The fire-element temperament in Steiner's anthropology, in which the I (Ich) gains the upper hand and the will breaks outward through the blood.
Choleric Temperament in Anthroposophy is the fire-element constitution Rudolf Steiner identifies in GA 57 (The Four Temperaments, Berlin, 4 March 1909) as the configuration in which the I (Ich) is most strongly expressed and the astral body becomes the I's direct instrument. The other three members of the human being, etheric body and physical body and astral body, are subordinated to the ego, which carries itself physically through the circulation of the blood. Outwardly the choleric reads as a short, stocky build with firm tread, concentrated gaze, and explosive movement. Steiner restated this scheme in GA 293 (Foundations of Human Experience, 1919) and GA 295 (Practical Course for Teachers) for the first Waldorf faculty in Stuttgart, where teachers since 1919 have met the choleric child with respect for a competent authority and real resistance to push against.
Choleric temperament names the fourfold human configuration in which the I-organisation dominates the other members, blood becomes the physical carrier of will, and the world is met as something to be acted upon. Steiner inherits the term from Galen's classical humoral medicine but reformulates it as a structural relationship between the four bodies, not a balance of fluids.
In Steiner's Own Words
The varying combinations of the four members also manifest themselves quite clearly in external appearance. People in whom the ego predominates seek to triumph over all obstacles, to make their presence known. Accordingly their ego stunts the growth of the other members; it withholds from the astral and etheric bodies their due portion. This reveals itself outwardly in a very clear fashion. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, that famous German choleric, was recognizable as such purely externally. His build revealed clearly that the lower essential members had been held back in their growth. Napoleon, another classic example of the choleric, was so short because his ego had held the other members back.
What it Means Today
The clearest place to see Steiner's choleric framework still working is the Waldorf classroom around Class 5, where the grade-by-temperament seating arrangement is still taught in teacher-training courses run by the Pedagogical Section of the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach. Choleric children are seated together at the front, on the side of the room that meets the teacher's strongest gesture, so the will-active group encounters real resistance from each other and from the work itself rather than disrupting the rest of the class. The pedagogical instinct is the one Steiner spelled out in GA 295: never try to discipline the choleric out of the child, because the same fire will later carry adult initiative, leadership, and the capacity to finish what others abandon. The task is to give it something worth aiming at.
What distinguishes the anthroposophic reading from Galen is the underlying anatomy. Galen and Hippocrates traced choleric character to an excess of yellow bile and treated it as a humoral imbalance to be corrected. Steiner keeps the term but moves the cause inward: the I-organisation has gained the upper hand over the astral, etheric, and physical bodies, and the blood circulation expresses that dominance physically. The treatment changes accordingly. You do not bleed the choleric or rebalance the humours. You give the will purposeful work, situate the child or adult in front of a task that demands strength, and let the fire find its right object. Dutch anthroposophic psychiatrist Bernard Lievegoed extended this in his biographical-work tradition, where the temperaments serve as constitutional reference points in adult counselling rather than personality labels to be outgrown. The choleric child is one of the four natures the teacher meets in the temperaments in teaching.
Where to Read More
- The Four Temperaments, GA 57 (Berlin, 4 March 1909)
- Foundations of Human Experience, GA 293 (1919)
- Practical Course for Teachers, GA 295 (1919)
- Find The Four Temperaments at SteinerBooks
- Parenting a Choleric Child: Waldorf Strategies That Work
- You Kick the Stone Out of Your Way. Here's Why Choleric W...
- Four Temperaments Steiner Framework