Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/700

682 looking at a picture, the doctor feeling the pulse of his patient, the judge weighing the testimony of a witness, the merchant deliberating concerning the acceptability of a commercial proposition—all are tempted involuntarily to project their lips, as if about to taste something sweet, and that the more readily as they fancy themselves better qualified to form a judgment. This trait furthermore betrays a kind of feeling of one's own value, a feeling of superiority; for whoever considers himself authorized and fit to pass a definite judgment on men, things, or events at once feels that by virtue of his quality of judge he rises superior to



the object on which he is called to pronounce. For this reason the scrutinizing trait is also often the expression of arrogance and presumption (Fig. 4). If the scrutinizing trait is associated with vertical wrinkles, it indicates that, while the man is weighing and studying the reasons for and against the judgment he is to pronounce, whatever may be his final decision, he is already in a bad humor (Fig. 5). With horizontal wrinkles, the scrutinizing trait indicates that attention is fixed in the highest degree upon the matters that are under examination, and that they are considered very important or very delicate. A fine representation of this expression is given in Hasenklever's picture, "La Dégustation du Vin" ("The Wine-tasting," Fig. 7). This expression is frequently found among men who think much of the pleasures of the table. Their imagination indulging in fancies of pleasures obtained or anticipated, their lips advance as if they were really tasting what they are imagining; and thus the scrutinizing trait becomes physiognomic. It is also developed in men who have a high idea of their own value, and feel called upon to judge concerning the value of other men.