Physiognomy

Physiognomy (from a Latin shortened form of the Gr. physiognomōnia), the art of judging of the character from the external appearance, especially from the countenance. The art is founded upon the belief, which has long and generally prevailed, that there is an intimate connection between the features and expression of the face and the qualities and habits of the mind; and every man is conscious of instinctively drawing conclusions in this way for himself with more or less confidence, and of acting upon them to a certain extent in the affairs of life. Yet the attempt to reach this conclusion by the application of certain rules, and thus to raise the art of reading the human countenance to the dignity of a science, although often made, has never yet been very successful. Comparisons were instituted for this purpose between the physiognomies of human beings and of species of animals noted for the possession of peculiar qualities, as the wolf, the fox, &c. The subject was prosecuted by Della Porta (died 1615), Campanella, Cardan, Ingegneri, and especially by Lavater (q.v.). Darwin's Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1873) is regarded as the first attempt to base a rational physiognomic system on a basis of modern scientific research; Mantegazza, in Physiognomy and Expression (Contemp. Sc. Series, 1890), claims to have begun where Darwin left off. Piderit, in Mimik und Physiognomik (2d ed. 1886), proceeds on the obvious fact that the most valuable data are not to be derived from the bony framework of the countenance, but in the mobile parts which express emotion; features which constantly express the same emotion come to be stamped with permanent physiognomic characters. Pathological physiognomy is a systematised effort to diagnose mental or bodily ailments by examination of the varying facial expression. Another practical application of physiognomic study is found in what has been called Criminology; see Havelock Ellis, The Criminal (Contemp. Sc. Series, 1891).