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

and that this, whether increased or diminished in the air, has a greater influence upon sensibility and irritability than is commonly believed. In physics, especially in chemistry, all things rest upon the principle of diverse adhesion; I do not know, therefore, whether the opinion is repugnant to the laws of philosophy that posits: that the most subtle matter, the cause of all vital forces, which admits itself only into organic bodies, is absorbed from the air, and which later, according to the diverse organization of parts, or, if you please, the attractive force, produces diverse effects? Nature has certainly covered many things with an impenetrable veil, which the ingenuity of man will not yet dare to penetrate.

u) Cl. Plattner, ibid., p. 268.

These things, as it seems to me, are sufficient for establishing the cause of the diversity of the congenital bodily temperament, which must certainly be distinguished from the acquired one u. Other writers indeed admit more causes, which, however, seem to contribute more to the acquired temperament than to the congenital, and thus are better reserved for another place in this little paper.

Since it seems to shine forth sufficiently from what has been brought forward that the quantity and mixture of humors do not constitute the sole cause of diverse irritability and sensibility, it is also easily understood that we less properly call the diversity in the functions of body and mind "temperament," namely a certain just mixture, as appears from the Greek word εὐκρατὸν eukraton / well-tempered/well-mixed brought up above in § 5; but let us be easy with words, provided we agree on the matter, and provided a false notion of the thing is not substituted. That diversity of the body might be more aptly called nature, or, especially with practicing physicians, constitution of the body; the diversity of the mind, however, we could not unfairly call diverse character of the mind. But indeed, for any word used by great men for many centuries to be abolished, the voice and authority of great men are needed; for when young men attempt to change denominations which depend only on common usage of speaking, indignation is for the most part moved.

Not only the body of man, but the soul also uses a diverse temperament (§ 5); because the soul, even if it depends exceedingly upon the constitution of the body in the faculty of sensing, very often, however, which cannot be denied, acts of its own accord in such a way that it ought to obtain a singular place in this doctrine. But a diverse character of mind, or a diverse temperament of the soul, does not, like that of the body, rest solely upon diverse irritability and sensibility, but its primary foundation is a varying faculty of perceiving and understanding, and a varying propensity toward certain affects. From this it shines forth that the diverse vital force of the human body...