Find Your Temperament
A temperament is found by observation, not by a questionnaire. Anthroposophy reads the temperament as the predominance of one member of the fourfold human being: the I in the choleric, the astral body in the sanguine, the etheric body in the phlegmatic, the physical body in the melancholic. Each of these leaves its mark on the body, on movement, on the way an obstacle is met, on the life of interest, and on what the memory keeps. The temperament is read from these five signs together, and the honest reading yields not one temperament but a leading one and a second that colours it.
What to observe
Build and gait. The choleric is compact, often short, and walks as if planting each heel. The sanguine is slender and moves lightly, almost on the toes, with quick eyes. The phlegmatic is rounded, soft, and unhurried. The melancholic is long, thin, a little bowed, with a heavy step and an inclined head. Gait is the most reliable of the signs because it is the least under conscious control.
The obstacle. Something goes wrong: a plan fails, a door is locked, a person refuses. The choleric pushes and, if pushing fails, flares. The sanguine turns to something else within minutes and the obstacle is forgotten. The phlegmatic waits; the obstacle may simply be outlasted. The melancholic takes the obstacle inward and carries it, and it joins the other burdens.
Interest. Notice what happens after an interest is kindled. In the sanguine it burns brightly and briefly, then moves on; a hundred things have been begun. In the choleric it becomes a purpose and is driven through. In the phlegmatic it seldom kindles from outside at all, but once taken up it continues in an even rhythm for years. In the melancholic it deepens and narrows, and the interest becomes a private world.
Memory of feeling. A slight received a year ago. The sanguine has forgotten it. The choleric remembers it as a wrong to be answered. The phlegmatic remembers it without much heat. The melancholic remembers it exactly, with the feeling intact.
Company. In a room of people the choleric organises, the sanguine circulates, the phlegmatic settles into a comfortable corner and is content, and the melancholic observes, feeling both the wish to belong and the distance.
The reading
| Choleric | Sanguine | Phlegmatic | Melancholic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Predominant member | I | Astral body | Etheric body | Physical body |
| Build | Short, compact | Slender, light | Rounded, soft | Tall, thin |
| Walk | Firm, heel first | Springing, quick | Slow, even | Heavy, bowed |
| Obstacle | Attacks it | Leaves it | Outlasts it | Carries it |
| Interest | Purpose | Brief and many | Slow, then lasting | Deep and narrow |
| Feeling remembered | As a wrong | Forgotten | Mildly | Exactly |
Where the signs point the same way, the leading temperament is clear. Where they split, the second temperament is showing. A choleric-melancholic is the person who drives things through and then broods on the cost; a sanguine-phlegmatic takes up many things lightly and is disturbed by none of them. Pure temperaments are rare, and the tradition regards the one-sided temperament as a burden rather than a distinction.
Age corrects the reading
The phase of life carries its own temperament, laid over the individual's: childhood is sanguine, youth choleric, the middle years melancholic, old age phlegmatic. A restless child is not necessarily sanguine; restlessness is the temperament of the age. The individual temperament is what remains once the temperament of the age is subtracted. A phlegmatic child in the sanguine years, or a sanguine elder in the phlegmatic years, stands out; a sanguine child does not.
The four temperaments are worked with, in the Waldorf classroom, from the change of teeth to puberty, the years in which the etheric body has been born and the temperament is most legible. Before seven the temperament is still hidden in the child's imitation of the adults around it; after fourteen the individuality begins to take the temperament in hand.
What is done with the finding
For the adult, self-knowledge of the temperament is the beginning of work on it, and the work proceeds by way of what does not come naturally. The choleric practises letting a situation take its course; the sanguine holds to one object of attention beyond the point where interest fades; the phlegmatic seeks out what disturbs its ease; the melancholic turns outward to the needs of other people. Steiner's six subsidiary exercises, which train thinking, will, feeling, and their balance, are the tradition's general instrument for this, and each temperament finds one of the six hardest. That exercise is the one that matters.