La vater, JOHANN KASPAR, writer on physiognomy, was born on 15th November 1741, at Zurich, studied there under Bodmer and Breitinger, and in 1769 received Protestant orders. He early gained a high reputation by a volume of poems, entitled Schweizerlieder (1767). His next publication was Aussichten in die Ewigkeit (4 vols. 1768–78), of which several editions were soon called for. The tone of this and similar works is one of high religious enthusiasm, mingled with asceticism and a considerable leaven of mysticism. From 1769 he officiated in the orphanage church in his native city, and from 1778 in the church of St Peter. He brought his keen powers of observation and his skill in judging character to bear upon physiognomy, which he attempted to elevate into a science, in his most celebrated work, Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntniss und Menschenliebe (4 vols. 1775–78). This work, which Holcroft first translated into English (3 vols. 1793), is written in an extravagant and inflated style. It gave rise to much discussion, was bitterly attacked, as by Nicolai, although Goethe greeted it with praise, and occasioned not a little display of wit and humour from Lichtenberg and others.
Lavater was the chosen spiritual adviser of many persons in Switzerland and Germany, with whom he maintained an unwearied correspondence. On his tours in Germany he was received with extraordinary marks of popular esteem and honour. Whilst tending the wounded on the street at the capture of Zurich by Massena, 26th September 1799, he received a wound, of the effects of which he ultimately died on 2d January 1801. His Vermischte Schriften appeared in 2 vols. (1774-81) and his Sämtliche kleinere prosaische Schriften in 3 vols. (1784-85). See Lives by Gessner (1802), Heisch (English, 1842), and Muncker (1883), and monographs by Steck (1884) and Von der Hellen (1888).