Leaving this very general classification, let us enter upon our definition of the second degree. Let us pass from genera to species. Here there enters on the scene a new factor: the intellectual dispositions.
The term _feeling_ is applied to two distinct groups of psychic manifestations, originally confounded—the affective and the representative states. So far, in employing this term we have taken account of the affective states only, because they and the movements are the sole primary constituents of character. They form the lower stratum, which is the first to make its appearance: the intellectual dispositions form a second layer, superimposed on the first. What is fundamental in the character is the instincts, tendencies, impulses, desires, and feelings; all these, and nothing else. This fact is so easily verified, and so obvious, that there would be no need to insist on it if the majority of psychologists had not confused the question by their incurable intellectualist prejudices—_i.e._, by their efforts to connect everything with intelligence and explain everything by means of it, to lay it down as the irreducible type of mental life. This view is quite untenable, for just as, physiologically, the vegetative life precedes the animal life based on it, so, psychologically, the affective precedes the intellectual life, which is based on it. The groundwork of every animal is “appetite” in Spinoza’s sense, “will” in Schopenhauer’s—_i.e._, feeling and acting, not thinking. I do not wish to insist on this point, which would require to be developed at great length; I forbear, not on account of the scarcity, but of the superabundance of proof.[244]
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Footnote 244:
I refer the reader to the brilliant chapter of Schopenhauer entitled “On the Primacy of Will,” while reminding him that, with this writer, “will” signifies tendency or feeling. (_Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, supplement to Book II., chap. xix.) I shall return to this subject in the Conclusion of this work.
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Let us confine ourselves to some decisive remarks which belong, in the strictest sense, to our subject. As the character expresses the inmost qualities of the individual, it can only be composed of essentially subjective elements, and these must not be sought among the intellectual qualities, since the intellect, in the ascending evolution from sensations to perceptions, images, concepts, tends more and more towards the impersonal.
We might in addition prove, by means of numerous examples, that the excessive development of the intelligence frequently involves atrophy of the character, clearly establishing their independence. The great manipulators of abstractions, confined to pure speculation, tend to reduce their ordinary life to a monotonous routine, whence emotion, passion, the unforeseen in action, are as far as possible excluded (Kant, Newton, Gauss, and many others). Schopenhauer was right in saying that many men of genius are “monsters by excess,” _i.e._, by hypertrophy of the intellectual faculties. “If normal man,” he says, “is made up of two-thirds will and one-third intellect, the man of genius consists of two-thirds intellect and one-third will.”[245] There are exceptions, as we all know. They prove, not that the development of the intellect favours that of the character, but that _in some cases_ it does not fetter it. Is it not also a matter of common observation that these two factors, character and intellect, are often discordant? Men think in one way and act in another; they write sublime treatises on a morality which they do not practise; they preach action and remain inactive; they have the tenderest hearts in the world, and dream of plans for universal destruction.[246]
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Footnote 245:
_Op. cit._, supplement to Book III., chap. xxxi.
Footnote 246:
Need we recall the often-quoted cases of Francis Bacon, D’Alembert, etc.? On this point see Dr. Le Bon’s article in the _Revue philosophique_, vol. iv. p. 496.
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Intellect, then, is not a fundamental constituent of the character; it is its light, but not its life, nor, consequently, its action. The character sends its roots down into the unconscious—_i.e._, into the individual organism: this is what makes it so difficult to penetrate and modify. The intellectual dispositions can only exercise an _indirect_ action in its constitution. We have now to see by what mechanism they do so.
We know that the various emotions (fear, anger, love, contempt, etc.) show themselves in certain spontaneous movements and attitudes of the body, which constitute their natural expression. Emotion is the cause; the movements are the effect. It is less generally known that movements and attitudes of the body, artificially produced, are capable (in some cases, and to a slighter degree) of exciting the corresponding emotions. Remain for some time in an attitude of sadness, and you will feel sad. By mingling in cheerful society and regulating your outward behaviour in accordance with it, you may awaken in yourself a transient gaiety. If the arm of a hypnotised subject is placed, with clenched fist, in a threatening attitude, the corresponding impression spontaneously appears in the face and in the rest of the body; the same holds good for the expressions of love, prayer, contempt, etc. Here the movement is the cause and the emotion the effect. The two cases are reducible to a single formula. There is an indissoluble association between a given movement and a given feeling. Emotion excites movements, movements excite emotion; but with this very important difference: that movements are not always capable of exciting emotion, and when they do succeed, the states they bring about are neither intense nor permanent. In a word, the action from without inwards is always inferior to the action from within outwards.
It is exactly the same psychological law which governs the relations between the affective and the intellectual dispositions in the manifestations of the character.
Let us (merely in a metaphorical way, and for the sake of making the matter clear) call the action of the feelings on the ideas, action from below upwards, and that of the ideas on the feelings, action from above downwards.
The action from below upwards is solid, tenacious, energetic, efficacious; it has its strength within itself, drawing it from the region of the unconscious—_i.e._, from the organisation. When it reaches the consciousness, it merely becomes sensible. Thus what is at first a vague sense of discomfort, asserts itself in the consciousness as hunger, and may lead to theft, murder, and all sorts of excesses. Another state of the organism shows itself in floating, indeterminate desires, then asserts itself as love for some particular being, and may in the end break out like a thunderstorm. It would be superfluous to review in like manner the whole of the passions, making the same comments. Whether simple or complex, their evolution is the same. The moral, religious, or æsthetic vocations have their periods of incubation, of revelation, and of action. The saying of Correggio, on looking at the painting of a master, whether true or false historically, is psychologically true.
On the other hand, the action from above downwards is unstable, vacillating, variable, weak, and of doubtful efficacy. It has only a borrowed, extrinsic force. The psychological (and often pedagogic) problem stated is the following: How to bring about intellectual states, ideal images, so that they may, if they can, provoke, by way of reaction, the corresponding feelings. The action is mediate, indirect, and usually fails or shows very poor results. The sensibility produced is entirely intellectual; and who does not know that intellectual passions are mere phantoms, which a real passion sweeps away like a gust of wind?
In conclusion, the action of the emotions on the movements resembles that of the feelings on the ideas; the action of the movements on the emotions is like that of the ideas on the feelings.
Having thus briefly established the secondary and superficial part played by the intellect in the formation of character, let us return to our classification. We are now face to face with real individuals, unequally endowed with energy, sensibility, and intelligence. Let us now take our three great skeleton divisions, and fill them up, one by one.
I. _The Sensitive._—In this genus I distinguish three principal species, which I am about to describe, taking the simplest first, and consequently departing more and more from the pure type as we approach the mixed characters.
1. The first species cannot be designated by any proper name; it is that of the _humble_. Excessive sensibility, limited or moderate intelligence, no energy—such are their constituent elements. Every one knows such persons, for they are frequently met with. Their dominant note is timidity, fear, and all paralysing modes of feeling. Like La Fontaine’s hare, they live in perpetual uneasiness. They are afraid for themselves, for their families, for their small position or business, for the present, for the future. They worry themselves about everybody’s opinion, even that of unknown passers-by. They tremble for their salvation in the other life, and in this they feel their own nothingness, and the weight of the social organism pressing upon them, which, in most cases, they cannot understand. The smallest misadventure gives them a severe shock, because they are conscious of being weak, and without springs of action or the spirit of initiative.
There is no one who cannot affix one or more names to this portrait; but I need mention none in particular, just because they are humble. I have eliminated all pathological cases from this study; but I may point out, by way of illustration, that many hypochondriacs belong to this type, and show it in an exaggerated form.
2. The second species is that of the _contemplative_, distinguished from the preceding by a much higher intellectual development, so that their constituent elements may be enumerated in the following order: acute sensibility, sharp and penetrating intellect, no activity.
A tolerably large number of varieties may be grouped under this heading; they all resemble one another by having the above three marks in common:
The irresolute, like Hamlet, who feel and think deeply, but cannot pass to action.
Certain mystics, not the great ones, who have acted, and whom we shall find later on, but pure adepts of the Inner Life, such as may be found in all ages and countries—Hindu Yogis, Persian Sufis, Therapeutæ, monks of all creeds—plunged in the beatific vision, writing nothing and founding nothing, and, always in pursuit of their dream, passing through life without leaving a trace behind them.
The analysts, in the purely subjective sense—_i.e._, those who assiduously and minutely analyse themselves, who keep diaries, noting down from hour to hour the small changes of their inner life, the variations of their feelings according to the prevalent atmospheric influences. Such were Maine de Biran among psychologists and Alfieri among poets. For the rest, it is needless to mention particular names, since this mania for personal analysis has, in recent times, under the influence of excessive nervous excitement, of intellectual refinement, and the enervation of the will, become a disease. It should be noted that these sensitives are nearly all pessimists.
3. There still remains the third species, whom I shall call the _emotional_ type, though not in the wide sense in which the word is used by Bain, who makes them into a class. In this type, which abounds in great names, the category of the sensitives attains its apogee. Activity is here added to the extreme impressionability and the intellectual subtlety of the contemplatives. But their activity has its own special characteristic: it is intermittent and sometimes spasmodic, because arising from an intense emotion, not from a permanent reserve of energy. The purely emotional character, says Bain, is inclined to indolence. Nothing can be juster, under an appearance of paradox. He only acts under the momentary influence of powerful motives, then he falls back into the inaction which is his essential nature; he alternates between impetuous energy and sudden collapse.
To this group belong many great artists: poets, musicians, and painters, capable of feverish activity when sustained by inspiration—_i.e._, by an unconscious impulse; then undergoing periods of exhaustion and impotence. We may cite, at random, Jean Paul Richter, Mozart, Rousseau. This last, as has frequently been demonstrated, should be regarded as a pathological case. The same may be said of certain orators, those who have “temperament.” It is only on certain occasions that they put forth their full power, when there is a cause, in which their feelings are deeply engaged, to be defended, or enemies to be overthrown.
II. _The Active._—I divide this type into two species, according as the intellect is mediocre or powerful.
1. The species of the _mediocre active_ shows us more clearly the distinctive traits of this form of character and the points in which it differs from the _sensitive_. “The active man does his work better [than the sensitive] because he can do the uninteresting drudgery, while the other neglects whatever has not an intense and sustaining interest. One man can take a walk without any object in view more engrossing than the prospective warding off of ill-health; the other cannot move abroad without a gun, or a fishing-rod, a companion or something to see.”[247]
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Footnote 247:
Bain, _Study of Character_, p. 214.
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The _active_ are strongly constructed machines, well supplied with vital force, and still more with potential energy. Look at a small shopkeeper belonging to this type, a man without talent or education; he wears himself out in continual goings and comings, in offers of service, in talk without end or cessation. It is not the love of gain alone which impels him, it is his very nature, he _must_ be active. Put a sensitive in his place, he will do nothing but what is absolutely necessary, or what interests him. To this first group belong all those who have an abundant supply of physical energy and need an outlet for it: sportsmen, those who love an adventurous life without other aim than action, globe-trotters, who hurry about the world as fast as steam will take them, not for the sake of business or of acquiring knowledge, making no attempt to study the countries they pass through, either at the time, or before, or afterwards, hurrying to the end of their journeys in order to begin again. We may add those fighters who are actuated by no resentment or ill-feeling, but are merely letting off their superfluous energy. The mercenary armies of former times must have been recruited almost entirely among men of this type.
2. Let us now take the ordinary _condottiere_, such as the Italian republics had in their pay by the thousand, fine types of physical energy and mindless activity. On this robust stock, graft an intellect, powerful, penetrating, supple, refined, unscrupulous, thoroughly skilled in diplomacy, and the ordinary _condottiere_ becomes Cæsar Borgia, and we pass from the lower to the higher form of the active character.
The latter, the _great active_ types, abound in history, and play prominent parts in it. Unhappily, the line of separation between these and the mixed forms which we shall encounter later on is so vague that I hesitate to name any individuals. Julius Cæsar seems to belong to this pure type; Lucan’s line _Nil actum reputans si quid superesse agendum_, is the complete formula for the active. Nothing either in his life or his style indicates an acute sensibility, unless we reckon certain well-known passions, and his epileptic fits, which, however, prove nothing. We may also cite the Conquistadores of the sixteenth century (Cortez, Pizarro), those Spanish captains whose expeditions read like romances, who, with a handful of men as daring as themselves, overthrew the great empires of Mexico and Peru, and appeared to the vanquished as gods.
III. _The Apathetic_ (lymphatic, or phlegmatic, in the ordinary classification of the temperaments).—I use this word in the etymological sense, to denote, not a complete absence of feeling, which is impossible, but a slight degree of excitability and consequently of reaction. We should be disposed to think, _a priori_, that this type of character never rises above mediocrity; experience, however, shows the contrary. It is here that intellect is paramount. In the silence of the passions, and the absence of physiological activity, it finds a medium suitable for its development.
Nowhere can we better see the influence of the intellectual powers on the constitution of the character, and the exact limits imposed on them by nature.
In this class, too, I distinguish two species:
1. The first is the pure apathetic type: slight sensibility, slight activity, slight intelligence, a negative state. There is little to add to what has been already said. They are at once above and below the amorphous: above, because they have their own special character, their indelible mark, inertia, which the amorphous have not; and below, because they meet external occurrences with a passive resistance. They are only slightly influenced by education or suggestion, not plastic, equally incapable of good and evil.
2. With a powerful intellect, the case is quite different; but we have to distinguish two cases, according as the intellectual tendencies are speculative or practical.
The first case is outside our subject. If a lymphatic temperament coincides with a lofty speculative intellect, which has occurred in a tolerably large number of mathematicians, metaphysicians, and scholars generally, we have to do with pure intellect only: these are Schopenhauer’s _monstra per excessum_, and I have nothing further to say of their character.
The second case, that of practical intellect, deserves attention, because it shows us a very special form of character, that which is the result of the action from above downwards, of the influence of ideas on feelings and movements. I call this group of characters the _calculators_. The ideas give the first impulse, and thus we observe a lack of spontaneity; the tendencies are only excited indirectly, the will is not a _laisser faire_, but an alternation of effort and inhibition: of effort, because the motor power of ideas is always very weak compared with that of desires; of inhibition, not because there are any violent movements to check, but because reflection is dominant and only allows of action at proper times and places. These characters might also be called _reasonable_, and they are the work of art much more than of nature. If this chapter were not exclusively devoted to individual psychology, I should point out that this form of character has been predominant among certain races, in certain tribes, and at certain epochs.
Benjamin Franklin is an excellent example: he is “the great genius of prudential calculation.” In his letter to Priestley entitled “Moral Algebra, or method of deciding doubtful matters for one’s self,”[248] the reasons _pro_ and _con_ are entered opposite one another every day, after reflection for a sufficient, frequently a long, period; they are then compared, cancelled, balanced, and, this arithmetical operation concluded, we proceed to action.
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Footnote 248:
Reproduced _in extenso_ in Bain, _The Will_, p. 413 (chap. vii.).
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Among the great names of history bearing this mark we may mention William the Silent; Louis XI., who, considering his epoch, was so devoid of the chivalrous spirit; Philip II., who would not be interrupted in his vespers by the news of the victory at Lepanto, and, shut up in that cold bare room which is still to be seen at the Escurial, concocted plots involving the fortunes of both worlds.
In more modest circumstances we may observe the same character in cold-hearted speculators, tenacious of purpose, who leave nothing to caprice, imagination, or chance—neither uplifted by success nor dejected by reverses.
To sum up: the three classes include great names. The celebrated sensitives have acted through the intensity and contagion of their feelings; the celebrated actives by the force of their energy imposing itself upon others; the great calculators by their power of reflection, which leaves nothing to chance. They are strong, because wise; but their glory is lustreless, unsympathetic, without prestige. They are, however, _true_ characters, because they have reactions peculiar to themselves—coming from within, not from without.
