26. The Secret of the Human Temperaments

The properties that are imprinted on the etheric body by the descending astral body establish the human temperament. This is where temperament is located. The human being brings this temperament with them. They do not yet have it when they only have the astral body; they have it because this astral body, as it descends, has to connect with the etheric body, which has certain characteristics of the race, of the people. Since it develops certain qualities, so to speak, that correspond to the lower nature, but are also appropriate to the original, core characteristics of the human being, temperament is something that is both individual and that, so to speak, casts its tone over the general characteristics that the human being shares with race, tribe, and family. If we only inherited the peculiarities of race, tribe, and family, we would be average figures; if we came from above with our core nature and now had to drive into it, so to speak, then little would fit. What we bring with us, what we may have developed thousands of years ago, would not match well with what we find. What can adapt as an individual to the stereotyped general from below is temperament.