The instinctive introvert is ruled by his emotions and impulses. These form the subjective side of instinctual life, just as sensation represents its objective side. The attention of the introvert is not directed primarily to the source of sensation (as communicated to {31} him through his sense-organs), but to its so-called “feeling-toneâ€, and to his own impulses. It depends upon the extent to which he is stirred, whether a given experience will make a big impression on him, not upon the intensity of the sensation itself. This aspect of susceptibility to emotion may occasionally, under certain conditions, prevail in anyone, but here it dominates all the other functions. Inherited disposition and early experience have produced a certain susceptibility to impressions and a certain need for emotional experience, and in these cases the whole mental life is directed by these two factors. Adjustment along these lines may, under favourable circumstances, provide for such people a satisfying existence, so long as these needs are met. Since in most cases there is little external evidence of this inner satisfaction, the lives of these people may sometimes appear to others as anything but happy, arousing compassion, for which there is no real reason.
Children of this type are frequently noted for a certain gentleness and receptiveness, but also for periods of timidity and monosyllabic reserve. There is something a little vague and passive about them. They are attached to people in their environment who are kind to them. They love nature, animals, beautiful things, and an environment with which they have become familiar. Anything strange or new has at first no attraction for them; but they offer little active resistance to it and soon learn to accept the good in it. They are often friendly and easy to get on with, but a little lazy and impersonal. When older, too, these people usually give an outward impression of being reserved, quiet, and somewhat passive. Only in rare cases, for example, in artists, does the distinctive and personal quality of their inner emotion come to expression. In other cases, however, their whole behavior reveals their peculiar characteristics, although it is not easy to define these.
People of this type have well-developed sense-organs, but they are particularly receptive to anything having lasting value for human instinctual needs. This lends to their lives a certain solid comfort, although it may lead to somewhat ponderous caution, if instinct becomes too deeply attached to all kinds of minor details. The advantages and disadvantages of this type are well brought out in the reserved and conservative farmer, with his care for his land and his beasts, and his tendency to carry on everything, down to the smallest detail, in the same old way. The same is true of the sailor. He also shows a passive resistance to anything new, which can only be overcome by absolutely convincing experience. Other examples of this type are the naturalist, devotedly observing in minutest detail the lives of plants and animals, the lonely collector of beautiful {32} or interesting things, the worker in applied art, and the painter, who manage to express a deep experience in the presentation of ordinary things. In their own field these people are usually very much at home, having a good mastery of the technical side of their calling, but without regarding this as any special merit. They accept both what they can, and what they cannot, do, as simple facts, but they tend on the whole to under-estimate rather than to over-estimate themselves. Pretense and bluff in others may irritate them to the point of protest, which is probably connected with their own difficulty in understanding their own potentialities and worth. These people usually strike one as very quiet and somewhat passive. Except in relation to persons and things in their own immediate sphere, to which they are bound by their instinctual reactions, they show little inclination to activity; they never readily depart from their routine. If anything gets in their way, they put up a peculiarly passive resistance, although under exceptional circumstances there may be an outbreak of wrath. If their environment is not favorable, they will nevertheless try to adapt themselves to it; in such circumstances, they are inclined to regard their emotions, in so far as they differ from other people’s ideas, as morbid. At the same time, they feel extraordinarily helpless and inferior. Or they may turn away from the world and give themselves up entirely to their own emotions. Where this is the case, they see any adaptation to other people as a mere pretense, and may develop remarkable skill in belittling the motives and ideals of others.