The Alkali Temperament exists where lymph is in excess over arterial blood. It is distinguished by concavity of features and obliquity of angles, or rather the absence of angles. The face is usually broad in general outline, and concave in profile, the forehead prominent and wide at the upper part, and medium in development at the eyebrows, the nose concave, the mouth retreating, the teeth flat in form and arrangement, the chin concave and prominent at the point. The body is round and inclined to corpulency, without angles. This temperament is usually well stocked with vitality, but unless actively employed is likely to become dull and overloaded with adipose tissue and lymph.
From the foregoing observations it is evident that the temperaments combine in each individual according to whichever temperament is found to predominate in these three divisions. Thus one man will have an electric-motive-acid temperament, another a magnetic-mental-acid temperament, another a magnetic-vital-alkali, and so on through all the combinations which can be made from the seven elementary temperaments. This blending when finally estimated constitutes the temperament of the individual. The ideal condition would, of course, be a perfect equilibrium of the elements of each division, in which case the individual would be said to have a perfectly balanced temperament.
Electricity is the genitive passion of Space. It is manifested by the states of gravity, receptivity, coldness, and darkness.
Magnetism is the genitive passion of Matter. It is manifested by the states of vibration, radiation, heat, and light.
The eternal affinities which exist between these conditions produce all the phenomena of Growth.
Growth is the change which takes place in a structure in obedience to the law of conformity to the changes which take place in its environment.
Man is the most complex organism known to this planet. He stands at the end of a long line of development, extending from the simplest form of mineral, through the vegetable and animal kingdoms, to his own position in the cosmos, and embracing and including in his own structure a representation of every form below him. But when this exceedingly complex structure is analyzed it is found to consist wholly of combinations of the simpler forms which existed before him.
In the light of a rational philosophy, therefore, we are forced to consider man as a creature of growth and subject to exactly the same natural laws as the objects which surround him. Any attempt to regard him as an exception results in the calamities which must always attend presumption and ignorance.
The well balanced temperament, the temperamentum temperatum, of the ancients is an ideal condition in which there is in fact no temperament, all the organs of the body being perfectly in harmony, and exhibiting no preponderance of one over the other. Many persons approximate this condition, but it is difficult to find one in which it is so nearly attained as to make the proper classification of his temperament under the above heads a difficult matter. However desirable such a condition may be from a purely physiological standpoint, the fact remains that all great and powerful natures, the men who have been the leaders in the battles of literature, art, science and war itself, have had well defined and pronounced temperamental conditions of organization.
We have now fully demonstrated that in his scientific delineation of character the professional phrenologist depends upon something more than mere configuration of skull. The great modifying conditions of health, quality and temperament in every case give us the foundation of the character. It will be seen, some medical authorities to the contrary, notwithstanding, that the science of Phrenology has a firm basis on the established principles and known facts of Physiology and Anatomy. Bearing these facts in mind we will now proceed to the discussion of the scientific principles governing the phrenological examination of