The developed feeling person feels her likes and dislikes, or her
moods, as something mental, which no more affect the body than
developed thinking in the thinking type. Thinking, as we know, can be
very cool and detached where it is pure and mature.
Thinking and feeling then are developed and consciously controlled
functions; where, on the other hand, _intuition_ and _sensation_ are
inborn and uncontrollable by consciousness.
The _intuitive type_, works by those instantaneous flashes of insight
which we call intuitions. These may be in the nature of hunches, or in
the nature of an ability to see the hidden character of others; or it
may have to do with far off things. Intuitives sometimes know events
happening at a distance; as the sickness of a relative, or something
even more startling. Though Goethe was a feeling type, he was also
very intuitive. One summer night he called his man-servant into his
room. The weather was sultry, brooding and ominous. Goethe said: “At
this moment there is an earthquake taking place far off.” Some weeks
later came the news of the great Lisbon earthquake. He had known it
to the minute. An intuitive I know was in Virginia when he dreamed
vividly that his brother in Texas had been killed by a Negro and that
a messenger had come with a telegram bidding his return to Texas. The
next morning the messenger came. It is by intuition that the painter
sees the soul of the sitter, and reveals the hidden nature in his
picture.
The intuitive type is the noble, or what has been called, the spiritual
type. Just as the two conscious functions of _thinking_ and _feeling_
are in opposition to each other, so the two unconscious functions of
_intuition_ and _sensation_ are in opposition; for intuition is the
least earthy function, sensation (the senses, sexuality) the most
earthy or animal.
The intuitive, because he sees into the core of things, sees better
than anyone else the possibility of things. He can see the man in the
child; the growth of a new movement in politics or science or labor or
business; the development of new ideas and their importance for the
human race. If such a man is extraverted, he hurls himself into new
tendencies, and then as soon as they are about to come to harvest, he
is no longer interested, and turns to new possibilities. He is the
pioneer who opens up the wilderness, but does not stay to enjoy the
cities that spring up. He sows, but he rarely reaps.
If he is introverted he brings forth out of himself great new ideas or
works of art. A good example is Nietzsche.
The _sensational type_ is of the earth, earthy. His main function
is sensation; the taste, the scent, the sound, the touch and the
look of things. He is highly sensuous, and is constantly seeking new
sensations. He is very realistic, and opposed to anything noble or
idealistic. He is often the actor, the acrobat, the sensualist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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