64 EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES. 



was slow in its operation, and if put out by events, 

 was slow in readjustment. It will be found, in all de- 

 partments of active life, that, whatever formalities may 

 be gone through, the great impassioned natures are 

 called to the front and kept at the front by others ; 

 these are few in number. The great active natures 

 march of themselves to the front, called by their own 

 imperious organizations ; these no doubt, happily for 

 the world, are not so few. 



The Duke of Wellington had a markedly curved 

 upper spine (and resulting position of head and neck) 

 which, in advancing life, became so extreme that a light 

 mechanical apparatus was needed for its rectification. 

 The portraits of General Gordon, who was a remark- 

 able though somewhat eccentric embodiment of the 

 extremely active and unimpassioned type, reveal an 

 extremely forward and downward poise of the head. 

 Both men had many of the mental and moral character- 

 istics which, it is here contended, run with their peculiar 

 anatomical frames. Wellington and Nelson, so different 

 in bone and nerve, were also singularly different from 

 each other in one significant aspect of character. 

 Wellington's nerve (and skeleton) could not praise his 

 soldiers; Nelson's could not refrain from passionate 

 admiration of his helpers. 



The active and less impassioned temperament seems 

 to take the lead in many callings certainly in warfare, 

 in politics and, curiously at first sight, in divinity ; not 

 rarely it fills high places in literature and the arts, in 

 science the more contemplative bias probably finds a 

 more natural field. In divinity, as in much else, the 

 champions and controversalists necessarily come to the 

 front. It will be helpful in these inquiries to consider 

 with some care the most notable religious figure of this 



