3 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rials that either singly or together formed the temperaments. They 

 were combined thus : hot and moist produced blood, hence the san- 

 guine temperaments ; cold and moist caused phlegm or pituita, and 

 from this the phlegmatic or lymphatic ; hot and dry produced yellow 

 bile, and gave us the sanguine or choleric; and cold and dry caused 

 black bile, which predominating in the body resulted in the melan- 

 cholic or bilious temperament. 1 In order to understand the profound 

 reason involved in this it must be remembered that these four prima- 

 ry principles of living bodies were believed to be compounded of the 

 simple elements of Nature. Here is shadowed, dimly it is true, but 

 from the very depths of Nature, the theory of the correlation of forces, 

 and even evolution itself. Boerhaave was among the first who at- 

 tempted to improve the classification of Hippocrates, and then fol- 

 lowed Hoffmann, Cullen, and Haller, who, however much reason they 

 may have had, failed to refine the rugged simplicity of the old Greek. 

 Absurd as we may deem the incarnation of the four elements in the 

 form of temperaments by Hippocrates to be, yet from the length of 

 time this idea has prevailed, and the profound influence it has exerted 

 upon science for centuries, we may believe that it possessed the soul 

 of truth that exists in things erroneous, as Herbert Spencer says. Not 

 until 1757 was anything like a scientific explanation given. The 

 learned Haller was the first to give the four elements their final over- 

 throw, and place the phenomena upon a physiological basis ; ~ and 

 even he failed to suggest any improvement in the old nomenclature. 

 It is strong evidence of the force that exists latently in old ideas that 

 all modern attempts to extend the scope of the Hippocratic terms 

 have never gained credit. Dr. Gregory renamed the temperaments, 

 and added a fifth, which he called the nervous, and which has been 

 accepted and rejected a score of times; while it is a convenient term 

 to use, it is true that it describes no temperament that may not be 

 included under the old terms. Then came Dr. Pritchord, who re- 

 jected the reforms of Dr. Gregory, restored the original terms, and 

 barely escaped calling his predecessor hard names. But the tempera- 

 ments, simple as they may seem, have afforded groundwork for a 

 separate science not foi-mulated deductions from dry facts, but 

 drawn warm from the mass of living, suffering humanity. Dr. W. 

 B. Powell spent forty years of his life in the study, and at last evolved 

 a " human science " with ten compounds of temperaments with binary, 

 ternary, and quaternary subdivisions. 3 If human science, as taught 

 by Dr. Powell, be true, it ought to be the ceaseless study of every 

 man and woman, taught along w T ith the creed and catechism which 

 are the spiritual to this its earthly and carnate part to the youngest 

 child. Lurking in this science are more than Dantesque horrors, 



1 " De Natura Hominis," torn, ii., ed. Kiihn. 



2 "Elementa Physiologia? Corporis Humani," 1757. 



3 Journal of Human Science, Cincinnati, 1860. 



