Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/15

Rh PHYSIOGNOMY plates. A description of. another perfect copy belonging to Earl Spencer occurs in Dibdin s Bibliographical De cameron (1817), vol. i. p. 143, and four imperfect copies are known to exist elsewhere. The date of Hartlieb s work is probably 1470. This and Michael Scott s books were the first printed works on the subject. The 16th century was particularly rich in publications on physiognomy. Not only were the classical works printed, but additions were made to the literature by Codes, Corvus, Johannes de Indagine, Cornaro, Blondus, Douxciel, Pompeius Ronnseus, Gratarolus, Niquetius, Pom- ponius Gauricus, Tricassus, Cardan, Tiberius, Thaddanis ab Hayek, Taisnierus, Rizzacasa, Campanella, Hund, Picci- olus, Rothman, Johannes Padovanus, and, last and greatest of all, Giambattista della Porta. Several works also ap peared in England, the earliest being the anonymous On the Art of foretelling Future Events by Inspection of the Hand (London, 1504). A second anonymous work, A pleasant Introduction to the Art ofChiromancie and Physiognomic, was published at the same place in 1558. Neither of these is of any merit. The first English work with the author s name is that of Dr Thomas Hill (1571), The Contemplation of Mankynde, containing a singular Discourse after the Art of Phisiognomie. This is rather quaintly written, but is simply an adaptation from the Italian writers of the day. Another anonymous author about this period, but whose work has no date, writes, under the name &quot; Merlin Britannicus,&quot; upon moles and naevi after the model of All b. Ragel. The word &quot;physiognomy&quot; had been introduced into England before this century, and, from analogy with the Greek, had been used in the sense of the outward appearance, or the face : thus in UdalPs translation of the paraphrase of Erasmus on Mark iv. it occurs spelt &quot;phisnomi&quot;; the pugnacious bishop of Ossory, Bale, in his English Votaries, spells it &quot; physnomie &quot; (pt. i. ch. ii. p. 44). The rise of the study of anatomy served largely to bring physiognomy into discredit by substituting real facts for fictions ; hence in the 17th century its literature, while not smaller in quantity, was less important in quality. The principal authors are Goclenius, Fuchs, Timpler, Tischbein, Gallimard, Moldenarius, Septalius, Hertod, Scarlatini, Saunders, Withers, Helvetius, Lebrun, Elsholtius, De la Belliere, Philipp May, Evelyn, Freius, Baldus, Torreblanca, Otto, Bulwer, Rhyne, Merbitzius, Fludd, Zanardus, Finella, Tamburini, Etzler, Vecchius, Prsetorius, De la Chambre, and Giraldus. The 18th century shows a still greater decline of interest in physiognomy. Historians of philosophy, like Meursius and Franz, re -edited some of the classical works, and Fiilleborn reviewed the relation of physiognomy to philo sophy. Indeed the only name worthy of note is that of LAVATER (q.v.). The other authors of this century are Peuschel, Spon, Lichtenberg, Schutz, Wegelin, Pernetty, Girtanner, Grohmann, and several anonymous writers, and from the anatomical side Lancisi, Parsons, and Peter Cam per. 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 really no system in his work, which largely 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 con trived to write a graphic and readable book, but one much inferior to Porta s or Aristotle s as a systematic treatise. With him the descriptive school of physiognomists may be said to have ended, as the astrological physiognomy expired with De la Belliere. The few straggling works which have since appeared are scarcely deserving of notice, the rising attraction of phrenology having given to pure phy siognomy the coup de grace by taking into itself whatever was likely to live of the older science. The writers of this century are Horstig, Maas, Rainer, Cross, Stohr, Sehler, Diez, Carus, Piderit, Burgess, and Gratiolet. The physiological school of physiognomy was fore shadowed by Parsons and founded by Sir Charles Bell, as his Essay on the Anatomy of Expression, published in 1806, was the first really scientific study of expression. He was one of the first who accurately correlated the motions expressive of the passions with the muscles which produce them, and in the later editions of his work these descriptions are much enlarged and improved. Shortly after the appearance of the first edition of Bell s Essay Moreau published his first edition of Lavater along some what the same lines (1807). The experiments of Duchenne (Mecanisme de la Physionomie 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 tested and confirmed by experimental demonstration the hypothetic conclusions of Bell. The machinery of expression having thus been clearly followed out, the correlation of the physical actions and the psychical states was made the subject of specula tion by Spencer (Psychology, 1855), and such speculations were first reduced to a system by Darwin (Expression of Emotions, 1872), who formulated and illustrated the fol lowing as fundamental 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 state of mind is induced the same set 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. It follows from these propositions that the expression of emotion is for the most part not under the control of the will, and that those striped muscles are the most expressive which are the least voluntary. The philosophy of phy siognomy may be formulated upon this definite theoretic- basis. (1) The actions we look upon as expressive of emotions are such as at some time were serviceable in relieving or gratifying the desires or sensations accom panying the emotion. (2) Such actions become habitually associated with the mental condition and continue even where their utility is lost. (3) Certain muscles which pro duce these actions become from habitual action strength ened, and, when the skin diminishes in fulness and elasticity with advancing age, the action of the muscle produces furrows or wrinkles in the skin at right angles to the course of the fibres of the muscle. (4) As the mental disposition and proneness to action are inherited by children from parents, so the facility and proneness to expression are similarly developed under the law of heredity. (5) To some extent habitual muscular action and the habitual flow of nerve-force in certain directions may alter the contour of such bones and cartilages as are thereby acted upon by the muscles of expression. Illustrations of these theoretic propositions are to be found in the works of Bell, Duchenne, and Darwin, to which the student may be referred for further information. For information on artistic anatomy as applied to physiognomy see the catalogue of sixty-two authors by Ludwig Choulant, Gcschichf.e imd Bibliographic dcr anatomischen Abbildung, &c., Leipsic, 1852, and the works of the authors enumerated above, especially those of Aristotle, Franz, Porta, Cardan, Corvus, and Bulwer. An attempt has been made recently to rehabilitate palmistry by D Arpentigny and Desbarrolles, for summaries of which see the works of Beamish and Craig. For physiognomy of disease, besides the usual medical handbooks, see Cabuchet, Essai sur T Expression de la Face dans ks Maladies, Paris, 1801. For ethnological physiognomy, see amongst older authors Gratarolus, and amongst moderns the writers cited in the various text-books on anthropology. (A. MA.)