physiognomy

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Physiognomy (pronounced with the g silent) is 'the cast or form of a person's features', whereas physiology is 'the science of the functions of living organisms and their parts'.

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The study of expression, primarily of the emotions, and principally via the face, has a long and complex history. From Aristotle onwards, physiognomy has been the means of reading and judging character based on the expressions of the face. In sum, physiognomists recognized the face as an index of emotion and (moral) character; and physiognomy offered a way of conceptualizing these particular observations in terms of general categories or theories. The purpose of physiognomy was to identify and to describe the common forms that organized the diversity of appearances, and, as such, it functioned in a profoundly normative manner — as the determinant of what was common to all people and all things in the physical world. At best, physiognomy provided an explanation of human nature in terms of a uniform order of types or kinds, which worked by translating particular observations into general theories of character and emotion. At worst, it was disparaged as a mystical and highly deterministic practice, more akin to fortune-telling than to science, and cast as a poor resemblance of its family relation, phrenology.

A number of thinkers have attempted to describe and explain how the desire to see the workings of the mind, and ultimately the soul, through the face answers these questions about man, mind, and nature. Aristotle, Charles Le Brun, Johann Caspar Lavater, and Charles Darwin are the most notable. The challenge they faced was how to establish the grounds upon which their teachings could be viewed as true or rejected as false. One of the earliest philosophical treatises on physiognomy, and the first attempt to present physiognomy as a hermeneutic, and possibly scientific, method, was a work thought to be written by Aristotle, Physiognomica, which identified three categories of physiognomic judgement — the zoological, the ethnological, and the pathognomical. Yet what emerges after Aristotle is a complex relationship between the classical mode of reading and judging character — physiognomy — and the rise and triumph of inner, scientific understandings of expression based on physiology. Such a relationship originates with the work of Charles Le Brun, who believed an understanding of expression was the key to discerning the passions or the activities of the mind (soul). Based on Descartes' theory of the passions, Le Brun's Conférence sur l'expression générale et particulière (1668) sought to present a rational and coherent theory of expression. Le Brun wanted to demonstrate the necessary and natural correspondence between the movements of the passions and the movements of the facial muscles, and, from this, to deduce the laws of expression. A knowledge of the principles, psychological and physiological, which directed these activities and their external appearance would, he claimed, release the artist from simply copying nature and allow him to create his own images, which would be directed by, and maybe even improve on, the processes of nature.

This notion of ‘improvement’ was of crucial importance to Johann Caspar Lavater in his Essays on Physiognomy (1789-93). In his hands, each and every attempt to read and judge character was a means of ascribing an essence to human nature that imagined there was something hidden from external appearances, which, once discovered, made them more purposeful and more substantial. One could arrive at a definition of man by imputing a certain kind of ‘spirit’ from the ‘surface’ appearance of an individual. But the point was that Lavaterian physiognomy enabled the impressions of sense to be translated into common sense — an essential and ideological form, which comprehended order and unity from the appearances of things. The appeal of essentialism for Lavater lay in its capacity to validate a ‘science’ of man based on a theory of natural kinds. But the problem of essentialism for physiognomy was that it imagined its ‘science’ as the result of an intuitive understanding of the intrinsic properties and purposes of things. So, whilst essentialism underwrote Lavater's ‘science’ of man, it was also, and not incidentally, the cause of its many inconsistencies.

There is no doubt that Charles Darwin was sceptical about the claims of physiognomy with regard to expression and emotion. Nonetheless, it is interesting that his study of expression makes a number of contradictory claims about the possibility and plausibility of conducting a scientific analysis of expression. Darwin's oft-neglected work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), was self-consciously presented as the cornerstone of his evolutionary theory — the means of demonstrating once and for all that man was not a separate and divinely created species but continuous with other species. An evolutionary account of expression was not concerned with teleological explanations of physical attributes; rather, it was directed towards finding a means of understanding the process through which expressions are acquired. The result was a study of expression that tried to identify specific mental and emotional states as well as their corresponding expressions (by concentrating on their motor activity), and then map their common descent through groups of related organisms. If this could be done, then human feelings like love, anger, fear, and grief could be treated as habits and shown to have clearly recognizable parallels, perhaps even origins, in the animal world.

The rise and triumph of these inner, scientific rationales for the expression of the emotions placed the study of expression on new ground. Indeed, the evolutionary explanation of expression given by Darwin (and taken to its logical, albeit odious, conclusion by Francis Galton, father of eugenics) is both the long-term outcome of physiognomical teachings and the reason for their dissolution. As we reflect on the impact of physiognomy, there is much to suggest that its demise is no bad thing.

— Lucy Hartley

Bibliography

• Darwin, C. (1998). The expression of the emotions in man and animals, (ed. P. Ekman). Harper Collins, London.
• Evans, E. C. (1969). Physiognomics in the ancient world. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 59, 5-97.
• Lavater, J. C. (1789-93). Essays on Physiognomy; for the Promotion of the Knowledge and Love of Mankind; Written in the German Language by J. C. Lavater, and Translated into English by Thomas Holcroft, (trans. T. Holcroft London).
• Montagu, J. (1994) The expressions of the passions: the origin and influence of Charles Le Brun's ‘Conférence sur l'expression générale et particulière’. Yale University Press, New Haven

See also facial expression; phrenology; smiling.

noun

An outward appearance: aspect, countenance, face, look, surface, visage. See surface/depth.

Physiognomy, also known today as personology, is an ancient form of divination based upon reference of the physical appearance of the individual. It was a widespread practice in the ancient Mediterranean Basin and in China, and also appears in India and the ancient Arab world. During the Renaissance, Gerolamo Cardano and Giovanni Battista della Porta emerged as popular exponents. As did other forms of divination, it came under heavy attack by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and following the work of J. C. Lavater largely died. Its post-Enlightenment revival was delayed by the emergence of phrenology, which could be seen as a form of physiognomy that concentrated attention on the shape and appearance of the head.

In China, a form of physiognomy, called Siang Mien, developed that concentrated on face readings tied to the acupuncture points. Each of the 100 points on the face are numbered and named, assigned to a year in one's life, and carry a range of meanings. The Chinese measure life from conception, hence one must add a year to one's age to find the applicable point. At age 41, for example, one can make reference to point 42, the Delicate Cottage. It represents a place of seclusion and may be interpreted as an appropriate time to shift concentration from outer to inner concerns. A variety of face readers may be found throughout Chinese ethnic communities in the West.

In the mid-twentieth century new attention to physiognomy was proposed by Edward Vincent Jones, a judge with the U.S. Superior Court who did his primary research on defendants brought before him over a number of years. His modern development of physiognomy was called personology. During World War II (1939-45) he founded the Personology Foundation of California, which graduated its first class in 1942. Jones' work is being carried on by Paul Eisner, who founded the Personology Foundation of the Pacific. Its Learning Center is located at P.O. Box 3301, Honokaa, HI 96727. It has a website at http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~tmd/person.htm.

The measurable growth of interest in physiognomy associated with the New Age Movement can be traced both to Personology and to the influx of Chinese into North America since 1965. Pushing the practice of physiognomy ahead is Rose Rosetree, a former Transcendental Meditation instructor who now teaches both aura readings and face readings and trains teachers in suburban Washington, D.C. Based on her initial study of both European and Chinese texts, she developed her own new system of physiognomy. She is the author of one of the most popular contemporary texts in the field, The Power of FaceReading. She may be contacted through her webpage at http://www.rose-rosetree.com/.

Sources:

Lin, Henry B. What Your Face Reveals. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1999.

Personology Foundation of the Pacific.http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/tmd/person.htm. April 23, 2000.

Rose Rosetree.http://www.rose-rosetree.com/. April 23, 2000.

Rosetree, Rose. The Power of Face Reading for Sales, Self-Esteem, and Better Relationships. Women's Intuition Worldwide, 1998.

Yong, Wu. Face Reading. Longmead, Dorset, UK: Element Books, 1998.

The word 'physiognomy' is a compound of two Greek words meaning 'nature', and 'an interpreter'. Francis Bacon described it as 'discovery of the disposition of the mind by the lineaments of the body'; and indeed this is the aim of portrait painting. Aristotle wrote extensively on physiognomy, with many comparisons between human and animal characteristics, and many Latin authors discuss it as a descriptive science; but in medieval writings, physiognomy becomes linked with astrology and necromancy. It was made illegal by George II, in 1743, and earlier Queen Elizabeth had decreed that 'all persons fayning to have knowledge of phisiognomic or like Fantasticall Ymaginacions' were liable to be 'stripped naked from the middle upwards and openly whipped until his body be bloudye'. Nevertheless, Elizabeth set much store on delineation of character in paintings. Our own view, now, is surely as paradoxical, for we generally hold that physiognomy as a science is unfounded and yet we spend a great deal of time reading character from faces and pictures.

There are many examples, from Aristotle onwards, of people looking dull but being bright (and Aristotle admitted it of himself, saying that it was the practice of philosophy that brightened his native dullness), while the converse can also be true. But there are good grounds for associating expression with character traits and habits of thought. The point is that groups of muscles are associated with emotions, moods, and activities, and the use of facial muscles both modifies the countenance and produces permanent changes, such as lines and wrinkles. The first scientific study of this notion was by the distinguished Scottish anatomist–surgeon and neurologist Sir Charles Bell, whose Essay on the Anatomy of the Expressions (1806) related specific muscles to facial expressions.

The idea was developed, with strong evolutionary implications, by Charles Darwin in his still highly important book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Darwin dismisses earlier writers on expression and physiognomy, such as the French painter Charles Le Brun (1619–90), who wrote Conférence sur l'expression des différents caractères des passions in 1667, and the Dutch anatomist Peter Camper (1722–89), but he does give full and just praise to the work of Bell. He also refers to the best known of the physiognomists, Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801), born in Zurich, whose Physiognomische Fragmente (1775–8; translated by Thomas Holcroft as Essays on Physiognomy in 1793) went into many editions and was widely read. Lavater is interesting for his many drawings of faces, and his astute comments on the characters and lives of his examples, but there is a total absence of system or theory. Darwin refers also to Burgess's The Physiology or Mechanism of Blushing (1839), which points out that blushing cannot be caused 'by any physical means', but that it must be the mind that is affected, 'for if we try to restrain blushing, this increases it'. Finally, Darwin refers to the French pioneer in electrophysiology, Guillaume Duchenne (1806–75), who was the first to describe locomotor ataxia, and was the founder of techniques using electrical stimulation for therapy. Darwin refers to Duchenne's Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine (1862), in which he 'analyses by means of electricity, and illustrates by magnificent photographs, the movements of the facial muscles'. Duchenne lent and allowed Darwin to copy his photographs, many of which appear in The Expression of the Emotions. He succeeded in showing the effects of contraction of individual muscles of the hand, and their effects in producing creases in the skin, and, perhaps most significant, in showing which muscles are and which are not under voluntary control. Both he and Darwin were well aware of the problem of how it is that groups of muscles are innervated for behaviour, gesture, and expressions. This could not be investigated experimentally before techniques of cortical stimulation were developed.

The philosopher Herbert Spencer contributed an account of facial expression and emotion somewhat similar to Darwin's (in Principles of Psychology, 1855), and Darwin quotes from it with approval:





Darwin's essential point is that the facial muscles of monkeys are similar to ours, but, as he puts it, 'no one, I presume, would be inclined to admit that monkeys have been endowed with special muscles solely for exhibiting their hideous grimaces'. Rather the 'grimaces' were originally of functional importance — and in many cases still are in us — as when muscles surrounding the eyes contract to protect the eyes from increased blood pressure or from the blow of an assailant. Frequent use of such sets of muscles, either in action or in the simulation of imagination and emotion, will produce, gradually, permanent changes of expression. So there is strong evidence and a consistent theory for a biological basis to physiognomy. It is, however, very far from clear how accurately it is possible to read the subtleties of human character from facial forms and expressions having pre-human functional origins.

It is most curious that expressions of extremely different emotions can be so similar that they are indistinguishable in photographs — unless the context of the situation is available. Pictures of reactions of horror and uncontrollable laughter are easily confused when presented out of context. In normal life, no doubt, it is facial and verbal reactions to events — speed and appropriateness — that are crucially important signals for evaluating character and ability. This is the power of the cinema, for it presents the context of situations, and the timing of responses. There remains a considerable mystery just why and how static portraits convey so much of the character of individuals by their physiognomy. Perhaps sometimes it happens in reverse — a person one knows to be interesting looking interesting in the picture by association. This might apply for good, evil, or foolishness, or genius. No doubt the 'halo effect' applies to pictures as to people.

(Published 1987)

— Richard L. Gregory

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A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce

n.

The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

    "There is no art," says Shakespeare, foolish man,
        "To read the mind's construction in the face."
    The physiognomists his portrait scan,
        And say:  "How little wisdom here we trace!
    He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,
    So, in his own defence, denied our art."
                                                         Lavatar Shunk

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IN BRIEF: The features of the human face.

A strange and somewhat impassive physiognomy is often, perhaps, an advantage to an orator, or leader of any sort, because it helps to fix the eye and fascinate the mind. — Charles Horton Cooley

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Facial features.

For a list of words related to physiognomy, see:

• Schools and Doctrines - physiognomy: outmoded theory of personality based on belief that outward appearance indicates inner character

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See words rhyming with "physiognomical."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Physiognomist.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - fysiognomi

Nederlands (Dutch)
gelaatsuitdrukking, fysiognomiek, (morele) eigenschap, kenmerken van landschap

Français (French)
n. - physionomie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Physiognomie, Physiognomik

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - φυσιογνωμική

Italiano (Italian)
fisionomia, fisiognomica

Português (Portuguese)
n. - fisionomia (f)

Русский (Russian)
физиономия, облик

Español (Spanish)
n. - fisonomía

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - fysionomi, ansikte, yttre drag, fysionomik, karaktärstolkning

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
人相学, 脸, 人相

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 人相學, 臉, 人相

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 인상학, 관상술, 인상, 지형

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 人相, 人相学, 地勢

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) سحني, ملامحي, سيماء, خلقه, مظهر, ملامح الوجه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮תווי-פנים, פרצוף, חכמת הפרצוף, פני-השטח, מאפיין, בייחוד מוסרי‬

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