possible to tell habits from the aspect (cf. Ecclus. xix. 29, 30).
Polemon (c. A.D. 150) compiled a treatise (published 1534, in
Latin) on the subject, similar in character to that of Aristotle;
but he excels in graphic descriptions of different dispositions,
and differs only from Aristotle in some of his animal comparisons.
A more important work was written by a converted Jew,
Adamantius, about A.D. 415. This is in two books, the first on
the expression of the eye, the second on physiognomy in general,
mostly Aristotelian in character.
Among the Latin classical authors Juvenal, Suetonius and Pliny in well-known passages refer to the practice of physiognomy, and numerous allusions occur in the works of the Christian Fathers, especially Clement of Alexandria and Origen (for example, the familiar passage in his work against Celsus, i. 33).[1] While the earlier classical physiognomy was chiefly descriptive, the later medieval authors particularly developed the predictive and astrological side, their treatises often digressing into chiromancy, onychomancy, clidomancy, podoscopy, spasmatomancy, and other branches of prophetic folk-lore and magic.
Along with the medical science of the period the Arabians contributed to the literature of physiognomy; ʽAli b. Ragel wrote a book on naevi; Rhazes (1040) devoted several chapters to it; and Averroes (1165) made many references to it in his De sanitate, p. 82 (Leiden, 1537). Avicenna also makes some acute physiognomical remarks in his De animalibus, which was translated by Michael Scot about 1270. Among medieval writers Albertus Magnus (born 1205) devotes much of the second section of his De animalibus to physiognomy; but this chiefly consists of extracts from Aristotle, Polemon and Loxus. He does not enter into the animal comparisons of his predecessors, but occupies himself chiefly with simple descriptive physiognomy as indicative of character; and the same is true of the scattered references in the writings of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas. The famous sage of Balwearie, Michael Scot, while court astrologer to the emperor Frederick II., wrote his treatise De hominis phisiognomia, much of which is physiological and of curious interest. It was probably composed about 1272, but not printed until 1477. This was the first printed work on the subject. Physiognomy also forms the third part of his work De secretis naturae. In 1335 Pietro d’Abano of Padua delivered in Paris a course of lectures on this subject (afterwards edited by Blondus, 1544), a few years before he was burned for heresy.
The 16th century was rich in publications on physiognomy. The works of the classical authors before mentioned were printed, and other treatises were published by John de Indagine, Cocles, Andreas Corvus, Michael Blondus, Janus Cornaro, Anselm Douxciel, Pompeius Ronnseus, Gratarolus, Lucas Gauricus, Tricassus, Cardanus, Taisnierus, Magnus Hund, Rothman, Johannes Padovanus, and, greatest of all, Giambattista della Porta The earliest English works were anonymous: On the Art of Foretelling Future Events by Inspection of the Hand (1504), and A Pleasant Introduction to the Art of Chiromancie and Physiognomie (1588). Dr Thomas Hill’s work, The Contemplation of Mankynde, containing a singular Discourse after the Art of Physiognomie, published in 1571, is a quaintly written adaptation from the Italian authors of the day. The undated book on moles and naevi by “Merlin Britannicus,” after the model of 'Ali ibn Ragel, is of about the same date.
The development of a more accurate anatomy in the 17th century seems to have diminished the interest in physiognomy, by substituting fact for fiction; and consequently the literature, though as great in quantity, became less valuable in quality. The principal writers of this age were T. Campanella, R. Coclenius, Clement, Timpler, J. E. Gallimard, Moldenarius, Septalius, Saunders, C. Lebrun (a precursor of Charles Bell), Elsholz, de la Belliere, J. Evelyn (in the appendix to Numismata), Baldus, Bulwer (in his Pathomyotomia), Fuchs, Spontoni, Ghiradelli, Chiaramonti, A. Ingegneri, Finella, De la Chambre, Zanardus, R. Fludd, and others of less importance.
The 18th century shows a still greater decline of interest in physiognomy. Historians of philosophy, like J. Meursius and Franz, re-edited some of the classical works, and G. G. Fulleborn reviewed the relation of physiognomy to philosophy. Indeed, the only name worthy of note is that of J. K. Lavater (q.v.). The other authors of this century are Peuschel, Spon, Schutz, Wegelin, J. Pernetti, Girtanner, Grohmann, and several anonymous writers, and from the anatomical side G. M. Lancisi, J. Parsons and Peter Camper. The popular style, good illustrations and pious spirit pervading the writings of Lavater have given to them a popularity they little deserved, as there is no system in his work, which chiefly consists of rhapsodical comments upon the several portraits. Having a happy knack of estimating character, especially when acquainted with the histories of the persons in question, the good pastor contrived to write a graphic and readable book, but one much inferior to Porta’s or Aristotle’s as a systematic treatise. The treatises of Nicolai and of Lichtenberg were written to refute his theory. With Lavater the descriptive school of physiognomists may be said to have ended, as the astrological physiognomy expired with de la Belliere. The few works which have since appeared, before the rise of the physiological school of Sir Charles Bell and Charles Darwin, are undeserving of notice, the development of phrenology having given to pure physiognomy the coup de grâce by taking into itself whatever was likely to live of the older science. The writers of the 19th century are Hörstig, Maas, Rainer, Thoné, A. Stohr, Sehler, Dr Rubels, Polli, Cardona, Mastriani, Diez, Carus, Piderit, Burgess and P. Gratiolet.
The physiological school of physiognomy was foreshadowed by Parsons and founded by Sir Charles Bell, whose Essay on the Anatomy of the Expression, published in 1806, was the first scientific study of the physical manifestation of emotions in the terms of the muscles which produce these manifestations. In the later editions of this essay the thesis is elaborated with greater detail. Moreau’s edition of Lavater, in 1807, was somewhat along the same lines. In 1817 Dr Cross of Glasgow wrote his defence of a scientific physiognomy based on general physiological principles. The experiments of G. B. A. Duchenne (Mécanisme de la physiognomies humaine, Paris, 1862) showed that by the use of electricity the action of the separate muscles could be studied and by the aid of photography accurately represented. These observations confirmed by experimental demonstration the hypothetical conclusions of Bell. The machinery of expression having thus been indicated, the connexion of the physical actions and the psychical state was made the subject of speculation by Herbert Spencer (Psychology, 1855). These speculations were reduced to a system by Darwin (Expression of Emotions, 1872), who formulated and illustrated the following as fundamental physiognomical principles:—
(1) Certain complex acts are of direct or indirect service, under certain conditions of the mind, in order to relieve or gratify certain sensations or desires; and whenever the same states of mind are induced the same sets of actions tend to be performed, even when they have ceased to be of use. (2) When a directly opposite state of mind is induced to one with which a definite action is correlated, there is a strong and involuntary tendency to perform a reverse action. (3) When the sensorium is strongly excited nerve-force is generated in excess, and is transmitted in definite directions, depending on the connexions of nerve-cells and on habit.
The last of these propositions is adversely criticized by P. Mantegazza as a truism, but it may be allowed to stand with the qualification that we are ignorant concerning the nature of the influence called “nerve-force.” It follows from these propositions that the expression of emotion is, for the most part, not under control of the will, and that those striped muscles are the most expressive which are the least voluntary. To the foregoing may be added the following three additional propositions, so as to form a more complete expression of a physiognomical philosophy:—
(4) Certain muscles concerned in producing these skin-folds become strengthened by habitual action, and when the skin diminishes
- ↑ For Scriptural allusions to physiognomy see Vecchius, Observationes in div. script. (Naples, 1641). Other classical references are contained in the Prooemium to the 1593 edition of the works of Baptista Portae.
