108 THE CONTROL OF LIFE 



types are to be seen in all sorts of garbs : — " In business, 

 the bold, energetic, dasbing promoter and the solid, 

 conservative, thrifty merchant ; in law, the emotional 

 jury lawyer and the learned judge ; in medicine, the 

 skilful operator in difficult cases and the skilled diagnos- 

 tician and consultant ; in divinity, the magnetic evan- 

 gelist and the profound theologian or exegetist ; in war, 

 a dashing Sheridan and a solid, quiet Grant." 



Dr. Davenport thinks it probable that there are in 

 the germ quite definite determinants whose presence 

 or absence settles our dominant temperament whether 

 excitable or placid, cheerful or depressed. The amend- 

 ment that we propose is that, human life being a very 

 complex thing, the probability is that the settled tem- 

 peraments of most of us, though based on definite heredi- 

 tary determinants, are complicated resultants of many 

 factors bodily as well as mental, social as well as indi- 

 vidual, environmental and occupational as well as con- 

 stitutional — made as well as born, for we build them up 

 in the way we relate ourselves to nurture and oppor- 

 "tunities, just as we build up our characters. We are 

 architects of our own fortunes. Our mind is an instru- 

 ment which we and social influences construct together. 



Mental Disturbances. — This is the appropriate place 

 for a reference to what some authorities have told us 

 concerning nervous or mental disturbances. After a 

 long experience of the insane. Sir Thomas Clouston 

 came to the conclusion that what was continued in the 

 inheritance of the mentally affected was usually a gen- 

 eral proclivity or weakness, e.g. in the power of control, 



