away by mutual friction into one common po lish. It is easy, indeed, to perceive that every thing tends to an extreme; the jaded taste becomes fastidious, and is perpetually hunting for something new; gallantry degenerates into seduction; fine, trembling honour, into an irritable thirst to avenge trifles; the heart is full of restlessness and fever. In the general pursuit of happiness, contentment is altogether unknown; no one is satisfied with his actual rank and condition, and is perpetually striving to surpass or supplant his neighbour; and striving, too, by all the machinery he can bring into play. Hence, in the more refined ranks, all is flattery, servility, and corruption; in the busy walks of traffic and commerce, all is wild venture, speculation, and hazard; the bosom is distracted with the civil warfare of avarice, ambition, pride, envy, and sullen rancour; the whole surface is at length hollow and showy, and the face becomes no index to the feelings. There is no necessity for dwelling on those open and atrocious villains, that, like vermin on a putrid carcass, such a state of things must indispensably generate and fatten ; the haggard tribe of anxiety, vexation, and disappointmentthe downfall of splendour the mortification of pride the failure of friendship - the sting of ingratitude the violation of sacred trustsblasted expectations, and disconcerted projects the cup of joy dashed from the lips that are sipping it hope shipwrecked on the of * verge possession -the agony of the mighty adventurer, who for months beforehand sees the tempest of his ruin rolling towards him; sees it, but dares not meet it; sees it, but perhaps cannot avert it harrowed through every nerve by the gaunt spectres of approaching shame, by the lamentations of his own family reduced to beggary, and the cutting rebukes of other families whom a misplaced confidence has involved in one common destruction- the demon train of distraction, madness, suicide: these, and a thousand miseries such as these, that naturally flow from, and are naturally dependent upon, a state of superabundant and diseased refinement, without taking into the account the flagrant and atrocious villanies which fall within the cognizance of the criminal judge, are sufficient to prove, that the nation which has reached the utmost pitch of civil perfection, is in danger of degeneracy and decay; and justify the doubt I ventured to suggest, at the opening of the present lecture, as to which of the two extremes of society is pregnant with the greatest share of moral evils-that of gross barbarism, or that of an exuberant and vitiated polish, 312 LECTURE XI. ON TEMPERAMENTS, OR CONSTITUTIONAL THE social principle — that horror of solitude and inextinguishable desire of consorting with our own kind, which every man feels in his bosom, and which impels him to prefer misery with fellowship, to ease and indulgence without it laid the first foundation for cities and states; and the nature of the social compact, peculiarity of climate, and community of habits and manners, unite in producing that generaltissue of feelings and propensities, which constitutes, and is denominated, national character; which gives vivacity to the French, a refined taste to the Italians, phlegmatic industry to the Dutch, a free and enterprising spirit to the English, and a military genius to the Germans. But independently of these national tendencies, that run through the general mass of a people, it is impossible for us to open our eyes without perceiving some peculiar propensity, or prominent moral feature, in every individual of every nation whatever; and which, if strictly analysed, will be found as much to distinguish him from all other individuals as the features of his face. This is sometimes the effect of habit, or of education, which is early and systematic habit, and which every one knows is capable of changing the original bent of the mind, and of introducing a new direction; but it is far more generally an indigenous growth, implanted by the hand of nature herself; or, in other words, dependent on the original orgnization, admitting of infinite varieties, and produced by the evershifting proportions which the mental faculties, and the corporeal organs bear to themselves, or to each other, and which it is impossible in every instance to catch hold of and classify. The Greek physiologists, however, attempted the outlines of a classification; for they began by studying the individual varieties, which they ascribed to the cause just adverted to, and hence denominated them idiosyncrasies, or peculiarities of constitution. They beheld, as every one must behold in the present day, for nature is ever the same, one man so irascible, that you cannot accidentally tread on his toe, or even touch his elbow, without putting him into a rage; another so full of wit and humour, that he would rather lose his friend than repress his joke; a third, on the contrary, so dull and heavy, that you might as well attempt to move a mile-stone; and possessing withal, so little imagination, that the delirium of a fever would never raise him to the regions of a brilliant fancy. They beheld one man for ever courting enterprise and danger; another distinguished for comprehensive judgment and sagacity of intellect: one peculiarly addicted to wine; a second to gallantry, and a third to both: one generous to profligacy; another frugal to meanness; and a few, amidst the diversified crowd, with a mind so happily attempered and balanced by nature, that education has little to correct, and is almost limited to the act of expanding and strengthening the budding faculties as they show themselves. The physiologists of Greece, and especially the medical physiologists, did not rest here. They attempted to cluster the different species of idiosyncrasies, or particular constitutions that had any resemblance to each other, and to arrange them into genera, which were denominated crases (xpάons) or temperaments. We have the express testimony of Galen*, that Hippocrates was the founder of this system. He conceived the state or condition of the animal frame to be chiefly influenced by the nature and proportion of its radical fluids, at least, far more so than by those of its solids. The radical fluids he supposed to be four, the elementary materials of which were furnished by the stomach, as the common receptacle of the food; but each of which is dependent upon a peculiar organ for its specific production or secretion. Thus the blood he asserted to be furnished by the heart; the phlegm, lymph, or finer watery fluid, by the head; the yellow bile by the gallduct; and the black bile by the spleen. The * De Temperament. ii. p. 60. § b. |