QUOTES VII
Quotations about
THE FOLK PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONALITY
-about 'components of personhood',
as registered in everyday language
IN ORDINARY LANGUAGE, WE TALK OF PEOPLE AS
HAVING A MIND, A HEART, A SOUL,
A SPIRIT, A WILL AND A CONSCIENCE. FURTHER,
WE QUALIFY SUCH TALK BY ADJECTIVES: FOR EXAMPLE, A PERSON'S MIND
MAY BE 'FINE' OR 'FEEBLE', AND HIS HEART [IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL
SENSE] MAY BE 'WARM' OR 'COLD.' DOUBTLESS SOME PEOPLE PREFER TO
AVOID SOME OF THESE TERMS BECAUSE OF THEIR RELIGIOUS OR ESSENTIALIST
OVERTONES; AND DOUBTLESS THERE IS LITTLE EXPRESS AGREEMENT AS
TO WHAT IS THE PRECISE DISTINCTION (IF ANY) BETWEEN, SAY, SOUL
AND SPIRIT. NEVERTHELESS, COMPARABLE TERMS EXIST IN OTHER EUROPEAN
LANGUAGES; SO IT SEEMS WORTH ASKING WHETHER AND HOW THESE SIX
'COMPONENTS OF PERSONHOOD' MIGHT RELATE TO THE SIX MAIN DIMENSIONS
OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES (E.G. AS IDENTIFIED IN QUOTES
III).
By 'folk psychology' is usually meant the ways
in which everyday language allows us to describe each other and
our doings as people. 'People' distinctively have thoughts and
feelings: they are not just physical objects in particular
spatio-temporal locations; nor do they exist only as objects having
special value to others-in virtue perhaps of their humour,
irascibility, industriousness, noisiness, bizarre mannerisms,
brute strength, sensory limitations or sexual attractiveness.
'Folk psychology' furnishes the concepts for our implicit theory
(or at least set of understandings) that people are conscious
subjects of experience; and that people differ from
each other in terms of motives, feelings, intentions and expectations.
The quotations in this Section are chiefly intended to illustrate
some special features of how people find themselves described
by their peers and professional writers today. (Remarks about
well-known people are especially included, thus letting consideration
go beyond the more mundane personality variations that necessarily
dominate empirical psychology in a democratic age.) The main interest
of the quotes to students of personality will lie in the degree
to which traditional terms for:
(i) psychometricians' traits ('traditional dimensions of
personality' (tdp's))
and
(ii) high-level folk abstractions ('traditional components
of personhood' (tcp's)
[ 'the mind', 'the heart', 'the soul', 'the spirit', 'the will'
and 'the conscience']
are still in active use in newspapers, magazines, biographies
and literature. (Folk terms are even used by psychologists when
writing about their friends and colleagues as friends and
colleagues). However, a particular organisation of the quotations
into sub-sections is provided, intended to suggest links to the
'scientific' approaches to personality covered in Quotes III ('Dimensions
of personality').
Psychologists have often thought they might set aside the everyday
language of personality. Its complexities and unexplained conventions
often seem to invite pruning. Some philosophers seem to accept
Wittgenstein's claim that what were once considered philosophical
problems about 'the mind' are little but linguistic confusions.
- So why not reach for Occam's razor?
The leading psychometrician-psychologist, Raymond Cattell [b.
1905 in Devon and doing his Ph.D. research under Charles Spearman
before emigrating to the USA], was always especially eager that
the personality traits which he claimed to recover from testees
in factor analysis should not be confused with the traits of ordinary
language. Thus he christened many of his traits with names like
premsia (for 'tender-mindedness'), harria (for 'adventuresomeness')
and protension' (i.e. projected tension-a psychoanalytic
interpretation of what the layman might call 'cynicism, realism
or suspicion of others'). However, even Cattell's many sympathisers
in the London School of psychology were not to be persuaded to
embrace his neologisms. (This is one reason why Cattell's system
came to be neglected in favour of the superficially somewhat different
dimensions proposed by McCrae and Costa through the 1980's-see
Quotes III. Another reason was the dauntingly multivariate nature
of Cattell's whole scheme.)
Other disagreements with folk psychology have been pursued by
latter-day social psychologists. They have believed that personalities
(if 'personality' exists at all-see Quotes I) are largely 'social
constructions' having little biological or other reality. To such
psychologists, dispositional terms seem to be derived largely
from cultural 'games' played in the medium of language. However,
such 'constructivist' views do not account for the fact that similar
constellations of traits and readily inter-translatable trait
terms are found in different cultures and languages; or for the
empirical similarities in rated personality between separated
identical twins and the large empirical differences found between
unrelated adoptees growing up in the same family. {These matters
have all been aired in Quotes I-VI, though Sections II and V perhaps
provided the stronger 'scientific' objections to constructivist
(and kindred 'deconstructivist') notions.}
Except for the acceptance of a little Freudian jargon, ordinary-language-
psychology has proved remarkably uncompromising with expert psychology
through the twentieth century. As the quotations illustrate, folk
psychology's terms for personality are alive and well; and the
expectations of Lady Wootton and others in the 1960's that society
might increasingly doubt or at least set aside people's traditionally-assumed
freedom and responsibility for their behaviour have been largely
frustrated {see also Quotes XXVIII}. Cognitive psychologists have
lately aspired to 'model' consciousness, expectancy, creativity,
repression, self-deception, unconscious motivation-processes previously
abjured by psychologists and left to laymen and psychoanalysts.
So is it perhaps time to try to reconcile differential psychology
with folk psychology - perhaps to the benefit of both?
At present there would seem to be three main obstacles to such
a reconciliation, but there are also signs that the obstacles
might eventually be surmounted.
(1) The first problem is the understandable, boyish 'elitism'
of psychologists and their wish to use science break free of the
shackles of traditional religious, philosophical and psychiatric
approaches to personhood. Surely the scientist can grasp unaided
what are the differences between us that yield individual personalities?
Hans Eysenck's earlier work is a good example of such ambition.
In rejecting standard verbal psychotherapy, Eysenck rebelled against
psychiatry, psychoanalysis and what would become mainstream clinical
psychology. In the 1950's, he hoped that the theoretical concepts
of neuroticism/anxiety, extraversion, radicalism and tough-mindedness
(drawn from Freud, Jung, Cyril Burt and William James) would-in
combination with behaviourist interpretations of them (e.g. as
dimensions of 'drive' or 'conditionability')-furnish an account
of the basic 'structure of personality'. In contrast to Eysenck,
Raymond Cattell began his search for the dimensions of personality
by the language-respecting techniques of scouring Roget's Thesaurus
to find all the personality terms available. Cattell then
had subjects rate acquaintances (using the more neutral and intelligible
terms) to see how these ordinary-language concepts were actually
used. In fact, the approaches of Eysenck and Cattell were in many
ways complementary. By different routes, both came to believe
in the over-arching importance of the broad variables of intelligence,
neuroticism/anxiety, and extraversion/exvia - though
Cattell always insisted on the more fundamental 'reality' of many
further smaller, intercorrelated traits. However, as attempts
to spell out any underlying scientific 'psychology' of neuroticism
and extraversion ran into the sand (see e.g. H.J.Eysenck,
ed., 1981, A Model for Personality; Brand, 1983, Behav.
Res. & Ther.; Brand, 1997 in H. Nyborg, Dimensions
of Personality II), Cattell's approach came to seem increasingly
attractive. If differential psychologists could not yet have a
secure, scientific psychology of personality dimensions, they
might as well make sure they were at least working with the correct
dimensions in the first place! Thus the 1980's saw renewed efforts-first
in the USA, then increasingly in Holland, Germany, Belgium and
Russia-to examine how trait terms are used by ordinary people
and to ensure that modern differential psychology would not be
frankly dimension-starved. The question was whether to stick with
the original 'Big Three' broad, independent dimensions (including
intelligence) from psychometric antiquity; or whether to
back Eysenck's long-standing "Gigantic Three"-or Four,
including g-which by then included Psychoticism [psychopathy
vs superego] as a personality dimension. Evidently,
today, the desire to work with dimensions that are promised to
be scientifically explicable has taken a back seat to an empirical
realism admitting there has always been more in folk-psychology
than strict scientific rigour had admitted. (For examples of today's
preferences for some five or six main personality dimensions,
see European Journal of Personality 8 (1994), No. 4, or
Psychologica Belgica 34 (1994), No. 4.)
(2) A second, quite different obstacle to any reconciliation of
psychometric and plebeian approaches to personality is that psychometry
has sometimes seemed to be rather more discriminating than
is everyday 'person-perception'. Typically, today, psychometricians
manage to recover around six independent dimensions of difference
between people {see Quotes III}:
general intelligence / general cognitive capacity
neuroticism / emotionality / changeableness / sensibility
affection / tender-mindedness / openness / intuition
extraversion / energy / surgency / sociability
will / independence / disagreeableness / assertiveness
control / conscientiousness / obsessionality
In contrast, studies of 'person perception' by ordinary people
(when they rate trait levels in others) cannot be relied upon
to yield (via correlations between traits) more than three
broad dimensions of perceived difference. These were first discovered
by the American social psychologist, Charles Osgood (e.g. P.B.
Warr & C. Knapper, 1968, The Perception of People and Events,
London, Wiley DePublisher):
Evaluation (good, wise, reliable vs bad, silly,
fickle)
Potency (strong, firm, tough vs soft, sensitive,
feminine)
Active (noisy, quick, moving vs quiet, still, restrained).
However, this difference between the dimensions that appear in
work on personality and on 'person perception' is not really as
big as it seems, for two particular reasons.
(i) The psychometric 'Big Six' may be conceptualized as elaborations
on [or, if preferred, the realities behind] Osgood's socio-cognitive
'Big Three', perhaps as follows:
Evaluation = g versus n
Potency = w versus a
Activity = e versus c
{See Quotes III and Brand, 1994, Europ. J. Personality)
for a discussion.}
(ii) Fewer dimensions are usually found in raters of mediocre
intelligence who themselves are rating 'target' persons of similar
intelligence who are not well known to them (e.g. Brand, 1984,
Psychol. Survey 5; Smelyov et al., 1993, Europ.J.Personality.).
Such unhelpful conditions of 'visibility' are inadequate to allow
registration of the more subtle distinctions between people. {See
also Brand, 1994, Acta Psychol. Belgica.}
Today there is little doubt that both person perception ratings
and psychologists' questionnaires will in fact deliver the 'Big
Five-or-Six' dimensions under conditions of good 'visibility'.
And the idea that there are at least some six main, broad, distinguishable
psychological dimensions will probably not upset anyone who has
nosed around a Thesaurus or thought about the ways in which people
are described by journalists and novelists. The following Table
sets out the 'Big Six' so as to suggest Thesaurus categories that
might be capturing something of the six dimensions' wider meaning.
******************************************************************************************
Do the 'Big Six' dimensions of personality make their appearance
in everyday personality descriptions?
Titles (and abbreviations and examples) Titles for the
for the purpose of putatively corresponding
the present Section. psychometric dimension
in the 'Big Six'.
{See Quotes III}
reason (rnn) intelligence, perspicacity, general intelligence,
mental capacity cognitive ability
passion (pn) feeling, changeableness, neuroticism,
emotionality,
sentience excitability
imagination (in) sensitivity, sympathy, affection,
openness, tender-
understanding, intuition mindedness, idealism
energy (en) exuberance, enthusiasm extraversion,
surgency,
vitality, cheerfulness sociability, jocularity
determination (dn) initiative, severity, will, disagreeableness,
wilfulness, dominance independence, analyticity
caution (cn) carefulness, forethought, conscience,
obsessionality,
diligence, probity, propriety control, conservatism
******************************************************************************************
The 'Big Six' (now surely 'traditional') dimensions of personality
(tdp's) are used later as sub-headings under which to organise
the quotations. There is a lot more to folk descriptions of individual
personality than the 'Big Six'. Notably, there are many idiosyncratic
'interaction effects' in human development-perhaps especially
the individuality-yielding multiplicative interactions between
genes themselves {see Quotes V and XVII}. Yet the 'Big Six' are
broad ways in which people can be compared quite apart from the
many very particular, idiographic details of their own individuality
and unique experiences. These six dimensions may be thought to
allow identification of the borders of the jigsaw of personality,
thus making progress towards the centre easier in due course.
The first half of the quotations shows how reference to the 'Big
Six' does crop up in journalistic writing today. - Even including
such a 'politically incorrect' variable as intelligence makes
an appearance.
(3) The third problem in the way of any reconciliation of psychometric
and plebeian psychology is that folk psychology has habits that
official psychologists find alarming. According to folk psychology,
virtually all people are deemed to 'have' or 'possess' [unless,
very occasionally, they have 'lost' them] at least some variant
of each of six hypothetical traditional components of personhood
(tcp's) :
a mind
a heart
a soul
a spirit
a will
a conscience.
These hypothetical entities can seem to have much overlap among
themselves, and with the still larger concept of the entire 'SELF'.
Moreover, it may seem hard to tell the difference between some
of them-e.g. between 'the soul' and 'the spirit'.
Nevertheless, consideration of how these components are used in
English reveals many interesting differences. To be 'mindless'
and 'heartless' are plainly quite different; and few would prefer
the mere dejection of 'spiritlessness' to the borderline-inhumanity
of 'soullessness'. 'Will-lessness' is apparently not allowed
of people: in folk psychology we are all deemed to act freely
[i.e. voluntarily, with volition] except under the constraints
of mindlessness and, possibly, gross intimidation or physical
coercion. However, people may differ in 'will-power', and
thus in being 'wilful' as opposed to 'willing'. For its part,
the conscience is the one of the six that is most conspicuously
soluble in alcohol. Adjectives that can be applied to some tcp's
cannot be applied to others; and, as can be observed, common phrases
and constructions that involve one of the six can seldom involve
others. Below are some examples of usage in which one of the tcp's
could not be replaced, apparently, by most of the others.
******************************************************************************************
The distinct linguistic usage of the six tcp dimensions
-
the mind, the heart, the soul,
the spirit, the will and the conscience.
(i) The mind can be 'broad' [broad-minded],
'fine', 'coarse', 'active', 'high', 'well-stocked', 'vacant',
'small', 'sluggish' 'closed', 'penetrating' and 'narrow'. I can
mind my sister's baby, or my own business; I can mind out, make
my mind up, find things not to my mind, be in two minds, be in
a particular state of mind, bear something in mind, mind my P's
and Q's, picture a scene in my mind's eye, and waste my mind on
trivial problems. 'To mind' can be to attend actively or to have
a pre-considered, crystallized opinion. The mind is the faculty
of thought and belief-usually seen as distinct from feeling.
(ii) The heart can be 'hard', 'stout', 'faint',
'warm', 'big', 'pure', 'soft' and 'broken'. I can lose my heart
to someone, learn by heart, be wild-at-heart or young-at-heart,
search my heart (to see if I don't really have some prejudice
or other), take something to heart, be a hearty (giving ready
expression to the more primitive instincts and sentiments), find
my heart in my mouth, believe another's heart to be in the right
place, wear my heart on my sleeve, take heart, confide the content
of my heart-of-hearts, mess with another's heart-strings, and
get to the heart of the matter. Evidently 'the heart' is, at least
metaphorically, the seat of our emotional, instinctual and automatic
reactions. It is the faculty of feeling; and, though it may require
the assistance of other faculties (to yield such crucial interactions
as those involved in 'resilience' and 'courage'-in which people
overcome and even use emotions which they would
rather not experience), heartlessness is not to be preferred.
(iii) Perhaps because of having been monopolized by religion,
the soul-the immaterial part of us that religious
thought deems subject to salvation (or even damnation)-is mentioned
less often. But this is not the only reason. The soul's importance
can be seen precisely in our reluctance to discuss the state of
others' 'souls': for to be lacking in soul, to have lost (or sold)
one's soul, or to be soulless are morally debased conditions.
To be 'the soul of X' is to be 'X personified', i.e. the
true X, what X is really like-for all that X's mind
and conscience may sometimes mislead observers. Thus to be soulless
is to lack the most vital ingredient of personhood. And what is
the most important thing about a person if not what (and whom)
they love and hate -i.e. what they really care about? There
are thus two sides to this coin. More commonly, we are likely
to say that someone is 'a kindly soul', 'a gentle soul, 'an honest
soul'; but there are 'lost souls' too-people whose experience
of life has been so unfortunate (perhaps because of mistakes that
were their own, but nevertheless....) that they are either so
embittered and revengeful or have, as it were, switched off the
easily bruised capacity for love and acceptance, the soul. - All
this may seem speculative by scientific standards and is now perhaps
best left to the quotations themselves. At least: the 'soul' term
does still occur; and 'the soul' does seem to be
held to house the affections that result from the deployment of
intelligent imagination; and perhaps it thus houses the outcomes
of our affection and idealism-including whether our fondest imaginings
have proved mere fantasy. Though little used in English today,
'the soul' probably still refers to whatever is the true, vital,
essential principle of our being. Modern sensibility may
dispute its immortality, but the soul goes marching on.
(iv) The concept of spirit seems easier to grasp
because of its common use-as in 'spirited' and 'with spirit'-to
refer to liveliness and elation as opposed to sobriety and dejection.
A person's spirit can be 'willing' (even if the flesh is weak),
'restless', 'determined', 'enterprising', 'wayward', 'free', 'generous'
or 'mean'; and people's spirits can be high or low, and be raised
or lowered. The spirit of the law is what is really intended;
we can 'get into the spirit' of a gathering; and a spiritless
performance is one lacking in vitality. Altogether it seems clear
that 'spirit' is meant to refer to some fundamental animating
principle of a person; spirit has a strong connection with basic
biological energy and vigour; and, unlike the soul, it can have
a quasi-physical status independent of the body-and thus 'appear'
as a ghost. At the same time, precisely because the spirit involves
the harnessing and direction of energy, and because this process
will yield an immediate external expression of the rest of the
self, 'a person's own spirit' often refers to that particular
person's highly individual orchestration, energizing and activation
of many aspects of aspiration, belief and values-and of the mind,
the heart, the soul, the will and the conscience.
(v) As already mentioned above, the will is the
most difficult to 'lose' of all the tcp's. Unwilled behavioural
responses (essentially mere movements) are those of automata,
insane or otherwise. 'Will' seems to exist necessarily
when processes of reason and intelligence furnish adumbrations
of the passions and suggest possible strategies for achieving
one's objectives. Volition is the result of weighing competing
passions, reasons and arguments. What one decides to do is a question
of which way the balance tips. One cannot 'decide' to want anything;
one can only want something (more or less 'passionately') and
find oneself selecting the most reasonable means of achieving
it. How, then, can some people be relatively wilful, strong-willed,
intent on having their will, and resolved to do things 'at their
own sweet will'; while other people seem better described as willing,
more persuasible to do things 'against their will', and
just plain weak-willed? It is as if, once the balance tips
in favour of some course of action, and once this course is the
one I intend to take, there is a multiplying factor-differing
between individuals (and never having the value of zero or less)
which produces different levels of determination and tenacity
in different people. It is perhaps such a multiplying factor,
when it is relatively large, that prevents established purposes
from unravelling in the course of newly encountered impulses and
obstacles. It is as if, in strong-willed people, the mere fact
that they have first set out on Path A constitutes a further
pressure towards continuing to choose Path A. Such tenacity
will ensure, over time, a relatively high degree of individuality,
initiative and obstinacy: such a person's behaviour will be harder
to predict merely from local incoming, external stimuli. The will
is the faculty of deciding what to do-but some people bring a
lot more (by way of previously established purposes) to throw
into the balances than do others. {For a full discussion of the
will and volition, see A.Kenny, 1989, The Metaphysics of Mind,
O.U.P.}
(vi) Unlike the mind, the heart, the soul and the spirit, 'the
will' does not receive much mention in the Bible. (It was first
conceptualized by St Augustine as a way of explaining how, despite
supposed divine omnipotence, we are all free either to accept
divine revelation or to reject it.) The conscience, the
hypothetical faculty of distinguishing right from wrong (and altering
our conduct accordingly), was a still later addition to the Christian
corpus of tcp's-probably attributable to theologians of
the eighteenth-century Scottish Kirk who wanted to insist that
each person would be able (with only the extra help of scripture)
to work out moral truth without needing priests and bishops. (Subsequently
the notion that we all have a conscience of some kind was to receive
a particular boost from Freud's concept of a superego that
internalizes (in somewhat primitive, inarticulate and unconscious
ways) the sexual prohibitions etc. that emanated classically from
a child's same-sexed parent.) Whether conscience allows easy reading
of divine injunctions, parental injunctions, or just vivid recall
of the many expectations that one has oneself led others to have
of one, it has its own distinctive linguistic usages that once
more distinguish it from other tcp's. The conscience can
'nag' or 'prick' me, and just 'not let me' act in particular ways;
it can be 'clear', 'guilty', 'bad', 'demanding', 'exacting', 'non-conformist'
or 'tender'; and I can 'have X on my conscience', 'have a conscience
about X' (i.e. be conscious of the poor moral character of my
own past action), do something (e.g. repent) 'for conscience'
sake', pay conscience money, ask for a 'conscience clause' to
be inserted in a Bill, and listen to the still, small, voice of
conscience'-"the stern daughter of the voice of God".
Once more, English usage makes it plain that this tcp is
distinct, and not just another term for 'the mind' or 'the person'.
******************************************************************************************
All told, then, the six tcp's provide the concepts
for what may seem to the psychometrician a pretty exuberant 'personality
theory'. Even if little evidence-except perhaps that of divine
revelation-'supports' them, they have an embarrassingly 'psychological'
look when compared with the dimensions of conventional psychometry.
The prosaic claim in the case of each of the six tcp's
would be simply that we differ in the strength of the named metaphorical
entity in such a way as to yield final differences between us
of the dimensional type. (How psychometricians would love to name
the entity, system, mental process or whatever that yields individual
differences in intelligence or extraversion!)
Yet need the tcp's be derided as embarrassingly dotty or
of merely theological provenance just so as to cover psychology's
shame at its own modest achievements? Arguably not! Perhaps
enough has been said already about the apparent meaning of
Mind, Heart, Soul, Spirit,
Will and Conscience
to have sketched in the possibility that-like 'the mind' and its
crystallized intelligence (gc) in relation to fluid intelligence
(gf)-each other tcp, too, might be considered the
crystallized product (over the course of development, for we do
not seem to talk of them in children) of the work of a corresponding
basic, 'fluid' tdp
g, n, a, e, w and c
in combination with individual opportunities and particular
experiences? Whether such a general suggestion is at all likely
to be along the right lines can now be left to the reader's own
familiarity with linguistic usage, to the quoted writers in the
second half of this section of quotes, and to the ever-present
prospect of further research in person perception. - Soon the
bankruptcy of modern 'cognitive science' and its failure to complete
psychology's break with behaviourism will sink in. Then, workers
already interested in tdp's will surely realize the possibility
of investigating empirically present-day usage (at least by psychology
students and the usual kinds of volunteer in such studies) of
the tcp terms mind, heart, soul, spirit, will and conscience
and the equivalent metaphors in other European languages.
(i) Apparent everyday references to the 'Big Six' personality
dimensions
Intelligence, Emotionality, Affection, Exvia, Independence
and Control
alias
Reason, Passion, Imagination, Energy, Determination and Caution.
Sympathy
rnn pn in en dn cn
in everyday descriptions by writers, journalists and psychologists.
{The Quotes are assigned primarily as mentioning one of the
'Big Six' dimensions. Mentions of other dimensions are indicated
by use of the above symbols rnn etc.}
******************************************************************************************
The 'Big Six' dimensions of personality make their appearance
in everyday (journalistic) personality descriptions?
- A REMINDER of the 'Big Six' dimensions
Titles (and abbreviations) Titles for the
for the purpose of putatively corresponding
the present Section. psychometric dimension
in the 'Big Six'.
{See Quotes III}
reason (rnn) intelligence, perspicacity, general
intelligence,
mental capacity cognitive ability
passion (pn) feeling, changeableness, neuroticism,
emotionality,
sentience excitability
imagination (in) sensitivity, sympathy, affection,
openness, tender-
understanding, intuition mindedness, idealism
energy (en) exuberance, enthusiasm extraversion,
surgency,
vitality, cheerfulness sociability, jocularity
determination (dn) initiative, severity, will,
disagreeableness,
wilfulness, dominance independence, analyticity
caution (cn) carefulness, forethought, conscience,
obsessionality,
diligence, probity, propriety control, conservatism
******************************************************************************************
reason (rnn) intelligence, perspicacity, general
intelligence,
mental capacity cognitive ability
"Gerard Depardieu plays Danton; he is a bovine and sometimes
slack- jawed actor who looks here as if he has spent the night
crawling through a cornfield. But his physical presence tends
to conceal the intelligence which he invests in each part, and
so he is perfectly suited to play a character whose animal cunning
is only matched by his sensual greed."
P.ACKROYD, 1983, The Spectator, 24 ix.
"[The Black American writer, James] Baldwin's flirtation
with the Black Panthers did not last long. His intelligence is
too delicate and subtle for that."
The Times, Profile of J.B. 2 viii 1984.
"A human disposal chute for uppers, downers, hash, grass,
LSD, cocaine, heroin and common-or-garden booze, [Keith Richards,
of the 'Rolling Stones'] has not been kind to his system. Yet
somehow he has survived a ten-year heroin odyssey and is now 'clean'.
This reflects a certain constitutional toughness, but also an
intelligence and good sense he is not often credited with."
ANON., 1985, The Spectator, 18 v.
"Mr Schwarzenegger (ex-Mr World, Mr Olympia and Mr Universe),
now 38, has the brains that go with the body beautiful.... [Once
TV show hostess] Barbara Walters let it be known that she wished
'the hulk' had not been brought along for an interview. "Well,
I had to prove that bodybuilders were not all low foreheads",
he says with a chuckle. But by the end of the programme, his charms
had won both Miss Walters and the audience over, and largely through
his sense of humour."
Jean VALLELY, 1986, News of the World Supplement, 31 viii.
"....Baudelaire's critical sense was as strong as his creative,
if the two can be meaningfully separated. What intelligent, unprejudiced
taste he had, what a breadth of sensibility!.... Of course, he
was impossible: vain, self-centred, irresponsible, paranoid. His
mother was his excuse - one which he exploited up to the hilt."
R.CHRISTIANSEN, 1994, The Spectator, 26 iii.
{+So}
"Intelligence, without which beauty was just beauty, leavened
everything Garbo did. "Don't act, think!" F.W.Murnau
once declared. That was what elevated Garobo's eroticism, along
with something more metaphysical-her soul."
Barry PARIS, 1995, Garbo: a Biography. London : Sidgwick
& Jackson.
passion (pn) feeling, changeableness, neuroticism,
emotionality
sentience excitability
"Passion is the element in which we live; without it we but
vegetate."
BYRON.
"[Rebecca West] had a large and healthy appetite for life....
{But, even when honoured, she felt} she had been hard done by,
by men in particular. She was mildly paranoiac, scenting conspiracies,
and the words 'mad' and 'evil' frequently cropped up [in her conversation]....
She had the tragic sense of life in large measure.... She was
a woman of enormous intelligence."
Terence de Vere WHITE, 1983, The Spectator, 19 iii.
"[I put] a lot of warmth, passion, feeling [into my business]."
Freddie LAKER, 1983, BBC IV UK, 15 iii.
{+ rnn + in}
"Most of all I remember [Martina Navratilova's] discussion
- about domestic affairs, everything - with a Harvard Law School
graduate.... My mouth dropped open. What curiosity and intelligence!
I have a very great affection for her. I remember her weeping
often - she was quite insecure, you know, and easily hurt, as
well as sensitive to others' feelings."
G.FEIFFER, 1984, Sunday Telegraph (Colour Supplement),
1 vii.
"As for Sarah [Churchill].... how could such a majestic woman,
with powerful passions and an august command of language, be so
mean as to question the bill for her husband's funeral? How could
she, blessed with the best of marriages, be so trivial and pathetic
as to keep a notebook listing the petty misdemeanours of her children?
In her way, Sarah [like the first Duke of Malborough] is enigmatic,
a symbol of the waywardness of great spirit."
B.MASTERS, 1984, The Spectator, 22 xii.
imagination (in) sensitivity, sympathy, affection,
openness, understanding, intuition tender- mindedness,
idealism
"Reason is to the imagination as the instrument to the agent,
as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance."
Percy Bysshe SHELLEY, 1821, A Defence of Poetry.
{+ rnn + cn}
"[William Adiseshiah, a psychologist who had worked with
the Ministry of Defence and in educational psychology, was] a
teacher who inspired confidence and affection.... an excellent
an prolific writer [whose writing shows] a vivid imaginative touch
[and ability to illustrate with everyday examples].... [He was]
a most generous and reliable person, ready and anxious to help
others. [Sir Frederic Bartlett, with whom Adiseshiah worked, records
the] "wide range and grasp of his understanding and intelligence,
and an integrity of character that is still cherished at Cambridge.""
J.PARRY, 1980, Obituary for W.Adiseshiah.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 33.
{+ rnn}
"[Erwin Saenger, a member of the Medical Section of the
British Psychology Society, was] a man of original and inventive
thinking. [I admired] his understanding and broad approach, his
ability to listen with a third ear and to share his discoveries
as well those of others, and find new meanings and new perspectives
in people and concepts, ideas, theories and relationships. [He
was] a man of intelligence and deep knowledge who yet was able
to experience and express feeling and whose intuition was of the
rare kind which only children and some great men have at their
disposal."
W.KRAEMER, 1980, Obituary for E.S.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 33.
"[The transcendent character] is that part of the personality
which manifests a sense of faith, hope and optimism undergirded
by patience. The transcendent character's hopes stem not from
illusion, but from trusting with expectation. Idealism is its
axis. Being, in the existential sense, is its goal. It is moral
and uncorruptable."
Leon CHESTANG, 1982, Social Work, v.
energy (en) exuberance, enthusiasm extraversion,
surgency
vitality, cheerfulness sociability, jocularity
"Next to [President Lyndon Johnson's] gift for dealing with
complicated details and cantankerous human beings, vitality is
his great strength. This is one of the odd paradoxes in a very
complex man. He has had a severe heart attack and yet burns up
more energy than a tank.... he allies immense energy to skill
and ideas."
J.RESTON, 1967, Sketches in the Sand. New York : Knopf.
"[Lord Mountbatten, shamelessly vain and ambitious] was propelled
through his life by a boundless energy and capacity for action,
matched by an almost complete incapacity for reflection. [An Admiralty
report on him in 1938 records:] "He possesses a naive simplicity
combined with a compelling manner and dynamic energy.... His social
assets are invaluable in any rank in the Service."
M.HASTINGS, 1985, The Spectator, 16 iii.
"[The Soviet leader and de-Stalinizer, Nikita Khruschev]
had shown from the start that he had a very distinctive manner.
As a matter of fact it was a misleading one, since many seasoned
observers thought at the time that he talked too much, drank too
much, and indeed was a bit of a clown. But this is because he
was a man of immense zest and gregariousness. As the experienced
British journalist Alexander Werth reported of him: 'He was a
man of quite fantastic energy and vitality; He loved travelling
about the country, talking endlessly to peasant meetings, and
going, in the process, into no end of technical details on stock-breeding,
and the growing of various crops."
G.HOSKING, 1985, A History of the Soviet Union.
Harmondsworth : Penguin.
{+ in}
"[Winifred Raphael, a vocational/industrial psychologist
who had remarkable skill at devising tests, was] a woman of quite
unusual energy and breadth of interest. Perhaps her greatest interest
was people - individuals.... people learned from her, the wise,
sympathetic and always friendly person [that she was]."
C.B.FRISBY, 1979, Obituary for W.R.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 32.
"[Neil Kinnock, soon to be Leader of the British Labour Party,
is a man of] charms and dynamism.... He has Welsh Labour windy
eloquence.... He has the required mixture of wit and puritanism....
he has a romantic aura.... When interviewed....his charm and decency
come across." Charles MOORE, 1983, The Spectator,
30 vii.
{+ rnn}
"....it is not possible to think of Richard Burton except
as a bitter loss which the theatre sustained when it could ill
afford to lose an actor of presence, personality and controlled
energy.... an extravert actor, brilliant in technique.... Like
many highly intelligent actors, he had a rooted distrust as well
as love of the stage."
Obituary for R.B. The Times, 6 viii 1984.
{+ in}
"[Arthur Koestler was] electrifying but not at all intimidating....
his outstanding qualities were riveting charm and mental vitality.
[Small, compact and puckish, he was] an insatiably inquisitive
vole.... He had strong opinions. But his curiosity about what
others were doing was itself astonishingly forceful. [Devoid of
small talk, he showed] physical and intellectual fortitude."
Bernard DIXON, c. 1984, New Scientist 97, 10 iii.
"[Professor H. Gwynne Jones'] colleagues greatly enjoyed
his infectious enthusiasm, his administrative skills, and his
good fellowship; they admired his versatility, his excellence
as a communicator or interpreter, his catholic tastes, and his
wit.... He was never bland, but always modest, often low-keyed,
and sometimes impish."
Grace RAWLINGS and A.J.CHAPMAN, 1985, Obituary for H.G.J.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 38.
{ + rnn + dn}
"In public Princess Michael [of Kent] is a dazzling figure.
In private, she is warm, funny, frank and possessed of high intelligence
and formidable energy. Her force of character has been given added
edge by [her unpropitious beginnings - born as the monarchies
of Eastern Europe were collapsing]."
Anne De COURCY, 1985, Sunday Telegraph, 6 i.
"{Why do actors marry each other?} - They have such a strong
life force."
BBC IV UK, 29 viii 1984.
determination (dn) initiative, severity, will, disagreeableness
wilfulness, dominance independence, analyticity
{+rnn +en}
"It is true [as T.Morgan says in his book] that 'to some
of his elders, and still more of his peers, Churchill was an upstart,
a spoiled child, bumptious, bad mannered and bad tempered. He
sulked and stormed and had to be the centre of attention. He was
intolerably conceited, had no principles and bullied those he
worked with.' It is true too that he was an extreme egotist. [How,
then, did Churchill succeed?] Mr Morgan attributes his success
to genius: genius allied to ambition and energy. [But] geniuses
are not welcomed if they are bores. [Mercifully, Churchill] did
not instruct.... As for his interest in himself, I have found
that in many people this is an admirable quality. It is the unselfish
who ultimately get on one's nerves.... Churchill was endearingly
endowed with a highly attractive mixture of curiosity and enthusiasm
- half lion and half child."
Jo GRIMOND, 1983, The Spectator, 30 iv.
{- cn}
"[Mussolini was a showman whose beliefs] shifted from atheism
to catholicism and back to anti-catholicism; and from Marxism
to reactionary capitalism and back to the pseudo-socialism of
his later years.... [He was] a fascinating yet inscrutable personality....
temperamentally averse from friendship, [he was] a forceful personality....
[and] was obviously far more intelligent than his enemies allowed.
[He could] impress almost anyone by sheer charm. Though he possessed
no genuine and consistent beliefs except in his own talent, he
had the superlative gift of making others think he was sincere...
he had a keen sense of political tactics as well as an unusual
intuition for sensing the movement of public opinion, and was
far more understanding of the masses than any of his liberal predecessors....
[With his love of violence and ruthless cruelty] the urge to dominate
was the most important in his psychological make-up."
D. MACK SMITH, 1983, The Spectator, 30 vii.
{+ cn}
"[After the recovery of my father's body from the harbour]
I did what had to be done. I went at once to my father's house
and wakened Denyse (that's my step-mother) and told what had happened.
I don't know what I expected. Hysterics, I suppose. But she took
it with that icy self-control for which I was grateful, because
if she had broken down I think I would have had some sort of collapse
myself. But she was extremely wilful. "I must go to him",
she said. I knew the police would be making their examinations
and tried to persuade her to wait till morning. Not a chance.
Go she would, and at once."
Robertson DAVIES, The Manticore. Harmondsworth : Penguin,
1976.
{- en}
"[Sir Geoffrey Howe is one of the 'survivors' of the present
Government; one remarks] the tenacity he has displayed. [He has]
a broad sense of direction, a steadiness of purpose and impressive
personal resilience.... [He has a] belief in the value of reason
in politics.... His thoughtfulness, intelligence and stamina are
beyond question.... his principal liability is that he is not
exciting."
G.SMITH, 1983, The Times, 15 iii.
{+ en - in}
"....Mrs Thatcher is in most respects a very ordinary woman.
Energy and industry she has in abundance, to be sure, but she
is not particularly intelligent. She is no orator. She has little
imagination, lacks tact and cunning and many routine political
skills. What she undoubtedly possesses is a strong character.
In particular, she combines great courage with sound judgement.
Neither is much use without the other. In combination they are
formidable, and in politics compensate for everything else....
{Nevertheless} for me, I fear, it can never be 'glad confident
morning again'."
Paul JOHNSON, 1983, The Observer, after Mrs Thatcher's
announcement that the National Health Service was 'safe in her
hands'.
{+ en + cn}
"Colleagues who have known [Bernie Spain] at different points
through her life recount continuing themes: gritty common sense,
enthusiasm, perseverance, honesty, a quick and sensitive perception....
She showed an extraordinary tenacity and persistence in following
through what she believed was right."
Heather HUNT and Jane SMITH, 1984,
Obituary for B.S. (a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital).
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 37.
"From our first conversation(1967) to the last, [Charles
Douglas Home, Editor of The Times in the early 1980's,]
was the same man, young, direct, humorous, energetic, serious,
affectionate, loyal, and, above all, courageous."
Sir William REES-MOGG, 1985, Sunday Times, 3 xi.
"He showed great courage in coming from a bogey to six below
par. That's what we expect of a British golfer - courage and character."
BBC IV UK, 18 viii 1984,
{+ rnn}
"[Francis Bacon, the painter] is the strongest-minded man
I know, and devoid of doubt. [Bacon once said] "I never had
love in the whole of my life and what's more I don't want it"....
Lord Gowrie says he is one of the most intelligent men in the
country."
Daniel FARSON, 1985, The Spectator, 11 v.
"[My father, Egon Ronay, is] good at listening and takes
things seriously. I'm relieved that he works less now and is much
happier. He's involved with this Academy of Gastronomes and he
is still writing. He is very strong-willed, with a lot of energy
and is youthful for his age.... He is such a proud man...."
Edina RONAY (fashion designer), 1988,
Sunday Times (Colour Supplement), 17 iv.
"Jimmy [Sir James Goldsmith, entrepreneur, worth about £1
billion] is indomitable. No schoolmaster could ever master him.
No master could persuade him to do what he didn't want to do -
he always did what he liked. He is a very, very strong-willed
person."
Edward Goldsmith (Sir James' brother), interviewed by G.Wansell,
'Growing concerns'. Sunday Times (Magazine), 8 i 1989.
caution (cn) carefulness, forethought, conscience,
obsessionality
diligence, probity, propriety control, conservatism
"[William J. Robertson, who had worked with the Royal Air
Force and later with Local Education Authorities, was] a dedicated
psychologist [who combined] a high degree of professionalism....with
humility and good humour.... [He] made many friends and had wide
interests.... [He was] a practical man....[who had] a sincere
feeling for his fellow men, particularly for those in distress."
D.LAURENCE, 1978, Obituary for W.J.R.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 31.
"[Edinburgh-trained, and having worked with Rowntrees and
the Army, the psychologist Allan Macdonald was] by nature a systematizer....
he had a vision of a firm as businesslike but human.... his capacity
for paperwork was immense.... His prose style was convoluted....but
he never minded fun being poked at his orotundities.... there
was a depth of wisdom which he concealed under an essentially
private mask which was dropped only in the immediate family circle....
[he was friendly but never familiar [and] a good negotiator [with
a gift for making the complex comprehensible.... [he was] a catalyst,
one who provides the soil in which others grow."
T.M.HIGHAM, 1980, Bulletin of the British Psychological Society
33.
{- cn}
"We [in 'The Society' of the Cambridge University 'Apostles'
of the 1930's, several of whose members went on to spy for the
USSR] were the last of the Utopians.... We repudiated all versions
of original sin.... We were not aware that civilisation was a
thin and precious crust....only maintained by rules and conventions
skilfully put across and guilefully preserved."
Michael STRAIGHT, 1982, After Long Silence. London : Collins.
"Mr [Tony] Benn in the Sixties emerges as nice, honest, not
very clever, but full of gimmicky talent."
Roy JENKINS, c. 1988, The Spectator 24 x.
(Reviewing T.Benn, Out of the Wilderness.)
{- dn - en}
"{The conductor, Sir Adrian Boult, was known for his} generosity,
courtesy, restraint, integrity and thoughtfulness. [He did not
like 'driving' the orchestra, imposing his own personality. He
preferred to 'stand in the guard's van', adopting an objective,
thoughtful approach. "A bit on the slow side, eh?" he
once mused. "I thought at the time 'Why don't they get on
with it?'"" From The Spectator, 1983.
(ii) References to the 'Big Six' traditional components of
personhood
******************************************************************************************
- A Reminder of the traditional components
The Mind, the Heart, the Soul, the Spirit, the Will and
Conscience
M H So Sp W C
in (mainly) everyday writing by journalists, novelists
and psychologists.
{The Quotes are assigned primarily as mentioning one of
the 'Big Six' components. Mentions of other components are indicated
by use of the above symbols M etc.}
These 'component' terms ('tcp's) are not uncommonly used
in very abstract and overlapping ways; yet they might each be
hypothesized to have a basis in one of the 'Big Six' traditional
'dimensions' of personality (tdp's), perhaps as follows:
TCP : M H So Sp W C
TDP : rnn pn in en dn cn
'Big 6' : g n a e w c
{See Quotes III for a full presentation of
the 'Big Five-or-Six dimensions of personality.}
******************************************************************************************
The Mind
"All moving beings....can foresee events and
decide on the direction in which to move. This implies they have
minds or souls.
'Sense, sure, you have,
Else you could not have motion.'
Hamlet, Act III, Scene 4
This ability to anticipate and direct movement is the central
principle of the mind. As soon as we have recognized it we can
understand how the mind governs the body: it sets the goals of
movement.... Human beings move more than any other creatures."
Alfred ADLER, 1931, What Life Could Mean to You.
Oxford : Oneworld, 1992.
"Doubtless [Henry Dicks'] cultured cosmopolitan background
contributed to his early interest in psychological medicine, for
his profoundly humanistic concern perpetually directed his interests
to the study of the whole man in his particular culture.... [He
was] a great friend, a brilliant and cultured mind, and a loyal,
consistent ally."
J.D.SUTHERLAND, c. 1982, writing of a former Tavistock
Institute
consultant, Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 31.
"The gifts of self-presentation, rhetoric, public and private
charm, persuasion, panache, assumed humility, feigned arrogance,
high-minded double-dealing, disingenuousness, frankness, knife-like
instinct for the quick laugh, resolute pomposity-all were his,
to be drawn upon as his supreme theatrical talent dictated and
to be used with all the calculation that his sharp mind could
exercise."
J.KEEGAN, c. 1988, Sunday Times, 17 iii.
(Reviewing a book about Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was also said
to have been insecure, lonely, to have craved affection, and to
have had no intimate friends.)
{+ Sp}
"....this small, energetic, wise, strong and somewhat dictatorial
lady, [Anna Freud, showed] lucidity of mind and determination
of spirit. [She had] an active and keen intelligence."
Malcolm PINES, 1983, Obituary for A.F.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 36.
The Heart
"So there began to form or display itself in me that heart
at once so proud and tender, that effeminate yet indomitable character
which, vacillating always between weakness and courage, self-indulgence
and virtue, has all my life set me into contradiction with myself,
to the effect that abstinence and enjoyment, pleasure and wisdom,
have all equally escaped me."
Jean Jacques ROUSSEAU, summarizing the development of his
character until about the age of eight. Quoted by
B-A.Scharfstein, The Philosophers. Oxford : Blackwell,
1980.
"Christianity is really a matter of the heart.... The chief
teachings of Christianity express only the basic truths of the
human heart; they are symbols...."
NIETZSCHE, at age 17; quoted by B-A.Scharfstein,
The Philosophers. Oxford : Blackwell, 1980.
" ....who could refrain That had
a heart to love and in that heart
Courage to make's love known."
Macbeth's lie as to why he killed Duncan's chamberlains,
Macbeth II iii 91-101.
{+ M + So + Sp}
"....something in her own unique mind had roused her powers
within her.... they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes....
Then her soul sat on her lips, and her language flowed, from what
source I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough,
vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid
eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen's discourse on
that, to me, memorable evening; her spirit seemed hastening to
live within a very brief span as much as many live during a protracted
existence."
Charlotte BRONTË, Jane Eyre. London : Nelson.
"Not a single heart with feeling in it in sight."
L. WITTGENSTEIN, of his fellow officers in the Austrian Army.
Quoted by B. McGuinness, Wittgenstein: a Life - Young Ludwig
(1889-1921). London : Duckworth, 1988.
"[Churchill's] failings as a leader were impatience and impetuosity.
The qualities that made him so great in adversity-the insistence
on fighting back at all points, the obsession with attack, the
tireless energy, the soaring imagination-sometimes made him essay
enterprises which, had he not been dissuaded, would have ended
in disaster. Nor, since he always threw the whole of his heart
and head at the nearest fence, was he good at choosing between
conflicting objectives.... Churchill's eloquence and persistence
then became something of a problem to his military advisers."
Arthur BRYANT, 1956, The Turn of the Tide. London : Collins.
{ + So}
"If you change the approach {away from collectivism} you
really are after the heart and soul of the nation. Economics are
the method; the object is to change the heart and soul."
Margaret THATCHER, 1981, interviewed in Sunday Times.
Quoted P.Jenkins, p.159.
{+ M}
"....the most dynamic, productive and influential social
psychologist in Europe...., [Henri Tajfel occupies a very important
place] in the minds and hearts of colleagues."
Hilde HIMMELWEIT, 1982, Obituary for H.T.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 35.
{+ M + So + Sp}
"[Eddie Shah's newspapers] have handsome, high-tech bodies,
but no heart and no soul, and not very much mind either. My spirits
always sink when a paper announces it is giving politicians from
all parties space to say their piece. Then I know that it has
no ideas and few convictions."
Paul JOHNSON, 1986, The Spectator, 7 vi.
"[Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington (Picasso: Creator
and Destroyer)] likes a brisk accentuation of the positive
in life and art. She does not understand the role, in creation,
of the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart. One of Picasso's last
drawings is of a very old woman masturbating. It is strong and
brave stuff, like Picasso's drawings of his own impotence, the
Minotaur dissolved into dwarf and clown."
Grey GOWRIE, 1988, The Spectator.
The Soul
{+ Sp}
"[Archimedes] possessed so high a spirit, so profound a soul,
and such treasures of scientific knowledge that, though these
inventions had obtained for him the renown of more than human
sagacity, he yet would not deign to leave behind him any written
work on such subjects; [instead,] regarding as ignoble and sordid
the business of mechanics and every sort of art which is directed
to use and profit, he placed his whole ambition in those speculations
in whose beauty and subtlety there is no admixture of the common
needs of life."
PLUTARCH. Thesaurus of Book Digests. New York : Avenel,
1968.
"My soul hates nothing more than he."
'Jacques de Boys', speaking of his brother 'Orlando'
in As You Like It.
"[Shakespeare] was the man who of all modern, and perhaps
ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All
the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew, not
laboriously but luckily; when he describes anything, you more
than see it, you feel it too."
John DRYDEN.
"He {the footman} may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton {the
headmistress} that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he
would....!"
'Miss Rebecca', in W.M. THACKERAY's Vanity Fair, 1848.
{+ M}
" ....I would stand,
If the night blackened with a coming storm,
Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are
The ghostly language of the ancient earth,
Or make their dim abode in distant winds.
Thence did I drink the visionary power;
And deem not profitless those fleeting moods
Of shadowy exultation: not for this,
That they are kindred to our purer mind
And intellectual life; but that the soul,
Remembering how she felt, but what she felt
Remembering not, retains an obscure sense Of possible sublimity...."
WORDSWORTH, The Prelude.
"I am convinced that the death of so outstanding a father
[as mine] deprived me, on the one hand, of fatherly help and guidance
for later life, and, on the other, laid the seed of seriousness
and reflectiveness in my soul." NIETZSCHE. Quoted by B-A.Scharfstein,
The Philosophers. Oxford : Blackwell, 1980.
'Soul', in Russia, was the term used for a serf.
Thesaurus Book Digests, p183, re Gogol's Dead Souls.
"The "Over-Soul", a Platonic concept, is one of
[Emerson's] basic ideas. It is the theory of one basic force animating
all mankind, a divine omnipresence whose intimations furnish man
with all revelations of truth and beauty."
Thesaurus of Book Digests. New York : Avenel, 1977.
"[An Irish novelist wrote to Oscar Wilde's mother] praising
"the great Ocean" of her soul. [Lady Wilde herself refers
to] her own "great soul" and to her own poetry "expressing
the soul of a great nation" {viz. Ireland}."
R.ELLMAN, 1987, Oscar Wilde. London : Hamish Hamilton.
"[Hope is] the thing with feathers that perches in the soul."
Emily DICKINSON.
{+ M + H}
"It was a part of Churchill's greatness-and of the human
attributes that are the accompaniment and, at times, reverse of
greatness-that he was constitutionally incapable of not intervening
with his entire heart, soul and mind in any operation, great or
small, of which he had cognisance, whether strategic, administrative
or technical."
Arthur BRYANT, 1957, The Turn of the Tide. London : Collins.
{+ M + Sp}
"There isn't any human spirit. Man is just a low-grade animal,
without intellect, without soul, without virtues or moral values....
Don't believe the stories about man's mind, his spirit, his ideals,
his sense of unlimited ambition."
'An old bum', a bête noire in Ayn RAND's
Atlas Shrugged. New York : Random House, 1957.
"Your soul has a single basic function-the act of valuing."
'Howard Roark', the hero in Ayn RAND's
The Fountainhead. London : Cassell.
"Those who have not seen Felix Eboue {the Negro Governor
of Chad in the 1940's-a liberal, passionately anti-Nazi supporter
of de Gaulle} sitting on a bench beside the Chari river, attentively
listening to the young people's talk, cannot imagine what friendship,
wisdom and courage there was in that stocky man. Deafness gave
a certain awkwardness, but, in his expression of slowly awaking
surprise and gaiety, one saw a soul free from all baseness."
The later French Governor General of Chad, Laurentie, cited by
Richard West, The Spectator, 13 viii 1983.
"J.Lear [in his Aristotle] goes on to discuss man's
nature-his soul. He demonstrates how, for Aristotle, the activity
of contemplating the world simultaneously displays the world's
intelligibility and constitutes what man most fully is."
Roger CRISP, 1988, Times Higher Educational Supplement,
15 iv.
"Blackmail is one of the ugliest offences because it involves
what amounts to the attempted murder of the soul."
Judge Henry POWNALL, passing sentence on a company director who
had blackmailed his former girlfriend using videoed scenes of
sex
romps. Reported Daily Telegraph, 18 viii 1988.
"[Duncan] had suffered so much because of Jean, now he would
opt for no more suffering. Perhaps the world had already ended,
perhaps it had ended with Crimond in that basement room, or on
the night in midsummer when he had seen Jean and Crimond dancing.
Perhaps this was an after-life. Vast tracts of his soul no longer
existed, his soul was devastated and laid waste, he was functioning
with half a soul, with a fraction of a soul, like a man with one
lung. What remained was darkened, shrivelled, shrunk to the size
of a thumb. And yet he could still plan and ruthlessly propose
to be happy, and, necessarily, to make Jean happy too."
Iris MURDOCH, 1987,
The Book and the Brotherhood. London : Chatto & Windus.
"What goes on inwardly in the soul is the essence of each
man, it's what makes us individual people."
'Socrates', in Iris Murdoch's Acastos. London : Chatto
& Windus.
"Interviewer: How much does Daley Thomson want Olympic glory?
Thomson's coach: It's in his soul." BBC IV UK, 1992, 29 vi,
in a discussion of whether
Thomson, the 'decathlete', should be granted special
concessions to attempt a come-back.
{+ M}
"There is an abiding temptation to suppose that our own problems
are unique in world history and of unparalleled severity and insolubility.
This flatters our sense of self-importance, uniqueness and worth:
such is the largeness of our minds and souls that it is inconceivable
we should work ourselves up into a frenzy over relative trifles."
Theodore DALRYMPLE, 1992, Medical Monitor, 24 vii.
The Spirit
"....[the human] spirit is differentiation
itself, and consequently from others."
Sören KIERKEGAARD, Journals.
{+ W}
"How long will you have to fight? Until you die!
What will it cost? Everything you hold dear.
Your reward? A new will, cleansed and strong,
A new faith, integrity of spirit;
A crown of thorns. That will be your reward."
{Found near qu. from Ibsen's Brand.}
{+M, +So}
"There isn't any human spirit. Man is just a low-grade animal,
without intellect, without soul, without virtues or moral values....
Don't believe the stories about man's mind, his spirit, his ideals,
his sense of unlimited ambition."
'An old bum', in Ayn RAND's Atlas Shrugged.
New York : Random House, 1957.
"[Churchill] was a child of nature. He venerated tradition,
but ridiculed convention. When the occasion demanded, he could
be the personification of dignity; when the spirit moved him,
he could be a gamin. His courage, enthusiasm and industry
were boundless, and his loyalty was absolute."
Lord Ismay, cited by Martin Gilbert, 1987, Finest Hour.
"His fingers were moving slowly [on the marbles in his hand
as he lay on the carpet in black pyjamas], feeling the texture
of the stones with sensual enjoyment. Instead of finding it crude,
she found it strangely attractive-as if, she thought suddenly,
as if sensuality were not physical at all, but came from a fine
discrimination of the spirit."
From an episode involving 'Dagny' and 'Francisco d'Antonia'
in Ayn RAND's Atlas Shrugged. New York : Random House,
1957.
"[One remarks] that gaping hoot of appreciation that signals
his generosity of spirit."
J.LAHR, 1983, New Society, 17 iii.
(Writing about the British comedian, Kenneth Williams.)
"A sort of eternal youth that amounted to spriteliness was
still [in old age] the spirit behind [Rebecca West's] pen."
N.DENNIS, 1983, Sunday Telegraph, 20 iii.
{+ M + H}
"{The great Victorian constitutional historian, Walter Bagehot}
was anxious to enter Parliament. He seems to have failed because
he could not go through the solicitous motions. At bottom he did
not like people much.... Behind the masculine, no-nonsense facade
there was a shy and sensitive heart, a mind easily bored, and
a spirit which (I think) did not care a damn about the world."
Paul JOHNSON, 1986, The Spectator, 31 v.
"[Rupert Birley, a friend of Taki's, rumoured drowned] had
a reckless disregard for danger, as all rash, brave and gallant
men do. He was a strong skier and swimmer, a voracious reader
of history, and had an extrovert, happy-go-lucky nature. He was
undoubtedly the best-looking man of his generation, and had more
girls in love with him than Don Giovanni ever dreamed of having.
But what endears him to those who know him-I use the present tense
because there is still hope-is his generosity of spirit and sensitivity.
His personal radiance, that warms one immediately on contact."
TAKI, 1986, The Spectator, 28 vi.
"God never intended for a committee nor a board of deacons
nor any other group to dominate a church or control a pastor.
The pastor is God's man, God's servant, God's leader. When you
tie the hands of God's man, when you keep him from acting as the
Holy Spirit leads him, you have murdered his initiative, you have
killed his spirit."
Rev. Jerry FALWELL,
quoted in Frances Fitzgerald, Cities on a Hill, 1987.
"If one examines the history of art, one will conclude that
the writers whose works have lived across time-like composers
and painters and sculptors- share an essential characteristic.
Their unique and personal stamp, their unique and personal spirit,
emanates from every page of their writing, and one knows that
it could have been created by no other sense of life, no other
consciousness, no other intellect."
Barbara BRANDEN, 1987, The Passion of Ayn Rand.
London : W.H.Allen.
"What is man? A parallel processor with no central chip?
An extension of universal consciousness? A spirit?"
Myles HARRIS, 1988, The Spectator, 14 v.
"No doubt any energetic man would find the protocol [of royal
life] tiresome; and any man of spirit would wish to retain his
independence of mind."
Mary KENNY, 1988, 'The Duke of Hazard', re Prince Philip's
reported remark that a student who was apologizing for Chinese
customs 'would have slitty eyes next'. Irish Independent,
10 xii.
{+ H}
"[Diane Fossey, the self-made expert on mountain gorillas
in Rwanda, where she was murdered in 1985] emerges [from Farley
Mowat's Woman in the Mists] as exasperating, eccentric,
generous and full of spirit. She didn't dislike people; she just
didn't rate them highly. Gorillas take care of each other. They
have long memories, and mourn their dead. She found their company
preferable.... A short while before her death came a cry from
the heart: 'I would give my soul to be ten people and twenty years
younger'."
Hilary MANTEL, 1988, The Observer, 2 x.
The Will
{+ So}
"....[Berkeley] came to hold that perceiving, 'taking notice',
is itself an act, not merely passive receptiveness. In one notebook
entry he goes so far as to say, 'The soul is the will, properly
speaking', and in another asks 'Whether Identity of Person consists
not in the Will."
G.J.WARNOCK, 1987, in R.Gregory,
The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Oxford University Press.
"Now we can hardly state dogmatically that the human being
is a unity or is a plurality. But there are at least certain purposes
for which it is convenient to regard him as a unity and not as
a plurality. And it is because it shows him as a unit in action
that the term 'will' is often useful. This last point is so important
that I think it would hardly be overstating the case to say that
the will 'is' this unity."
B.MAYO, 1956, in P.Laslett, Philosophy, Politics and Society.
Oxford : Blackwell.
"[For Sir Henry Cole, who mounted Britain's Great Exhibition
of 1851] successes came through his single-minded determination-his
'will', of which he was very proud-but also because he knew the
exact nature of the obstacles and the strategy to get round them....
His motto was: 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with
all they might.'.... Prince Albert quipped: "If you want
steam, you must get Cole.""
S.TAIT, 1983, The Spectator, 16 iv.
"Doctor: Yes, in your ledger your credit account
For strength of will is full; but, priest,
Your love account is a white virgin page.
Brand: Love! Has any word been so abused
And debased? It is used as a veil to cover weakness....
When the will has triumphed, then comes the time for love.
But here, faced by a generation
Which is lax and slothful, the best love is hate.
(In terror.)....
Agnes: Your Lord's way is steep and narrow.
Brand: It is the way of the will. There is no other."
From H. IBSEN's Brand, Act III.
{+ M + H + So}
"Through all, one mind, one soul, one will-power. An epic,
a prodigy, a tale of torment, and in the heart of it a man."
Winston CHURCHILL's verdict on T.E.Lawrence's
Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Quoted by P.Renshaw, 1988, Times Higher Educational Supplement.
"[Richard Buzzard, an early industrial psychologist, was]
unfailingly kind.... Tenacious when necessary, he could make his
point with humour and a light touch.... The memory of his love
of humankind, personal and professional, and indomitable will-to-good
is cherished by those who knew him."
Isabel BLAIN, 1982, Obituary for R.B.,
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 34.
{+ Sp}
"Alexandra felt drugged, immobilized, huge like a queen ant
or bee; the things of the world were pouring through her and re-emerging
tinged with her spirit, her will."
from John UPDIKE, 1984,
The Witches of Eastwick. London : Andre Deutsch.
"A widow in her seventies, [my mother-in-law] had been a
modern woman and a socialist and suffragette in the old country.
She was attractive in a fragile, steely way. You felt Sophie's
strength of will in all things. She kept a neat house. The very
plants, the ashtrays, the pedestals, the doilies, the chairs,
revealed her mastery. Each object had its military place."
Saul BELLOW, 1947 'Starting out in Chicago.'
Quoted in Granta 41: Biography.
"....perhaps the most remarkable thing about [Nigel Short's
play in his last ten games against Gary Kasparov] was the absolute
absence of any feeling of demoralisation on his part. In the past,
when suffering catastrophic match defeat against Fischer and Kasparov,
the psyches of such notables as Larsen, Taimanov, Petrosian and
Miles have simply collapsed. Short, in extremis, on the
other hand, demonstrated a will of iron...."
Raymond KEENE, 1993, The Spectator, 20 ix.
{+M}
"Everyone, from Ninette de Valois down, pays tribute to Nureyev's
intelligence, his financial acumen, his iron will. He was a man
who controlled his life as only the very sane, the very
bright and the very forceful can."
Peter WATSON, 1994, Nureyev. London : Hodder & Stoughton.
"Tragic woman [Medea, Phaedra, Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth]
is less moral than man. Her will-to-power is naked. ....Tragedy
is a western vehicle for the testing and purification of the male
will."
Camille PAGLIA, 1990, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from
Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. Yale University Press.
The Conscience
{+ W}
"[Lady Macbeth] appreciated at once that she would have to
use her own strong will to bring [Macbeth] to a deed from which
his conscience would keep him."
Methuen Notes on Shakespeare's Macbeth, 1961.
"Coleridge always distinguished between the mechanical accumulation
of knowledge and the vital absorption of principles by means of
the "shaping spirit of imagination", or the "irradiating"
reason. Items of knowledge stock the mind like a lumber-garret";
while "Principles....become the mind itself and are living
and constituent parts of it."
Meg Harris WILLIAMS, 1990, Encounter 74, v.
Epilogue : 'The Double Cone of the Good'?
- Is it possible and desirable to combine personological
extremes
that can sometimes appear to be crude opposites?
{See also Quotes XXV - XXVIII re social attitudes and
values, especially EQUALITY and FRATERNITY, and LIBERTY and JUSTICE.}
"And then the highest thing of all, there's wisdom, and all
the things you understand, the hard things, come together somehow,
and you see that they're connected, and that's real wisdom,
which is goodness and virtue and freedom -real freedom like what
most people who talk about freedom can't conceive of -and this
isn't just intellectual understanding, it's spiritual, it's what
we really think in our hearts about the gods, like Socrates said-
and that's Eros too, the high, the heavenly Eros, love made perfect
and wise and good-and that far, far point, that's truth, seeing
everything in the light of the sun-and then-seeing the sun itself-and
that's goodness-and joy- "
'Plato' in Iris Murdoch's Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues.
London : Chatto & Windus, c. 1975.
"Virtue [Rousseau] saw as the union of feeling with reason,
each of which is necessary to the other. Without feeling, he believed,
we cannot be morally sensitive; but without reason we cannot make
moral judgments."
B-A.SCHARFSTEIN, 1980, The Philosophers. Oxford : Blackwell.
"How clever you are! With my spriteliness and your solidity
we would have affection!"
From Jane Austen's Emma.
"Sexual attraction is....explained by the 'law of bisexual
complementarity' whereby....a three-quarters masculine and one-quarter
feminine man would attract a three-quarters feminine and one-quarter
masculine woman."
August STRINDBERG, quoted in M.Robinson,
Strindberg's Letters, Athlone Press.
"[Sir Aubrey Lewis, the eminent psychiatrist, had] a reputation
as a man of probity and erudition [yet was equally known for his]
brilliance, capacity for humour....[and] intellectual exuberance."
Sketch in The Bethlehem & Maudsley Gazette, c.
1983.
"Intelligence without love is not human."
An Anglo-Chinese authoress, BBC IV UK, 27 iii 1983.
Anything new under the sun?
"Two themes run through [M.Minsky's, 1986,] The Society
of the Mind. The first is that the mind-brain is not a unitary
organ, but rather consists in a number of discrete agencies; the
second is that these 'intelligent' agencies can each be fractionated
into simpler agents which are individually 'mindless'. Neither
claim is original; both are a commonplace of contemporary theories
of cognition (Chomsky, 1980; Marr, 1982; Fodor, 1983). The notion
of multiple intelligences in something closely akin to its current
form can be traced back to the work of Franz-Joseph Gall (Marshall,
1980); that wholes can achieve what parts cannot has been the
stock-in-trade of engineering since the Ionian enlightenment."
John C. MARSHALL, c. 1986/7, Nature.
FINIS
(Compiled by Chris Brand, Department
of Psychology, University of Edinburgh.)