He died Friday, January 2d, 1801.

As a physiognomist, the character to which he is principally indebted for his fame, Lavater has shown himself an original observer, and may even claim to be called, in some sense, a discoverer. He differed from all who had preceded him in this science, in directing his attention rather to the firm and stationary-"the defined and definable"-parts of the countenance than to those which are movable and accidental. He distinguished between what is superficial in the character,-the passions and accidental determinations of the individual,and the original self. The former he supposed to be indicated by the movable and muscular parts of the countenance, the latter by the firm and bony. In order to form an opinion of the character from the face, he required to see the face at rest,-in sleep or in an unconscious

state.

"The greater part of the physiognomists," he says, "speak only of the passions, or rather of the exterior signs of the passions, and the expression of them in the muscles. But these exterior signs are only transient circumstances, which are easily discoverable. It has therefore always been my object to consider the general and fundamental character of the man, from which, according to the state of his exterior circumstances and relations, all his passions arise as from a root."*

The following anecdote is related by his sonin-law, G. Gessner, as an instance of his practical skill in this science. "A person to whom he was an entire stranger was once announced and introduced to him as a visitor. The first idea that rose in his mind, the moment he saw him, was: This man is a murderer.' He however immediately suppressed the thought as unjustifiably hasty and severe, and conversed with the person with his accustomed civility. The cultivated understanding, extensive information and ease of manner which he discovered in his visitor, inspired him with the highest respect for his intellectual endowments; and his esteem for these, added to his natural candor and benevolence, induced him to disregard the unfavorable impression he had received from his first appearance, with respect to his moral

From a conversation with the Emperor Joseph II., quoted by Holcroft.

by invitation; but soon after it was known that this accomplished gentleman was one of the assassins of the late king of Sweden; and he found it advisable to leave the country as soon as possible."

The following extracts from Goethe's reminiscences of Lavater, contained in the "Dichtung und Wahrheit," give us the reflection of his personality in a mind of a very different order from his own.

"Not long after this, I came into connection with Lavater also. The Letter of a Pastor to his Colleagues** had been very luminous to him, in passages; for there was much in it that fully coincided with his own sentiments. With his ceaseless driving, our correspondence soon became very brisk. He was just making earnest preparations for his larger Physiognomik. He called upon everybody to send him drawings, profiles, but especially pictures of Christ; and although what I could render in this way amounted to almost nothing, he insisted upon it, once for all, that he would have a Saviour drawn according to my conception of him. Such requisitions of the impossible gave rise to many jests, and I knew no other way of defending myself against his peculiarities but by turning out my own." * * * "He had commissioned a not unskilful painter in Frankfort to send him the profiles of several individuals whom he mentioned. The sender allowed himself the jest of sending Bahrdt's portrait at first, instead of mine; whereupon came back a pleasant indeed, but a thundering epistle, with all sorts of trumps and asseverations that this could not be my picture, and with whatever else Lavater, on such an occasion, might have to say in confirmation of his physiognomical doctrine." "The idea of humanity which had formed itself in him from his own humanity was so intimately connected with the concep tion of Christ, which he carried living within him, that it was inconceivable to him, how a man could live and breathe without being a Christian." "One must either be a Christian with him, a Christian after his sort, or one must draw him over to one's self, and convince him, too, of the truth of that in which one found repose. This requisition, so immediately opposed to the liberal, cosmopolitan feeling to which I gradually confessed myself, had not the best

*One of Goethe's youthful productions.

effect with me. All attempts at conversion, when they are unsuccessful, render the intended proselyte obstinate and hardened; and this was my case; the rather when Lavater came forward at last with the hard dilemma; Either Christian or atheist.' I replied to this, that if he would not leave me my Christianity, as I had hitherto cherished it, I could perhaps make up my mind to atheism; especially, since I saw that no one knew exactly what was meant by either."

"Our first meeting was hearty; we embraced in the most friendly manner, and I immediately found him as he had been represented to me in so many pictures. An individual, unique, distinguished in a way which has not been seen and will not be seen again, I saw living and effective before me. He, on the contrary, betrayed in the first moment, by sundry singular exclamations, that he had expected me otherwise. Whereupon I told him, agreeably to my inborn and incultivated realism, that since God and Nature had once for all been pleased to make me so, we too would content ourselves

with that. Now, the most important points upon which we had been least able to agree in our letters, came indeed into immediate discussion; but space was not allowed us for a thorough treatment of them, and I experienced

what had never occurred to me before.

"We others, when we wished to discuss matters of the mind and heart, were accustomed to withdraw ourselves from the crowd, and even from society; because, with the manifold ways of thinking and different stages of culture, it is difficult to come to an understanding even with a few. But Lavater was of quite a different mind. He loved to extend his operations far and wide. He was never at home but in the congregation, for the instruction and entertainment of which he had a special talent, based on his great physiognomical gift. To him was given a correct discernment of persons and of spirits; so that he saw in each one quickly what was the probable state of his mind." The profound meekness of his look, the determined loveliness of his lips, even his true-hearted Swiss dialect which sounded through his High German, and how much else that distinguished him—imparted to every one with whom he conversed the most agreeable repose of mind. Even his somewhat forward bending position of the body—a consequence of his flat chestcontributed not a little to equalize the prepon

derance of his presence with the rest of the company.

"Toward assumption and conceit he knew how to bear himself very quietly and dexterously. For while he seemed to evade, he turned forth suddenly some great view, which the narrow-minded opponent could never have thought of, like a diamond shield; and yet knew then how to temper the light which flashed from it so agreeably, that men of this kind generally felt themselves instructed and convinced, at least in his presence. Perhaps the impression may have continued with many; for selfish men may be good too, at the same time. All that is required is that the hard shell which encloses the fruitful kernel should be dissolved by a gentle influence."

"For me the intercourse with Lavater was

highly important and instructive.” “ Very remarkable and rich in results for me were the conversations of Lavater with the Fräulein von

Klettenberg. Here now stood two decided Christians over against each other, and it was plain to see how the same confession changes its aspect with the sentiments of different individuals," -"how men and women need a different Savior. Fräulein von Klettenberg related to her's, as to a lover to whom one yields oneself unconditionally." "Lavater, on the other

hand, treated his as a friend whom one emulates without envy, and full of love."

66

Notwithstanding the religious and moral, but by no means anxious tendency of his mind, he was not insensible when the spirits were stimulated to cheerfulness and mirth by the events of life. He was sympathizing, ingenious and witty, and loved the same in others, provided it remained within the bounds which his

delicate feelings prescribed to him. If one ventured beyond these, he used to pat him on the shoulder, and call the offender to order with a true-hearted "Behave now!"*

"One became virginal by his side, in order not to touch him with anything disgusting."

"Lavater's mind was altogether imposing. In his neighborhood one could not resist a decided influence."

"He who feels a synthesis right pregnant within himself, has properly the right to analyze; because, in external particulars, he proves and legitimates his inward whole. Of Lavater's manner of proceeding in this matter be one only

"Bisch guet," "be good." Swiss dialect.

example given. Sundays, after the sermon, he was required, as minister, to present the shorthandled velvet bag to each one who came out, and to receive the alms with a blessing. Now he would impose it upon himself e. g. this Sunday, to look no one in the face, but only to watch the hands, and to interpret to himself their form. And not only the form of the fingers, but their expression in dropping the gift, did not escape his attention; and he had much to communicate to me about it afterward. How instructive and stimulating must such communications be to me who was also on the way to qualify myself for a painter of men !"

“Lavater's mind inclined strictly to realism. He knew nothing ideal, except under a moral form. If we hold fast this idea, we shall best

understand a rare and singular man." "Scarcely ever was there one more passionately concerned to be rightly known than he; and it was this, especially, which qualified him for a teacher." "The realization of the person of Christ was his favourite object."

"Every talent, which is founded in a decided natural tendency, appears to us to have something magical, because we cannot classify it or its effects, under an idea. And, really, Lavater's insight into individual men transcended all ideas. It was astounding to hear him, when he spoke confidentially of this or that person; nay, it was fearful to live in the vicinity of a man by whom every limit, with which Nature has been pleased to limit us individuals, was clearly perceived!"

ON THE NATURE OF MAN, WHICH IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE SCIENCE OF PHYSIOGNOMY.

Of all earthly creatures man is the most perfect, the most imbued with the principles of life.

Each particle of matter is an immensity; each leaf a world; each insect an inexplicable compendium. Who then shall enumerate the gradations between insect and man? In him all the powers of nature are united. He is the essence of creation. The son of earth, he is the earth's lord; the summary and central point of all existence, of all powers, and of all life, on that earth which he inhabits.

Of all organized beings with which we are acquainted, man alone excepted, there are none in which are so wonderfully united the three different kinds of life, the animal, the intellectual, and the moral. Each of these lives is the compendium of various faculties, most wonderfully compounded and harmonized.

To know, to desire, to act, or accurately to observe and meditate; to perceive and to wish; to possess the powers of motion and of resistance; these combined, constitute man an animal, intellectual, and moral being.

Man, endowed with these faculties, with this triple life, is in himself the most worthy subject of observation, as he likewise is himself the most worthy observer. Under whatever point of view he may be considered, what is more worthy of contemplation than himself? In him each species of life is conspicuous; yet never can his properties be wholly known, except by the aid of his external form, his body, his superficies. How spiritual, how incorporeal soever, his internal essence may be, still is he only visible and conceivable from the harmony of his constituent parts. From these he is inseparable.

He exists and moves in the body he inhabits, as in his element. This material man must become the subject of observation. All the knowledge we can obtain of man must be gained through the medium of our senses.

This threefold life, which man cannot be denied to possess, necessarily first becomes the subject of disquisition and research, as it presents itself in the form of body, and in such of his faculties as are apparent to sense.

There is no object in nature, the properties and powers of which can be manifest to us in any other manner than by such external appearances as affect the senses. By these all beings are characterized. They are the foundations of all human knowledge. Man must wander in the darkest ignorance, equally with respect to himself and the objects that surround him, did he not become acquainted with their properties and powers by the aid of their externals; and had not each object a character peculiar to its nature and essence, which acquaints us with what it is, and enables us to distinguish it from what it is not.

All bodies which we survey appear to sight under a certain form and superficies. We behold those outlines traced which are the result of their organization. I hope I shall be pardoned the repetition of such commonplace truths, since on these are built the science of physiognomy, or the proper study of man. However true these axioms, with respect to visible objects, and particularly to organized bodies, they are still more extensively true when applied to man, and his nature. The organization of man peculiarly distinguishes him from all other earthly beings; and his physiognomy, that is to say, the superficies and outlines of this organization, show him to be infinitely superior to all those visible beings by which he is surrounded.

We are unacquainted with any form equally

noble, equally majestic, with that of man, and in which so many kinds of life, so many powers, so many virtues of action and motion, unite, as in a central point. With firm step be advances over the earth's surface, and with erect body raises his head toward heaven. He looks forward to infinitude; he acts with facility, and swiftness inconceivable, and his motions are the most immediate and the most varied. By whom may their varieties be enumerated? He can at once both suffer and perform infinitely more than any other creature. He unites flexibility and fortitude, strength and dexterity, activity and rest. Of all creatures he can the soonest yield, and the longest resist. None resemble him in the variety and harmony of his powers. His faculties, like his form, are peculiar to himself.

How much nobler, more astonishing, and more attractive will this form become, when we discover that it is itself the interpreter of all the high powers it possesses, active and passive! Only in those parts in which animal strength and properties reside does it resemble animals. But how much is it exalted above the brute in those parts in which are the powers of superior origin, the powers of mind, of motion!

The form and proportion of man, his superior height, capable of so many changes, and such variety of motion, prove to the unprejudiced observer his supereminent strength, and astonishing facility of action. The high excellence and physiological unity of human nature are visible at the first glance. The head, especially the face, and the formation of the firm parts, compared to the firm parts of other animals, convince the accurate observer, who is capable of investigating truth, of the greatness and superiority of his intellectual qualities. The eye, the look, the cheeks, the mouth, the forehead, whether considered in a state of entire rest or during their innumerable varieties of motion, in fine, all that is understood by physiognomy, is the most expressive, the most convincing picture of interior sensation, desires, passions, will, and of all those properties which so much exalt moral above animal life.

Although the physiological, intellectual, and moral life of man, with all their subordinate powers and their constituent parts, so eminently unite in one being; although these three kinds of life do not, like three distinct families, reside in separate parts, or stories of the body; but coexist in one point, and by their combination form one whole; yet is it plain that each of these powers of life has its peculiar station, where it more especially unfolds itself, and acts.

It is beyond contradiction evident that, though physiological or animal life displays itself through all the body, and especially through all the animal parts, yet does it act most conspicuously in the arm, from the shoulder to the ends of the fingers.

It is equally clear that intellectual life, or the powers of the understanding and the mind,

make themselves most apparent in the circumference and form of the solid parts of the head, especially the forehead; though they will discover themselves to an attentive and accurate eye in every part and point of the human body, by the congeniality and harmony of the various parts, as will be frequently noticed in the course of this work. Is there any occasion to prove that the power of thinking resides neither in the foot, in the hand, nor in the back; but in the head, and its internal parts?

The moral life of man, particularly, reveals itself in the lines, marks, and transitions of the countenance. His moral powers and desires, his irritability, sympathy, and antipathy; his facility of attracting or repelling the objects that surround him; these are all summed up in, and painted upon, his countenance when at rest. When any passion is called into action, such passion is depicted by the motion of the muscles, and these motions are accompanied by a strong palpitation of the heart. If the countenance be tranquil, it always denotes tranquillity in the region of the heart and breast.

This threefold life of man, so intimately interwoven through his frame, is still capable of being studied in its different appropriate parts; and did we live in a less depraved world we should find sufficient data for the science of physiognomy.

The animal life, the lowest and most earthly, would discover itself from the rim of the belly to the organs of generation, which would become its central or focal point. The middle or moral life would be seated in the breast, and the heart would be its central point. The intellectual life, which of the three is supreme, would reside in the head, and have the eye for its centre. If we take the countenance as the representative and epitome of the three divisions, then will the forehead, to the eyebrows, be the mirror, or image, of the understanding; the nose and cheeks the image of the moral and sensitive life; and the mouth and chin the image of the animal life; while the eye will be to the whole as its summary and centre. I may also add that the closed mouth at the moment of most perfect tranquillity is the central point of the radii of the countenance. It cannot however too often be repeated that these three lives, by their intimate connection with each other, are all, and each, expressed in every part of the body.

What we have hitherto said is so clear, so well known, so universal, that we should blush to insist upon such common-place truths, were they not, first, the foundation on which we must build all we have to propose; and, again, had not these truths (can it be believed by futurity?) in this our age been so many thousand times mistaken and contested, with the most inconceivable affectation.

The science of physiognomy, whether understood in the most enlarged or most confined sense, indubitably depends on these general and

incontrovertible principles; yet, incontrovertible as they are, they have not been without their opponents. Men pretend to doubt of the most striking, the most convincing, the most self-evident truths; although, were these destroyed, neither truth nor knowledge would remain. They do not profess to doubt concerning the physiognomy of other natural objects, yet do they doubt the physiognomy of human nature; the first object, the most worthy of contemplation, and the most animated which the realms of nature contain.

OF THE TRUTH OF PHYSIOGNOMY.

All countenances, all forms, all created beings, are not only different from each other in their classes, races, and kinds, but are also individually distinct.

Each being differs from every other being of its species. However generally known, it is a truth the most important to our purpose, and necessary to repeat, that, "There is no rose perfectly similar to another rose, no egg to an egg, no eel to an eel, no lion to a lion, no eagle to an eagle, no man to a man."

Confining this proposition to man only, it is the first, the most profound, most secure, and unshaken foundation-stone of physiognomy that, however intimate the analogy and similarity of the innumerable forms of men, no two men can be found who, brought together, and accurately compared, will not appear to be very remarkably different.

Nor is it less incontrovertible that it is equally impossible to find two minds, as two countenances, which perfectly resemble each other.

This consideration alone will be sufficient to make it received as a truth, not requiring farther demonstration, that there must be a certain native analogy between the external varieties of the countenance and form, and the internal varieties of the mind. Shall it be denied that this acknowledged internal variety among all men is the cause of the external variety of their forms and countenances? Shall it be affirmed that the mind does not influence the body, or that the body does not influence the mind?

Anger renders the muscles protuberant; and shall not therefore an angry mind and protuberant muscles be considered as cause and effect?

After repeated observation that an active and vivid eye and an active and acute wit are frequently found in the same person, shall it be supposed that there is no relation between the active eye and the active mind? Is this the effect of accident? Of accident! Ought it not rather to be considered as sympathy, an interchangeable and instantaneous effect, when we perceive that, at the very moment the understanding is most acute and penetrating and the wit the most lively, the motion and fire of the eye undergo, at that moment, the most visible change?

Shall the open, friendly, and unsuspecting eye and the open, friendly,. and unsuspecting

heart be united in a thousand instances, and shall we say the one is not the cause, the other the effect?

Shall nature discover wisdom and order in all things; shall corresponding causes and effects be everywhere united; shall this be the most clear, the most indubitable of truths; and in the first, the most noble of the works of nature, shall she act arbitrarily, without design, without law? The human countenance, that mirror of the Divinity, that noblest of the works of the Creator, shall not motive and action, shall not the correspondence between the interior and the exterior, the visible and the invisible, the cause and the effect, be there apparent? Yet this is all denied by those who oppose the truth of the science of physiognomy.

Truth, according to them, is ever at variance with itself. Eternal order is degraded to a juggler, whose purpose it is to deceive.

Calm reason revolts at the supposition that Newton or Leibnitz ever could have the countenance and appearance of an idiot, incapable of a firm step, a meditating eye; of comprehending the least difficult of abstract propositions, or of expressing himself so as to be understood; that one of these in the brain of a Laplander conceived his Theodica; and that the other in the head of an Esquimaux, who wants the power to number farther than six, and affirms all beyond to be innumerable, had dissected the rays of light, and weighed worlds.

Calm reason revolts when it is asserted that the strong man may appear perfectly like the weak, the man in full health like another in the last stage of a consumption, or that the rash and irascible may resemble the cold and phlegmatic. It revolts to hear it affirmed that joy and grief, pleasure and pain, love and hatred, all exhibit themselves under the same traits; that is to say, under no traits whatever, on the exterior of man. Yet such are the assertions of those who maintain physiognomy to be a chimerical science. They overturn all that order and combination by which eternal wisdom so highly astonishes and delights the understanding. It cannot be too emphatically repeated, that blind chance and arbitrary disorder constitute the philosophy of fools; and that they are the bane of natural knowledge, philosophy and religion. Entirely to banish such a system is the duty of the true inquirer, the sage, and the divine.

All men, (this is indisputable), absolutely all men, estimate all things whatever by their physiognomy, their exterior, temporary superficies. By viewing these on every occasion, they draw their conclusions concerning their internal properties.

What merchant, if he be unacquainted with the person of whom he purchases, does not estimate his wares by the physiognomy or appearance of those wares? If he purchase of a distant correspondent, what other means does he use in judging whether they are or are not equal to his expectation? Is not his judgment