1 The Systems to be Harmonized.

I THE SYSTEMS TO BE HARMONIZED
Let us remember, in the beginning, that the
object of the present study is not to reduce the
attitude-types, the pretended "characters," to a
small number of elements, a task but too easy !
On the contrary, it is a question of multiplying
them, and at the same time, as I have already
explained, of examining the analysis of each one of
them ; of each one of us.
Every one of these types, I have said, is in
reality but one face, one ATTITUDE of the human
Soul, and that soul remains whole and identical in
all men; there is not one of them who could not,
originally, present all these attitudes, pass from
one to another of them, exhibit all their gestures.
But heredity, education, example and social custom
with its false duties have ankylosed in us a
much reduced number of these attitudes.
It is at this point that Kant saw but four possibilities
for all humanity ; four, not one more,
not one less; four, not even combinable among
themselves to engender another! There are but
four, he affirms in his absolutism, and they can no
more mingle "than the four forms of the syllogism."
To these four irreconcilable aspects of humanity he
gives the ancient name of "temperaments," but
evidently without retaining its etymological sense
(TEMPERAMENTUM, equilibrium).
It must be recognized that the philosophers and
classifiers, more or less consciously, always return
to this antique medical theory. The majority
admit, like their founders, that the four temperaments
mingle, two by two or three by three,
in variable proportions, like the famous "humours"
from which they were drawn. Assuredly, it is a
strange spectacle to see thus surviving in psychology
the consequences of a classification so long
obsolete in physiology! And it is most amusing
to see certain writers taking as great pains to
justify all this in the name of Science (with
Fouillee) as others (such as Paulhan and Ribot)
take to avoid it, seeking to abandon and leave
behind them the "unstable," the ill-balanced, the
"amorphous" etc., which is to say, the major
part of mankind. It is curious too that the former
should find themselves to be the idealists, and that
the positivism of the latter should seek support in
the classic distribution of mental faculties: will,
emotion, intelligence.
Observe that their "Obstinate" types recall
strangely the ancient Bilious (which included the
Ambitious, the Dominating, etc.) and their "Emo
tionals" the Nervous. Their "Inconsistents" comprising
chiefly, I am afraid, the adversaries of
their vaunted Systems, it only remains to pick
from among their stragglers the "Amorphous" and
the "Unstable" to discover in them our traditional
Lymphatic and Sanguine!
As to M. Fouillee, who does not pretend to
break so violently with the past, he defines the
Sanguine as "Sensitive, of prompt reaction" and
the Nervous as "Sensitive, of intense reaction;"
the Bilious or Choleric as "Active, of prompt and
intense reaction" and the unfortunate Lymphatic
or Phlegmatic as "Active, of slow and not intense
reaction"; definitions more scientific than exact,
to tell the truth, but so much the more appropriate
for the contemporary reader.