Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/263

 PAULIN MALAPERT, Les filaments du Caract&re. 249 In their griefs have they no passionate longing? Have their morbid fears no desire to escape from real or imaginary dangers ? Has their regret no vain yearning ? Does a brooding anger that "nurses" its wrath cherish no schemes of revenge? But, says our author, " the religious sentiment of a Fenelon differs strangely from the mystic impetuosity of a Sainte Therese, the sensibility of a Kacine or even a Diderot from the insatiable charity of a Saint Vincent de Paul. In short two natures domin- ated by an extreme liveliness of feeling are profoundly distinguished where one is in addition characterised by violent desire (ardeur).'' The emotion of the one is " inward, disturbed and suffering. The second more vigorous, loving or hating without measure, always eager to escape from themselves with a need, constantly renewed, of satisfying their passions." l That M. Malapert is vividly por- traying real types may be admitted ; but the second does not correspond with what we had taken to be the essential character- istic of the passionate. Intense desire is common to both types. But there are desires which, however noble, are impotent, and desires which are adjusted to the conditions of life. Consider the inward and withdrawn character of the one, the outwardly ex- panding character of the other. There lies their salient difference. But this difference touches merely the diverse character of their desires. It will admit of our classing the bilious as a subordinate type, but offers us no grounds on which to co-ordinate it with the preceding types. Such in outline is the interpretation which our author gives of f hese famous types not ostensibly indeed but they press upon his thought and force recognition, and beneath their several dis- guises, as the sensitive, emotional, passionate and apathetic, we detect their presence and familiar characteristics. If he has not been uniformly successful in all of them, if their central qualities have not yet been finally established, we must bear in mind the difficulty of the task. On the whole he has presented the best, the most coherent, the most genuinely psychological interpreta- tion they have yet received. The suggestiveness of these types is perennial. They could not have survived centuries of use unless some profound truths were embodied in them. But they are drawn in waving outlines difficult to seize. We have now to consider the final classification of M. Mala- pert, and the relation which the two popular classifications bear to it. " In a character as in an organism," he says, " there are dominant systems and others subordinate, there is a main- spring which impresses on the rest its direction and velocity, there is a certain function preponderant. . . ." 2 But this func- tion dominates, but does not exclude. In accordance with this principle, he counts six generic types ; and each genus has its sub- ordinate species. These fundamental types are 1, the apathetic ; 1 P. 43. 8 P. 206.