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bilious attack in their lives. These and similar anomalies 

 indicate the imperfections of the most scientific grouping of 

 the differences between man and man, but like the ideal 

 law of heredity which is never attainable, these groupings, 

 if necessarily imperfect, are yet satisfactory enough to merit 

 the recognition of experience in the present light of scientific 

 inquiry. Like all other sub-divisions of natural laws, they 

 consist of groups of phenomena which, however imperfect 

 or incomplete in detail, are yet sufficiently capable of 

 indicating their dependence upon the parent law as to 

 demonstrate its existence, and in what direction we must 

 seek for the causes of which they are the effects. 



When alluding to the temperaments, I was careful to 

 define the term as " applicable to the sum of the physical 

 peculiarities of an individual, exclusive of all definite ten- 

 dencies to disease," as no special proclivity is involved by 

 them, and stated that they ought to be regarded as merely 

 physiological peculiarities forming a part of the original 

 organisation of the individual. To the original four tem- 

 peraments viz , sanguine, nervous, bilious, and lymphatic, 

 Dr. Laycock added two more viz., the phlegmatic and 

 melancholic ; but of these, I agree with Mr. Hutchinson, 

 in regarding the bilious and the melancholic as simply 

 different degrees of the same thing, and that, as life ad- 

 vances, the one is very apt to pass into the other ; moreover, 

 that the distinguishing feature in both is one which concerns 

 disease rather than temperament, and which might be more 

 conveniently known as the hepatic diathesis. For, as Mr. 

 Hutchinson continues : " It is the proneness to disordered 

 function on the part of the liver, its ready and frequent occur- 

 rence, which for the most part stamps peculiarity on both these 

 so-called temperaments. Further, it is much to be doubted 



