THE THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY GENERALLY VIEWED.
These have been already briefly mentioned. They are repeated and illustrated here.
The view which is given of them will throw light on the celebrated temperaments of the ancients. It will appear that all the disputes which have occurred respecting these, have arisen from their being founded, not on precise data, but on empirical observation, at a time when the great truths of anatomy and physiology were unknown; that, to the rectification of the doctrine of temperaments, the arrangement of these sciences, laid down in a preceding chapter, is indispensable; that some of these temperaments are comparatively simple, and consist in an excessive or a defective action of locomotive, nutritive, or thinking organs; that others, which have been confounded with these, are, on the contrary, compound; and that, from this want of classification, their nature has been imperfectly understood.
To make this clear, it is necessary to lay before the reader a succinct view of the doctrine of temperaments.
The ancients classed individuals in one or other of four temperaments, founded on the hypothesis of four humors, of which the blood was supposed to be composed—the red part, phlegm, yellow and black bile. These were regarded as the elements of the body, and their respective predominance passed for the cause of the differences which it presented. Hence were derived the names of the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric, and the melancholic temperament.
Although the hypothesis on which this doctrine was founded is universally discarded, the phenomena which observation had taught the ancients, and which they had hypothetically connected with these elements, were so true, that that classification has been more or less employed in all the hypotheses which have since been invented to explain their cause; and their nomenclature has continued in use to the present day.
A temperament may be defined a peculiar state of the system, depending on the relative proportion of its different masses, and the relative energy of its different functions, by which it acquires a tendency to certain actions.
The predominance of any particular organ or system of organs, its excess of force, extends its sphere of activity to all the other functions, and modifies them in a peculiar manner. Thus, conforming in the illustration to the preceding arrangement, in one person, the muscles are more frequently employed than the brain; in another, the stomach or the organs of reproduction are more employed than the muscles; and in a third, the brain and nerves are more employed than either. This predominance or excess establishes the temperament.
The relative feebleness of any organ or system of organs, similarly forms modifications not less important. Thus in one person, the organs of the abdomen are less employed; in another, those of the chest; in a third, the brain.
Disease, it is observed, “commonly enters into the organization by these feeble points: death even attacks them first; extends afterward from one to another; and makes progress more or less rapid, according to the importance of the organ primitively affected.”
Temperaments, however, vary infinitely. It may be said that every individual has a peculiar one, to which he owes his mode of existence and his degree of health, ability, and happiness.
The temperament, moreover, of each individual is not always characterized by well-marked symptoms; and even where it has been strongly marked by nature, education, age, the influence of climate, the exercise of professions and trades, and various habits, produce in it infinite changes.
Temperaments also combine together, so that all men are, in some degree, at once sanguine and bilious, or otherwise compound. Thus all intermediate shades of temperament are produced; and it is often difficult, or, under particular circumstances, impossible, to determine under which temperament individuals may be classed.
The simple temperaments are therefore abstractions, which it is difficult to realize; and the influence of any temperament is sometimes undiscoverable except in some extraordinary circumstances of disorder or disease, during which it may be observed.
Cullen admits the four temperaments of Hippocrates, and remarks concerning them, that it is probable they were first founded upon observation, and afterward adapted to the theory of the ancients, since we find they “have a real existence.”
Dr. Prichard remarks, that “this division of temperaments is by no means a fanciful distinction.”
To the four temperaments of Hippocrates, Gregory adds a fifth, the nervous temperament.
Thus are formed five temperaments generally admitted, namely, 1st, the phlegmatic or relaxed; 2d, the sanguine arterial; 3d, the sanguine venous or bilious; 4th, the nervous; and, 5th, the muscular or athletic.
Some writers join to these the partial temperaments which determine the ascendency of the functions exercised by particular organs; whence principally come the temperaments which they call the cerebral, epigastric, abdominal, hepatic, genital, &c.
As already said, it will in the sequel appear that some of these temperaments are comparatively simple, that others are compound, and that from this want of classification, their nature has been imperfectly understood.[32]