NATURE, TALENT AND DESTINY

In a few days is September and the return to school throughout the world. It is the moment when many parents question themvelves on the becoming and future of their children. Without calling for the divination sciences, one can rather simply guess the main predispositions of a child through some general features of his character.

What occurs in the cranium of a child when he faces his surrounding decides unvariably of the destiny of each human being. Everyone creates his own life. Freedom gives the power to go on with his own intentions and with power everyone is free to act upon the intentions of the others. Each one decides in his early childhood how he will live and how he will die and this project he carries in his head is called his scenario according psychologists. Perhaps his current actions obey to reason but all the important decisions are already made. This scenario conceived in the early childhood under the parents pressure seems thus to be the destiny of the major part of human beings.

Some researches prove the direct influence of heridity on the human nature, and others ones tell the contrary. But what is sure is that some psychic dispositions and talents transmit themselves through heridity (Jean Sebastian Bach’s family is a famous example with 13 talentuous musicians on 5 generations). If some features of character are modifiable by the means of education, one note also that a strong predisposition for genius or crime comes out in any circumstances, despite any efforts of education.

Since more than two thousands years, men try to divide themselves into several groups, typifying them according physical, psychic and spiritual characteristics for a better understanding of their capacities, trying by this way to guess their destiny.

It is not the aim here to tell about psychiatric or psychanalistic theories because really it is not the place, so we will restrict ourselves to tell about two simple and accessible doctrines for all: the "four tempers" (Antiquity) and the " ideal eternal types" (the twentieth century).

The Wises of Antiquity put the human temper in relation with the doctrine of the four moods. They conceived temper as an individual predisposition, as an expression of the prevalence of one of the four tempers of the body who give his own physical and psychic structure to a person and predispose him/her to unquestionable disease. They were referenced as follows:

– the quick-tempered (bile, element Fire)

– the fiery one (blood, element Air)

– the phlegmatic one (phlegma, element Water)

– the melancholic one (black bile, element Earth)

The psychic predispositions and the type of will were distinguished according their intensity and their reaction as follows:

– for the quick-tempered one: a fast and durable reaction to external stimuli,

– for the fiery one: a rapid reaction but really superficial one,

– for the phlegmatic one: a slow and weak reaction,

– for the melancholic one: a durable and very deep reaction.

Daily experience however seems to give reason to the considerations of the doctrine of the four tempers. Everyone knows a quick-tempered person explosive, violent, prompt to release of his/her feelings and to discharge himself/herself such a summer storm. Or the fiery one, largely opened to the impressions of life, whose enthusiasm gets heat and cold at the same speed; the phlegmatic one, impassible who is disburbed by nothing; or the melancholic one for whom the blow of a pin changes life into a catastrophe and who feels intensely the sufferings of the world .

We find into the zodiacal signs some precise analogies of these four main tempers.

After the general aptitudes of the doctrine of the four tempers, it is appropriate now to examine the doctrine of the eternal ideal types studied by the german philosopher and educationalist, German Edouard Spranger (1882-1963).

First, Spranger sets that any individual lives in a determined environment composed of a natural one created by the nature and a cultural one built by men. He divides the cultural values into six categories corresponding to the following types of characters:

– the Theorist: he is characterized by his orientation towards abstraction. Any feeling, desire, and personal things make part of the background of his personality. It is the effort of objective knowledge which stays at the foreground. he always introduces a systematic though and expresses by this mean objectivity, peremptory necessity, universality, applied logic. He is not interested by economy and he does not feel at ease in its practice. Regarding his social and political activities, he is not very qualified. Regarding the religious field, if he does not believe in divine, he will try the ultimate truth by the way of the research and in case he revealed himself having religious feeling, he will venerate extremely these ultimate truths.

– the Treasurer: in all things he undertakes, it is the utilitarian character which prevails. He sees everything as a means put to the services of his instincts of self-preservation which will help him to impose himself in his constant fight to organize a pleasant and confortable life for himself.
For him, action is not important, only counts the practical result. The aesthetic field is only interesting if it increases his confort. He shows a great importance for policy insofar it concerns economy and finances. He does not care about religion because it not usefull for him.

– the Aesthete: for this type, any event is played on the emotional registry. He is apart from any material form. He is not interested by the incentive for action. He observes the images of life in an attitude of contemplation and pleasure. He is rather far away from the theorist and the treasurer characters: he does not include/understand the mental and abstracted activities and has no interest for practical and utilitarian ideas. Regarding the social field,
he is characterized by his inaptitude for knowing the necessary interests and the needs that requires reality. Regarding policy, he militates for the greatest freedom and he is naturally opposite to any civilian or religious dogmatism.

– the Social man: he is characterized above all by his social attitude towards the others and his unselfishness. He is deprived of all selfishness in all his acts. He is unable to live by himself and so he must live through the others. The theoretical field appears for him too dry and the economic field too selfish. Policy is repugnant to him, he feels himself closed to the type of the religious man because they have in common the same desire for helping people.

– the Politician or the Authoritative man: he is dominated by the conscience of his power, by the ecstasy of power. He wants absolutely to subordinate other men and be ensured of their docility. Only the feeling of power gives a sense to his life. In all fields, he searchs for reinforcing his own power, the aim justifying all means. His deep nature is in complete opposition with the social man. He is not an altruist. He hardly has contacts with religious men because he should have to recognize that a god is more powerful that him, except in the case where religion is for him a pure politic instrument. Aesthetics interests are usefull only for emphasizing his own prestige.

– the Religious man: his mental structure is directed in a permanent way towards the highest experiments which is the only satisfaction for him. Three types of religious men are distinguished:
* the mystic immanent who contemplates and venerates in all things the expression of the divine,
* the transcendent mystic: who scorns that all is terrestrial and turns his mind exclusively to the celestial,
* the dualistic one: who recognizes that a terrestrial is necessary but who distinguishes and separates distinctly the celestial from the terrestrial,
The person of this type allots value to the knowledge itself but in a limited degree because one could never discover the supreme truths, one can only believe in them. He respects the economic necessities but they do not dominate his life. The aesthetics remains important for him because it is the expression of the divine. The Religious man feels closed to the Social man because some purposes are corresponding.

Analysing your social and professional surroundings, you will easily foretell the predispositions of your colleagues, friends and family members. With some patience during the first years of their childhood, also the predispositions of your children and so by extension, their destiny thanks to the understanding of their tempers and type of characters. Only be carefull not to tell them directly your analyse, specially to young people for avoiding to influence their destiny.