iienoe folentraniien vet re 3s SCIENCE Ryo Pu HYSIOGNOMY SANE SS Pek : ; —= ae -HYSIOGNOMY - ; AND BY PAOLO MANTEGAZZA, S tor ; ; Director of the National Museum of Anthropology, I ee Pe. President of the Italian Society a Anthropology. | ‘Boston COLLEGK Te ) CHESTNUT HILL, Ma a | SCRIBNER & WELFORD, 443 & 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. ee 1890. ‘we “ aD » — petri, G/T, Tuts book is a page of psychology—a study on the human countenance and on human expression. Scientific both in its end and in its method, it takes up the study of expression at the point where Darwin left it, and modestly claims to have gone a step further. I have set myself the task of separating, once for all, positive observations from the number of bad guesses, ingenious conjectures, which have hitherto encumbered the path of these studies. My wish has been to render to science that which is due to science, and to imagination that which is due to imagination. The human countenance interests all ; it is a book in which all must read, every day and every hour. The psychologist and artist will find in this work new facts and facts already known, but interpreted by new theories. Perhaps it may also throw into pro- minence some of the laws to which human expression is subject. Pranks CoN. LE NUS, er a PART i —THE HUMAN COUNTENANCE. Es is CHAL TERT STORICAL SKETCH OF THE SCIENCE OF PHYSIOGNOMY AND OF HUMAN EXPRESSION. : ; UMAN FACE. ; : : hae EATURES OF THE HUMAN FACE Z z : Bs he forehead—The eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes—The nose—The mouth—The chin—The cheeks—The ears —The teeth. CHAPTER IV. HAIR AND THE BEARD—MOLES—WRINKLES . : PAGE i 55 vili CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE COMPARATIVE MORPHOLOGY OF THE HUMAN FACE. ‘ 72 esthetic of the face. PART II.—THE EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS. CHAPTER YE THE ALPHABET OF EXPRESSION ’ 0 . : 79 CHAPTER VII. THE DARWINIAN LAWS OF EXPRESSION yo : 89 CHAPTER VITI. CLASSIFICATION OF EXPRESSIONS—GENERAL VIEW OF ALL PHENOMENA OF EXPRESSION . : ; . 96 CHAPTER IX. THE EXPRESSION GF PLEASURE " : F . « MOS CHAP TERE THE EXPRESSION OF PAIN : ; . : a: ae CHAPTER XI. EXPRESSION OF LOVE AND OF BENEVOLENCE : . a4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. EXPRESSION OF DEVOTION, OF VENERATION, AND OF RELIGIOUS FEELING 5 : A A : CHAPTER XIII. EXPRESSION OF HATRED, OF CRUELTY, AND OF PASSION . CHAPTER XIV. THE EXPRESSION OF PRIDE, VANITY, HAUGHTINESS, MODESTY, AND HUMILIATION CHAPTER XV. EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL FEELINGS, FEAR, DISTRUST— DESCRIPTION OF TIMIDITY ACCORDING TO THE OLD PHYSIOGNOMISTS : e : ‘ : CHAPTER XVI. THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHT ; : a ‘ CHAPTER XVII. GENERAL EXPRESSIONS—REPOSE AND ACTION, DISQUIETUDE, IMPATIENCE, EXPECTATION, DESIRE . : ‘ Characters of expression according to age, sex, tempera- ment, character, education. CHAPTER XVIII. RACIAL AND PROFESSIONAL EXPRESSION > F 7 CHAPTER XIX, THE MODERATORS AND DISTURBERS OF EXPRESSION . PAGE 150 159 180 193 200 213 230 245 x CONTENTS. CHAPTER XxX. CRITERIA FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE STRENGTH OF AN EMOTION BY THE DEGREE OF THE EXPRESSION CHAPTER XXI. Tue Five VERDICTS ON THE HUMAN FACE * The physiological verdict—The good and evil mein— Pathological physiognomies. CHAPTER XXII. CRITERIA FOR JUDGING THE MorAL WORTH OF A PHYSI- OGNOMY The good and the evil face. CHAPTER XXIII. CRITERIA FOR JUDGING THE INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF A FACE : : : . é The stupid and the intelligent face. CHAPTER AXIV THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF GESTURES AND THE EXPRESSION OF CLOTHES APPENDIX. THE Eves, HAIR, AND BEARD IN THE ITALIAN RACES PLATES INDEX PAGE 254 261 274 283 292 301 311 319 PHYSIOGNOMY AND THE Peete 5ION OF EMOTIONS. meted. f. THE HUMAN COUNTENANCE. Char Le RT. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE SCIENCE OF PHYSIOGNOMY AND OF HUMAN EXPRESSION. In the restricted portion of the world which our human pu eyes can penetrate we see the first germs of living beings born and developing in conformity with laws identical with those which rule over the birth and evolution of sciences in the tranquil laboratory of the intellect. At first a confused vortex of atoms appears, each seeking the other and grouping themselves in attempts to form the first combinations of force and the simplest symme- tries of form. Soon the organs of inferior order indis- tinctly manifest themselves; the parts which were at first confused are differentiated little by little. In propor- tion as the members take shape and their articulations are established, they go on to mark out a scale of large things, enclosing others small and very small, which will in turn become very large; in like manner an infinite series of germs contained in one germ will successively I 2 PH YSIOGNOMY. give birth to new forms and to new descendants. And finally we find ourselves face to face with an organism, provided with distinct members, which claims for itself a part of space, a share of the sun, and a name. Thus are born the mushroom and the oak, the ant and the man ; in like manner science too is born and develops. The progress of all science has also been the progress of that science which we call physiognomy or metoposcopy, different names signifying the same thing—the study of the human countenance. “Long before these words had found a place in our dictionaries, and in the history of science, man had looked into the face of his fellow-man to read there joy and pain, hatred and love, and had sought to draw thence conclusions both curious and of daily practical use. There is no untutored people, no rudimen- tary language which has not incorporated in some proverb the result of these first sports of divination. Humpbacks, squints, sparkling or dull eyes, the varying length of the nose, the varying width of the mouth, all are honoured or condemned in popular proverbs. These proverbs are the first germs of the embryonic substance which later on yield materials for a new science. In these first attempts we always meet the infantine inexperience of ignorance; sympathies and antipathies are there translated into irrefragable dogmas and verdicts without appeal; instinct and sentiment hold the place of observation and calculation. All is seasoned with the magic which is one of the original sins of the human family. This seasoning always becomes more abundant in proportion as the need of new foods increases, and ends by being almost entirely substituted for the real nourishment, which is insufficient to satisfy the great hunger. And then man, not contented to examine the human face and translate it into proverbs and into physiognomical laws of fortuitous coincidences or suggestions of sympathy and antipathy, goes on to seek in the heavens and among the ta ston CAL SKETCH. 3 stars relations between the constellations and our features, and erects this odd edifice of judicial astrology—a veritable white magic applied to the study of the human face. Magic demands a magician; he envelops himself in the mystery of the inconceivable to explain the unintelligible, and magic becomes an industry, a trade which fattens a small number of knaves at the expense of a large number of fools. Such is the true origin, little honourable as it may be, of Physiognomy. Then come the first writers, who collect from the mouths of the people and in their proverbs the scattered materials of the new science; they add numerous conjectures of their own, give a name to their doctrine, and return to the ignorant crowd in a dogmatic form all that they first received from them. A literature in its childhood is always encyclopedic. Therefore the first elements of physiognomy are to be found in the Bible, in the Fathers, in the philosophers, and in the poets. -Giovanni Battista Dalla Porta was right when he wrote on the title- page of the beautiful “rst Look of his work! that phystognomy was born of natural principles; and in his preamble, in a page abounding in audacity and powerful historical syntheses, he was justified in showing how the germs of the science of which he was beginning the study were to be found scattered in the works of the great minds who had preceded him. I have pleasure in quoting some passages. “ Adamantius said that the character is expressed by the forehead and the eyes, even when the mouth is silent. The philosopher Cleanthes was wont to say, after Zeno, that dispositions might be recognised from the face. The Pythagoreans had a rule, according to Iamblichus, when disciples came to them demanding to be instructed, to accept none, unless they had ascertained by clear 1 Gio. Battista Dalla Porta Napolitano, Della Fisonomia dell’ huomo, Libri sei Padova, 1627, p. I. 4 PH YVSIOGNOM Y. indications, drawn from their countenances and their whole external appearance, that they would succeed in learning. They said that nature constitutes the body after the soul, and gives to this the instruments which are necessary for it, that she shows us in the body the image of the soul, or rather that the one is the pattern of the other. We read in Plato that Socrates admitted none to philoso- phy unless assured by examining his face that he was suited to it. ‘*The physiognomy of Alcibiades indicated, said Plutarch, that he was destined to raise himself to the highest rank in the republic. Plato, and after him Aristotle, said that nature proportions the body to the activity of the soul. In fact every instrument which is made with a view to a certain thing must be proportioned to this thing. All the parts of the body are made for some thing, and this cause for which a thing is made is an action; whence it clearly follows that the body altogether has been created by nature with a view to an excellent action. Nestor, according to Homer, by the resemblance which he finds in the face of Telemachus, conjectures as to what his soul must be. ““*By certain signs that I discern upon thy face, O illustrious youth, I recognise whose son thou art. I do not wonder to see such splendour in thy eyes. Thy face is proud and generous, thy great eloquence and thy reason recall to me thy father. What youth could such a one as thou be, were he not the son of the great Ulysses ?’” Aristotle wrote a book on the physiognomy, and Plato, although he was not an evolutionist, compared the physiog- nomy of man to that of animals. Dalla Porta, even while he refuted the great Greek philosopher on this point, and maintained that it was unreasonable to imagine that it would be possible to find a man whose body was entirely similar to that of an animal, is still continually making Mist ORICAL SKETCH. 5 analogies in his work between man and the animals, and illustrates his comparisons by numerous figures. To quote an example, Plato had said that the genus lion must be generous and bold; in other words, that a man would be courageous if he had something of the lion, such as a broad chest, wide and powerful shoulders, etc. In his turn, Dalla Porta continually draws parallels between pea- cocks, dogs, horses, asses, oxen, cocks, pigs, and other brutes on the one side, and men on the other. Two examples will suffice to show up to what point the Neapolitan physiognomist pushed these analogies. On page 115 dzs of the edition already quoted he compares a marine fish, the skate, with the Emperor Domitian— “In the following plate is seen the face of Domitian represented after his statue in marble and antique medals, and opposite a skate from nature.” And on page 164 dzs are seen the lower limbs of an ape and those of a man with this indication— “In the place below will be found the buttocks of the ape and those of a thin and withered man.” It appears, however, that these impious analogies formed no obstacle in those days to dying in the odour of sanctity, for Dalla Porta ended his days surrounded by universal veneration, and was interred in a church. i The Jesuit Niquetius, who was one of the most learned among those who wrote upon physiognomy in the seven- teenth century, quotes in his work 129 authors, without counting, he says, Scripfuram sacram, que, ut att Origines, scientiarum est universitas, and among them St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, St. Gregory of Nanzianzen, St. Gregory of Nyssus, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustin, Saint Peter Damien, Saint Thomas, among the saints; Aristotle, Plato, Cardano, Seneca, Tertullian, among the _philo- sophers and the theologians; Xenophon, Strabo, Plutarch, Tacitus, among the historians; Aristophanes, Juvenal, Lucan, Lucian, Martial, Petronius, among the poets; “6 PHYVSIOGNOMY. Averroes, Avicenna, Hippocrates, Celsus, Galen, Pliny, among the naturalists and physicians.+ The seventeenth century was the golden age of astro- logical or semi-astrological physiognomy. Then, more than ever, men had a passion for the mysterious, for enigmas which had a scientific colouring. A Spanish writer, Jerome Cortes, born at Valencia, said naively in a | very curious. book, ‘ Physiognomy is nothing but an ingenious and subtle science of human nature, thanks to which one may know the good or bad complexion, the virtues or vices, of the man considered as an animal.” ? In fact, the good Cortes, to be consistent with his definition, gave us in his volume after his treatise on the physiognomy other curious things—such as the praise of rosemary (Zratato segundo de las excelencias del Romero y su calidad), the praise of the elixir of life, and a number of recipes, among which was that of a powder of frogs, gue tiene virtud de soldar las venas rompidas y un unguento preciosissimo para sanar toda fistola y Maga vieja, y otros males (which has the property of healing burst veins, and which is a very precious ointment to cure all fistulas and old wounds, and other evils). The works on judicial astronomy are very numerous. In them the most singular and ridiculous assertions are found. One would say that these books must have been written either by a fool or a drunkard. It will be enough to quote as an example Cardano,? who has hazarded the oddest forecasts in his work, not only as to the character as conjectured from the physiognomy, its wrinkles and its 1 R. P. Honorato Nicquetio, e Societate, Jesu sacerdotis Theologi, Physiognomia humana libris iv. distincta. Editio prima, Lugduni, 1648. 2 Hieronymo Cortes, Phisonomie y varios Secretos de Naturaleza, etc. Barcelona, 1610. 3 H. Cardani Medici Mediolanensis, Metoposcopia, etc. Lutetze Parisiorum, 1658. HISTORICAL SKETCH. 7 spots, but also as to the events which would happen in the course of life. In Plate I., figs. a, 4, ¢ specimens from his Fisonomia astrologica will be found. On the forehead seven lines are drawn, consecrated, proceeding from above down to Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. As the lines were straight, oblique, or crossed, so the response varied. Fig. 4, for example, represents a man who, according to the signs on his forehead, was doomed to die by hanging or by drowning. Fig. ¢ another who must of necessity be ¢ris¢zs or véttosus. De la Chambre exposes in these terms the sophistry on which astrological physiognomy is founded!— ““The head is indubitably the epitome of the whole heavens: like these it has its constellations and its signs. But if we note the stars, their situation and their move- ments, without knowing their nature, nor why they are thus disposed, we may say as much of all parts of the face.” . De la Chambre is a judicious writer. Although he lived in the midst of astrology and chiromancy he revolted against the prejudices of his time, and he dared, although timidly, to write a chapter entitled—Zhe judgment we must pass on Chiromancy and Metoposcopy.2 He does not deny all, he does not assent to all, and concludes. by saying that it is necessary to guard against exaggerations, that there is much truth in astrology, but not so much as the chiro- mancist astrologers pretend. It was, however, Dalla Porta who had the honour of combatting judicial astrology unmasked. After the book which we have already quoted, he published another— Of Celestial Physiognomy: six books in which the falsehood of judicial astronomy is established, and wherein the way by 1 De la Chambre, ZL’art de connaitre les hommes. Amsterdam, 1660. 2 [bidem, p. 268. 8 PHYVSIOGNOMY. which one may recognise in natural causes all that the aspect, the appearance, and the features of men can physically signify and announce, ts put forth. (Padua, 1623.) In this work the Neapolitan author demonstrates that the features of a man are due to his temperament and not to the stars; and having cited as an example the opinions of astrologers on the character of men born under the influence of Saturn, he adds— ‘We have reported their opinions, not to approve them, but to refute them as o/d women’s stories. Wissimulating their falsehood, presenting as coming from heaven and the stars magnificent and prodigious things, they make us accept as divine that which is derived from natural sources. We have said that the Saturnians are said to be melancholy, cold, and sapless. If we investigate the opinion of physicians, Galen attributes to the melancholy, cold, and sapless a hard and frail body, rough hair, a humid or livid complexion ; and to the melancholy generally black and bristly hair, bushy and meeting eyebrows, thick lips, and flattened nose. Others give them irregular teeth and broad chests. All that does not come from the stars, but from the temperament, as the physicians say.” Of all the writers of the seventeenth century Dalla Porta is the most famous; he has, too, become for many people the only representative of ancient physiognomy. Under his portrait, which adorns many editions of his work, we read these verses— ‘* Blandus honos virtusque simul delubra tenebant, Sed binis templis unica Porta fuit, Tu quoque virtutem conjunctam nactus honori, Amborum digne orta vocandus eris.” Seventeenth century distiches, if ever any were ! Not only did Dalla Porta first openly oppose judicial astrology, but he opened up a new era for the study of physiognomy. He could only make use of the scientific materials of his time, but he employed them with the HISTORICAL SKETCH. 9 wise discernment of a positive philosopher, and his psy- chology is sound. He discussed the methods which may guide us in the study of the human physiognomy, and he investigated how, by the temperament of the whole body, its characteristics might be conjectured. Thus he merited his fame and justified the enthusiasm with which all learned Europe received his work, written first in Latin, then translated by him into Italian, and by others into French and Spanish. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this illus- trious Neapolitan was the high-priest of physiognomy. All those who wrote subsequently pillaged him, either quoting or not quoting him, and drew plentifully from his Encyclopedia, where he had gathered all that the ancients had been able to say on the subject of the human physiognomy, and all that an observer could add to them. Niquetius, whom we have already cited, was a very erudite writer and a good observer for his time. He also distinguished astrological from natural chiromancy. He also, like De la Chambre, felt a vague need to reject antique superstitions, and was a precurser of the experi- mental school which was to transform the world. The introduction to his natural chiromancy deserves recalling ; he speaks in it of the importance of the hand— ** Quid est enim manus? Zoroastro, ddmirabilis naturze miraculum, Plutarcho, causa hamanz sapientiz; Lactantio, rationis et sapientiz magistra, aliis, mundi artifex, amicitize sedes, humanz vitz presidium, corporis propugnaculum, capitis defensatrix, rationis satelles, interpres animi, conciliatrix divinz gratis, nervus orationis, officina sanctitatis, Isidoro dicitur manus, quasi munus, nimirum totius corporis munus ; ministrat enim cibum ori, ceterisque membris omnibus opitulatur. Denique fidei symbolum est, unde porrigere dextram est fidem promittere, quod colligitur ex Virgilio Aineid. ‘« Pars mihi pacis erit dextram tetigisse tyrannis.” Et Lib 3. ** Ipse pater dextram Anchisis haud multa montus Dat juveni, atque animum preesenti pignore firmat.” 10 PH VSIOGNOMY. When Niquetius gives us some sketches of the expres- sion of passion and of human characteristics, he paints very happily. Here is his description of an audacious Lah ‘* Audacis viri figura : Os exertum, vultus horridus, aspera frons, supercilia arcuata, oblonga; nasus longior; dentes longi; breve collum; brachia longiora, que genua attingant; pectus latum ; humerielevati; oculi czesii, rubei, salientes ; torvus aspectus.” Towards the end of the seventeenth century, another Italian writer, Ghiradelli, published a large volume on physiognomy, whose title is very characteristic of this inflated and bombastic period. Here is its exact arrange- mient—— ‘* Cephalogy Physiognomical. Divided into ten half scores. In which, in conformity with the documents of Aristotle, And of other natural philosophers, with brief discourse and careful observations, we examine the physiognomies Of one hundred human heads Which have been engraved in this Work. After which, by signs and conjectures, we demonstrate the different inclinations of men and women. By Cornelio Ghiradelli, Bolognese, The Ingenious Vespertin Academician. As many sonnets of divers excellent poets and academicians have been added, in which the physiognomies previously cited are gallantly described. And some additions to each discourse of the indefatigable Vespertin Academician. At Bologna, At the house of the Heirs of the Gospel, Dozzi & Company, 1672.” The method employed by this ingenious and indefatig- able academician in studying the human physiognomy is HISTORICAL SKETCH. II indeed very curious. He shows us a hundred human faces, drawn after life—very ill, it is true—and finely framed in a border ornamented with irregular sculpturings. Each is accompanied by a Latin distich, by a sonnet, and some remarks by the author. I shall quote, as an example, the distichs and sonnets which refer to a good and bad counten- ance. I will spare the reader Ghiradelli’s prolix commentary. We have before us a beautiful round face, which, according to the verses, should belong to a fair man. Here is the distich— ‘* Moribus ingenuis preeclaraque indole credas, Quem flavescenti videris esse coma.” And his lordship, Cesare Orrini, graciously offered to the author the following sonnet, which is read under the portrait— | _ **The fair locks with which nature has so splendidly adorned thy glorious brow, renders her other gifts so clear and so manifest that thought can figure its lively image. And thou must have no fear shouldst thou be calied upon to arm and fight, for a powerful and ever- present force is there to protect thee and to oppose itself to the influence of fatal stars. ** Kings bear crowns of glittering gold, and the idolising, worshipping crowd bow before the perishable rays with which they shine resplendent. **But thou, under thy golden hair, thou possessest a more truly glorious gift, so great a treasure of virtue that thou shall rise above the sun and shalt attain to the heavens.” On page 17 our ingenious academician shows us a frightful snout, framed in the palm of a hand, as if between the hands of a barber about to shave it; and below this audacious distich, in the manner of a pillory label — ‘* Hispida ceesaries pigrum notat, atque timentem Quemque mala videas calliditate frui.” Then comes the sonnet, which, this time, is the work of an Arcadian—that is to say, of the Marquis Errico Rossi, member of the Arcadian Academy of Bologna— 12 PHYVSIOGNOMY. ‘** Remove thyself from here—remove thyself afar ; for to remain with thee is a misery for others ; thy mouth forms words contrary to thy thought ; thou art always ready to mingle lies with truth. ** Never hast thou dared to face a danger; never hast thou taken thought for others; thou fleest like the buck or the swift goat; thou avoidest the passer-by from afar. ‘* To every noble spirit, to every honest heart thou art as a brier, and as thorns, a coward, deceiver, idle and evil. **T cannot deny that if thy lips are lying, thy hair, stiff and bristly, is truthful and reveals thy vices.” Despite this academic trifling, Ghiradelli is a scholar and a sagacious observer; his book may be studied with interest by those who wish to know what the science of physiognomy was in Italy towards the end of the seventeenth century. He devoted to the nose two discourses which are really very curious. He says, among other things, “that the nose helps to manifest passion and contempt. Doctors have examined several proverbs upon the move- ments of the nose when a man manifests some passion. For example, when we want to make fun of and mock another we make a certain movement of the nose referred to in the proverb: Lum adunco naso suspendere. And when we wish to express contempt we make a sign with the nose, which means Hum mnaso rejicere. And when we see anything unpleasant done to another, we twitch back the nostrils. When we get into a passion, the nostrils are dilated and the tip of the nose red.” Grattarola is an author who wrote in Latin upon Physiognomy, and who, in the order of time, precedes Ghiradelli. I have not been able to consult his work, but several passages of his cited by the writers of the seventeenth century do not testify to great originality. Giovanni Ingegneri, bishop of Capo d’Istria, at the beginning of the same century, has left us a little treatise on JVatural Physiognomy. We there gives sign of scanty erudition, and nearly always contents himself with HISTORICAL SKETCH. 13 presenting in aphorisms the solutions of cabalistic science. A few examples will suffice— ** A beard on a woman is a sign of little honesty.” ** Excessive size of the brow is a sign of idleness.” ** The smallness of the forehead indicates a choleric man.” ‘* Very red eyes are the sign of a bad nature, inclined to cruelty.” ** Bright eyes are the sign of wantonness.” ‘* Those who are flat-nosed are very wanton.” ** Men with curved noses are magnanimous.” Scipione Chiaramonti of Cesena is one of the best physi- ognomists. He published his works only one year before Ingegneri.t Blondo, Finella, and some others belong to the same school. Plenty of authors, plenty of volumes, but little originality, and plenty of plagiarism! Who knows how often we might have been dragged through the same ruts if towards the middle of the last century Lavater had not appeared to inaugurate a new era for this order of studies. He is the true precursor of the positive science, and he serves as a link between the writers of the seventeenth century and of modern times. The physician, Ciro Spontoni, also devoted a little book of astrology to the study of the brow. (JZetoposcopy by the Measure of the Lines of the Brow. Venice, 1626.) Ina sketch of the history of physiognomy it is necessary also to mention chiromancy, which has lasted into our own day as a last vestige of the magic of the middle ages. When we glance at the books on chiromancy we are astonished at the serious way in which imagination has struggled to read our character, our intelligence, and our destiny in the capricious lines of the hand. I will cite the following works as the most important:— _ La science curieuse ou traiteé de la chiromancie, etc., enriched with a great number of figures for the facility of 1 De conjectandis cujusque moribus et latentibus animé affectibus, 14 . PHYSIOGNOMY. the reader. Paris, 1665, 1 vol., 212 pages. Adrian Sicler. Chiromance royale nouvelle enriche de figures, de moralttez et des observations de la cabale, etc. Gio-Battista Dalla Porta. Della Chirofisonomia. Two books translated from a Latin manuscript of Pompeo Sarnelli. Naples, 1677, 1 vol., 167 pages. Lavater was neither a physician nor a naturalist; he was a citizen of Zurich, and a minister of the Gospel. Poet and painter, with a feminine nature and an ardent love for mankind, he carried into everything the glowing enthusiasm, the sudden convictions, the mobility of ideas which form the joy and the torment of all men endowed with excessive sensibility. It is sufficient to look at the beautiful portrait of himself which he has given us in his works to perceive at once, and with a glance, all his defects and his rare qualities. Expansive, open to every enthusiasm, mobile, but always keeping within the limits of goodness and honesty, he has commented on his portrait in a short autobiography which is a jewel of ‘sincerity and gracefulness. Lavater is one of those few men who carry their temperament and nerves into every- thing, who say all things to all. As soon too as we have read a single page of his great work we know and love him. Both in face and character he much resembles Fénélon. It is said that one day Madame de Staél, walking with him and some common friends, suddenly stopped and cried, ‘‘ How our dear Lavater resembles Fénélon! These are his features, his air, his countenance. It is truly Fénélon, but Fénélon slightly Swiss (wz feu Suisse)” He was also a poet, and left several epic poems, among others one which deserves comparison with Klopstock’s J/esszah, some religious dramas, canticles, sermons, theological writings, and some Swiss songs, which were very popular. — Lavater became a physiognomist, not by reading the authors who had preceded him, but by drawing with his rapid pencil faces which pleased or displeased him, and by HISTORICAL SKETCH. 15 preserving his drawings with care. By dint of drawing and collecting, he found himself in possession of a considerable number of observations which, united almost without order and with no scholastic rule, crystallised as though spon- taneously into a great encyclopedia enriched with five or six hundred plates, and which he called one fine day, The Physiognomical Bible. The first edition appeared in folio in 1772; to-day very rare, it is still the best, because the figures were executed under the eyes of the author himself. After this first German edition there were others in French, in English, and in other languages. I possess that which was printed at the Hague from 1781 to 1803. It was begun by the author, but the fourth volume appeared after his death under the care of his son, a doctor of medicine. We recognise all the humanitarian and religious fervour of the author even in the title of this immortal work—Zssay on Physiognomy, destined to make man known and loved. The author is in fact inspired by love and by faith; transported by the liveliness of his feelings, he bursts every moment into hymns of admiration: now for the mouth which is so interesting a part of the face; now for the God who has made man so beautiful; now for the woman who is the enchantment of life; in a word, for all that presents itself to his loving eyes. It is related that in a long illness, the consequence of a wound which he had received in the attack on Zurich by the French, weakness caused him to fall into hallucinations and religious ecstasies. He imagined himself to be the apostle St. John, and present at the mysteries of the Apocalypse. In Lavater there is no longer a trace of judicial astrology; nor is there servile imitation of the ancient writers, of whom besides he knew little. But the guesses of an individual man take the place of a scientific examination conducted by positive and rational methods. Feeling is substituted always and everywhere for science. Thence come the 16 PH YSIOGNOMY. imperfections of this beautiful work, which remains a grandiose monument of human genius, but which does not supply a firm basis on which to found other columns and other edifices. Admiration for, and love of, men are not enough to replace scientific observation; and the genius of Lavater does not suffice to atone for his complete ignorance in anatomy and in natural history. Two anecdotes will serve better than anything else to show the weakness of his theory. One day a stranger presented himself to him. ‘“M. Lavater,” said he, ‘‘I have just arrived. Look at me well, for I have taken the journey from Paris to Zurich to see you, and to submit my countenance to your examina- tion. Guess who I am!” “T have already looked at you attentively. You have many characteristic features. To begin, you write... . You probably devote yourself professionally to literary work. . . . Yes, certainly, you are a man of letters.” ‘‘True, but of what sort?” ‘I do not know. . . . Yet it appears to me that you are a philosopher . . . that you know how to seize the ridiculous side of things . . . that you have courage... originality... much wit. You might very well be the author of the Zadbleau de Paris, which I have just finished reading.” It was in fact Mercier. When the mask of Mirabeau was sent to Lavater he guessed the great revolutionist. ‘‘One recognises at once,” he said, “the man of terrible energy, unconquerable in his audacity, inexhaustible in his resources, resolute, haughty,” etc, But here is the reverse of the medal :— One day his friend Zimmermann sent to him a very accentuated profile, with a letter written so as to greatly pique his curiosity. Lavater, who was wanting and expecting a portrait of Herder, imagined that this profile HISTORICAL SKETCH. 17 was that of the great German philosopher, and went into ccstasies over the intellectual and poetical qualities of the man to whom it belonged. This man was, on the contrary, an assassin executed at Hanover. That which happened to Lavater will always happen to those who take physiognomy for an exact science, and who confound the expression with the anatomy of features, as he always did without himself being aware of it. Yet the illustrious pastor of Zurich marks a new epoch in our studies, and his work will always be an inexhaustible mine of information for the artist and the psychologist. We may say of him as he said of Raphael— ; ** When I wish to intoxicate myself with admiration for the greatness of the works of God, I have only to present to myself in imagination the face of Raphael. He will always be for me an apostolic man; I mean that he is relatively to other painters what the apostles were relatively to other men.” Lavater was the apostle of scientific physiognomy, and although Lichtenberg wrote against him the celebrated satire of the Physiognomy of tails, he will always remain one of the most sympathetic figures, the most beloved, the most brilliant, in the history of physiological sciences. Lebrun, the celebrated painter of Louis XIV., wrote on physiognomy,! but in an academical manner. ‘The types of the principal emotions which he has left us are mannered: they are caricatures and not studies after life, as we shall have several occasions to prove during the course of this book. _ Among the artists who have studied the physiognomy is also the Italian, De Rubeis, a gentleman of Udina, 1 Lebrun, Conferences sur Texprsesion des différents caracteres des passions. Paris, 1667, in 4to. These lectures were reprinted in the edition of Lavater published by Moreau, 1820. See also by the same author, Z.xpresstons des passions de [dme, in folio, Published by A. Suntach. 2 18 PHYSIOGNOMY. who published at Paris (1809) a book on portraits and on the best way of seizing faces! He was a pene- trating observer, and should be studied more than he is to-day. The real science begins with Camper. This great anatomist gave his name to the famous facial angle which, to our own time, has served as a criterion and a measure to determine the rank of the human face, and of the snout of animals in the morphological series. Topinard? and myself have published some critical studies on the value of this criterion; but the facial angle of Camper will always be considered one of the most ingenious discoveries which have been made in this order of research. Camper in his work? began to study the human countenance in different races, and traced the broad lines of an evolution of forms, while criticising with very close reasoning the brilliant superficiality of Buffon. In the third chapter of the second of the works quoted in the note he gives physical observations on the difference of the features of the face, considered in profile, as the heads of apes, of ourang-outangs, of negroes and other peoples, tracing up to the antique heads. “You will be astonished,” he says, ‘‘to find among my first plates two heads of apes, then one of a negro, and then one of a camel.” He opposes the opinion of some learned men who had admitted that negroes might be the offspring of the union of white women with apes. He says this 1 G. Battista de Rubeis, De’retratti ossta trattalo per cogliere le fisonomie. Paris, 1809. Printed in Italian and in French. 2 Topinard, Etude sur Pierre Camper et sur langle facial dit de Camper, Revue d’anthropologie, t. ii, Paris, 1871.—Des Diverses especes de prognathisme, tbid. t. i. and t. iv.—Mantegazza, Dez carattert gerarchict del cranioumano. Archivio per l’antrop. e l’Etnol. Florence, 1876, t. ii. p. 547. 3 Camper, Déscours sur le moyen de répwesenter les diverses passions, etc.—Diéssertation physique sur les différences réelles que présentent les raits du visage. Utrecht, 1791. CEuvres posthumes, s ee, HISTORICAL SKETCH. 19 is not the place to demonstrate the absurdity of the assertion: but, however, he compares apes, negroes, and antique statues. This comparison appeared to him very bold: he made it, however, and theological prejudice did not prevent him from tracing the first lines of the evolution of human forms. Charles Bell, a distinguished physiologist, published in 1806 the first edition of his work! on the anatomy and philosophy of expression, an epoch-making work in the history of expression. Lemoine? was right when he said “Charles Bell’s book should be studied by every one who essays to make the face of man speak, by philosophers as well as by artists.” _ The German, Engel, published towards the end of last century a good book (Letters on Expression), which has been translated into Italian by Rasori, in which the diverse movements of the face and of the body are studied with care and with interest. - In 1839 Dr. Burgess? studied the causes of the blushing which is produced under the influence of different emo- tions; in 1862 Duchenne published two editions of his treatise on the mechanism of the countenance‘; but the importance of his observations and of his theories seem to me to have been somewhat exaggerated by Darwin.° In my Physiology of Pain I have tried to reduce the ardour of physiologists to a more judicious moderation. A great French anatomist, Gratiolet, gave at the Sor- bonne a public course on expression, which was published 1 Charles Bell, Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression, 1806. 2 Albert Lemoine, De la Physionomie et de la parole. Paris, 1865, p. IOI. 8 Burgess, Zhe Physiology or Mechanism of Blushing, 1839. 4 Duchenne, Mécanisme de la physiognomie humaine ou analyse électro-physiologique de Vexpression des passions. Paris, 1876. 5 Darwin, Zhe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London, 1872, p. 5. 20 PHYSIOGNOMY. in 1865, after the death of the author! He there thus summarises the conception which he had formed of expression— . **Tt results from all the facts which I have recalled, that the senses, the imagination and thought itself, elevated, abstract as they are - Supposed to be, cannot be exercised without awakening a correlative feeling, and that this feeling translates itself immediately, sympathetic- ally, symbolically, or metaphysically in all the spheres of the exterior organs, which tell all, according to their own mode of action, as if each had been directly affected.” The germ of a great truth lurks in this theory, but it is almost lost behind a veil woven of metaphysical nebu- losities. I hope that the reader will find more light in my chapter on the alphabet of expression. Piderit published, in 1859, an essay on expression, and in 1867, a scientific treatise on expression and on physiog- nomy.? Bain, Herbert Spencer, and other psychologists of the positive school have collected some valuable observa- tions on some of the expressions of the human countenance. But the honour was reserved for Darwin of studying expression by a really new method, and to open up a large field for purposes of comparison by seeking for the first lineaments of expression in the animals which most nearly resemble us. The great anatomists and physiologists who preceded him had only touched one side of the problem ; they had only concerned themselves with expression in its relation to art and the esthetic. He, on the contrary, with his wide and comprehensive mind, traced the general laws which govern expression in the whole animal kingdom. His book is one of the most splendid monuments erected by his genius ; and one may say, without exaggeration, that expres- sion, in so far as it is a special branch of comparative 1 Gratiolet, De la physiognomie et des mouvements d expression, 1865. * Piderit, Wéssenschafiliches System der Mimik und Physiog- nomontk, 1867. AIISTORICAL SKETCH. ‘QI biology, asserted itself as a new science in the work published only in 1872, to which we shall have to recur more than once. Darwin studied the expression of the principal emotions in animals, in children, in adults. He put comprehensive questions to travellers, to missionaries, to all his corres- pondents in various parts of the world. Thus he amassed an extraordinary quantity of new facts; then he examined them as with a magnifying glass, submitting them to the evolutionist theory, that he might attempt to discern their mutual relation—the relation of cause to effect. We may differ in opinion from him upon some particular points, we may reject some of his explanations as too rash, but we must always admire the width of the horizon which was opened to us by the publication of his book. Scarcely more than two centuries elapsed between the work of Dalla Porta and that of Darwin, and yet what a gulf between the two methods! We seem to be reading books written in two different languages! On one side, divination, cabalism, some poor thoughts floating in an ocean of hazardous statements—fortuitous coincidences, On the other, few statements, many doubts; but what certainty of method, how open the look into the future ! There we have a fantastical world, where we can seize nothing because all is clouded and phantom-like; here we step on the solid earth of nature, and we enter the true path of science. We shall perhaps have to move onwards during the ages; but we shall never have to return beyond this point and strike a new path. Still the new physiognomy could not satisfy the crowd which had been so long gorged with amusing fooleries and graceful enigmas. Even in this century books have con- tinued to be published, which, with every appearance of seriousness, while claiming to be scientific works, preserve a strong odour of judicial astrology, or, at least, of sentimental physiognomy. 22 PHYVSIOGNOM Y. I will cite as a model of the kind the Z7raité complet de physiognomonie, by Lepelletier de la Sarthe, where vain pomp of form vies with emptiness of content. And the author was a doctor. : It is almost the same thing with the two manuals which the celebrated ELxcyclopédie Roret has devoted to the study of the physiognomy—the Vouveau Manuel du Phystognomuisie et du phrénologiste, Paris, 1838, and the Physiognomiste des Dames, Paris 1843. The first of these volumes begins with a lie, for it is given as a posthumous work of Lavater and Professor Chaussier; the second is offered more modestly as written by an amateur. . Thoré published at Brussels, in 1837, a little Dictionary of Phrenology and Physiognomy, the erudition of which is drawn at hazard pretty well universally, now from old, now from modern times; but on the whole it is not a contemptible work, and good articles are found in it. ? We must distinguish from these compilations some Italian works. Povi Polli, whom we lost recently, had published a thesis, entitled Lssay on phystognomy and pathognomy (Milan, 1837, with six plates). This book, it is true, is completely forgotten to-day and unknown beyond the Alps; but it does not merit this oblivion. It abounds with excellent observations, especially in the part devoted to the physiognomy of the sick, and it is written with juvenile ardour. Filippo Cardona, in his volume, Dela /isonomia (Ancone, 1863), commits the fault of writing in a solemn style, which smells mouldy and rancid a mile off, and which is especially out of place in a scientific book. This book has also the fault of being badly constructed, without order and un- scientifically ; but it is full of wholesome erudition, and here and there sparkles with wit and humour. Mastriani has treated more or less directly of physiog- nomy in two works, /Votomia Morale (Naples, 1871, 2nd edition) and L’xomo dinansi alla Corte a’ Assise. HISTORICAL SKETCH. an In this historical sketch I by no means claim to have cited all the authors who have written on physiognomy, but only to have sketched in broad lines the evolution of this science which, after wandering in the heavens and on the earth, has to-day recently returned to its point of departure—that is to say, to the pure sources of nature. To-day we must clearly distinguish the expressive movements of the muscles from features, the anatomy and forms. We have thus on one side a study of the human countenance, which is associated with anatomy, with anthropology, and, for its application, with all the plastic sciences ; and, on the other side, a study of expres- sion, and of expression in relation to psychology, to comparative ethnology, and the applications of which interest in turn painter, sculptor, and actor. My book proposes modestly to restore to anthropology and to psychology that which belongs to either by right, and to make known the positive documents which we possess to-day on the human countenance and on expres- sion. I shall esteem myself happy if I am able to enrich by my observations the treasury of facts secured to science. CHAPTER II. THE HUMAN FACE. Soon after birth, when our eyes have already the power of sight, but do not yet perceive, the first object which presents itself to the yet virgin pupil is a human face. When in our last hour our gaze wanders in the supreme anguish of the death agony, our eyes most greedily seek a friendly face on which to rest ere they are closed for ever. The human face, on which can be painted an immense love or an eternal hatred, a sudden sympathy, or an invincible repugnance, is for us the most interesting thing in the universe. All the libraries in the world would not suffice to hold the thoughts and the feelings which the human face has awakened in man since this poor intelligent biped has trodden the soil of our planet. Religion has made it a temple of prejudices and of adoration; there justice has sought the trace of crimes; thence love has gathered its sweetest pleasures ; finally, science has found there the origin of races, the expression of diseases and of passions, and has there measured the energy of thought. The dic- tionaries of our languages have gathered together all the fruits of our aspirations, our studies, and our researches, superficial or profound. Art has represented it in all its infinite variety and mobility of expression; the first artist, who with flint style sought to trace some lines on the bone of a reindeer or a stag’s horn, produced with a circle and three or four points a coarse sketch of a human face. This universal cult of the human face is fully justified. THE HUMAN FACE. 2c In it we find assembled, in a small space, all the organs of the five senses, nerves sufficiently delicate, muscles suffi- ciently mobile to form one of the most expressive pictures of human nature. Without words our face expresses joy and grief, love and hatred, contempt and adoration, cruelty and compassion, delirium and poetry, hope and fear, voluptuousness and bashfulness, every desire and every fear, all the multiform life which issues each instant from the supreme organ—the brain. Many centuries before science had collected the materials of our observations, the necessities of social life had taught us to observe the human face, to read there the thoughts of the mind and the feelings of the heart. Thence was born an empirical art without rules and without method, which was transmitted from father to son, the inheritance of a rough experience. Some anecdotes, collected by Lavater, may give an idea of this physiognomical art, which in different degrees is possessed by all men born under the sun. The father of a young virtuous man, who was about to undertake a distant journey, said to him as he bade fare- well: “‘ All that I ask of you, my son, is to bring me back the same face.” ** At what do you value my face?” a stranger asked of a physiognomist. The latter naturally replied that it was not an easy thing to value.—‘‘It is worth 1500 crowns,” replied the other; “ for this sum has just been lent me on my face by one who did not know me.” A friend of the Count T , who lived at W ; one day entered his house with a face which he sought to make gay and serene. After having finished the business which had brought him he wished to retire.—‘ ] shall not let you go out,” said the count.—“ That is a strange idea,” replied the friend; ‘‘it is very necessary that I should go.”—-*‘ You will not leave my room,” replied the count, locking the door.—“ In Heaven’s name, why do you 26 PHYSIOGNOMY. act thus? ”—‘‘ Because I read in your face that you are meditating a crime.”—‘‘ Who? I? Howcan you believe me capable ?”—“ You are meditating an assassination, or I understand nothing.”—-The other grew pale, and confessed that the count had guessed rightly. He surrendered to the latter a pistol which he was keeping hidden, and told him a sad story. The count was generous enough to draw his friend from the situation which was about to lead him into crime. However, all that the world generally knows of the human face is but a confused mass of vague notions for which language could with difficulty find expression. Try to describe to some one the anatomical or expressive features of a face which you know well; you will see how difficult is the task. And yet to have seen a man enables us to distinguish him from the millions of other men who inhabit the globe. This is because to see and to render an account of what one has seen are two very different things. In looking at a face we note rapidly, by a sort of inner shorthand, the most expressive and the most characteristic features. We keep this short- hand portrait in our minds, and thanks to it we distinguish each other, and it suffices us for the ordinary purposes of life. Sometimes we only remark a single feature, the most salient, and from this single feature we derive a name, The whites give the name of black to all the people of Africa and Melanesia because a complexion so different from their own immediately strikes their attention. In the same manner we speak of a one-eyed man, a long-nosed man, a thick-lipped man ; we speak of stupid, of libidinous, of beautiful, or ugly faces, although in addition to these characters faces present many others which complete their individuality. . All parts of the face are not equally important in distinguishing men one from another. De Rubeis has demonstrated this in a few words with complete satisfaction THE HUMAN FACE. 27 in his Zreatise on the Reproduction of the Face, which we have already quoted in our first chapter. There are two distinctive characters of the face—the one essential, the second accessory. The following hypotheses will make clear what constitute the first. “You have a friend whom you see very often, who is a frequenter of your house. Let us suppose that he has concealed part of his face with a mask, so that the lower lip, the forehead, and half of the cheeks are hidden. The rest—that is to say, the eyes, the nose, and the upper lip— remains uncovered. Although the greater part of the face is thus hidden, the face is at once recognised, because the distinctive characters are visible. **On the other hand let this friend remove his mask; he has his head arranged in the ordinary way, and he only puts before his face a little black mask, which reaches from the middle of the forehead to the middle of the nose, covering the space occupied by the eye orbits. Then his friends no longer recognise him, especially if he has changed the shape and colour of his ordinary clothes. “Thus the part of the face which reaches from the bone of the nose to the middle of the forehead, and which is situated between the two temples, is the essential distinctive character of the face, and the part which comprises the cheek bones and the bottom of the nose is the accessory distinctive character.” The mistake of ordinary observers is not only to take two or three characteristics as a shorthand portrait of all faces, but also to confuse the form or anatomy with a very different thing—movement or expression. This second capital error has slipped into every treatise on physiogno- mony. It is only quite recently that anatomy has been separated from expression, and that the two things have been studied apart. We shall faithfully respect this funda- mental distinction in this work. One man has little short-sighted eyes, a long and crooked 28 PHYSIOGNOMY. nose, a big mouth awry. Another has large beautiful eyes, a Grecian nose, an admirable mouth. Still it may be that both laugh alike, and express love and hatred in the same manner. They differ in their anatomy; they resemble each other in their physiology or in expression. We do not wish to give here an anatomical or an esthetic treatise on the human face; we will only say so much as it is necessary to know before entering on the study of expression, which is the most important and the most original part of our work. Decomposing by analysis all the elements which we meet in a living human face, without submitting it to the analytical operation accom- plished with the scalpel, we can prepare the following list— ANATOMICAL AND EXPRESSIVE ELEMENTS OF THE HUMAN FACE. Szze of face and skull and their Nose. mutual proportions. Mouth. Length and width of face and Chin. their relativ: proportions. Ears. Sztuation of the different parts Teeth. of the face. flair and beard. General form. Spots. Colour. Wrinkles. forehead. Different or expressive move- Eyes, eyebrows, eyelids, and ments. eyelashes. Each of these elements is decomposed in its turn into secondary elements, as we shall see in the following chapters. From all these elements taken together we can make certain determinations as to the successive epochs or accidents of life. Sex. Race and paternity. Ave. Different sorts of beauty. fea'th or disease. Moral character. Diverse alterations, traumatic Position tn intellectual rank. or pathological, suffered in the course of life. LEE AOUMAN FACE. 20 If by means of a more precise and scientific formula we desire to reduce the possible judgments on the human face to a small number, they can be given as five—the physiological verdict, the ethnological, the esthetic, the moral, and the