THE CAUSE OF CHARACTER. 821 



epecially connected with earthquakes, would have the precise effect of 

 favoring the admission of water through its large fractures to deep 

 and hot regions. Conditions of this kind are realized in all the parts 

 of the basin of the Mediterranean which have been so frequently and 

 violently agitated within historic times. 



The facts that subterranean waters have thus taught us for the 

 present epoch will aid in giving an idea of what they have effected in 

 the extremely remote times of the geological periods. Minerals, 

 which are their work, permit us to follow the track which they have 

 left behind them through thousands of centuries. — Translated for the 

 Popular Science Monthly from the Mevue des Deux Mondes. 



THE CAUSE OF CHAKACTER. 



IT may be taken for granted that almost everybody has a character, 

 be the same more or less, good, bad, or indifferent, as the case may 

 be. The exception, in fact, need only be made in favor of imbecile 

 persons and idiots, who usually possess no character at all to speak of, 

 or whose character is, at least, of a decidedly negative and uninter- 

 esting variety. Even those good people whom the uncompromising 

 Scotch law describes with charming conciseness as " furious or fatu- 

 ous," and delivers over to the cognizance of their " proximate agnate," 

 must needs possess at least so much of character as is implied in the 

 mere fact of their furiousness or their fatuity, as circumstances may 

 determine. And furthermore, roughly speaking, no two of these char- 

 acters are ever absolutely identical. The range of idiosyncrasy is prac- 

 tically infinite. Just as out of two eyes, one nose, a single mouth, and 

 a chin with the appendages thereof, hirsute or otherwise, the whole 

 vast variety of human faces can be built up, with no two exactly alike ; 

 so, out of a few main mental traits variously combined in diverse fash- 

 ions, the whole vast variety of human character can be mixed and 

 compounded to an almost infinite extent. To be sure, there are some 

 large classes of mankind so utterly commonplace and similar that from 

 a casual acquaintance it is hard to distinguish the individuality of one 

 of them from that of the other : just as there are large classes of typi- 

 cal faces, such as the Hodge, the 'Arry, the Jemimer Ann, and the 

 Mrs. Brown, which appear at first sight absolutely identical. But, 

 when you come to know the Hodges and the 'Arries personally, you 

 find that as one Hodge differs slightly from another in countenance, 

 so do even they differ slightly from one another in traits of character 

 and intellectual faculty. No two human beings on this earth — not 

 even twins — are ever so utterly and absolutely alike that those who 

 have known them familiarly for years fail to distinguish one from the 

 other. 



