INTRODUCTION

As I was reading the question proposed by you, most excellent Judges, in the previous year:

"What is the true diversity of bodies from which this or that temperament is to be derived? Is there a full and complete change and conversion from one into another? What are the primary and most effective reasons for this change, both physical and moral, to be observed in both the healthy and the diseased state?"

it did not seem useless, at least, to devote my spare hours to a commentary on this most serious question. Yet such great difficulties occurred in the proposal that the mere thought—whether all the things upon which I might test my strength would yield any fruit—was enough to uplift my spirit.

I found many things in the finished little work original: "opusculo" that needed to be better elaborated, deleted, and added. However, since at that time I was enjoying only fragile health, this final refinement of the writing did not respond to my wishes in a way that seemed entirely worthy of being submitted to your judgment.

Nevertheless, certain of your indulgence, if any faults have crept in, and if I have not performed everything in general that perhaps should have been performed, I devoted all the days I could in that adverse condition of affairs—days I would count among the few happy days of my life if this youthful labor were not displeasing to you. For we are all drawn, as Cicero says most truly in his speech For Archias, by the desire for praise, and the best person is most led by glory.