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

GVIL. ANT. FICKER

§. 5.

The ancients, I believe, held a far different idea associated with this name, one entirely distinct from our own; for they assumed four fluids, the existence of which Hippocrates strives to demonstrate from pain, which, according to his opinion, could not be present if a man contained only one fluid u. Therefore, it is clear that they conceived of something morbid under the term temperament. That the Galenic school was of the same opinion is evident from the fact that it derived temperaments from the disturbed proportion of the four fluids, if you except the eukraton just proportion, by which name it wanted to signify a certain just proportion, which, however, according to Galen's opinion, could hardly be found. Hence it is clear, at least to me, that the temperaments of the ancients denote a morbid state. Is it any wonder, then, if their successors, not observing this, used such diverse reasoning in explaining the causes of temperament? I have added this observation of mine only so that learned men may not misinterpret me if I have dared to pass over the doctrine of the ancients in silence, while touching upon the opinions of others insofar as they serve to explain the diverse causes of temperament.

§. 6.

The diversity of solids obvious in every human being, of such varying degrees of either rigidity or laxity, ought to move us to embrace the opinion of those who posit that the primary cause of temperament is located in the solids, were it not that the attentive consideration of the vital forces, by which the solids of the living body are adapted for receiving stimuli and performing motions—the primary seat of which at least seems to be in the solids x—and so many arguments against the cause of temperament existing in the fluids, were already enticing us to that view. But I am greatly surprised that no mention of vital forces was made by Hippocrates, who nevertheless first commends them to the attention of physicians y, nor by so many other writers on this subject.

§. 7.

The primary hinge of all life, which organic nature enjoys, turns upon motion. Generation, growth, nutrition, secretions, and excretions, and all other causes that sustain life, can ultimately be referred to motion.