The Question of Psychological Types: The Correspondence of C. G. Jung and Hans Schmid-Guisan, 1915-1916

Basel, 11–14. XII. 15

Dear Friend,

In order to write you openly and honestly, I have to overcome certain intellectual resistances, for I know from experience that it is nearly impossible for the introvert to acknowledge important problems, if life does not force him to gain knowledge. So, although I do not fancy that my answer will be able to tell you anything, I want to follow your invitation as best I can.²⁵⁸

I understand very well why extraverts have so far offered you only vague allusions to what you should not [sic] acknowledge. It is nearly impossible to talk about this intellectually, because this is about things that can be fully grasped only by feeling, never by the intellect. If for you clearness means that a problem is described intellectually in a clear way, you demand the impossible from me in wishing that I “clear the air” in such a way.

I want to come back to the, admittedly unclear, allusion I made in my last letter: I spoke of my feeling that you cannot appreciate something in the extraverted character, and the most valuable in it to boot.

The most valuable trait of the extravert must lie in the qualities of his feeling, and I would say that the most valuable among them is his capacity for love. In my opinion, this constitutes the core of his individuality; it contains his “divinity.” As a matter of fact, however, this core contains not only a high, divine, and beautiful love but also a low, devilish, and ugly love.

I do not want to write an apotheosis of love. For me Plato’s works, especially the connection he makes between the Eros

²⁵⁸ As becomes clear from the concluding sentence in this letter, Jung had invited Schmid to write “openly and honestly” about his thoughts, even if he, Jung, had already wanted to bring the correspondence to a formal end in 9 J.

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