[845] In our age, which has seen the fruits of the French Revolution—“Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”—growing into a broad social movement whose aim is not merely to raise or lower political rights to the same general level, but, more hopefully, to abolish unhappiness altogether by means of external regulations and egalitarian reforms—in such an age it is indeed a thankless task to speak of the complete inequality of the elements composing a nation. Although it is certainly a fine thing that every man should stand equal before the law, that every man should have his political vote, and that no man, through hereditary social position and privilege, should have unjust advantage over his brother, it is distinctly less fine when the idea of equality is extended to other walks of life. A man must have a very clouded vision, or view human society from a very misty distance, to cherish the notion that the uniform regulation of life would automatically ensure a uniform distribution of happiness. He must be pretty far gone in delusion if he imagines that equality of income, or equal opportunities for all, would have approximately the same value for everyone. But, if he were a legislator, what would he do about all those people whose greatest opportunities lie not without, but within? If he were just, he would have to give at least twice as much money to the one man as to the other, since to the one it means much, to the other little. No social legislation will ever be able to overcome the psychological differences between men, this most necessary factor for generating the vital energy of a human society. It may serve a useful purpose, therefore, to speak of the heterogeneity of men. These differences involve such different requirements for happiness that no legislation, however perfect, could afford them even approximate satisfaction. No outward form of life could be devised, however equitable and just it might appear, that would not involve injustice for one or the other human type. That, in spite of this, every kind of enthusiast—political, social, philosophical, or religious—is busily endeavouring to find those uniform external conditions which would bring with them greater opportunities for the happiness of all seems to me connected with a general attitude to life too exclusively oriented by the outer world.
[846] It is not possible to do more than touch on this far-reaching question here, since such considerations lie outside the scope of this book. We are here concerned only with the psychological problem, and the existence of different typical attitudes is a problem of the first order, not only for psychology but for all departments of science and life in which man’s psychology plays a decisive role. It is, for instance, obvious to anyone of ordinary intelligence that every philosophy that is not just a history of philosophy depends on a personal psychological premise. This premise may be of a purely individual nature, and indeed is generally regarded as such if any psychological criticism is made at all. The matter is then considered settled. But this is to overlook the fact that what one regards as an individual prejudice is by no means so under all circumstances, since the standpoint of a particular philosopher often has a considerable following. It is acceptable to his followers not because they echo him without thinking, but because it is something they can fully understand and appreciate. Such an understanding would be impossible if the philosopher’s standpoint were determined only individually, for it is quite certain in that case that he would be neither fully understood nor even tolerated. The peculiarity of the standpoint which is understood and acknowledged by his followers must therefore correspond to a typical personal attitude, which in the same or a similar form has many representatives in a society. As a rule, the partisans of either side attack each other purely externally, always seeking out the chinks in their opponent’s armour. Squabbles of this kind are usually fruitless. It would be of considerably greater value if the dispute were transferred to the psychological realm, from which it arose in the first place. The shift of position would soon show a diversity of psychological attitudes, each with its own right to existence, and each contributing to the setting up of incompatible theories. So long as one tries to settle the dispute by external compromises, one merely satisfies the modest demands of shallow minds that have never yet been enkindled by the passion of a principle. A real understanding can, in my view, be reached only when the diversity of psychological premises is accepted.
[847] It is a fact, which is constantly and overwhelmingly apparent in my practical work, that people are virtually incapable of understanding and accepting any point of view other than their own. In small things a general superficiality of outlook, combined with a none too common forbearance and tolerance and an equally rare goodwill, may help to build a bridge over the chasm which lack of understanding opens between man and man. But in more important matters, and especially those concerned with ideals, an understanding seems, as a rule, to be beyond the bounds of possibility. Certainly strife and misunderstanding will always be among the props of the tragicomedy of human existence, but it is none the less undeniable that the advance of civilization has led from the law of the jungle to the establishment of courts of justice and standards of right and wrong which are above the contending parties. It is my conviction that a basis for the settlement of conflicting views would be found in the recognition of different types of attitude—a recognition not only of the existence of such types, but also of the fact that every man is so imprisoned in his type that he is simply incapable of fully understanding another standpoint. Failing a recognition of this exacting demand, a violation of the other standpoint is practically inevitable. But just as the contending parties in a court of law refrain from direct violence and submit their claims to the justice of the law and the impartiality of the judge, so each type, conscious of his own partiality, should refrain from heaping abuse, suspicion, and indignity upon his opponent.
[848] In considering the problem of typical attitudes, and in presenting them in outline, I have endeavoured to direct the eye of my readers to this picture of the many possible ways of viewing life, in the hope that I may have contributed my small share to the knowledge of the almost infinite variations and gradations of individual psychology. No one, I trust, will draw the conclusion from my description of types that I believe the four or eight types here presented to be the only ones that exist. This would be a serious misconception, for I have no doubt whatever that these attitudes could also be considered and classified from other points of view. Indeed, there are indications of such possibilities in this book, as for instance Jordan’s classification in terms of activity. But whatever the criterion for a classification of types may be, a comparison of the various forms of habitual attitudes will result in an equal number of psychological types.
[849] However easy it may be to regard the existing attitudes from other viewpoints than the one here adopted, it would be difficult to adduce evidence against the existence of psychological types. I have no doubt at all that my opponents will be at some pains to strike the question of types off the scientific agenda, since the type problem must, to say the least of it, be a very unwelcome obstacle for every theory of complex psychic processes that lays claim to general validity. Every theory of complex psychic processes presupposes a uniform human psychology, just as scientific theories in general presuppose that nature is fundamentally one and the same. But in the case of psychology there is the peculiar condition that, in the making of its theories, the psychic process is not merely an object but at the same time the subject. Now if one assumes that the subject is the same in all individual cases, it can also be assumed that the subjective process of theory-making, too, is the same everywhere. That this is not so, however, is demonstrated most impressively by the existence of the most diverse theories about the nature of complex psychic processes. Naturally, every new theory is ready to assume that all other theories were wrong, usually for the sole reason that its author has a different subjective view from his predecessors. He does not realize that the psychology he sees is his psychology, and on top of that is the psychology of his type. He therefore supposes that there can be only one true explanation of the psychic process he is investigating, namely the one that agrees with his type. All other views—I might almost say all seven other views—which, in their way, are just as true as his, are for him mere aberrations. In the interests of the validity of his own theory, therefore, he will feel a lively but very understandable distaste for any view that establishes the existence of different types of human psychology, since his own view would then lose, shall we say, seven-eighths of its truth. For, besides his own theory, he would have to regard seven other theories of the same process as equally true, or, if that is saying too much, at least grant a second theory a value equal to his own.
[850] I am quite convinced that a natural process which is very largely independent of human psychology, and can therefore be viewed only as an object, can have but one true explanation. But I am equally convinced that the explanation of a complex psychic process which cannot be objectively registered by any apparatus must necessarily be only the one which that subjective process itself produces. In other words, the author of the concept can produce only just such a concept as corresponds to the psychic process he is endeavouring to explain; but it will correspond only when the process to be explained coincides with the process occurring in the author himself. If neither the process to be explained, nor any analogy of it, were to be found in the author, he would be confronted with a complete enigma, whose explanation he would have to leave to the man who himself experienced the process. If I have a vision, for instance, no objectively registering apparatus will enable me to discover how it originated; I can explain its origin only as I myself understand it. But in this “as I myself understand it” lies the partiality, for at best my explanation will start from the way the visionary process presents itself to me. By what right do I assume that the visionary process presents itself in the same or a similar way to everyone?
[851] With some show of reason, one will adduce the uniformity of human psychology at all times and places as an argument in favour of this generalization of a subjective judgment. I myself am so profoundly convinced of the uniformity of the psyche that I have even summed it up in the concept of the collective unconscious, as a universal and homogeneous substratum whose uniformity is such that one finds the same myth and fairytale motifs in all corners of the earth, with the result that an uneducated American Negro dreams of motifs from Greek mythology1 and a Swiss clerk re-experiences in his psychosis the vision of an Egyptian Gnostic.2 But this fundamental homogeneity is offset by an equally great heterogeneity of the conscious psyche. What immeasurable distances lie between the consciousness of a primitive, a Periclean Athenian, and a modern European! What a difference even between the consciousness of a learned professor and that of his spousel What, in any case, would our world be like if there existed a uniformity of minds? No, the notion of a uniformity of the conscious psyche is an academic chimera, doubtless simplifying the task of a university lecturer when facing his pupils, but collapsing into nothing in the face of reality. Quite apart from the differences among individuals whose innermost natures are separated by stellar distances, the types, as classes of individuals, are themselves to a very large extent different from one another, and it is to the existence of these types that we must ascribe the differences of views in general.
[852] In order to discover the uniformity of the human psyche, I have to descend into the very foundations of consciousness. Only there do I find that in which all are alike. If I build my theory on what is common to all, I explain the psyche in terms of its foundation and origin. But that does nothing to explain its historical and individual differentiation. With such a theory I ignore the peculiarities of the conscious psyche. I actually deny the whole other side of the psyche, its differentiation from the original germinal state. I reduce man to his phylogenetic prototype, or I dissolve him into his elementary processes; and when I try to reconstruct him again, in the former case an ape will emerge, and in the latter a welter of elementary processes engaged in aimless and meaningless reciprocal activity.
[853] No doubt an explanation of the psyche on the basis of its uniformity is not only possible but fully justified. But if I want to project a picture of the psyche in its totality, I must bear in mind the diversity of psyches, since the conscious individual psyche belongs just as much to a general picture of psychology as does its unconscious foundation. In my construction of theories, therefore, I can, with as much right, proceed from the fact of differentiated psyches, and consider the same process from the standpoint of differentiation which I considered before from the standpoint of uniformity. This naturally leads me to a view diametrically opposed to the former one. Everything which in that view was left out of the picture as an individual variant now becomes important as a starting-point for further differentiations; and everything which previously had a special value on account of its uniformity now appears valueless, because merely collective. From this angle I shall always be intent on where a thing is going to, not where it comes from; whereas from the former angle I never bothered about the goal but only about the origin. I can, therefore, explain the same psychic process with two contradictory and mutually exclusive theories, neither of which I can declare to be wrong, since the rightness of one is proved by the uniformity of the psyche, and the rightness of the other by its diversity.
[854] This brings us to the great difficulty which the reading of my earlier book3 only aggravated, both for the scientific public and for the layman, with the result that many otherwise competent heads were thrown into confusion. There I made an attempt to present both views with the help of case material. But since reality neither consists of theories nor follows them, the two views, which we are bound to think of as divided, are united within it. Each is a product of the past and carries a future meaning, and of neither can it be said with certainty whether it is an end or a beginning. Everything that is alive in the psyche shimmers in rainbow hues. For anyone who thinks there is only one true explanation of a psychic process, this vitality of psychic contents, which necessitates two contradictory theories, is a matter for despair, especially if he is enamoured of simple and uncomplicated truths, incapable maybe of thinking both at the same time.
[855] On the other hand, I am not convinced that, with these two ways of looking at the psyche—the reductive and constructive as I have called them4—the possibilities of explanation are exhausted. I believe that other equally “true” explanations of the psychic process can still be put forward, just as many in fact as there are types. Moreover, these explanations will agree as well or as ill with one another as the types themselves in their personal relations. Should, therefore, the existence of typical differences of human psyches be granted—and I confess I see no reason why it should not be granted—the scientific theorist is confronted with the disagreeable dilemma of either allowing several contradictory theories of the same process to exist side by side, or of making an attempt, foredoomed at the outset, to found a sect which claims for itself the only correct method and the only true theory. Not only does the former possibility encounter the extraordinary difficulty of an inwardly contradictory “double-think” operation, it also contravenes one of the first principles of intellectual morality: principia explicandi non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.5 But in the case of psychological theories the necessity of a plurality of explanations is given from the start, since, in contrast to any other scientific theory, the object of psychological explanation is consubstantial with the subject: one psychological process has to explain another. This serious difficulty has already driven thoughtful persons to remarkable subterfuges, such as the assumption of an “objective intellect” standing outside the psychic process and capable of contemplating the subordinate psyche objectively, or the similar assumption that the intellect is a faculty which can stand outside itself and contemplate itself. All these expedients are supposed to create a sort of extra-terrestrial Archimedean point by means of which the intellect can lift itself off its own hinges. I understand very well the profound human need for convenient solutions, but I do not see why truth should bow to this need. I can also understand that, aesthetically, it would be far more satisfactory if, instead of the paradox of mutually contradictory explanations, we could reduce the psychic process to the simplest possible instinctive foundation and leave it at that, or if we could credit it with a metaphysical goal of redemption and find peace in that hope.
[856] Whatever we strive to fathom with our intellect will end in paradox and relativity, if it be honest work and not a petitio principii in the interests of convenience. That an intellectual understanding of the psychic process must end in paradox and relativity is simply unavoidable, if only for the reason that the intellect is but one of many psychic functions which is intended by nature to serve man in constructing of his images of the objective world. We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only a half-truth, and must, if it is honest, also admit its inadequacy.
[857] To deny the existence of types is of little avail in the face of the facts. In view of their existence, therefore, every theory of psychic processes has to submit to being evaluated in its turn as itself a psychic process, as the expression of a specific type of human psychology with its own justification. Only from these typical self-representations of the psyche can the materials be collected which will co-operate to form a higher synthesis.