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

§. 13.

b) Wrisberg loc. cit. p. 77. Kaempf loc. cit. p. 25.

The diversities found in the brains of men of different age and nation can be present to a greater or lesser degree in each and every man from the first moment they begin to exist, and constitute an innumerable variety of the soul's temperament. However, the greatest part of those causes of this various temperament which we have reviewed depends on the encephalon alone, whose structure and condition are not so exposed to such and so many forces of external things that it would easily undergo a change. Through this benefit of the highest Creator, it comes about that the constitution of the body and its vital forces can decrease, while the soul, as if to compensate for that damage, is adorned with knowledge leading man to happiness—so that, for example, a deeply meditating soul can exist within the weak body of Kant, as I read—so that, finally, the temperament of the body can accommodate itself to each climate and way of life, with the disposition of the mind not changed in the least. Do not confuse the temperament of the soul, which we called innate, with the acquired one; for the latter can be changed by education, the increase of knowledge, and other things which will be named below. From this it is somehow brought about that entire peoples seem to be endowed with one and the same temperament, even though a different congenital temperament of the soul can exist in each individual man.

§. 14.

i) see Lavater loc. cit. p. 347.

We have already said above that authors do not agree in defining the number of temperaments (§. 2); but they also do not agree on the properties to be attributed to each temperament. Both seem to arise from the fact that many looked now more at the body than the mind, and now more at the latter than the former, and from what was observed in certain individual men, and from those things which fantasy supplied, they composed a picture which no one wishes to resemble i. I would have had to proceed on almost the same path, had I not looked primarily at the constitution of the body and from there taken my divisions and denominations; which, if I am not mistaken, will be easily forgiven me, since the constitution of the body pertains primarily to the medical forum. Indeed, very many stimuli that affect the body reside in the mind, and therefore no one will call into doubt that the study of psychology, drawn not only from books but from frequent conversation with men, is very useful to a physician; but to establish certain classes of the congenital temperament of the soul, we still lack a sufficient knowledge of the causes producing them. The affections and propensities that are commonly ascribed to each individual temperament usually originate from the diversity of education, way of life, association, and other external