Physiognomy - Modern Physiognomy - Origin

Origin

The principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) who was briefly a friend of Goethe. Lavater's essays on physiognomy were first published in German in 1772 and gained great popularity. These influential essays were translated into French and English. 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-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), whose Religio Medici discusses 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 mystically in our faces certain Characters that 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, writing 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, whence much of physiognomy movement's pseudo-learning attempted to entrench itself by illustrative means.

Browne possessed several of the writings of the Italian Giambattista Della Porta including his Of Celestial Physiognomy, which argued that it was not the stars but a person's temperament that influences facial appearance and character. In his book De humana physiognomia (1586), Porta used woodcuts of animals to illustrate human characteristics. His works are well represented in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne; both men 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 medicinal potentials.

Lavater received mixed reactions from scientists, some accepting his research with other criticizing it. For example, the harshest critic was scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg said that Pathognomy, discovering the character by observing the behaviour, was more effective. Writer Hannah More complained to Horace Walpole that "In vain do we boast (...) that philosophy had broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition; and yet, at this very time (...) Lavater's physiognomy books sell at fifteen guineas a set."