therefore, continues our amiable theorist, is, to ascertain if the striking and incontestible difference of human physionomies and forms may be perceived, not only in an obscure and confused manner; but whether it is not possible and practicable to fix the characters, the signs, the expressions of that difference; whether there are not some means of settling and indicating certain distinctive signs of strength and weakness, of health and sickness, of stupidity and intelligence, of elevated and a grovelling spirit, of virtue and vice, &c.; and whether there are not some means of distinguishing precisely the different degrees and shades of their principal characters; or, in other words, whether it is possible to class them scientifically?

This is, indeed, the true state of the question, the only point to be investigated; and if the physionomist succeed in establishing only a single point of this nature, he will have proved that the study of man, from the conformation of his features, and the peculiar construction

B

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of the human countenance, is as clearly entitled
to be ranked as a science, as any other branch
of knowledge whatever. This point I now,
therefore, undertake to
undertake to prove; and propose to
adduce such instances of the truth of the pro-
position, as shall tend to confirm the physiog-
nomical student in the principles of so valu-
able a study.

"Nature," says Lavater, "has modelled all men after one and the same fundamental form." This is true as a general fact; but the various aspects which that form assumes, are as diversified as all the other works of nature. It were, however, a profane libel upon the wisdom of the Great Author of Nature, to assert, that any one of those varieties is the effect of a blind caprice, or an unmeaning and arbitrary exertion of power. That there is no effect without an adequate cause, is an axiom universally admitted. It is equally true that si ́milar causes invariably produce similar effects, when operating on objects of a like construction. These observations and facts are remarkably

true when applied to the science of Physiognomy; and though they are not applicable to every thing that may with reason be predicated of that science, they are, nevertheless, so strikingly obvious in many instances, as to put the matter beyond all doubt, that Physiognomy is a science, having nearly as many indubitable and external signs of internal qualities as any other branch of human knowledge.

This is the most important point of the whole subject; for on its reality depends the entire foundation of the science itself. If nature has not invariably imprinted on the human countenance certain determinate, uniform, infallible marks, or indications of certain known, determinable, and fixed principles, dispositions, and qualities of the mind; and if those uniform characteristics cannot be discovered, pointed out, and applied to their respective qualities, then is Physiognomy no science; but a mere creature of the imagination; an idle chimera, fit only for fanatics and ne

cromancers.

To establish the afirmative of the preceding proposition, it is not necessary that I prove the truth of every thing which I. who have long and seriously studied the science, may be led to believe or assert concerning it. Every thing is not true that is said or believed of any one science whatever: nay, there is not an honest and candid inquirer after truth in the world, who, were he asked whether he himself is assured, that every thing which he believes is founded on the immutable basis of truth, and is indeed true, but must answer in the negative. His own consciousness of weakness, and sense of fallibility, would teach him, that it would amount to a miracle, if he, of all other men in existence, had happened to escape error, and to have admitted nothing, as matter of belief, but was strictly true. No two men think alike upon all points; few think exactly alike upon any one point. There are shades in the human mind as varied as the lines and features of the human face. It is not given to frail man to know all things-to no man to know any thing perfectly, concerning which

there exists the remotest doubt or disagreement; and were it possible, in every other point, there would still remain one on which no possible certainty could be obtained. No man can know to a certainty, whether all his conclusions on all points are absolutely free from error. He may not know in what particular point his error lies, or else he would immediately reject that point, and so make another advance towards perfection; a goal, however, unattainable on this side the grave. But as he cannot always discover all his errors, so neither can he always be infallibly apprized of the truth of all those points, which may be nevertheless true in themselves.

Seeing, therefore, that unless we could secure infallibility, no truth is to be admitted, there is not any science in the world. And further, that, if till any one subject of scientific investigation can be said to have been carried to the utmost degree of improvement of which it is capable, it shall be denied the honour of ranking as a science, the very word itself had better be expunged from our language. All