is an indirect way by which the development may
always be guided. What will guide the education here with certainty
is: Respect and esteem for an authority. For the choleric
child one must be thoroughly worthy of esteem and respect in the
highest sense of the word. Here it is not a question of making
oneself loved through the personal qualities, as with the sanguine
child, but the important thing is that the choleric child shall
always have the belief that the teacher understands the matter in
hand. The latter must show that he is well informed about the things
that take place in the child's environment; he must not show a weak
point. He must endeavor never to let the choleric child notice that
he might be unable to give information or advice concerning what is
to be done. The teacher must see to it that he holds the firm reins
of authority in his hands, and never betray the fact that he is
perhaps at his wits' end. The child must always keep the belief that
the teacher knows. Otherwise he has lost the game. If love for the
personality is the magic word for the sanguine child, then respect
and esteem for the worth of a person is the magic word for the
choleric.
If we have a choleric child to train we must see to it
before everything else that this child shall unfold, bring to
development, his strong inner forces. It is necessary to acquaint him
with what may present difficulties in the outer life. For the
choleric child who threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness, it is
especially necessary to introduce into the education that which is
difficult to overcome, so as to call attention to the difficulties of
life by producing serious obstacles for the child. Especially must
such things be put in his way as will present opposition to him.
Oppositions, difficulties, must be placed in the path of the choleric
child. The effort must be put forth not to make life altogether easy
for him. Hindrances must be created so that the choleric temperament
is not repressed, but is obliged to come to expression through the
very fact that certain difficulties are presented which the
child must overcome. The teacher must not beat out, educate out, so
to speak, a child's choleric temperament, but he must put before him
just those things upon which he must use his strength, things in
connection with which the choleric temperament is justified. The
choleric child must of inner necessity learn to battle with the
objective world. The teacher will therefore seek to arrange the
environment in such a way that this choleric temperament can work
itself out in overcoming obstacles; and it will be especially good if
these obstacles pertain to little things, to trifles; if the child is
made to do something on which he must expend tremendous strength, so
that the choleric temperament is strongly expressed, but actually the
facts are victorious, the strength employed is frittered away. In
this way the child gains respect for the power of facts which oppose
what is expressed in the choleric temperament.
Here again there is another indirect way in which the
choleric temperament can be trained. Here it is necessary first of
all to awaken reverence, the feeling of awe, to approach the child in
such a way as actually to arouse such respect, by showing him that we
can overcome difficulties which he himself cannot yet overcome;
reverence, esteem, particularly for what the teacher can accomplish,
for his ability to overcome objective difficulties. That is the
proper means: Respect for the ability of the teacher is the way by
which the choleric child in particular may be reached in education.
It is also very difficult to manage the melancholic
child. What must we do if we fear the threatened one-sidedness of the
melancholic temperament of the child, since we cannot cram in what he
does not possess? We must reckon with the fact that it is just
repressions and resistance that he has power within himself to cling
to. If we wish to turn this peculiarity of his temperament in the
right direction, we must divert this force from subjective to
objective activity. Here it is of very special importance that we do
not build upon the possibility, let us say, of being able to talk him
out of his grief and pain, or otherwise educate them out of him; for
the child has the tendency to this excessive reserve because the
physical instrument presents hindrances. We must particularly build
upon what is there, we must cultivate what exists. With the
melancholic child it will be especially necessary for the teacher to
attach great importance to showing him that there is suffering in the
world. If we wish to approach this child as a teacher, we must find
here also the point of contact. The melancholic child is capable of
suffering, of moroseness; these qualities exist in him and we cannot
flog them out, but we can divert them.
For this temperament too there is one important point:
Above all we must show the melancholic child how people can
suffer. We must cause him to experience justifiable pain and
suffering in external life, in order that he may come to know that
there are things concerning which he can experience pain. That is the
important thing. If you try to entertain him, you drive him back into
his own corner. Whatever you do, you must not think you have to
entertain such a child, to try to cheer him up. You should not divert
him; in that way you harden the gloominess, the inner pain. If you
take him where he can find pleasure, he will only become more and
more shut up within himself. It is always good if you try to cure the
young melancholic, not by giving him gay companionship, but by
causing him to experience justifiable pain. Divert his attention from
himself by showing him that sorrow exists. He must see that there are
things in life which cause suffering. Although it must not be carried
too far, the important point is to arouse pain in connection with
external things in order to divert him.
The melancholic child is not easy to guide; but here
again there is a magic means. As with the sanguine child the magic
word is love for a personality, with the choleric, esteem and respect
for the worth of the teacher, so with the melancholic child the
important thing is for the teachers to be personalities who in some
way have been tried by life, who act and speak from a life of trial.
The child must feel that the teacher has really experienced
suffering. Bring to his attention in all the manifold occurrences of
life the trials of your own destiny. Most fortunate is the
melancholic child who can grow up beside a person who has much to
give because of his own hard experiences; in such a case soul works
upon soul in the most fortunate way. If therefore at the side of the
melancholic child there stands a person who, in contrast to the
child's merely subjective, sorrowful tendencies, knows how to tell in
a legitimate way of pain and suffering that the outer world has
brought him, then such a child is aroused by this shared experience,
this sympathy with justified pain. A person who can show in the tone
and feeling of his narration that he has been tried by destiny, is a
blessing to such a melancholic child.
Even in arranging the melancholic child's environment,
so to speak, we should not leave his predispositions unconsidered.
Hence, it is even advantageous if — strange as it may sound —
we build up for the child actual hindrances, obstructions, so that he
can experience legitimate suffering and pain with regard to certain
things. It is the best education for such a child if the existing
tendency to subjective suffering and grief can be diverted by being
directed to outer hindrances and obstructions. Then the child, the
soul of the child, will gradually take a different direction.
In self-education also we can again use this method: we
must always allow the existing tendencies, the forces present in us,
to work themselves out, and not artificially repress them. If the
choleric temperament, for example, expresses itself so strongly in us
that it is a hindrance, we must permit this existing inner force to
work itself out by seeking those things upon which we can in a
certain sense shatter our force, dissipate our forces, preferably
upon insignificant, unimportant things. If on the other hand we are
melancholic, we shall do well to seek out justifiable pain and
suffering in external life, in order that we may have opportunity to
work out our melancholy in the external world; then we shall set
ourselves right.
Let us pass on to the phlegmatic temperament.
With the phlegmatic child it will be very difficult for us if his
education presents us with the task of conducting ourselves in an
appropriate way toward him. It is difficult to gain any influence
over a phlegmatic person. But there is one way in which an indirect
approach may be made. Here again it would be wrong, very wrong
indeed, if we insisted upon shaking up a person so inwardly at ease,
if we thought we could pound in some kind of interests then and
there. Again we must take account of what he has.
There is something in each case which will hold the
attention of the phlegmatic person, especially the phlegmatic child.
If only through wise education we build up around him what he needs,
we shall be able to accomplish much. It is necessary for the
phlegmatic child to have much association with other children. If
it is good for the others also to have playmates, it is especially so
for the phlegmatic. He must have playmates with the most varied
interests. There is nothing to appeal to in the phlegmatic child. He
will not interest himself easily in objects and events. One must
therefore bring this child into association with children of like
age. He can be trained through the sharing of the interests —
as many as possible — of other personalities. If he is
indifferent to his environment, his interest can be kindled by the
effect upon him of the interests of his playmates. Only by means of
that peculiar suggestive effect, only through the interests of
others, is it possible to arouse his interest. An awakening of the
interest of the phlegmatic child will result through the incidental
experiencing of the interest of others, the sharing of the interests
of his playmates, just as sympathy, sharing of the experience of
another human destiny, is effective for the melancholic. Once more:
To be stimulated by the interest of others is the correct means of
education for the phlegmatic. As the sanguine child must have
attachment for one personality, so must the phlegmatic child have
friendship, association with as many children as possible of his own
age. That is the only way the slumbering force in him can be aroused.
Things as such do not affect the phlegmatic. With a subject connected
with the tasks of school and home you will not be able to interest
the little phlegmatic; but indirectly, by way of the interests of
other souls of similar age you can bring it about. If things are
reflected in this way in others, these interests are reflected in the
soul of the phlegmatic child.
Then also we should particularly see to it that we
surround him with things and cause events to occur near him
concerning which apathy is appropriate. One must direct the apathy
to the right objects, those toward which one may rightly be
phlegmatic. In this way quite wonderful things can sometimes be
accomplished in the young child. But also one's self-education may be
taken in hand in the same way in later life, if it is noticed that
apathy tends to express itself in a one-sided way; that is, by trying
to observe people and their interests. One thing more can also be
done, so long as we are still in a position to employ intelligence
and reason at all: we can seek out the very subjects and events which
are of the greatest indifference to us, toward which it is
justifiable for us to be phlegmatic.
We have now seen again how, in the methods of education
based upon spiritual science, we build upon what one has and not upon
what is lacking.
So we may say that it is best for the sanguine child if
he may grow up guided by a firm hand, if some one can show him
externally aspects of character through which he is able to develop
personal love. Love for a personality is the best remedy for the
sanguine child. Not merely love, but respect and esteem for what a
personality can accomplish is the best for the choleric child. A
melancholic child may be considered fortunate if he can grow up
beside some one who has a bitter destiny. In the corresponding
contrast produced by the new insight, by the sympathy which arises
for the person of authority, and in the sharing of the justifiably
painful destiny, — in this consists what the melancholic needs.
They develop well if they can indulge less in attachment to a
personality, less in respect and esteem for the accomplishment of a
personality, but can reach out in sympathy with suffering and
justifiably painful destinies. The phlegmatic is reached best if we
produce in him an inclination towards the interests of other
personalities, if he can be stirred by the interests of others.
The sanguine should be able
to develop love and attachment for one personality.
The choleric should be able to develop esteem
and respect for the accomplishments of the personality.
The melancholic should be able to develop a
heartfelt sympathy with another's destiny.
The phlegmatic child should be led to the
sharing of the interests of others.
Thus do we see in these principles of
education how spiritual science goes right into the practical
questions of life; and when we come to speak about the intimate
aspects of life, spiritual science shows just in these very things
how it works in practice, shows here its eminently practical side.
Infinitely much could we possess of the art of living, if we would
adopt this realistic knowledge of spiritual science. When it is a
case of mastering life, we must listen for life's secrets, and these
lie behind the sense perceptible. Only real spiritual science can
explain such a thing as the human temperaments, and so thoroughly
fathom them that we are able to make this spiritual science serve as
a benefit and actual blessing of life, whether in youth or in age.
We can also take self-education in hand here; for when
it is a question of self-education, the temperaments can be
particularly useful to us. We become aware with our intellect that
our sanguineness is playing us all kinds of tricks, and threatens to
degenerate to an unstable way of life; we hurry from subject to
subject. This condition can be countered if only we go about it in
the right way. The sanguine person will not, however, reach his goal
by saying to himself: You have a sanguine temperament and you must
break yourself of it. The intellect applied directly is often a
hindrance in this realm. On the other hand, used indirectly it can
accomplish much. Here the intellect is the weakest soul-force of all.
In presence of the stronger soul-forces, such as the temperaments,
the intellect can do very little; it can work only indirectly. If
some one exhorts himself ever so often: “For once now hold fast
to one thing” — then the sanguine temperament will again
and again play him bad tricks. He can reckon only with a force which
he has. Behind the intellect there must be other forces. Can a
sanguine person count upon anything at all but his sanguine
temperament? And in self-education too it is necessary to try to do
also what the intellect can do directly. A man must reckon with his
sanguineness; self-exhortations are fruitless. The important thing
is to show sanguineness in the right place. One must try to have
no interest in certain things in which he is interested. We can with
the intellect provide experiences for which the brief interest of the
sanguine person is justified. Let him try to place himself
artificially in such situations; to put in his way as much as
possible what is of no interest to him. If then we bring about such
situations in ever such small matters, concerning which a brief
interest is warranted, it will call forth what is necessary. Then it
will be noticed, if only one works at it long enough, that this
temperament develops the force to change itself.
The choleric can likewise cure himself in a
particular way, if we consider the matter from the point of view of
spiritual science. For the choleric temperament it is good to choose
such subjects, to bring about through the intellect such conditions
as are not changed if we rage, conditions in which we reduce
ourselves ad absurdum by our raging. When the choleric notices that
his fuming inner being wishes to express itself, he must try to find
as many things as possible which require little force to be overcome;
he must try to bring about easily superable outer facts, and must
always try to bring his force to expression in the strongest way
upon insignificant events and facts. If he thus seeks out
insignificant things which offer him no resistance, then he will
bring his one-sided choleric temperament again into the right course.
If it is noticed that melancholia is producing
one-sidedness, one must try directly to create for himself legitimate
outer obstacles, and then will to examine these legitimate outer
obstacles in their entire aspect, so that what one possesses of
pain and the capacity for suffering is diverted to outer objects.
The intellect can accomplish this. Thus the melancholic temperament
must not pass by the pain and suffering of life, but must actually
seek them, must experience sympathy, in order that his pain may be
diverted to the right objects and events.
If we are phlegmatic, have no interests, then it
is good for us to occupy ourselves as much as possible with quite
uninteresting things, to surround ourselves with many sources of
ennui, so that we are thoroughly bored. Then we shall completely cure
ourselves of our apathy, completely break ourselves of it. The
phlegmatic person therefore does well to decide with his intellect
that he must take interest in a certain thing, that he must search
for things which are really only worthy to be ignored. He must
seek occupations in which apathy is justified, in which he can work
out his apathy. In this way he conquers it, even when it
threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness.
Thus we reckon with what is there and not with what is
lacking. Those however who call themselves realists believe, for
example, that the best thing for a melancholic is to produce
conditions that are opposed to his temperament. But anyone who
actually thinks realistically will appeal to what is already in him.
So you see spiritual science does not divert us from
reality and from actual life; but it will illuminate every step of
the way to the truth; and it can also guide us everywhere in life to
take reality into consideration. For those people are deluded who
think they can stick to external sense appearance. We must go deeper
if we wish to enter into this reality; and we shall acquire an
understanding for the variety of life if we engage in such
considerations.
Our sense for the practical will become more and more
individual if we are not impelled to apply a general
prescription: namely, you must not drive out fickleness with
seriousness, but see what kind of characteristics the person has
which are to be stimulated. If then man is life's greatest riddle,
and if we have hope that this riddle will be solved for us, we must
turn to this spiritual science, which alone can solve it for us. Not
only is man in general a riddle to us, but each single person who
confronts us in life, each new individuality, presents a new riddle,
which of course we cannot fathom by considering it with the
intellect. We must penetrate to the individuality. And here
too we can allow spiritual science to work out of the innermost
center of our being; we can make spiritual science the greatest
impulse of life. So long as it remains only theory, it is
worthless. It must be applied in the life of the human being. The
way to this goal is possible, but it is long. It becomes illuminated
for us if it leads to reality. Then we become aware that our views
are transformed. Knowledge is transformed. It is prejudice to believe
that knowledge must remain abstract; on the contrary, when it enters
the spiritual realm it permeates our whole life's work; our entire
life becomes permeated by it. Then we face life in such a way that we
have discernment for the individuality, which enters even into
feeling and sensation and expresses itself in these, and which
possesses great reverence and esteem. Patterns are easy to recognize;
and to wish to govern life according to patterns is easy; but life
does not permit itself to be treated as a pattern. Only insight will
suffice, insight which is transformed into a feeling one must have
toward the individuality of man, toward the individuality in the
whole of life. Then will our conscientious spiritual knowledge flow
into our feeling, so to speak, in such a way that we shall be able to
estimate correctly the riddle which confronts us in each separate
human being.
How do we solve the riddle which each individual
presents to us? We solve it by approaching each person in such a way
that harmony results between him and us. If we thus permeate
ourselves with life's wisdom, we shall be able to solve the
fundamental riddle of life which is the individual man. It is not
solved by setting up abstract ideas and concepts. The general human
riddle can be solved in pictures; this individual riddle, however, is
not to be solved by this setting up of abstract ideas and concepts;
but rather must we approach each individual person in such a way that
we bring to him direct understanding.
That is possible, however, only when we know what lies
in the depths of the soul. Spiritual science is something which
slowly and gradually pours itself into our entire soul so that it
renders the soul receptive not only to the large relations but also
to the finer details. In spiritual science it is a fact that, when
one soul approaches another, and this other requires love, love is
given. If it requires something else, that will be given. Thus by
means of such true life wisdom we create social foundations, and that
means at each moment to solve a riddle. Anthroposophy works not by
means of preaching, exhortation, harping on morals, but by creating a
social basis on which one man is able to understand another.
Spiritual science is thus the sub-soil of life, and love
is the blossom and fruit of such a life, stimulated by spiritual
science. Therefore spiritual science may claim that it is
establishing something which will provide a base for the most
beautiful goal of the mission of man: genuine, true, human love.
In our sympathy, in our love, in the manner in which we approach the
individual human being, in our conduct, we should learn the art of
living through spiritual science. If we would permit life and love to
stream into feeling and sensibility, human life would be a beautiful
expression of the fruit of this spiritual science.
We learn to know the individual human being in every
respect when we perceive him in the light of spiritual science. We
learn to perceive even the child in this way; we learn little by
little to respect, to value, in the child the peculiarity, the
enigmatic quality of the individuality, and we learn also how we must
treat this individual in life, because spiritual science gives to us,
so to speak, not merely general, theoretical directions, but it
guides us in our relation to the individual in the solving of the
riddles which are there to be solved: namely, to love him as we must
love him if we not merely fathom him with the mind, but let him work
upon us completely, let our spiritual scientific insight give wings
to our feelings, our love. That is the only proper soil which can
yield true, fruitful, genuine human love; and this is the basis from
which we discover what we have to seek as the innermost essential
kernel in each individual. And if we permeate ourselves thus with
spiritual knowledge, our social life will be regulated in such a way
that each single person, when he approaches any other in esteem and
respect and understanding of the riddle “man,” will learn
how to find and to regulate his relation to the individual. Only one
who lives in abstractions as a matter of course can speak from
prosaic concepts, but he who strives for genuine knowledge will find
it, and will find the way to other people; he will find the solution
of the riddle of the other person in his own attitude, in his own
conduct.
Thus we solve the individual riddle according as we
relate ourselves to others. We find the essential being of
another only with a view of life which comes from the spirit.
Spiritual science must be a life-practice, a spiritual life-factor,
entirely practical, entirely living, and not vague theory.
This is knowledge which can work into all the fibers of
man's being, which can rule each single act in life. Thus only does
spiritual science become the true art of living — and that
could be particularly shown in the consideration of those intimate
peculiarities of man, the temperaments. Thus the finest relation is
engendered between man and man when we look a person in the face and
understand not only how to fathom the riddle, but how to love, that
is, to let love flow from individuality to individuality. Spiritual
science needs no theoretical proofs; life brings the proofs.
Spiritual science knows that something can be said “for”
and “against” everything, but the true proofs are those
which life brings; and only step by step can life show the truth of
what we think when we consider the human being in the light of
spiritual-scientific knowledge; for this truth exists as a
harmonious, life-inspired insight which penetrates into the deepest
mysteries of life.
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