2 The Systems Harmonized and Explained.

II THE SYSTEMS HARMONIZED AND EXPLAINED
It is several years since the author of the present
work, in a little book entitled "The Theory of
Temperaments," divided as follows the Four
Temperaments.
Two of these Temperaments he found to possess
a sensitive or "subjective" character, in their
evident propensity to let emotionalism prevail
over the detached and reasoning Self, even to the
extent of absorbing all and assuming full control.
These two were the Nervous and the Sanguine.
Their common verb, indicating what there is of
jealousy, selfishness and egotism in such natures,
is to Possess, to Have, or to Enjoy.
To these were opposed, under the title "Objective"
(that is to say, temperaments more disposed
to externalize, to MANIFEST themselves) the Lymphatic
(or Phlegmatic) and the Bilious: (of this
latter, be it said in passing, determination is
much more characteristic than irritability,
although the latter, because it is a RESULT of
determination before an obstacle, has given to the
Bilious Temperament the misleading name of
"Choleric," thus creating an annoying confusion
with the Sanguine and the Nervous, which are
quite as much inclined to choler). While as to the
term "Objective", it appeared from the first, and
appears now, to the author, more appropriate by
far than that of "Active," applied by M. Fouillee
at the same time to the Bilious and to the
Lymphatic!
It was observed in "The Theory of Temperaments"
that the Nervous and the Bilious, the one
by its imagination and the other by its strength of
will, represented the "Intellectual." Have they
not a common tendency to abstraction, to idealization?
Likewise, the Sanguine and the Lymphatic,
with their tendency to materialism, to
realism, represent the "Physical," both being
devoted to practical life and comfort, the one with
greater ardor, the other with greater constancy.
The antithesis between the Active and Passive
offered the last binary combination which can be
made between these four Temperaments, and
consequently united on the one hand the Bilious
(that is, the Obstinate) with the restless Sanguine,
while on the other the Nervous and the Lymphatic
are drawn together by their faculty of feeling, of
suffering.
The diagram on next page will give a clear
idea of the perfect concord between the diverse
classes which we have, after a fashion, just reduced
to a common denominator.
This analysis has a double advantage :
1st: It defines with precision, for the first time,
the Four Temperaments in their psychological
significance, gives them a constitutive formula and
measures exactly the distance which separates
them one from another. The Bilious is thus
defined, simply by its position in the diagram, as
an Intellectual-active-objective; the Lymphatic
as a Physical-passive-objective, etc.
2nd: It ramifies into six chief branches as
genealogy of new types derived from the first Four.
And these six new types, less generous, begin to
press more closely upon the human reality. Further,
it had, as we have just seen, the advantage of
putting into accord, several years ago, two conflicting
systems which are to this day opposed.
Does it not reconcile, in a common reality, the
four-division system extolled by M. Fouillee with
the three-divisional method of other philosophers,
and introduce a binary system as well? True, it
did not in the beginning attach much importance
to justifying itself from a medical point of view;
its origin was more poetic than scientific, and it
does not hesitate before those questions which the
Poets, at all times and among all peoples, have
better studied than the Physicians. It prefers,
with its Masters, to take flight from medical territory,
wherein the first malady will transform
the physiological temperament and nevertheless
modify only secondary parts of the character,
toward the open sky of the great natural Analogies.