ABSTRACT
Philosophers and scientists have for centuries debated whether intelligence, personality and creativity are gifts we are born with (a matter of nature) or skills that we learn (a matter of nurture). From the Greeks onwards, doctors and philosophers claimed that individual personality is determined by the humours. People tended to be one of four types: the choleric, the melancholic, the phlegmatic or the earthy. Psychological characteristics accompanied each type. If you had black bile, for example, you were likely to be melancholy. Personality was determined largely by biology.
