How many kinds of people are there? We might say there are as many kinds as there are people, each one unique, singular and unrepeatable. This is the miracle of individuality. Personality is the characteristic pattern of behaviour, thought and emotion that determines a person's relationship to his surroundings. Yet even amid personal differences, this way of relating follows certain routines. Theophrastus (372–287 BC), Aristotle's successor at the head of the Lyceum in Athens, identified thirty personality types. Closer study distinguishes various character types: for example, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic and melancholic characters by temperament, and pyknic, leptosome or athletic builds, while the typology of Carl Jung (1875–1961) captures the four main dimensions of personality in the pairs extraversion – introversion, sensation – intuition, thinking – feeling, and judgement – perception.
It would be easy to divide people in two: the good and the bad, angels and demons, us and them. That is too sweeping, but if we say: the conscious and the less conscious, spiritual people and spiritual people in the making, then we come closer to the truth.
A thousand-year-old Eastern system says that people can be of two kinds: those given to extremes, who flounder in the dualities of love and hatred, and those who walk the golden middle way. Beyond this, it measures the development of the human personality by its relation to others, for what is of interest is not the impulse that strikes a person, but the response given to impulses.
The loving, selfless and kind, self-disciplined person is respectful and humble, and towards his neighbour he shows goodwill if the other is of lower rank, shows friendship if they are equals, and shows humility if the other is his superior.
Towards a proud fellow man he shows understanding if the other is of lower rank, friendship if an equal, and he is sorry if someone of higher standing behaves in this way.
Towards an angry or ill-humoured fellow man he shows love if the other is of lower rank than himself, affability if an equal, and compassion if of higher rank.
The hateful and selfish person, infected with ignorance and a slave to his senses, behaves differently when others show him love and fear. If a fellow man of lower standing relates to him in this way, he treats him with contempt; if an equal shows him love or fear, he grows angry; while he nurses fear and suspicion if a fellow man of higher rank feels love or fear towards him.
The person marked by love and hatred alike, who is at one time self-disciplined and at another a slave to pleasures, shows pride and contempt towards a fellow man of lower rank if the other shows him fear and distrust. He shows love and anger towards a fellow man who is his equal if the other treats him with love or with anger, while he shows fear, hatred and malice when he meets someone of higher standing, but proud, contemptuous and overbearing.
More developed still is the one who deals equally with the friendly or hostile, the jealous or hateful, the pious, the sinful and the impartial, that is, with everyone. Starting from himself, he discovers the one and eternal spiritual identity in others too. Patience comes easily to one who feels secure within, and giving to one who lives in spiritual abundance. The one who masters his thoughts likes everyone, and everyone likes him. Of the two, the latter is rarer.