probable conjecture, was well known to the ancients. But the test, how
far any observations that have been made on the subject are worthy the
name of a science, will lie in its application by the professor to
a person respecting whom he has had no opportunity of previous
information. Nothing is more easy, when a great warrior, statesman,
poet, philosopher or philanthropist is explicitly placed before us, than
for the credulous inspector or fond visionary to examine the lines of
his countenance, and to point at the marks which should plainly shew us
that he ought to have been the very thing that he is. This is the very
trick of gipsies and fortune-tellers. But who ever pointed to an utter
stranger in the street, and said, I perceive by that man's countenance
that he is one of the great luminaries of the world? Newton, or Bacon,
or Shakespear would probably have passed along unheeded. Instances of a
similar nature occur every day. Hence it plainly appears that, whatever
may hereafter be known on the subject, we can scarcely to the present
time be said to have overstepped the threshold. And yet nothing can be
more certain than that there is a science of physiognomy, though to
make use of an illustration already cited, it has not to this day
been extricated out of the block of marble in which it is hid. Human
passions, feelings and modes of thinking leave their traces on the
countenance: but we have not, thus far, left the dame's school in this
affair, and are not qualified to enter ourselves in the free-school for
more liberal enquiries.

The writings of Lavater on the subject of physiognomy are couched in
a sort of poetic prose, overflowing with incoherent and vague
exclamations, and bearing small resemblance to a treatise in which
the elements of science are to be developed. Their success however was
extraordinary; and it was probably that success, which prompted Gall
first to turn his attention from the indications of character that are
to be found in the face of man, to the study of the head generally, as
connected with the intellectual and moral qualities of the individual.

It was about four years before the commencement of the present century,
that Gall appears to have begun to deliver lectures on the structure and
external appearances of the human head. He tells us, that his attention
was first called to the subject in the ninth year of his age (that
is, in the year 1767), and that he spent thirty years in the priv