OF HEALTH AND HUMAN NATURE. 37 



shall content ourselves with the four orders commonly 

 received.* The sanguineous — excited most readily, but 

 slightly : The choleric — excited readily and violently : 

 The melancholic — excited slowly, but more permanently : 

 And the phlegmatic — excited with difficulty. - - 



This division, although built by Galen upon an absurd 

 foundation borrowed from an imaginary depravation of 

 the elements of the blood, appears, if made to stand 

 alone, both natural and intelligible. 



80. The predisposing and occasional causes of the 

 diversity of temperaments are very numerous ; v. c. 

 hereditary tendency, habit of body, climate, diet, re- 

 ligion, mode of life, and luxury. + 



81. Besides the variety of temperaments, circum- 

 stances peculiar to every individual, by influencing the 

 number, as well as the energy and vigour, of the functions, 

 increase the latitude (77) in which the term health must 

 be received. In regard to age, the health of a new-born 

 infant is different from that of an adult ; in regard to 

 sex, it differs in a marriageable virgin and an old woman 

 past child-bearing, and during menstruation and suck- 

 ling ; in regard to mode of life, it is different in the 

 barbarous tribes of North America and in effeminate 

 Sybarites. 



Moreover, in every person, custom has an extra- 

 ordinary influence % over certain functions, v. c. sleep, 



* Kant, 1. c. p. 257 sq. 



f Feder, Untersuchung iiber den menschlichen Willen. T. ii. p. 49. 

 X Galen, De Consuetudine. 



G. E. Stahl, De consuetudinis efficacia generali in actibus vitalibm. Hal. 

 1700. 4to. 

 H. Cullen, De Consuetudine. Edinb. 1780. 8vo. 

 C. Natorp, De vi consuetudinis. Gott. 1808. 4to. 



