beauty is compatible with that of adaptation to climate. The climate of Africa, the cerebral structure of its inhabitants, and the degree of their civilization are as unfavourable to the existence of beauty as to the power of judging respecting it. What he adds as to variation in sable countenances is a mere exaggeration.

"Were it possible for a person to judge of the beauty of colour in his own species, upon the same principles and with the same impartiality as he judges of it in other objects, both animal, vegetable and mineral, there can be no doubt that mixed tints would be preferred; and a pimpled face have the same superiority over a smooth one, as a zebra has over an ass, a variegated tulip over a plain one, or a column of jasper or porphyry over one of a common red or white marble.”

Ele

Here the same mistake is committed. mentary beauty is preferred to that of adaptation to climate, fitness for physiognomical expression, &c. Knight's other arguments all involve similar errors, and admit of similar answers.

CHAPTER XI.

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 tem

peraments.

The ancients classed individuals in one or other of four temperaments, founded on the hypothesis of four humours, 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 temperaments.

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 afterwards 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 realise; 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 afterwards 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