Tempera

“ The fervours of the equatorial regions, and the rigours of the north, subdue man to a passive conformity with certain modes of life. These extremes of temperature avail much to vanquish his individual will, to forbid the caprices of his tastes, and to restrain his invention. ”

“ To signalize one particular that is external and visible, this climate appears to expand, to dry, to wither, to wrinkle the skin with a rapidity, and to a degree, unknown in our more humid and temperate regions. A woman, under these trying influences, is soon old. ”

“ Again: because ancient illumination was almost entirely executed in colours, in the use of which water and some glutinous medium were the only "vehicles," there is no reason why modern illumination should not be worked in oil, turpentine, encaustic, fresco, tempera, varnish, and by every process in which decorative painting is ever wrought in these days. It is in such an extension that the most valuable functions of the art are likely to consist in all time to come. ”

“ Those, therefore, which are thus deleterious, prove hurtful to all ages and temperaments, whereas the best kinds agree with all. But their differences as to quality—I mean heat, coldness, dryness, and humidity—have not the same effect upon all. Those of a proper temperament are benefited by temperate air, whereas those labouring under an intemperament derive benefit from the opposite kind. ”

“ When we come to speak of living things, however, whether vegetable or animal, although according to the laws of heat, there is the same tendency to uniformity, there is here a counteracting agency at work, and every living thing maintains a temperature peculiar to itself, and dependent on its own vital constitution, a temperature a rise only a few degrees above, or a fall only a few degrees below, which would cause its death. ”

“ We may accordingly regard temperature and physical circumstances as making a choice amongst various species of trees, all owing a certain species to subsist and propagate, to the exclusion, more or less complete, of all others. Physical temperature acts by elimination and suppression, in other words, by natural selection. ”

“ The line beyond which grass will not grow is determined in part by temperature; it marks the limit beyond which grazing animals cannot thrive, and, with a few exceptions, cannot survive. Conditions of temperature, such as obtain in the temperate zones, stimulate both the bodily and the mental faculties of humanity. [6] Therefore they have resulted in a civilization fundamentally different from that of tropical regions. ”

“ According to Aristotle, heat and cold are active, while dryness and moisture are passive in their nature. By the “temperament” of a man is understood the balance or proportion maintained between these conflicting tendencies. ”

“ But, notwithstanding that the heat under that cloudless sky and glowing firmament must have been very great, yet to the inhabitants of that world, whose bodies are composed of quite other elements than ours and have a much higher temperature, the atmosphere, hot as it would appear to us, seems always cool and refreshing. ”

“ But in fact, the people of warm, temperate, and tropical [Pg 127] regions are most commonly gentle of mood; the climate acts as an anodyne, and soothes them into a peaceful equilibrium of the passions. ”

“ To know the temperature of the interior parts of the globe at the present period, and the effects depending on its condition in this respect, is important, as furnishing one, and that, perhaps, the most instructive, of the elements for computing the changes which have, in earlier times, affected its structure and configuration, and varied its adaptations for organic life. ”

“ I give support to thy moral needs so long as the temperature of thy earth crust is high enough to prevent thy oceans from being absorbed, so long as the radiant heat of the sun is given out in sufficient quantities to keep thee warm. ”

“ But they were, by the hypothesis, at a lower level; and it becomes necessary to assign a reason for their greater cold under a condition which in the given examples is actually favourable to augmented temperature. ”

“ For, as there is a physical temperature of the interstellar spaces, betwixt sun and sun, which may be called the temperature of the universe, so is there a spiritual temperature of the interpersonal spaces, a certain common temperature of spirit, not barely personal, not national alone, but human and of the race, which may be called the temperature of mankind. ”

“ They absorb from a pure atmosphere the combined foods of plants and animals, and during their existence meet no scorching sunrise. They flourish in a region of perfect tranquillity, and without a tremor, without experiencing the change of a fraction of a degree in temperature, exist for ages. ”

“ While man keeps within this measure, proportion or temperament, he is strong and healthy, but as soon as he steps or falls beyond the temperament or measure of the four natures, which happens when heat takes the upper hand and strives to stifle cold, or, on the contrary, when cold begins to suppress heat, or man becomes full of cold moisture, or again is deprived of the due measure of moisture, he falls of necessity into sickness, and draws nigh unto death. ”

“ It may, perhaps, be in the parched plains of Lybia, that are amassed the first elements of a storm or tempest, which, borne by the winds, approach our climate, render our atmosphere dense, and thus operating on the temperament, may influence the passions of a man, whose circumstances shall have capacitated him to influence many others, who shall decide after his will the fate of many nations. ”

“ This threat, however, we did not much regard, thinking ourselves too well seasoned to variety of climates to fear any, and trusting more than all to an invariable temperance in everything, which we had as yet unalterably kept during our whole residence in the warm latitudes. ”

“ If we omit, therefore, the facts concerning the existence of living organisms in thermal springs which are altogether peculiar, and which lie outside the boundaries of our present inquiry, all that we know about the unaccustomed influence of high temperatures upon living things can easily be shown to be even more harmonious than it may at first glance appear. ”

“ On the fruitfulness or unfruitfulness of countries, and through that, or even directly, on the duration of human life,—this temperature exercises a most decided influence. How can you know,—since it is not permitted us to penetrate the arcana of Nature, and it is therefore allowable to speak of possibilities,—how can you know, that in such a state of weather as may have been necessary to carry this grain of sand a few paces further inland, some one of your forefathers might not have perished from hunger, or cold, or heat, before begetting that son from whom you are descended ”

“ The influences of localities and of temperatures are so striking that naturalists have not hesitated to recognize the effects on the structure, the developments, and the faculties of the living bodies subject to them. ”

“ In comparison with the temperate zone of culture, which it is our object to enter, the past, speaking generally, gives the impression of a tropical climate. Violent contrasts, sudden changes between day and night, heat and colour-splendour, the reverence of all that was sudden, mysterious, terrible, the rapidity with which storms broke : everywhere that lavish abundance of the provisions of nature ; and opposed to this, in our culture, a clear but by no means bright sky, pure but fairly unchanging air, sharpness, even cold at times ”

“ The most trustworthy observations prove that in all climates, in the temperate zones as well as at the equator or the poles, the temperature of the body in man, and of what are commonly called warm-blooded animals, is invariably the same ”

“ The ratio of this power is not, however, in these examples, sufficient to preserve their equable temperature in cold climates, so that they yield to the changes of the atmosphere, or the medium in which they reside, and most of them become torpid, approaching to the degree of freezing water. ”

“ Vigorous, healthy persons of moderately spare frame, with sound viscera, and who are of temperate habits, if the atmosphere be pure and moderately dry, can sustain a great amount of heat. Acclimatization has also some influence in conferring toleration. ”

“ Sufficient admiration has hardly been bestowed upon the marvellous power displayed by the vegetable world in adjusting its own temperature, notwithstanding atmospheric fluctuations,—a faculty in the manifestation of which it appears to present a counterpart to that exhibited by animal oeconomy in regulating its heat. ”

“ Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature; ”

“ The great antagonist power is heat. By the influence of the sun the globe is exposed to great varieties of temperature; an addition of heat expands bodies, and an abstraction of heat causes them to contract; by variation of heat, certain kinds of matter are rendered fluid, or elastic, and changes from fluids into solids, or from solids or fluids into elastic substances, and vice versâ, are produced; and all these phenomena are connected with alterations tending to the decay or destruction of bodies. ”

“ These variations arise similarly to the variations perceptible in the condition of the atmosphere; as, in all countries, the general state of whose atmosphere may be either hot, or cold, or temperate, certain districts are found to possess a particular temperature of their own, and to be more or less hot, or cold, by being more or less elevated than the general face of the country. ”

“ Varieties induced by Temperature.—The influence of temperature extends chiefly to the colour and development of animals. In cold regions the skin of the human race is fair, and the person squat and stunted, but as we approach the equator, the hue becomes deeper and deeper, till it is jetty black, while at the same time, the stature attains nearer and nearer to the tallest proportions to which mankind seem naturally entitled. ”

“ Beyond the tropics, and especially toward the middle of the temperate zones, variable causes predominate. We can, however, still discover there the effects of the action of constant causes, though much weakened ”

“ Dryness of the air is this quality; and which cold is as equally productive as intense heat; by either the skin may be dried, and rendered as tawny as what we find it among the Laplanders. Cold compresses all the productions of nature; and thus it is that the Laplanders, who are perpetually exposed to the rigours of frost, are the smallest of the human species.
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The most temperate climate is between the degrees of 40 and 50; where the human form is in its greatest perfection; and where we ought to form our ideas of the real and natural colour of man. ”

“ And as heat rarefies all bodies, fluids as well as solids, air as well as water, or mercury,—it follows that two portions of the same fluid, at different temperatures, being brought into contact with each other, that portion which is the hottest being more rarefied or specifically LIGHTER than that which is colder, must be forced upwards by this last.—And this is what always happens in fact. ”

“ Upon the whole, the temperate skies of this country may be pronounced favourable to photographic action; a fact for which the prevailing characteristic of our climate may partially account, humidity being an indispensable condition for the working state both of paper and chemicals.—Quarterly Review, No. ”

“ A wide range of more than 200° of temperature, and yet the heat of the human body maintains its steady and necessary amount, never materially varying under the two extremes. Similiar illustrations of the power of human nature to adapt itself to unnatural conditions might be [Pg 222] drawn from all the other elements necessary to life. ”

“ Wherefore, those bodies which are disposed to a certain disease, from a peculiar intemperament, will be affected by a similar temperature of the surrounding air. But those of an opposite temperament to the atmosphere will not only not be hurt but will be improved; the excess of their intemperament being overcome by the opposite excess. ”

“ Suppose the globe closely shrouded by an oppressive fog; and then imagine the condition of plants, animals, and man. Yet, did it please our great Creator, it is in his power to call into existence plants and animals fitted for so moist and obscure an atmosphere.
Again, the atmospheric temperature, the varying degrees of heat and cold, according to latitude and to the characters of land—that is, its elevation, its depression, the nature of its surface, and the arrangement of adjacent seas, etc., are in harmony with the development of life, and the due exercise of animal functions. ”

“ These are points that cannot be explained by peculiarities of temperature. The present distribution of forms (fixed forms of organization) is no more explained by thermal relations alone, than by the 287hypothesis of migrations of plants radiating from certain central points. Thermal relations are scarcely sufficient to explain the phenomenon why certain species have fixed limits beyond which they cannot pass, either in the plains towards the pole, or in vertical elevation on the declivities of mountains. ”

“ Another cause productive of differences of temperature on surfaces equally exposed to the sun's influence, is the peculiar distribution of land and water; for these dissimilar parts of the globe unequally absorb and unequally give out heat ”

“ Such a sudden liberation of caloric from the indurating crust of the earth, independent of the latitude, and the position of the earth’s axis, might indeed occasion local elevations of temperature in the atmosphere, which would influence the distribution of plants. ”

“ And these instances of conformity of the temperament of peoples to the direct effects of climate are sometimes offered as being among the most striking evidences of the reality of hereditary transmission of acquired qualities; and the argument is reinforced by instances of what seem to be similar results produced by climate on physical types. ”