Arabian physicians, in the use of mercurial preparations, naturally led to the belief that other medicines, still more general in their application, and more efficacious in their healing powers, might yet be brought to light, and we have no doubt that many important discoveries were the result of such overstrained expectations.

Lady Mary Wortley Montague informs us that, so late as the year 1717, there was at Vienna a prodigious number of alchemists.

The philosopher's stone,' she says, 'is here the great object of zeal and science; and those who have more reading and capacity than the vulgar, have transported their superstition from religion to chemistry; and they believe in a new kind of transubstantiation, which is designed to make the laity as rich as the other kind has made the priesthood. This pestilential passion has already ruined several great houses. There is scarcely a man of opulence or fashion that has not an alchemist in his service, and even the emperor is supposed to be no enemy to this folly, in secret, though he has pretended to discourage it in public.'

Even at the commencement of the present century some eminent individuals thought favourably of alchemy. Professor Robison, a distinguished natural philosopher, in writing to James Watt, in 1800, expresses his opinion that the analysis of alkalis and alkaline earths will presently lead to the doctrine of the reciprocal convertibility of all things into all.' . . . 'I expect,' he adds, to see alchemy revive, and be as universally studied as ever.'*

The apology which we have now made for the alchemist is not so easily extended to the astrologer; and yet this very year, before the assembled science of England, Dr. Daubeny, the distinguished President of the British Association, did not hesitate to say a little in its favour :

If the direction,' he remarked, of a bit of steel suspended near the earth, can, as General Sabine has proved, be influenced by the position of a body like the moon, situated at a distance from it of more than 200,000 miles, who shall say that there was anything preposterously extravagant in the conception, however little support it may derive from experience, that the stars might exert an influence over the destinies of man?'

Guarded as this sentiment is, we can hardly accept it as a palliation of the preposterous extravagance charged against astrology. While the solid matter of the moon acts upon our seas with such obvious power, there is nothing at all startling in General Sabine's discovery that her magnetic matter should act upon a bit of magnetised steel. Both of these facts, indeed, are of an entirely different order from the astrological conception, the extravagance of which they are supposed to abate. The most startling scientific fact can never add to the probability of a moral influence contrary to all experience. The American sailor, who, for money, bolted clasp knives, or the milliner who swallowed a paper of needles, or

*Muirhead's Life of Watt,' vol. ii. pp. 271, 272.

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Physiognomy of the Human Form.

23

the invalid who has been dealing with steel powders, might, in virtue of General Sabine's fact, be under lunar influence, and yet the moon be quite guiltless of tampering with human destinies.

We have made these remarks on the sciences, falsely so called, of ancient times, in order that we may be able to contrast them with those more presumptuous and dangerous speculations against which it is our intention to warn the reader. We do not allude to clairvoyance and spirit-raising-which are even now accepted by some men of high attainments, both in the literary and religious world-but to other extravagancies appealing at this moment to our faith, and more likely, from their supposed foundation in science, to captivate the young and unwary.

The speculations to which we refer have been long working their way into the public mind, fascinating us occasionally in the creations of the poet, and investing the humblest observer with a power which he delights to exercise, and which he is, therefore, unwilling to resign. We speak of the so-called science of physiognomy, but especially of that new and morbid expansion of it called the physiognomy of the human form, which has been elaborated in Germany, and is now likely to obtain possession of the English mind.

The fundamental proposition of this new art is, that every man's mental nature may be discovered in his external form;' and the avowed benefit which it is to confer upon society is, that we may, with as little trouble as possible, ascertain the character of our neighbours; or, continuing to use the words of its votaries, that the inner mind may be known by watching the outer man.'

The physiologist who has taken the most active part in advocating these opinions is Dr. Carus, physician to the king of Saxony, a gentleman whom we have the pleasure of knowing personally, and a man of high intellectual and moral character. A French writer has applied the doctrine to the human hand, and an English author to the most prominent feature in the face.* Had these doctrines been buried in the German tongue we should not have attempted to exhume them; but having been brought prominently forward, defended, and amplified in the most religious, and conservative, and best-circulated journal of the day,† they have taken an aggressive position, which it is a public duty to storm.

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The leading argument in this science of symbols in the human form,' as it is called, is derived from the nearly universal assent implied in the practice of judging of men by their personal appearance. The opinion of Sir Thomas Browne, Addison, Cowper, Fielding, Southey, and others-men who were quite incapable of

* 'Notes on Noses.' London, 1852.

+ Quarterly Review,' No. 187. September, 1856, pp. 452-492.

carrying

carrying on a scientific investigation are all marshalled in its support, and the student is thus prejudiced, at the commencement of his inquiry, by the authority of great names. The second argument is derived from the occurrence, in various languages, of the expressions, long-headed, shallow-brained, brazen-faced, supercilious, hard-featured, stiff-necked, open-faced, hard-mouthed, a good hand, a cunning hand, which are adduced to establish the existence of a general belief in the correspondences not only of mind and body, but of mind and shape. Another argument, and certainly a very weak one, is derived from the simple probability that the outer form would be designed on purpose to represent the mental character;' and the expressions of rage, or grief, or fear are dogmatically pronounced to have been divinely designed on purpose that the inner mind may be known to those who watch the outer man.'

Without attempting to show the futility of such arguments, and their absolute inefficiency to prove any truth whatever, it may suffice to state that no attempt is made to establish any one point by an induction of admitted facts, the only legitimate process of dealing with this, or, indeed, with any class of truths. If a hundred soldiers or sailors had their external shapes, general and particular, measured by a physiognomist, ignorant of their inner life, and if, upon a comparison with their real characters, there should be a decided agreement between the two in a majority of cases, we should then have an important fact as our guide. But in order to arrive at a general law, the same experiment must be made, with the same result, on many groups of persons, male and female, in all professions, of all ages, and in all countries.

Such a class of experiments, we venture to say, will never be made, and if they were, they would be incapable of generalisation. In the first place, no two physiognomists, if acting separately, would agree in measuring and characterising the forms and indications of the head, hands, and feet of the patient; and, in the second place, no two individuals called upon to pronounce upon their real character would agree in their decision. We know very little of the true inner life of our neighbour. In one it is openly and injuriously displayed. In another it is artfully and advantageously concealed; and we may safely aver that character is frequently hid by the very marks which are supposed to display it.

În illustration of these views let us consider the individual features which are supposed to be most symbolical of the intellectual and moral character. Of these the size and shape of the head is one of the most important. The form of the head, as indicated by the facial angle of Camper, and its bulk, as shown by its length, and by an ample forehead, have been too generally admitted as signs of intellectual power. The enemies of phreno

logy

Physiognomy of Expression.

25

logy have been in the habit of granting this to their opponents, and upon this basis has been erected the common craniology in which the brain is divided into 36 regions. We now, individually, withdraw the rash admission, and assert that it is not supported by any sound induction. When we hear that certain individuals, of high capacity, have large brains, or ample foreheads, we never hear of the small brains and contracted brows of others who have evinced the same talent; or of the opposite class of imbeciles who have heads and brains equal to those of their neighbours. If the fundamental principle, then, has no statistical support, what truth can we expect in the minor details? According to the new physiognomy, which acknowledges no relationship with phrenology, a head large in the mid region indicates a predominance of the feelings over the other faculties; if a little higher it marks a proneness to superstition or fanaticism; and if the head is large in the hinder region, it indicates practical ability, characterising a race from whom will spring great historic names! Sinall heads are symbolical of talent but not of genius, while very small ones belong to the excitable class from whom, Dr. Carus says, 'a great part of the misery of society arises.' These properties of heads are obviously incompatible with modern cranioscopy. The reviewer, indeed, expressly declares that the phrenological division of the cerebrum into the assumed organs is utterly inconsistent with physiology. This is a valuable admission, for, to change the proverb, when two heresies quarrel, truth has some chance of getting her own.

In the varying expression of the human face the physiognomists find a better support for their opinions. That the emotions of the past and of the present leave permanent traces in the human countenance is doubtless true, and to this extent we are all physiognomists, often very presumptuous ones, and, excepting accidental coincidences, always in the wrong, when we infer from any external appearance whatever the character and disposition of our neighbour. In every class of society we encounter faces which we instinctively shun, and others to which we as instinctively cling; but how frequently have we found our estimates to be false? The repulsive aspect has proved to be the result of physical suffering, of domestic disquiet, or of ruined fortunes; and under the bland and smiling countenance, a heart, deceitful and vindictive and desperately wicked,' has often been found concealed. The countenance, too, which in manhood was noble and benign, we may have seen scarred in the battle of life, and inscribed with the deep lines which the baseness of friends and the injustice of the world never fail to imprint; and when the manly aspirant after wealth and fame has been cruelly worsted in the race of ambition, and has displayed on the outer man the impress of the emotions which

disturbed

disturbed him, how often have we seen him, under altered circumstances, resuming the peaceful and joyous expression of his youth which disappointment and misfortune had but temporarily disguised!

But these views will acquire additional support if we examine large groups of individuals, living under the same influences, and therefore likely to have the same external development. In the haunts of vice, within the precincts of the gaol, in the stock exchange, and in the marts of commerce, we shall find the same variety of form and expression, and the same difficulty in discovering vice or virtue in the outer man. The criminal in the dock, charged with murder, will often bear an honourable comparison with the judge that tries him.

From the general expression of the human face our new physiognomists descend to individual features, and especially call our attention to the eyes, the mouth, and the nose. The eyes,

6

they say, speak to us in their colour. The dark blue indicates effeminacy, the light blue and grey, activity,—the green, courage, -the hazel, mental depth,—and eyes of a yellow cast, genius. The brightness and dullness of the organ-its glance, or flash-are so richly symbolical that in Carus's opinion, instead of saying that the style is the man,' we might more justly say, 'the eye is the man.' In refutation of these extravagancies, we boldly assert that there is no expression whatever in the human eyeball, in which we see only the transparent cornea, the coloured iris with the pupil in its centre, and the white sclerotic. You may as hopefully search for expression in a watch-glass as in the cornea, as hopefully in a coloured wafer with a hole in its centre as in the iris, and as well in a bit of white hid leather as in the sclerotic coat. In proof of this we have only to compare a glass or artificial eye with an eyeball, when the eyelids are invisible, and to repeat the common experiment in which we cannot recognise the eyes of our friends, when they are looked at through a hole in a window curtain. In the parts of the face in which the eye is set there is doubtless much expression; but when we are told that the width and the height and the angles of the oval aperture in which the eyeball moves, are indications of every variety of intellect and disposition, we feel that we are in the hands of teachers who themselves require to be taught.

In a similar manner, the nose, the mouth, the chin, the ear, and even the hair are made to instruct us in the character of our neighbour, and the neck, the trunk, the hands, and the feet, all become monitors in the same school. Of all these teachers the nose is by far the most accomplished. The Roman and Greek, the snub and the flat, the turned up, and the turned down, are made to discourse most dogmatically on all the varieties of

human