INDOLE (from ßvàxλóμα = “I appear,” “I show myself”). — It refers to the natural disposition, the particular “native state” of the neuro-psychological makeup proper to each individual, which constitutes a primary element, the congenital framework upon which, through the workings of environment and education and the repercussions of physiological and moral acts (habit, q.v.), the true and proper character will develop (χαράσσω = “I engrave,” “I carve,” “I impress”), rich in particular elements that are acquired and superimposed. Indole is, in a particularly distinctive way, linked to the physical endocrine conditions, to the equilibrium of the neuro-vegetative system, to the tension and reactivity of the systems of relational life (the muscular apparatus and the central nervous system), and to the natural affective and intellectual orientation of the individual; moreover, it is determined by hereditary and psychological factors of an unconscious or subconscious nature.
Given such complexity and importance of constituent elements and determining factors, the educator cannot neglect the study and knowledge of indole, since it can make the educational construction easier or more difficult in one sector or another, or may require different methods of formation for different subjects. Likewise, at the moment of vocational or professional orientation of the subject and his practical utilization, due weight must be given to the natural tendencies intrinsically linked to indole. Apart from varying personally according to the different individual types, a particular indole is proper to each period of life (q.V. ETÀ DELLA VITA), whence the necessity of special understandings and of particular educational methods that differ for a child, for example, or for an adolescent, or for a young person in full development.
On account of such differing physical, neuro-muscular, and neuro-psychological constitutions, the individual tends toward prompt and rapid action (tachipragism) or slow and tardy action (bradipragism); toward quick psychic reaction (tachipsychism) or, conversely, slow reaction (bradipsychism); toward different aspects of emotional sensitivity (hyperesthesia or hypoesthesia) with differing orientation of the affective section of the psyche (timosyche), tending naturally toward serenity, cheerfulness, optimism, or, on the contrary, toward ill humor, sadness, pessimism; or easily entering into affective resonance with the environment (extroversion, expansiveness) or with difficulty (introversion, closure in oneself); or is naturally inclined toward this or that passion, understood as a natural movement of the sensitive appetite. Similarly, this occurs in the intellectual section of the psyche (noopsyche), where a particular type of memory appears, either mechanical and material or logical and conceptual; an intelligence naturally inclined to be deductive, analytical, logical, or rather inductive, synthetic, and fantastic; an energy and tenacity (stenicity, hyperbulia) or weakness and lability (stenicity, hypobulia) in volitional manifestations.
It is of great importance for the educator to bear in mind that, even in age periods very close to one another, the particularities of indole can be totally different, as are those of bodily constitution and of the particular endocrine constellation. Thus, while in the period immediately preceding puberty there appears a phase of great excitability and lability, both of emotional and intellectual faculties, with a prevailing tendency toward tachipsychism, intuition, and synthesis; immediately after the pubertal crisis, there follows a period of greater calm and reflectiveness, with a tendency toward analytical, deductive, and rational mental activity.
Such complexity of factors and variety of indole profiles, ranging from those closest to normality (within the limits of individual variability) to those bordering on abnormality, makes the cooperation of the constitutional physician often useful, indeed necessary, for the arduous task of education.