Physiognomy
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Physiognomy (Gk. physis, nature and gnosis, knowledge) is a pseudoscience, based upon the belief that the study and judgement of a person's outer appearance, primarily the face, reflects their character or personality. Up until the time of English King Henry VIII, its validity was so widely assumed that it was taught in universities and was an everyday concept that had developed into a regular Middle English word spelled fisnamy or visnomy. After that time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite form 'physiognomy' and began to discourage the whole idea of 'fisnamy'.
Ancient Physiognomy
Notions of the relationship between an individual's outward appearance and inner character are as old as time, and are occasionally reflected in early Greek poetry. The first indications of a developed theory appear in fifth century Athens, where one Zopyrus was said to be expert in the art. By the fourth century, the philosopher Aristotle makes frequent reference to theories of the sort, and also to some sort of literature. Aristotle's own thought was receptive, as can be seen from a passage in his Prior Analytics (2.27).
- It is possible to infer character from features, if it is granted that the body and the soul are changed together by the natural affections: I say 'natural', for though perhaps by learning music a man has made some change in his soul, this is not one of those affections which are natural to us; rather I refer to passions and desires when I speak of natural emotions. If then this were granted and also that for each change there is a corresponding sign, and we could state the affection and sign proper to each kind of animal, we shall be able to infer character from features. (Trans. A. J. Jenkinson)
The first systematic treatise on physiognomy to survive to the present day is a slim volume Physiognomica (English: Physiognomics), ascribed to Aristotle, but probably of his "school" rather than by the philosopher himself. It is divided into two parts, conjectured to have been originally two separate works. The first section passes over arguments drawn from nature or other races, and concentrates on human behavior. The second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types. From these are deduced correspondences between human form and character.
After Aristotle, the major extant works are:
- Polemo of Laodicea, de Physiognomonia (2c. A.D.), in Greek
- Adamantius the Sophist, Physiognomonica (4c. A.D.), in Greek
- An anonymous Latin author de Phsiognomonia (ca. 4c. A.D.)
Modern Physiognomy
The principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801) who, for a short while, was a friend of Goethe. Lavater's essays upon physiognomy were first published in German in 1772 and gained great popularity. His essays upon physiognomy were translated into French and English and were highly influential. The two principal sources from which Lavater found 'confirmation' of his ideas were the writings of the Italian Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615) and the English physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), whose Religio Medici Lavater read and praised. Browne discusses in this work the possibility of the discernment of inner qualities from the outer appearance of the face thus:
- there is surely a Physiognomy, which those experienced and Master Mendicants observe....For there are mysyically in our faces certain Characters which carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C. may read our natures. (R.M. part 2:2)
Late in his life Browne affirmed his physiognomical beliefs stating in his Christian Morals (circa 1675):
- Since the Brow speaks often true, since Eyes and Noses have Tongues, and the countenance proclaims the heart and inclinations; let observation so far instruct thee in Physiognomical lines....we often observe that Men do most act those Creatures, whose constitution, parts, and complexion do most predominate in their mixtures. This is a corner-stone in Physiognomy...there are therefore Provincial Faces, National Lips and Noses, which testify not only the Natures of those Countries, but of those which have them elsewhere. (C.M. Part 2 section 9)
Sir Thomas Browne is also credited with the first usage of the word caricature in the English language, from whence much of physiognomy's pseudo-learning attempted to base itself by illustrative means.
Browne possesed several of the writings of the Italian Giambattista della Porta including his Of Celestial Physiognomy which argued that it was not the stars but the temperament which influences both man's facial appearance and character. In his book De humana physiognomia (1586) Porta used woodcuts of animals to illustrate human characteristics. Porta's works are well-represented in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne and both sustained a belief in the doctrine of signatures — that is, the belief that the physical structures of nature such as a plant's roots, stem and flower, were indicative keys or signatures to their medical potential.
The popularity of physiognomy grew throughout the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century. It influenced the descriptive abilities of many European novelists, notably Balzac; meanwhile, the 'Norwich connection' to physiognomy developed in the writings of Amelia Opie and the traveller and linguist George Borrow, besides a host of other nineteenth century English authors, notably the highly descriptive passages of characters and their physiognomical appearance in the novels of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy.
Phrenology was also considered a physiognomy. It was created around 1800 by German physician Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim and was widely popular in the 19th century in Europe and the United States.