ABSTRACT
Passing on to the German characterologists, we notice that they have not been so prolific in this field as the French psychologists ; and the little that has been done by them has not been taken account of in the French works. Their writings, too, exhibit less homogeneity than do the French, nearly all of which are grouped around one central idea in classification. We may properly speak of a French school of characterology, but it would not be correct to apply the word in the singular, when referring to the German writers on character. The Germans laid more stress on temperament, perhaps because it affords a more definite scope for physiological explanation. Hence we find Julius Bahnsen in an elaborate work on Hegelian principles (though his guiding motif came from Schopenhauer) attempting to deduce the various types of character from the temperaments—a procedure at which Meumann shakes his head in disapproval.
