The Savannah morning news., 1900-08-20

drink Of the forbidden things, just as
recklessly a S If no such knowledge exist
ed. We have spoken of govt and dys-
pepsia; but we need not end with these.
Men will constantly eat and drink OF
what is forbidden TO them both by their
doctor and by their own conviction as
certain not only to make shem i'll, but to
kill them al no distant date. 1t is not
that they doubt that death will be the
result of their indulgence. Still less is
it that they do moi fear to die The
class of man who dares death for the sake
of his port or his pudding is precisely the
man to whom death, when il does occur,
is most terrifying. If then the dictates
of common prudence, based as they are
on the eertainues of the commonest
knowledge and experience fail so often
10 produce their logical result on action,
we need not be surprised If the certi
tudes of religious faith fail similarly with
an equal or even with a greater fire.
Quency.
The foregoing observations have been
made with reference to individuals, but
the same sort of phenomenon which we
witness in men and women individually
we witness in masses of individuals, of
races, or of nations, collectively. The
units, or at all events the vasS majority
of them, which make up these several
aggregates, are distinguished in each case
by common racial peculiarities, which in
some respect or other interfere with the
logical action of certain of their faiths
or convictions on their behavior in ordin-
AIRY life. Is there anything more mystic
rious in the fact that a Chinaman, who
win sell himself for execution in times Of
peace. should finch from death on the
battlefield than there is in the fact that
many an enlightened European, who sur
rounds himself with doctors in order to
keep death at a distance, should DELHI
erately brave it for the sake of orto-
Ian or fresh truff1e? The true explana-
ton of this, as of all similar paradoxes,
is to be sought in a trait of human ma
ture which is in Itself neither more nor
less expicable than any other of the fun
damental facts of life. We refer to the
effect upon conduct of what we common
ly call temperament, distinguished
from immediate inclination or appetite on
the one hand, and belief and reason on
the other. What temperament is is so
large and complicated a question that
we can but indicate the answer to it In
the briefest and the most general way;
but even such an answer as this may
not he without suggestiveness.
We believe it will not be inaccurate to
say that temperament consists of those
elements in the human character which
are due to idosyncrases of the nerves, the
oCeans and the constituents of the body
generally. as distinguished from the
brain. which is the organ Of thought and
consciousness, Not only does knowledge
and all the mat err on which thought ex-
ercises Itself comes o the brain through
the nerves and the organs Of sense, and
not only do bodies, differently constitut-
ed, give to the brain con siderably varying
records of the relative values of the pleas
ure and pain of life. bur the body as dis
tinguished from the brain is full of ap
petites, impulses and diversions, which
lead to action. or at all events tend to
lead to it, wi bout the Intervention of any
logical process at all. Now though ell
men brains. in a logical sense, think
alike and though they all remember alike
the bodies and nerves OF all men are very
far from feeling alike; and these appe
tites, inchnations tendencies, impulses
and aversiops, which constitute in some
individuals from what they are in others;
and there are analogous, though more
gene al differences betwe n the temper
aments of various races. Hence since the
conduct of all men. and of all races will
in certain respects. be inconsistent with
their logic ard their he iefs nor is there
any hing in the contradictory attitudes of
he Chinese with regard to death more
mysterious than many similar anomalies
which are daily observable among our
selves.