Inborn Character and Free Will in the History of Physiognomy
Kevin Berland
Est igitur Physiognomia scientia passionum anima: naturalium. corporisque accidentium, habitum vicissim permutantium utriusque. 1 By Physiognomy then I mean, the talent of discovering the interior ofMan by his exterior-of perceiving by certain natural signs, what does not immediately strike the senses.... Physiognomy would accordingly be, the Science of discovering the relation between. the exterior and the interior-between the visible surface and the invisible spirit which it covers--between the animated; perceptible matter, and the imperceptible principle which impresses the character of life upon it between the apparent effect, and the concealed cause which produces it. 2
PHYSIOGNOMY HAS TRADffIONALLY COMBINED MoRAL PHILOSOPHY WITH
the observation of human character. How does the inner "invisible spirit" produce action? People act on impulse or deliberate choice; they are also affected by internal factors of which they are not always aware: emotional, temperamental, and cognitive predispositions. Physiognornists seek signs of the inner p~rson marked on the outside, backtracking from effect to cause to show ~ow inclination leads to action. Are individuals determined by such signs? The language of some phys iognomists su~gests they are. Codes, for instance, stated in 1556: "The fore heade verye ~ate, dec1areth that man to be .slowe and a heauy goer on the earth, a dullard and folysh, compared to the Oxe."3 Corporeal structure cor responds with character. He will act the way he looks, and he looks that way because the shape ofhis forehead conforms with his innate constitution. But Cocles stops short of fatalism, assuring his readers that "reason and grace may handle nature or tum the prouocacions thereof unto goodnes:>4 During the late Middle Ages and the early modem era, the church con demned divination--oneirology, chiromancy, physiognomy, metoposcopy, fortune·telling, and judicial astrology. Divination is sacrilegious because it attempts to foresee the future, which is God's to dispose of as he Sees fit It also fails to acknowledge the power of grace to effect moral change. Early
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modem physiognomists usually advance counterarguments like that prof fered by Cocles: reason and grace may alter innate tendencies. Christian and classical physiognomists share the notion that visible marks of charac ter indicate possibility, not necessity. Lavater's physiognomy was a means of promoting Christian benevo lence; his work was meant to help his readers know and love human na ture. Although his Physiognomische Fragmente were influential from the first, his work was soon disengaged from its original purpose. Holcroft's English translation, for instance, excised the Protestant apologetics inform ing the original; still, Lavater's compassionate position opposing necessity remains. There are continuities in the history of physiognomy from its earliest foundations in classical antiquity up to Lavater. This essay outlines some essential ideas put forward by early physiognomists, then examines ways in which Lavater's work reflects a greater similarity to historical "authori ties" than is usually recognized. 5
I. SIGNS
Partiality for reading character in outward appearance may be among the oldest effects of human curiosity. Classical poets and historians practiced characterization through physical description (prosopographia, effictio, mimesis).6 The face registers transitory emotions; in time, physiognomy came to consider both fleeting expression and more permanent features. The pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomonica furnishes the conceptual foun dation for physiognomy: "Mental character is not independent of and un affe~ted by bodily process, but is conditioned by the state of the body.... And contrariwise the body is evidently influenced by the affections of the soul-by the emotions oflove and fear, and by states of pleasure and pain." A natural accord exists between mind and body: "There never was an ani mal with the form of one kind and the mental character of another: the soul and body appropriate to the same kind always go together, and this shows that a specific body involves a specific mental character."7 The Physiognomonica articulates three modes of discovery. First, if a "peculiar mental character" belongs to a certain kind of animal, then hu man resemblance to that animal must be significant. 8 Second is the phys iognomy of racial difference, the most stubbornly deterministic approach. Racist categories are fixed; the occult physiognomist 'i\.candam" typically pronounces that natural "complexion" (physical constitution) may be con jectured from skin color, "for naturally black men are fearefull." Yellow men are malicious, pale men are slow, red-faced men lose their wits. 9 Such accounts settle the race of the writer (white, European) as normative and
fix instances of the Other in a zone defined by such words as "deformed."lo Finally, the third mode develops a vocabulary of visible signs in facial ex pression and structure. Another internal influence on character was the balance, or krasis, of the four humors.ll The right blend of the humors, the four material qualities (warmth, cold, dryness, moisture), and the four elements produce well being. 12 The balance or imbalance of humors gf?ner~tes character types, each bearing typical marks. Trained observers read external signs ofinward disposition. Early modem medical texts and physiognomical manuals of ten share a common admixture of Galen, Hippocrates, and the Pseudo- ' Aristotle. 13 In the late sixteenth century Porta absorbed the treatises of the Pseudo Aristotle, Polemon, and Adamantius, providing illustrative examples from poets together with striking engraved images of paired human and animal faces. His work is best known as a system of theriological physiognomy, but his attention to other issues, especially humoral physiology, and his en cyclopedic knowledge of the physiognomic tradition, are remarkable. 14 , In the seventeenth century Charles Le Bron studied facial expression from a Cartesian viewpoint. Pursuit of the good and aversion to the harm ful generates passions in the mind. The brain is adjacent to the face, allow ing a direct line between the mental site of passion and the loCus of expres sion. Moral conduct is initially produced by impulses, which the face expresses. Thus the study of facial expression has a moral' dimension. Le Brun did not write a systematic treatise on physiognomy, so we cannot as certain his position on free will or on. the individual's. power to temper or transcend disposition. 15 Each of these physiognomic systems, ,the humoral, the theriological, and
the Cartesian, introduces processes tltat influence human character. Gener
ally they agree that we may understand, and thus transcend, these power
ful influences.
II. BEAUTY AS AN OUTWARD SIGN
OF AN INWARD CONDITION?
Is beauty a reliable outward sign of an inward moral condition, as the in~ fluential Platonic notion of kalakogatheia contends'? Plato considers the "correspondence of a beautiful disposition in the soul and corresponding and harmonious beauties of the same type in the bodily form" the fairest of spectacles. 16 Galen defined beauty as "the functional perfection of bodily parts."17 Similarly, the best facial structure is perfected physical form; tele ologically, the beautiful face :reflects a beautiful soul, itself the moral per fection of human nature.
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Kalakogatheia becomes a commonplace among early modem writers. For example, Castiglione asserts that beauty comes from God, and cannot exist without goodness:
Whereupon doth very seldom an ill soule dwelle in a beautifull bodie. And there fore is the outwarde beau tie a true signe of the inwarde goodnesse, and in bod ies this comelines is imprinted more and lesse (as it were) for a marke of the soule, whereby she is outwardly knowne: as in trees, in which the beautie of the buddes giveth a testimonie of the goodnesse of the fruite. And the very same happeneth in podies. 18
The converse is also true. The foul, "darke, uglesome, unpleasant" is usu ally evil. Castiglione'S confident declaration includes a small but signifi cant qualification: "very seldom"-words that perlorce rule out "never." Still, the harmony of beauty and virtue was widely accepted. A popular early modern tapas found in collections of wise sayings, emblem books, and handbooks of manners and morality illustrates the importance of un derstanding outward beauty as a matter of potentiaL In his English Gentle man, Richard Brathwait tells of a philosopher who kept a mirror for his stu dents. He told the beautiful to suit comeliness of face to the beauty of a virtuous mind, the ugly to adorn their minds with virtue. 19 This emblem atic narrative indicates the widespread view that facial features do not guar antee character.
clashes with the way they actually looked. Diogenes had narrow eyes "and no very advantageous looks," Cicero's head was very small, supported by a long, sIflnder neck, and Socrates was bald, snubnosed, and ugly as Silenus. 22 The countenance nllrrors the soul, and generally we are fixed in our passioris by innate disposition. Still, Herbert admits dissonance. An inveterate sinner may have a promising countenance, probably because in nate virtue was perverted by "some other external, adventitious Cause and Corruption; such as neglect of Education, early and religious Principles and Institution, Want, Poverty, and above all the evil Examples ofthe Age, and Conversation with others so tainted" (293). The face of a good man .. may bear marks of depravity, probably because he was born vicious, but education and philosophy has effected a change, or Christianity a cure (293). The "Signatures" which the physiognomist observes in the face in dicate disposition, not necessity (338), and Herbert sustains free will. Cicero first articulates the problem in De Fato as he measures free will against fate. His test case is Socrates:
Again, do we not read how Socrates was stigmatized by the "physiognomist" Zopyrus, who professed to discover entire characters and natures frorp their body, eyes, face and brow? He said that Socrates was stupid and thick-witted because he had not got hollows ill the neck above the collarbone. .. He also added that he was addicted to women-at which Alcibiades is said,to have given 23 a loud guffaw 1 . .
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m. THE PROBLEM OF DISSONANCE
Lucy Hartley explains physiognOmic practice as "a classificatory act which functions in a profoundly normative manner," taking particular expressions as an instance of a character type, and in tum describing individual char acter as typical of that category.20 Normativity imparts coherence to con fusing human phenomena by referring to an explicatory scheme of natural knowledge. But systems elicit close inspection by skeptical critics, who ask difficult questions. Must a person born with certain physical characteristics perlorm according to the way they look? Not every beautiful person is good, not every leonine man is courageous, not every crabbed and ugly face belongs to a person of deformed moral character. Physiognomists must confront the problem of dissonance, the apparent discrepancy between the evidence of an individual's face and reliable knowledge of that individual's character. 21 The visual testimony of ancient portraiture, George Herbert suggested, could help physiognomists understand the limitations of their science. The expectation of what the great men of the past ought to have looked like
A tendency to vice may be inborn, but, as Cicero insists, such natural incli nations are reversible with effort, education, and strength of. will. Socrates admitted Zopyrus had diagnosed him correctly, "saying that he was natu , rally inclined to the vices named, but had cast them out of him by the help of reason."24 Character, Cicero explains, is not fixed at birth, though some people will lean more heavily in the direction of one vice or another. The key to overcoming leanings is the rational control of the passions. Early modem medical writers considered all this relevant to their pro
fessional concerns. In a sixteenth-century treatise Guglielmo Gratarolo ex
plains that physiologically induced facial signs indicate character, and he
again introduces Socrates to exemplify the contrast between inner and
outer character. 25 Working, through his inventory of facial signs, Gratarolo
reads Socrates in some detail, focusing especially on ugly features that may
mislead the observer. But, as he insists;' a discerning eye may note subtle
counterindications, such as bright, pellucid eyes signifying justice, meek ness, foresight, and admonition (117). .
Physiognomists advocate the practical uses of their discipline in daily life, but they use examples drawn from the past, especially when referring to dissonance. That classically based ohvsioe:nomv is not det.erminll:t1r.
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may be seen in the way Cicero's physiognomic story recurs across the ages whenever a writer wishes a counter-argument to fatalism. For instance, William Alley employs the tale of Zopyrus (mistakenly substituting the name of Plato for that of his master) in his own argument against predesti nation. Alley moves from Biblical testimonies to patristic accounts of men who with reason, will, and grace overcame an innately vicious disposition, and then from Christian to classical precedents:
If to heauen with prayer man lift vp his voyce, _ Agaynst destenie he shall triumphe and reioyce, Authorities agaynst destenie we neede no moe, But yet let vs bring an example or two. A certayne man beholding Plato his face Did him much dispraise and greatly disgrace, And iudged him to be a corrupter of youth, A lyar, a dissembler, no teller of truth, To whom Plato aunswered making relation That he had ouercome the planetes inclination By knowledge, and learning, and wise gouemment, And by godly venues dayly intenainement. 26
The argument that innate disposition may be overcome was always an im portant part of physiognomical system-making. Dissonance is not a sign of failed praxis, but an opening for the operation of free will in individual de velopment. Indeed, this is precisely why physiognomy has so often been taken up by writers of moral philosophy. John Hartcliffe writes of the im portance of testing our natural inclinations and learning how a middle way may be achieved:
But there is no Man, that hath his Faculties so equally balanc'd, of his Affections so justly poised, as that he doth not incline to one of the extremes of Virtue more than to the other: Whosoever then would walk in the middle path of a good life. must take particular care to avoid that Rock. on which he is most apt to fall. 27
what is habitual from that which is accidental: thus he judges Man only by himself' (1:77). Lavater's physiognomist specializes in transcendence. Lavater is capable of a degree of contradictoriness. While it is true that he sometimes insists that certain physical structures fix character, he more often positions himself as a supporter of Christian free will, made effective by grace, manifest in the human ability to overcome innate dispositions. Tlris stance is implicit in his distinction between physiognomy and pathog nomy.29 Pathognomy studies plastic features that register change, physiog~ nomy fixed features that register proclivities established from birth. Lavater uses an apt financial metaphor: "Physiognomy points out the fund of the human faculties, and Pathognomy the interest or revenue which it' produces."3o Expression itself produces change. "What passes in the mind is ex pressed in the face," and repeated facial expressions "at length produce a lasting impression on the flexible parts of the face." Repetition becomes propensity, "propensities become habits, and the passions are their off spring" (1:132-35). By "passions" Lavater means the momentary respon sive emotions that produce facial expression (not to be confused with the notion of "passions" as deeply ingrained emotional tendencies, primary, irrational, and needing moderation by reason). In succumbing to these ten dencies, individuals initiate patterns of conduct that become setcoinpo nents of daily life. Aristotle defines virtue and vice as acquired habits of the soul. Habituation involves either succumbing to or overcom.jng innate disposition. Habitual response to stimulus produces impulses that translate into facial expressions, leaving legible marks discernible by trainedphys iognomists. Lavater, like earlier physiognoniists, insjsts that physiognomy is neither deterministic nor divinatory. It studies both .nnate potential and the motivations and tendencies that, change or confmn this potential.
IV.
LAVATER'S SENSIBILITY
He then draws on the familiar Ciceronian tale of Zopyrus's diagnosis; Socrates corrected his vicious inclinations "by assiduous cares and pains. " From this example Hartcliffe concludes, "so much the more industrious ought we to be in watching o'er our own natural Dispositions.,,28 The question of how free will may be constrained by innate disposition and how this constraint may be transcended pervades the history of phys iognomy. According to Lavater, the physiognomist perceives within his fel low creatures "the noblest dispositions, at least the germs of them, which will perhaps be completely unfolded till the world to come. He distin guishes in characters what is original from what is the effect of habit, and
In the "History of the Author's Physiognomical Knowledge" that opens his magnum opus, Lavater outlines the methodology of the true physiog nomist, who relies upon a finely tuned sensibility capable of recogni~ng natural correspondences. "Lavater," the narrative persona of theboo~, models this sensibility, just as he models the Christian compassion he preaches. Lavater's presentation is mediated through a discourse of sensi bility that kindles the reader's own curiosity and enthusiasm. He tells of the impressionistic beginning of his project: "Sometimes ... at first sight of certain faces, I felt an emotion which did not subside for a few moments after the object was removed; but I did not know the cause" (I :7). Lavater never parts from these fundamental intuitions-"instinctive judgements,
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which the impression of the moment dictated" (1 :7)-though it took him years to rely on the truth of such moments. Then he began to attempt to understand rationally what he had already perceived intuitively. He mod estly states that he never intended to become an expert in physiognomy. Truth sought him out; he had no choice but to follow its promptings. Even tually he decided to investigate what had been written about the face as a register of character: Oftener than once I began to study the Authors who have written of Physiog nomy, but !Vas soon disgusted with their verbose jargon; and I discovered that most of them only pilfered from Aristotle; I then gave up books.... (1:11) He gave up books to pursue observation, "to discover the beautiful, the na ble, the perfect; to define them, to familiarize them to my eye, and to give fresh energy to the sensations which they excited" (1: 12). Lavater calls his method "the study of Nature herself.... Everything in Man that can be known, is discovered solely through the medium of the Senses" (1:14). This admixture of observation and feeling might be called sentimental quasiempiricism: during the course of observation, the test of truth is al ways the responsive sensation of the trained observer. Lavater's use of the language of induction suggests an empirical collection of data, but in prac tice Lavater move~ deductively from physiognomic principle to illuminate specific cases, often brilliantly. He tests particulars against truth intu itively recognized. Therefore, because physiognomy depends upon intuitive perception-a gift for noticing truth in naturallanguage-Lavater cannot rely on author ities. His method rejects scholastic tradition, like the best "nulla in verba" new scientists, but he replaces words not with things themselves, but im pFessions of things. Lavater calls his antecedents tedious, verbose, and un original, and yet the authorities are still present through much of his work. In the third volume he discusses the authors a pupil of physiognomy should read: "The number of those who can be mentioned with approbation is small," he declares; "a fortnight is sufficient to run over all of them, and even their most sensible observations have still need to be closely exam ined." That is, none of them can be trusted and must be checked against what is intuitively known. At one point he attempts to contain the authori ties within the boundaries of their own Fragment. Those not ready for full intuitive practice may benefit from the "easier" way of consulting histori cal accounts. "Authority has more weight with the multitude than reason" (1 :44). By "reason" Lavater means not analysis or logic, but the refined in tuitive practice he has developed: Physiognomy is a source of delicate and sublime sensations; it is a new eye which perceives in the creation a thousand traces of the Divine Wisdom and
Goodness.... With secret ecstasy the benevolent physiognomist penetrates into the interior of his fellow creatures and perceives the noblest dispositions. (1:77) Lavater regularly asserts the primacy of intuition: Physiognomy is a poetic feeling, which perceives causes in effects. Most men appreciate a poem as they do a picture: in both they look for beauties. resem~ blances, caricaturas. (2:443) Authorities are superfluous to a method based .on ecstatic, penetrating in sight; their rules and tables of marks cannot deliver the thrilling, respon sive sensation he calls "Physiognomical Discernment" (1:93). Lavater revisits the standard problems and issues. "I am neither a Teacher .of Necromancy, nor the inventor of a secret .of difficult investiga tion" (1:83); here he rejects the charge that physi.ognomy is an occult or divinatory art. He also discusses the modes .of analysis outlined by the Pseudo-Aristotle-passages on animal-human correspondences, on racial character, and on humoral physiology.31 Two problems that have beset physiognomists concern Lavater. First, he is an ardent supporter ofthedoctrine .of kalokagatheia. In the Fragment "Of the Harm.ony Between Moral Beauty and Physical Beauty," he takes on the question whether there is "a real disagreement between m.oral beauty and physical deformity; between moral deformity and corporal beauty" (1:128). He uses affective rhetoric--exclamation, assertion and rhetorical questions-to support his appealing personal presentation of an a priori ar gument. Since human beings are "the worknianship .of sovereign Wisdom, is it not in the first place highly probable, that there exists a harmony be tween moral and physical beauty?~' (1:129). After several pages of such questions, defying sensible readers to deny .or c.onfute his assertions, Lavater produces the keystone of his argument: Beauty and ugliness have a strict connection with the moral-constitution of Man.
In proportion as he is morally good, he is handsome; and ugly, in proportion as
he is morally bad. (1: 135) Anticipating a "host of objections ... like an impetu.ous torrent rushing down the precipice" threatening to overwhelm him, Lavater explains his view of dissonance. It is common enough to encounter beautiful, vicious men and homely, virtuous men, but the physiogn.omist "with eyes some what experienced" will readily discern subtle signs of the true .original dis position, as well as the distance traveled toward vice and virtne (1: 139). Virtne is not the only cause of beauty, nor vice .of ugliness (1:135), but virtue and vice have transfonnative power:
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Every species of immorality less or more affects the body; alters, enervates and degrades it: on the contrary, moral energy and activity prevent this degradation, and dispose all that is excellent and honorable, and consequently create also the expression of beauty of every species. Moral degradation changes the body, producing "caricaturas" of the origi nal, while true goodness confers "lasting channs" on the exterior 0:142). The face and body become an archive of experience and transfonnation; virtue improves and vice debilitates the external appearance.
In a word, there is not in Man anyone species of physical beauty--nor anyone
member of the bocJy-which may not receive from virtue and from vice, taken in the most general sense, a good or a bad impression. (1:148) Lavater recognizes dissonance in the case of a beautiful person who bears the marks of vice, "the faithful expression of the impure passions, which polluted, and had taken root in his soul." Conversely, the true physiogno mist may see in an ugly, good man an overlay of virtuous marks softening the hard structure of his innate disposition to vice (1: 140). In the finn struc tures and fonns of the face are seen innate dispositions to virtue and vice. The physiological constitution, hunger, disease, heredity, health and hap piness all affect the character and alter the face. Likewise, volitional change, acquiring,virtuous habits, and practicing moderation al1leave their marks in the softer structures and fonns of the face. There is always evidence for a discerning physiognomist to intuit a com plex blend of characteristics. Thus, in his analysis of the central test case of dissonance, Lavater accepts the claim that Socrates was inclined to stu pidity, lechery, and other vices, since some of the hard facial structures so indicate. But instead of "astonishment at finding no hannony between the exterior and interior" (1: 168), Lavater goes on to demonstrate how many marks of change may be observed. The problem of dissonance is resolved by emphasizing that change for the better is possible, good news for those who, like the author, Lavater says disanningly, are dissatisfied with their manifest defects (1: 150).32 Despite critical objections, Lavater remained committed to the doctrine pf kalokagatheia. 33 This commitment gives rise to one or two astonishing statements, as when he asserts that the handsomest painters have gained the greatest eminence in their art, and only those with a "good figure" will be fit to discern physiognomical truth: Physionomists the most highly favoured with respect to their exterior, will ever become the most intelligent. As the virtuous Man is best qualified to judge of virtue ... so persons who have the most beautiful faces are most capable of pro nouncing on the beauty and dignity ofPhysionomies, and of discovering, at the same time, what is faulty and defective. (l :117)
Lavater can say this seriously because he knows he is not beautiful, and he is not (yet) a physiognomist. 34 This passage is consonant with Lavater's be lief that the most benevolent, virtuous observer of humanity must show the effects of his good nature, in his outward appearance, and is thus perfectly consistent with his progressive version of kalokagatheia, outlined above. In some passages, as we have seen, he acknowledges the problem of disso nance, but in practice he denies the objection outright, arguing that there ~ ways must remain sufficient evidence for a discerning and tutored eye, even in a face that appears to bear signs that contradict the known character. . What Lavater has done is to deny history at the same time as he apprp priates it. I am not suggesting that this appropriation and revision is gratu itous, however. Although Lavater might have gleaned a great deal of value from the work of his predecessors, his dedication to the physiognomies of sensibility precluded him from building explicitly on the precepts and ar guments of the past. The art he proposed could not be learned by rule and rote. Rather, he wrote in a manner designed to affect his rea~ers, to inun date them with heightened emotion, to encourage empathy, and to coerce them into intuitive discernment. Lavater shows his readers a picture and in vites them to judge-no, he interrupts himself, "no; there is no need of judgement--only give way to natural feeling" (1: 187). On another similar occasion, he states, "It is cer(ain that every reasonable man, unless 'he for mally contradict his internal feeling, will acknowledge in the form of that face, in the contour of the parts, and the relation they h~ve. to. one another the superior man" (1 :257). . Lavater often speaks o~ physiognomy as a science based on an.empiri cal survey of fonns, contours, and relations. But, in fact, he relies on asser tion, ndt demonstration, and his method of persuasion knot induction but an affective discourse that kindles in the reader a kind of enthusiasm im plicitly linked to the internal, feli discernment Lavater places at the heart of the physiognomical project. Lavater steers his readers to intuition-based recognition, sometimes planting evidence, sometimes planting conclu sions. That both evidence and conclusions parallel the findings of some of the ancients may be a coincidence, a matter of finding out similar truths by different paths, or it may not. There is still much work to be done.
NOTES
The author would like to thank the William P. McDowell Endowment at Penn State Shenango, and the Penn State Commonwealth College for research and travel support. 1. "Thus physiognomy is the science of the natural passions of the soul and the contin gencies of the body, which both exchange their characteristi cs in tum." Bartolommeo della Rocca Codes, Barptolomaei Coclitis Bononiensi, naturalis Philosophiae ac Medicinae
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Doctoris, Physiognomiae & Chiromantiae Compendium, trans. Thomas Hill (Argentorati: and Huntington Caims, trans. Paul Shorey, Bollingen Series 71 (Princeton: Princeton Uni Apud Gregorium Machaeropoeum, 1556), sig. A2v. versity Press, 1963),646. On Lavater's kalakogatheill, see Robert E. Norton, The Beautiful 2. Lavater, Essays on Physiognomy, 3 vols., ed. T. Holloway, trans. H. Hunter (London: Soul: Aesthetic Morality in the Eighteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), J. Murray, 1789-98), I :20. Further references appear in the text. especially chap. 5. 3. Cocies, A briefe and most pleasaunt epitomye of the whole art of physiognomie, 17. Galen, "On the Usefulness of the Parts," 79. Galen here credits Socrates, in trans. Thomas Hyll (London: by Iohn Wayland, 1556), sig. [A.. v.] v. Xenophon, Symposium, 5, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 4. Cocies, preface to A briefe and most pleasaunt epitomye, n.p. 1923),59&-603. 5. Primary texts are collected in R. Forster, Scriptores Physiognomonici (Leipzig, 18. Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier [II Libro del Cortegiano, 1528; 1893). The essential srudy of classical physiognomy is Elizabeth C. Evans, "Physiognomics trans. Sir Thomas Hoby, 1591], Everyman's Ubrary, 807 (London: Dent, 1928), 308-9. in the Ancient World," Transactions ofthe American Philosophical Society, n.s. 5915 (1969). 19. Richard Brathwait, The English Gentleman, 2d ed. (London: by Felix Kyngston, See also Tamsyn Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomies and Medicine 1633), 18-19. The philosopher in question is most often Socrates; see Diogenes Laertius, under the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). For Early Mod Lives ofthe EminentPhilosophers, trans. R.D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: em European physiognomy, see Jean-Jacques Courtine and Claudine Haroche, Histoire du Harvard University Press, 1931),2:33. visage: exprimer et taire ses imotions, XVliime-dibut XlXeme siecles (Paris: Rivages, 20. Hartley, Meaning ofExpression, 2. 1988); Melissa Percival, The Appearance of Character: Physiognomy and Facial Expres "Authorities": "If it be true, that a mind 21. Lavater quotes Gellert in Fragment Seventh, sion in Eighteenth-Century France (Leeds: W.S. Maney & Sons for the Modem Humani replete with mildness and serenity is frequently veiled by'a sad and gloomy exterior; and ties Research Association, 1999); and the first chapter of Lucy Hartley, Physiognomy and that a haugbty and boisterous look sometimes disguises an amiable character; this disso the Meaning ofExpression in Nineteenth·Century Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer nance may arise from having contracted bad habits, or from the imitation of bad examples. sity Press, 2001). Perhaps this offensive exterior may be the effect of some constirution vice; or, it may be a 6. See Evans, "Ancient World," 47-74. Evans considers such descriptions antecedent man's own workmanship, the consequence of a long train of self-indulgence, which he has to physiognomy. now overcome." Lavater, Essays, 1:54 [emphasis added]. 7. Physiognomonica, 805a; The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Bames, 22. Herbert, Discourse ofMedals, 319, 339. Further references appear in the text. trans. T. Loveday and E. S. Forster, Bollingen Series 71,2 (Princeton: Princeton University 23. Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Fato, vol. 10, trans. J.E. King, Loeb Classical Library Press, 1984), 1:1237. . (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), 203-5. 8. Later writers who took up this mode include Polemon and Adamantius in the second 24. Tusculan Disputations, IV.xxxvii.80; trans. J .E. King, Loeb Classical Library (Cam century AD, Giovanni ·Battista della Porta in the sixteenth, and Charles Le Brun in the sev bridge: Harvard University Press, 1927),419. enteenth. George Herbert discusses "Theriologic Physiognomy" in A Discourse ofMedals, 25. Guglielmo Gratarolo, Artium & medicinre doctoris opuscula (Basilere, apud Nico Antiem and Modem (London: for Benj. Tooke, 1697), 296. laum Episcopium iunidem, 1554), 8. Further references appear in the text .. 9. [Richard Roussat], The Most Excellent, Profitable, and Pleasant Booke ofthe famous 26. William AlJey, PT.axOMYEEION, The poore mans librarie (London: by John Day, Doctor, and expert Astrologian, Arcandam, orAlcandrin, to finde thefatall destiny, constel 1565),2:fols. 31v -35v. . lation, complexion, and naturall inclination of euery man and child by his birth: With an 27. John Hartcliffe, A Treatise ~f Moral and Intelleclual Wrtues (London: for C. Harper, addition ofPhisiognomie, very pleasant to reade, trans. William Warde (London: by Felix 1691),42-43. . Kyngston, 1626), fol. J3v. 28. Ibid., 43. 'lD. On race-based physiognomy, see Kay F1aveJl, "Mapping Faces: National Physiog
29. On Buffon's distinction between physiognomy and pathognomy, see Percival, Ap nomies as Cultural Prediction," Eighteenth-Century Life 18 (November 1994): 8-22. See
pearance of Character, 28-37; on Lavater, idem, 177. In adopting this distinction Lavater Miriam Claude Meijer, Race and Aesthetics in the Anthropology of Petrus Camper,
follows Lichtenberg's suggestion; see Lavater, Essays, 1:235. On Lichtenberg's impact, see 1722-1789 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999) for a discussion of the appropriation of early an
Siegfried Frey, "Lavater, Lichtenberg, and the Suggestive Power of the Human Face," in thropological measurement (''facial angle") to justify racist ethnology.
The Faces ofPhysiognomy: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Johann Caspar Lavater, edt El II. See W. Thiessen, "An Outline of the Development of Concepts of Humoral Medi lis Shookman (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993),73-83; Norton, The Beautiful Soul, cine," Medical Life 39 (1934): 3-19; lan Maclean, Logic, Signs, and Nature in the Renais 196-200; and Kevin Berland, '''The Air Qf a Porter': Lichtenberg and Lavater Test Phys sance: The Case of Learned Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). iognomy by Looking at Johnson," The Age ofJohnson 10 (1999): 219-30. . 12. On the relation between physiognomy and ancient humoral medicine, see Evans, 30. Lavater, Essays, 1:78. "Ancient World," 17-28. 31. Not having srudied animals, Lavater refers the tas,k to "the Buffons and Campers of 13. On Galen, see Margaret Tallmadge May's introduction to her translation, On the Use the age," but offers an extended set of general observations, comments on the Pseudo-Aris fulness ofthe Pans ofthe Body Othaca: ComeJl University Press, 1968),44-64. On Galen's totle's reading of animals, animal skulls and character, human-animal resemblance, Porta's physiognomy, see Evans, "Ancient World," 24-26. illustrations, animal heads and character. See. Lavater, Essays, 2:96-144. Lavater posits a 14. Giovanni Battista deJla Porta, De humana physiognomonia (Vici Aequensis, apud I. "natural sentiment of the beautiful" which only cultural factors, "the tyranny of an ancient Cacchius, 1586). national and hereditary prejudice could have extinguished or altered." The examples he cites 15. On Le Brun's Cartesianism, see Percival,Appearonce ofCharacter, 41-63, and Hart of such deviance from the norm of beauty include an unnamed tribe that admires wens, and ley, Meaning of Expression, 19-26. Africans who admire African features: "none except Negros admire a flat nose" (Lavater, 16. Plato, The Republic, 402d, in The Collected Dialogues ofPlato, ed. Edith Hamilton Essays, 1:131). Lavater outlines a humoral physiognomy based on the four qualities of the
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KEVIN BERLAND
body (humidity, dryness, heat, cold) which have as their basis earth, air, fire, and water, pro ducing the temperaments, melancholic, sanguine, choleric, and phlegmatic. He cites no an cient authorities, connects some notions of contemporary chemistty with the four elements, and shows no sign of recognizing that humoral physiology had long been exploded. In con cluding, he pronounces that the first question that should be answered is whether natural temperament may be subdued (Lavater, Essays, 3:93-94, 128). 32. On Lavater's analysis of Socrates, see K. J. H. Berland, "Reading Character in the Face: Lavater, Socrates, and Physiognomy," Word and Image 9/3 (1993): 252-69. 33. On contemporary objections, see NOrian, The Beautiful Soul, 196-206. 34. "It is not false mOdesty, it is thorough conviction, which constrains me to acknowl edge, that I am very far from being a Physionomist. I am but the Fragment of one; just as the Work I present to the Public contains not a complete Treatise, but merely Fragments of Physiognomy" (Lavater, Essays, 1: 127).
Physiognomy in Profile
Lavater's Impact on European Culture
Edited by
Melissa Percival and Graeme Tytler
Detail from Johann Heinrich Lips, Lavaters Denkmal [Lavater's Monument], Kunst-sammlungen der Veste Coburg.
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DElAWARE
Newark: University of Delaware Press
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