The Nature of Man in the Light of Spiritual Science

GA 68d — 9 January 1909, Munich

28. Temperaments in the Light of Spiritual Science

Dear attendees, It is a frequently repeated and justified view that the greatest mystery of man here within our physical life is man himself. And we may say that a large part of our scientific activity, our reflection and other human musings are devoted to solving this human mystery, to discerning a little of what the essence of human nature consists of.

Natural science and, as we have already seen in these lectures, spiritual science, too, approach the solution of this great mystery from different sides. But usually, when we speak of this human puzzle, we have in mind the human being in general, the human being without distinction in relation to this or that individuality. But there is another human puzzle; we can say there are many, many other human puzzles. For, apart from the fact that man in general is a great mystery to man, does not every single individual human being we meet appear to us to be a mystery in turn? How difficult it is to get a clear idea of the different sides of the people we meet, and how much depends on it in life to get a clear idea of the people we come into contact with!

Now we can only gradually approach the solution of the very individual human riddle, of which each person presents us with a particular one, because there is a great gap between what is called human nature in general and what we encounter in each individual person. And in this gap we also see some things that entire groups of people have in common. These similarities include those characteristics of human nature that we are considering today, which are usually referred to as a person's temperament. It is true that each person has their own temperament, but we can still distinguish certain groups of temperaments.

We speak of four human temperaments: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic. And even if the classification is not entirely correct insofar as we apply it to the individual, we still want to divide people into four groups according to their temperaments in general. The fact that a person's temperament, on the one hand, manifests itself as something individual, as something that makes people different, and, on the other hand, unites them into groups, proves to us that temperament must be something that, on the one hand, has something to do with the innermost core of a person's being and, on the other hand, must be connected to general human nature. A person's temperament is something that points in two directions. And so it will be necessary, if we want to get behind the secret, to ask ourselves on the one hand: To what extent does temperament point to what lies in general human nature? - and then again: How does it point to the human core of being, to the actual inner being of the human being?

When we ask the question, it is natural that spiritual science seems to be called upon to provide insight. For spiritual science must lead us to the innermost core of a person's being. In so far as a person encounters us on earth, he appears to us as being placed in a generality and again as an independent entity. There are two lines that meet when a person enters into earthly existence. And here we are in the middle of the spiritual scientific consideration of human nature. We see the descendant of his father and mother, his previous ancestors and further and further; the human being is embedded in what can be called the line of inheritance, and you know that far into the core of his being, the human being carries qualities in himself that we must certainly derive from heredity. Goethe also said of himself:

From my father I have the stature,
the serious conduct of life,
from my mother the cheerful nature
and the desire to tell stories.

We see how this great connoisseur of human nature, Goethe, has to refer to a person's moral qualities when he wants to point out inherited traits. This is what our own nature consists of. This is the other current in which human beings are placed, of which today's culture is not very aware. Spiritual science shows us what flows together with what is given to us in the line of inheritance; it leads us to the great fact of so-called re-embodiment — reincarnation — and of karma. It shows us how the innermost core of a person's being connects with something that is given by the line of inheritance. For the spiritual scientist, this core of being is enveloped in outer shells by what comes from the line of inheritance. And just as we have to go back to our father and mother for the qualities of a person that belong to their appearance, so if we want to grasp a person's innermost being, we have to go back to something completely different, to a previous life of that person.

Every person, when they enter physical life, has a series of lives behind them. And this has nothing to do with what lies in the line of inheritance. We would have to go back more than centuries if we wanted to examine what their previous life was when they passed through the gateway of death. After passing through, they live in other forms of existence in the spiritual world. And when the time comes again to live a life in the physical world, he seeks out his parents. And every person brings with them certain qualities from their previous life. To a certain extent, people bring with them certain qualities, their destinies. After they have performed this or that act, they bring about the counter-effect and thus feel surrounded by new life. Thus, from previous embodiments, he brings with him an inner core of being and envelops it with what is given to him by inheritance.

This one should be mentioned because it is important, since in fact our present time has little inclination to recognize this inner core of being, to regard the idea of re-embodiment as something other than a fantastic thought. It must slowly become part of human culture, similar to the teaching of the great scholar Redi, who, contrary to the then prevailing theory that fish arise from river mud, proved that living things can only arise from living things. And today, in a similar way, it is said that what is in a person all arises through inheritance.

The spiritual scientist can also point to this fact, and it has been pointed out. For example, in families of musicians, a talent for music is inherited, and so on, all of which is supposed to support the line of inheritance. It is also said, pointing to genius, that rarely does genius show itself at the beginning of a generation, but only at the end. In the case of the peculiar abilities of genius, one goes back, picks out here and there, finds this quality in one and that in another, and so on, and then shows how they finally converge in the genius who has emerged at the end of the generation. What is it supposed to prove? But nothing other than that the essence of man can live according to the instrument of the body. It is no more ingenious than when someone wants to draw our particular attention to the fact that when a person falls into water, he gets wet. This is only natural, that he takes it from the element into which he is placed. What is to be adduced as proof could much more easily be adduced as proof that genius is not inherited. For if genius were inherited, it would have to show itself at the beginning of the generation, and then it would be possible to prove that genius is inherited, but not at the end of the generation.

Thus, in the person who appears before us in the world, we see the confluence of two currents. On the one hand, we see what he receives from his family; on the other hand, we see what develops from the innermost being of the human being: a number of talents, qualities, inner abilities and outer destiny. These two currents flow together; every human being is composed of these two currents. Thus we find that, on the one hand, man must adapt to his innermost being and, on the other hand, to what he brings with him from his family line. We see how man bears the physiognomy of his ancestors to a high degree; we could, so to speak, compose man from the result of his ancestral line.

Since the human core of being has nothing to do with what is inherited, but must adapt only to what is most suitable for it, we will also realize that it is necessary for what may have lived for centuries in a completely different world and is transferred again into another world, that there must be a certain mediation; that the essence of man must have something related to it, that there must be an intermediate link, a bond between one's own individual human being and the general into which he is born through family and race. That which transmits on the one hand all the inner qualities that he brings with him from his previous incarnation and that which the line of inheritance brings him falls under the concept of temperament. It now stands between the inherited qualities and what he has taken up in his inner core of being. It is as if, when this core of being descends, it is surrounded by a spiritual nuance of what awaits it down there, so that the more the core of being adapts to the human being's shell, the more the human being's core of being is colored by what he is born into and by a quality that he brings with him.

Thus, when we look at the complete human being, we can say: This complete human being consists of the physical, etheric, and astral bodies and the I. What is initially the physical body, what the human being carries in such a way that it is visible to the senses, carries the signs of heredity clearly at first, from the outside. What lives in the etheric body of the human being, in that fighter against the decay of the physical body, is also what lies in the line of inheritance. Then we come to the astral body, which is much more bound to the essence of the human being in its properties. And if we go to the innermost core of the human being, to the actual I, we find what goes from embodiment to embodiment, appears as an inner mediator that radiates its essential qualities outwards. The fact that they have to connect means that they adapt when the person enters the physical world.

Through this interaction of the astral body and the ego, of the physical and etheric bodies, through this interweaving of the two currents, temperaments arise in human nature. They must therefore be something that depends on the individuality of the person, on that which is incorporated into the general line of inheritance. If man were not able to shape his inner being in this way, then every descendant would have to be only the result of his ancestors. And what is shaped into it, what makes it individual, that is the power of temperament; this is where the secret of temperaments lies.

Now, in all human nature, all the individual elements of being interact with each other again; they are in a reciprocal relationship. When the core of our being has colored the physical and etheric bodies, then what has been created through this coloring will have an effect on every other limb, so that it depends on how the person with his or her characteristics comes to us, whether the core of our being has a stronger effect on the physical body or whether the physical body has a stronger effect. Depending on the person, they can influence one of the four limbs, and the effect on the other limbs creates the temperament. When the human core of being embarks on re-embodiment, it is capable, through this peculiarity, of incorporating a certain excess of activity into one or other of its essential limbs. In this way, he can incorporate a certain excess of strength into his ego, or, having gone through certain experiences in his earlier life, he can influence his other limbs with it.

When the human ego has become so strong through its destinies that its powers are excellently dominant in the fourfold human nature, then the choleric temperament arises. If he succumbs to the influence of the astral body, then the sanguine temperament arises. If the etheric body has an excessive influence on the other limbs, then the phlegmatic nature arises. If the physical body has such an influence on the other limbs that the core of the being was unable to overcome certain hardships in the physical body, then the melancholic nature prevails.

Thus we have a large part of the physical body as the direct expression of the physical life principle of the human being. We can see the glandular system as the physical expression of the etheric body; the nervous system, and specifically that which is active there, we can see as the physical expression of the astral body, and the pulsating power of the blood is the expression of the actual I. Therefore, that which characterizes the I becomes active as the predominant quality. The choleric temperament will show itself as active in a strongly pulsating blood; in this way, the element of force in the human being comes to expression through the fact that it has a particular influence on his blood. In a person like this, in whom the I is active spiritually and the blood is active physically, we see the innermost strength maintaining the organization firmly and strongly. And as he encounters the outer world, so his power of the I will want to assert itself. That is the consequence of this I.

If the astral body predominates in a person, then the physical expression will lie in the functions of the nervous system, and what the astral body accomplishes is life in thoughts, in images, so that a person, if endowed with the sanguine temperament, will have the disposition to live in the images of his mental life. We must be clear about the relationship between the astral body and the ego. If only the sanguine temperament were present, a chaos of images would rise and fall. It is the forces of the ego that prevent the images from being mixed up in a fantastic way. And in the physical, it is the blood that essentially, so to speak, delimits the activity of the nervous system.

It would take us too far afield to show you all the details of how the nervous system and blood relate to each other and how the blood is the restrainer of this imaginative life. If a person's blood becomes too thin, with anemia, then fantastic images arise, including illusions and hallucinations, if the blood is not the restrainer of the nervous system. If the astral body has a certain excess of activity, then human life takes on such a form that the person cannot hold on to an idea, and the consequence of this is that such a person can be inflamed by everything that comes his way in the outer world, but that the rein is not applied to do it inwardly continuously; the interest that has been kindled quickly fades away. We see the sanguine person hurrying from one performance to the next, how he shows a flighty mind.

If a person has a predominant etheric body and the expression of this etheric body, the system that makes up the comfort and discomfort in the person, then the person will be led to want to remain comfortably in his or her inner self. The more comfortable a person feels within, the more he will create harmony between the inner and outer self. When this is the case, when it is even taken care of in abundance, then a person's entire striving is directed towards the inner self, we are dealing with the phlegmatic type.

And if a person has an especially active physical system, it is a sign that the inner man is powerless against his physical system. Thus the physical system, which is hardened, fails when it is in excess. Man cannot make that which he should make flexible; he feels inner obstacles. They become apparent in that man must turn his strength to these inner hindrances. What one cannot overcome is what causes suffering and pain; they cause man to be unable to look impartially at the world around him. This sense of dependence is a source of inner sorrow. Certain thoughts and ideas begin to become permanent; he begins to become brooding and melancholy.

And if we understand temperament through the prism of a healthy nature, many things in life will become clear to us; but it will also become possible for us to apply these principles in a practical way, which we would otherwise not be able to do. Let us turn our attention to many of the things that directly confront us in life! Take, for example, the choleric person, who has a strong, firm center within. This I is the bridler. Those images are images of consciousness. The physical body is shaped according to its etheric body, the etheric body according to its astral body. It would shape the human being in the most diverse ways, so to speak; by the fact that the growth of the I is counteracted in its blood forces, balance is maintained between an abundance and diversity of growth. But if the I has a surplus, it can hold back growth. As a rule, choleric people show themselves to be like this, that they appear to have restrained growth. You can find examples in life, for example, in the intellectual history of the philosopher Fichte. In his outward appearance, he was what one may call a person of restrained growth; there were forces in him that were held back by the surplus of the I. Take a look at the choleric person! This is a typical example of the restrained growth of the choleric person. Here you can see how the power of the I, originating from the spirit, works so that the innermost being of the person manifests itself in the outer form. Look at the physiognomy of the choleric person! Take the phlegmatic person in contrast. How blurred his features are! You can hardly say that the shape of his forehead is adapted to the choleric person!

There is one organ in particular where the astral body or the ego has a formative effect: the eye, and in particular the firm, secure position of the choleric person's eye. In the choleric person you will find a black, coal-black eye, because by a certain law, the choleric person draws exactly that to the inside, because he does not leave the possibility to the astral body to color that which is colored in another person. Also observe the person in his entire behavior. The one who is well-versed can almost tell from a distance whether a person is a choleric. The firm step, so to speak, announces the choleric. The whole person is an expression of this innermost nature, which reveals itself to us in such a way.

Take the sanguine type! The sanguine temperament is particularly evident in childhood. See how the pictorial quality manifests itself! And in the same way, the sanguine child has a certain inner potential to change his physiognomy, while the traits of the choleric person are sharply defined. A blue eye is very often the expression of a sanguine temperament.

And now let us move on! When we approach the phlegmatic type, we can tell from his shaky gait that he has little control over the forms of his inner life. This can be seen in the whole person. The melancholic soon reveals himself to you through his bowed head and downcast eyes. It shows that something is being restricted.

All this can only be hinted at here; but it will make human life much, much more understandable if we can thus observe the spirit within the forms, how the exterior of a person can become an expression of his inner being. Do we not see how everything great in life can be brought about precisely through the one-sidedness of temperaments, how these can degenerate into one-sidedness; does the child not worry us because we see that the choleric can degenerate into malice, the sanguine into flightiness, the melancholic into gloom, etc.? Is not knowledge and assessment of temperament of particular value to the educator, especially in the matter of education and self-education?

We must not be tempted to underestimate the value of temperament because it is a one-sided quality. We must be clear that temperament leads to one-sidedness, that the most radical thing about the melancholic temperament is madness, about the phlegmatic temperament, imbecility; about the sanguine temperament, insanity; and about the choleric temperament, all those outbursts of pathological human nature that go as far as raving madness and so on. Temperament brings about much beautiful diversity because opposites attract; however, the idolization of the one-sidedness of temperament very easily causes harm between birth and death. It is important for the educator to be able to say: What do you do, for example, with a sanguine child? One must try to learn from the knowledge of the whole essence of the sanguine temperament how to behave. If we are to speak of the education of the child in relation to other aspects, then it is also necessary to speak individually of temperament in the education of the child.

We have a child of sanguine temperament before us, who could easily degenerate into flight mania, lack of interest in important things, and on the other hand quickly become interested in other things; this can lead to the most terrible one-sidedness and one can recognize the danger by looking into the depths of human nature; then one will say to oneself: By trying to teach this child some opposite quality right away, you do not change these qualities. You have to be considerate of these things, which are rooted in the innermost nature of the human being, so that you can only bend them. In the case of a sanguine temperament that has become one-sided, one must build on his sanguine temperament. If you want to behave correctly towards this child, then you have to pay attention, because no matter how sanguine the child is, you can still find something that this child is interested in. And what you find that the child is particularly interested in must be considered. And for the child, something that he does not pass by with flightiness, you have to try to present it to him as a special fact, so that his temperament extends to what is not indifferent to him; you have to try to present what is a hobby for him in a special light, he has to learn to apply his sanguine nature. You can work by connecting with the one thing that can always be found, the child's own strengths. It will not be able to take a lasting interest in anything through punishment and persuasion. But when interest is kindled in him, love for a person, then a miracle happens through this love for the person. This can cure a one-sided temperament in the child. The child must develop personal attachment; you have to make yourself lovable to the child. That is the task when dealing with a sanguine child. It is up to the person educating the child to help the sanguine child learn to love the personality.

Let us assume that the person should be horrified that the choleric temperament is expressed in a one-sided way in their child. However, the same recipe cannot be used as for the sanguine child, because the choleric person will not easily develop love for the personality of the person. A different approach is needed to connect with him on a human level. You have to be truly estimable, honorable in the highest sense of the word for the choleric child. You have to strive to never let the choleric child realize that he cannot get any information or advice on what he should do. You have to make sure that you hold the firm reins of authority in your hands and never expose yourself to the point of not knowing what to do. Then it is necessary, when the choleric child threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness, to bring him into education, especially the things that are difficult to overcome, by drawing his attention to the difficulties of life by bringing in things that are as difficult as possible for the child to overcome. Obstacles must be created so that the choleric temperament is not driven back, but allowed to express itself, by confronting the child with certain difficulties that he has to overcome.

With a phlegmatic child, we will have a difficult time if education has given us the task of interacting with the child in the appropriate way. It is difficult to gain influence over the phlegmatic person, but there is a way to create a detour. There is nothing that can be said to a phlegmatic child; you have to bring this child into contact with children of the same age. Just as the sanguine child needs to be attached to one personality, so the phlegmatic child needs to have friendship and contact with as many children of the same age as possible. This is the only way to awaken the power that lies dormant in him. You will not be able to interest the phlegmatic child in an object from school or home, but you can reach him indirectly through the other souls of the same age.

It is also very difficult to treat the melancholic child. What can we do? And what if we feel horror at the threatening one-sidedness of the melancholic temperament of the child, since we cannot graft in what the child does not have? We have to expect that it has the strength to cling to inhibitions and to resist. If we want to steer this peculiarity of its temperament in the right direction, we have to divert this strength from the inner to the outer. It is particularly important for the educator of a melancholic child to place emphasis on how one deals with the child, to show him that there is suffering in the world. The melancholic child is capable of feeling pain; if you want to amuse him, then drive him back into his own narrowness. Distract the child by showing him that there is suffering! The melancholic is happiest when he can grow up at the side of someone who, through difficult experiences, has a lot to say, because soul works with soul in the happiest way. In general, it is good not to try to heal the young melancholic by bringing entertaining company into his environment, but to let him experience justified pain.

So we may say: the sanguine person is best off when he grows up in a firm hand, when a person from outside can show him sides of character that allow him to develop personal love; love for a person is best for the sanguine person. Not just love, but respect and appreciation for what a person can achieve, that is best for the choleric person.

A melancholic can count themselves lucky if they can grow up under the wing of someone who has a difficult fate. The appropriate distance, which is created by the new way of looking at things, by the compassion that arises with authority, in the empathy for the justified painful fate, is what the melancholic needs. They grow up well if they can indulge less in attachment to a person, less in respect and appreciation of a person's achievements, and more in compassion for suffering and justified painful fates.

The phlegmatic person is the easiest to get along with if we can teach them to take an interest in the interests of others, if they can be inspired by the interests of others.

The sanguine person should be able to develop love and affection.

The choleric person should be able to develop appreciation and respect for the achievements of the person.

The melancholic should be able to develop a compassionate heart for the fate of others.

And the phlegmatic should be shown the interests of others as a role model.

And when it comes to taking our self-education into our own hands, they can also be particularly useful. We realize with our mind that our sanguinity is playing all kinds of tricks on us, that we are in danger of degenerating into an unstable way of life, rushing from object to object. This can be counteracted if we only take the right approach. No matter how often a person speaks to his conscience, hold on to something for once, his sanguine temperament will play evil tricks on him over and over again. He can only count on one strength that he has. There must be other forces behind the intellect. Can a sanguine person count on anything other than his sanguine temperament? And even in self-education, it is necessary to try to do what the intellect could do indirectly. You have to try not to be interested in certain things that you are interested in. You try to artificially put yourself in such a situation, to bring as much as possible that does not interest you into your path. Then you will realize, if you do it long enough, that this temperament develops the strength to change.

If you realize that melancholy can drive you to one-sidedness, you have to try to create justified external obstacles and want to see through these justified external obstacles in their entirety, so that you deflect what you have in terms of pain and capacity for pain onto external objects. The mind can do that.

In the same way, the choleric person can cure themselves in a special way if we look at it from a spiritual scientific point of view. When he notices that his raging inner self wants to express itself, he must try to find things that require little energy to overcome; he must try to bring about easily surmountable external facts and must always try to express his energy in the strongest way possible in insignificant events and facts. If he seeks out such insignificant things that offer him no resistance, then he will in turn bring his one-sided choleric temperament in the right direction.

The phlegmatic person would do well to imagine that he must be interested in something, that he must seek out objects that have a right to it, that man does not care about them. He should seek out activities in which phlegm is justified, in which he can live out his phlegm. In this way he overcomes his phlegm, even if it threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness.

Those who are realists believe, for example, that it is best for a melancholic to be provided with what one has to provide in the opposite way. But anyone who really thinks realistically appeals to what is already within him.

Thus you see that it is precisely spiritual science that does not draw us away from real and actual life, but will shine forth for us at every turn to the truths and can also give us guidance in life to take account of the real everywhere. For those who believe that they can cling to the outer appearance of things are the fantasists. We must seek deeper causes if we want to enter into this reality, and we will acquire an understanding of the manifoldness of life if we engage in such considerations. Our practical sense will become more and more individualized if we are not obliged to apply a general recipe – you should not drive out levity with severity – but to see: what qualities are there in man that need to be kindled? And we must go to the individuality.

And there we can also let spiritual science work from our innermost core of being, make spiritual science the greatest impulse of life. As long as it remains only theory, it is worth nothing. It is to be applied in the life of man. The way to do this is possible, but it is a long one. It is illuminated when it leads to reality. Then our views change and we notice it, insights change. It is prejudice when man believes that knowledge must remain abstract; but when it enters into the spiritual, then it permeates our whole life's work, then our whole life is permeated by it, then we face life in such a way that we have knowledge for the individuality, which goes right into feeling and sensation and is expressed in them, which has great respect and esteem. It is easy to recognize templates. And it is easy to want to control life according to templates, but it cannot be treated as a template. Then only knowledge is enough, then it transforms into a feeling that one must have towards the individuality of the human being, towards the individuality in all of life. Then, so to speak, our conscientious spiritual knowledge will flow into our feeling in such a way that we can judge the riddle that confronts us in every single person to the right extent.

But this is the right foundation that can provide the true, the fruitful, the genuine love of humanity. This is the foundation on which we become aware of what we have to seek as the innermost core of being in each individual person. And when we are imbued with this spiritual knowledge, our social life will be regulated from person to person in such a way that each individual, by approaching every other person with appreciation and respect and by penetrating the mystery of the human being, will learn to find and regulate their behavior towards other people. Only those who live in abstractions from the outset can speak of sober concepts, but those who strive for genuine knowledge will find it and will find the way to the other person; they will find the solution to the riddle of the other person in their own behavior, in their own conduct. In this way we solve the individual puzzle of how we relate to others. We can only find the essence of the other person with a view of life that comes from the spirit. Spiritual science should be a way of life, a spiritual factor in life, all practice, all life, and not a gray theory.

Answering questions [excerpts]

Question: There are also people in whom no temperament comes to the fore. What prevails in such a person?

Answer: That is correct. There are people in whom, so to speak, a particular shade of temperament does not emerge to any great extent. However, the keen observer will be able to find out that a temperament is present in a certain respect. We must realize that when such a theme is developed, not everything can be said in any detail. If one wanted to explain certain phenomena that occur in life, I would also have to explain the individual complicated temperaments to you, and show how certain characteristics of one of his limbs stand out in every person, so they have a prominent temperament. But it is also possible that another aspect of the human being can have an effect on other aspects of the person. Thus, anyone studying the temperament of Napoleon could find that he must have been very phlegmatic in relation to certain things, so that we have to say: nuances of the four temperaments will be found in every person, and what stands out is precisely what comes from a particular surplus.

When it is said of the astral body that it functions in excess – this is not the same as saying that it functions in such a way that it exercises an absolute domination over the others – it means that it functions in this person more than its normal level of functioning. It is possible that the astral body is working in excess, that it cannot find its way into the right harmony, and the same applies to the physical body. Then the surpluses can neutralize each other, and something like an absolute lack of temperament can occur. This is based on the fact that things that are present from one side or the other balance each other out. With a good power of observation of the soul, one will always be able to observe a prominent temperament in a person.

Question: Which temperament does a gray eye indicate?

Answer: I have to appeal to your good nature a little. It cannot be discussed here in such detail; it would take many hours. I can only answer without being able to tell you the derivation. Therefore, I would like to say: when asking about the correspondence of a gray eye to temperament, you have to take into account that the gray eye usually has a certain nuance according to one color or another. There is a gray-greenish, a gray-brownish, and a gray-bluish eye. As a rule, gray-bluish eyes may indicate a melancholic temperament, and gray-greenish eyes may indicate a phlegmatic temperament. However, this should not be stereotyped.