26. The Secret of the Human Temperaments

That is why in Greece, where they still had clairvoyant feelings, they called a person a melancholic when the densest part had the most predominant influence. The physical body is what humans have in common with mineral beings, which are grouped together under the concept of the earth. The ancient Greeks still knew what is no longer known today, namely that the human physical body is formed by its various fluids. These were not merely seen as something physical, nor were they merely examined in the chemical retort. Rather, it was known that they underlie everything spiritual. therefore designated this temperament, in which the physical body exercises the predominant influence, as black — melas —, as the melancholic temperament, because one saw the secretion of juices in man, which causes the tenacity of the physical body, whereby the latter withdraws from the normal influences of the higher limbs and thus makes man a dark, introspective being. For through his higher members, man belongs to a much greater totality. Through his etheric and astral bodies and his I, he would feel himself as belonging to the great whole, the great cosmic I, the Godhead. That which is the human being's spiritual being is precisely what makes him personal, in that he is enclosed in the skin of his physical body. This is why the melancholic person finds it so difficult to detach from their physical existence, because this physical aspect exerts the predominant influence.