not well avoid, in order to make it fufficiently comprehenfive; and for the latter, I must beg leave to plead my numerous avocations which have caused me to compile it in haste, and in a very interrupted manner. OBSERVATIONS refpecting the HISTORY of PHYSIOGNOMY; by THOMAS COOPER, Efq. THE HE difpute among the Literati of the last century, on the comparative merit of the ancients and moderns, has at length fubfided. The few late attempts by fome of our writers to reinftate Plato and Ariftotle at the head of the ranks of fcience, have been coolly received; and the moderns in general have acquiefced in their own pre-eminence. There feems indeed fome reason for this decifion in our own favour and it will be readily acknowledged, that within a century or two, we have greatly extended the bounds of knowledge, by contenting ourselves with flow but fure advances, and by relying upon fact and experiment in pre Harris Monboddo. ference ference to conjecture and hypothefis. I cannot help thinking however, that although we may have fhewn many of the ancient fyftems to be merely the creatures of imagination, we have in some cases concluded much too haftily; and unreasonably denied the existence of that knowledge, which we have not been at the pains of acquiring. Thefe obfervations feem to me to be fufficiently applicable to the fcience of phyfiognomy; a fcience, which, though practifed by Pythagoras, * defended by Socrates, † approved by Plato, and treated by Ariftotle, is hardly mentioned at prefent, but in conjunction with magic, alchemy and judicial astrology. Without any pretenfions however to a knowledge of phyfiognomy as a science myself, I have always regarded it in a light more refpectable; and as the recently published work of M. Lavater feems to have excited a confiderable degree of attention on the continent, the fociety perhaps will not be displeased, if I lay before them fuch Auli Gellii, lib. I. cap. 9. + Cic. de fat. V. & Tufc. Quæft. XX. IV. 1 In Timæo. Phyfiognom. Ariftotles Phyfiognomy has been fufpected as fpurious, but without fufficient reafon. Diogenes Laert. quotes it, lib. V. literary literary observations refpecting the progrefs of phyfiognomy as my reading has fuggested. There has been fome difpute respecting the etymology of the term; fome deriving it from φυσισ nature and γιγνωσκω to know; others from φυσισ and γνωμων an index; others from φυσισ and youn a mark; according to thefe laft derivations, phyfiognomy, will be, a knowledge of nature from the indices or marks of it. This extended fignification to which the etymology of the word leads, I have noticed, because I think it is remotely connected with the doctrine of fignatures. For the fame reafon it may be worth while. to mention the controverfies refpecting the definition of phyfiognomy. The ancients feem to have confined phyfiognomy to man, or at least to animated nature. Thus Ariftotle, † nunc autem dicam ex quibus generibus figna accipiantur : et fint omnià; ex motibus enim phyfiognomizant et ex figuris et coloribus, et ex moribus apparentibus in facie, et ex levitate, et ex Voce, et ex Carne, et ex partibus et ex figura totius corporis. So Cicero,‡ bominum mores naturafque, ex corpore oculis * Voffius Etymolog. & Martini Lexicon fub voce. + Physiognomic. cap. II. ann av de yevwv тa onuela, &c. To fave the room that the originals and translations of all the paffages quoted, would occupy; I have given the Latin verfions only of the Greek quotations. De fato. V. vultu, fronte pernofcere. To the fame purpose Aulus Gellius,* Id verbum fignificat mores naturafque bominum conjectatione quâdam, de oris et vultús ingenio, deque totius Corporis filo atque babitu fcifcitari. But when the ftudy of phyfiognomy was revived in the middle ages, the comprehenfivenefs of the etymological meaning (as I imagine) led those who treated on the fubject, to indulge the prevailing tafte for the marvellous, and extend the fignification of the word, far beyond the ancient limits. This feems to have been particularly the cafe among thofe naturalifts who adopted the theory of fignatures. Hence phyfiology came to fignify, the knowledge of the internal properties of any corporeal being, from the external appearances. Thus Joannes Baptifta Porta, a phyfiognomist and philofopher of great note, wrote a treatife concerning the phyfiognomy of plants (Phytognomonica) throughout which he uses phyfiognomy as the generic term. The fame perfon I believe it was, who wrote the Treatife de Phyfiognomia Avium. Gafpar Schottus, in his Magia Phyfiognomica, makes the phyfiognomia humana, a fubdivifion of the fcience. Hen. Alsted † adopts alfo the extensive fignifica * Lib. I. cap. 9. + In his Cyclopædia. tion now mentioned. So alfo does Boyle,* and it seems to have been the common one with us, in the time of Hudibras. † At prefent phyfiognomy feems to be confined to the knowledge of the moral and intellectual character of human creatures, from their external manners and appearance. These variations of the meaning however, it was proper to notice, not only for the reason before affigned, but because the definition of phyfiognomy was a fubject of long difcuffion between two modern authors of fome note, in the Berlin Tranfactions, † M. Pernetty and M. Le Cat. The former infifted that all knowledge whatever, was merely phyfiognomy, and the latter, as unreasonably, confined it to the fubject of the human face. Mr. Pernetty's fecond Memoire is entirely occupied, in defending the extenfive fignification he has annexed to * Experimental hiftory of mineral waters; append. § 4. "And I have fometimes fancied there may be a phyfiognomy of many if not of most other natural bodies as well as of human faces, whereby an attentive and experienced confiderer may himself discern in them many inftructive things that he cannot fo declare to another man as to make him difcern them too. They'll find i' th' phyfiognomies For the years 1769 and 1770. the |