Biotypology

BIOTYPOLOGY. - Science that studies the human individual in all his vital manifestations, in order to determine, in the most complete manner possible, his well-defined personal biological type (biotype or individual type) that cannot be confused with another (v. TIPO INDIVIDUALE). Biotypology, directed toward the deepest knowledge of the single man in all his aspects, seeks to bring useful contributions to the knowledge of constitutional weaknesses, of morbid predispositions, of the different individual working and educational capacities; hence its practical importance for the physician, the educator, the priest.

In order to arrive at a determination, as perfect as possible, of the individual type, biotypology directs its investigation to the anatomical structure of the human body (habitus or morphological type or constitution in the strict sense), to physiological manifestations (biochemical, endocrine-humoral, kinetic and nervous manifestations of vegetative life), to the neuro-psychological activities of his life of relation (development and equilibrium of emotionality, degree and practical orientation of intelligence).

Nicola Pende, who must be particularly remembered among the first and most authoritative cultivators of biotypology (he was the first to introduce this word into science), wishing to consider (after the morpho-physiological characteristics of the biotype) separately the intelligence from the moral character of the individual, that is, from his affective-volitional characteristics, maintains that biotypological study must unfold along the line of four aspects (the four faces of Pende's biotypological pyramid): morphological (habitus), dynamic-humoral (temperament), moral (character), intellective (type of intelligence). The same Pende, however, points out «the great practical difficulty of defining or diagnosing the character of the person: our diagnostic judgment cannot but be quite provisional and reserved, and cannot compromise the becoming of the character itself» (N. Pende, Scienza moderna ecc., p. 339). On the other hand, the moral or ethical aspect of the individual, although bound in different measure to the notes of the habitus, of the temperament, of the psychological orientation, is stimulated, constructed, modeled by the action of the environment and of the educator, by the work of self-education that each one more or less carries out upon himself and, supernaturally, by the mysterious work of Grace.

This being stated, it seems more correct and more responsive to the practical aims that biotypology proposes to itself, to study, following the constitution (v.) and the temperament (v.) of the individual, in a single block his neuro-psychological material-immaterial characteristics (sensibility and motility of the life of relation, formula of emotional equilibrium, development and type of intelligence) which together constitute the third element or third face of the triangular block of the biotype, a face of a more exquisitely mixed, material-immaterial nature (v. INDOLE), a «native state» upon which the true character (v.) of the individual must unfold, rich in too many elements extrinsic to the physical organism and in too many moral, natural and supernatural factors, to remain an object of study of biotypological anthropology. The moral or ethical aspect of the individual, although indirectly and in different measure connected to the constitutional, humoral-functional, neuro-psychological notes, is the object of morals.

Giuseppe de Ninno