Commentary on Human Temperaments as They Depend on the Structure and Fabric of the Body

ON THE TEMPERAMENTS OF MEN.

Although this opinion was already solidly proven by Haller and had been accepted by many p before him, it was nevertheless so adorned and rendered more perfect by the most celebrated men of our age that, as far as I know, it is the universal opinion of the most distinguished Physiologists of our time q. Now we consider not only four temperaments, but many, having abandoned the ancient and, as it seemed, sacred number, have partly increased r and partly decreased s the species of temperaments, and have also named them in various ways according to their own judgment.

The doctrine of temperaments having been narrated from its earliest beginnings to our own age with that brevity which I could and which was necessary, I approach more closely the more serious place of this commentary. Its investigation has long been a source of most pleasant thoughts for me, since for any physician who is not led to the bedsides of the sick by light and empirical science or by the empty theory of his own imagination, but who aspires to penetrate the more intimate secrets of nature and to offer healing hands to fragile human life, it is of such utility that, when it is perceived and properly applied, it truly benefits where, if this doctrine were neglected, he would have prepared for death—a fact that the most vehement adversary of physicians himself was forced to admit t.

When we contemplate humans not only under different, but almost contrary conditions of things, we shall find that all possess some greater or lesser diversity in the action of soul and body, and that their body and soul, because of this diversity, are affected differently by one and the same object and stimulus. This distinction holds true for the entire human race, if we are allowed to give credence not only to our own too-limited observation but also to the travelogues of eyewitnesses. This property of man, according to which he is distinguished from another man in the action and reaction of all those things that constitute his very nature in both the actions of the soul and the body, is called Temperament—a name that bears the mark of antiquity so impressed upon it that it seems least suited to the thing we wish to signify in our own age, which will appear better below.