EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES. 93 



portraits, I cannot but think that certain supposed 

 advocates of greater freedom in sex relations prefer in 

 reality to startle the public by audacious and extreme 

 proposals, than either to advance a cause which they 

 have not deeply at heart, or to favour the broader 

 founding of marriage on affections and impulses 

 which they do not profoundly feel. True and enduring 

 progress is effected (in accord with physiological law) 

 by growth or steps only and never by revolution. 



I have not considered it necessary to dwell on the 

 intermediate temperaments where there is a more equal 

 combination of (emotional) contemplation and (less 

 emotional) action. A study of extremes implies a 

 knowledge of the less extreme. Where blood and 

 judgment are well commingled, we may from a physio- 

 logical point of view be content simply to admire. 

 Some of our greatest names are found in the inter- 

 mediate camp. The appraisement of the relative 

 intensity of the several nerve powers in any tempera- 

 ment is never an easy task. It is most difficult where 

 the powers are nearly of equal strength. In Shakspere 

 impassioned contemplation and less impassioned activity 

 were both immense, but contemplation was probably 

 the more potent. Both were present in Caesar, but in 

 him action was probably the stronger. Cromwell, too, 

 and William the Silent, both had reflection and energy 

 in nearly equal degree, but energy weighed perhaps a 

 little heavier in the scale. Luther's temperamental 

 forces of character were, in relative degrees of intensity, 

 those of Cromwell, but they were expended in theo- 

 logical warfare. In both Cromwell and Luther the 

 active element seems disproportionately strong, because 

 circumstances called them into pugnacious fields. 

 Circumstances put the sleepless Erasmus into a quieter 



