As we have already noted from the history of personality disorder, when very little was known apart from the humoral theory of disease, it was common to think of temperament (aka personality) as the main progenitor of illness, with all other psychological symptoms considered as secondary epiphenomena. For example, Robert Burton described dozens of symptoms linked to the melancholic temperament, rather too many in his view: ‘The tower of Babel never yielded such confusion of tongues as the chaos of melancholy doth variety of symptoms,’ (Burton, 1621; republished 1927).