ABSTRACT
As one might expect, biography too has its contribution to make to the problem of psychological types. For this we are indebted mainly to Wilhelm Ostwald, who, by comparing the biographies of a number of outstanding scientists, was able to establish a typical psychological pair of opposites which he termed the classic and romantic types. In this chapter, the authors observe that Ostwald’s biographies contain material that has in part a very valuable bearing on the psychology of types, and strikingly exhibit the coincidence of the romantic with the extravert and the classic with the introvert. He is of the opinion that the “really great men” can definitely be classed in one or the other category with respect to speed of reaction, while “average people” much more frequently occupy the middle range.
