and comparison, should he see himself daily and incessantly surrounded by hosts of difficulties, yet he will certainly be able to make a progress. There is no study, however difficult, which may not be attained by perseverance and resolution.

We have men constantly before us. In the very smallest towns there is a continual influx and reflux of persons, of various and opposite characters: among these, many are known to us without consulting physiognomy; and that they are patient or choleric, credulous or suspicious, wise or foolish, of moderate or weak capacity, we are convinced past contradiction. Their countenances are as widely various as their characters, andt hese variety of countenances may each be as accurately drawn as their varieties of character may be described.

There are men, with whom we have daily intercourse, and whose interest and ours are con nected. Be their dissimulation what it may, passion will frequently, for a moment, snatch off the mask, and give us a glance, at least a sideview of their true form.

Has Nature bestowed on man the eye and ear, and yet made her language so difficult, or so entirely unintelligible? and not the eye and ear alone, but feeling, nerves, internal sensations, and yet has rendered the language of the superficies so confused, so obscure? She who has adapted sound to the ear, and the ear to sound; she who has created light for the eye, and the eye for light; she who has taught man so soon

to speak, and to understand speech; shall she have imparted innumerable traits and marks of secret inclinations, powers, and passions, accompanied by perception, sensation, and an impulse to interpret them to his advantage; and, after bestowing such strong incitements, shall she have denied him the possibility of quenching this his thirst of knowledge? She who has given him penetration to discover sciences still more profound, though of much inferior utility; who has taught him to trace out the paths, and measure the curves of comets; who has put a telescope into his hand, that he may view the satellites of the planets, and has endowed him with the capability of calculating their eclipses through revolving ages; shall so kind a mother have denied her children (her truth-seeking pupils, her noble philanthropic offspring, who are so willing to admire and rejoice in the majesty of the Most High, viewing man his master-piece) the power of reading the ever-present, ever-open book of the human countenance; of reading man, the most beautiful of all her works, the compendium of all things, the mirror of the Deity?

Awake! view man in all his infinite forms! Look, for thou mayest eternally learn; shake off thy sloth, and behold. Meditate on its importance; take resolution to thyself, and the most difficult shall become easy.

Let me now mention the Difficulties attending this study. There is a peculiar circumstance attending the starting of difficulties. There are

some who possess the particular gift of discovering and inventing difficulties, without number or limits, on the most common and easy subjects. I shall be brief on the innumerable difficulties of physiognomy; because, it not being my intention to cite them all in this place, the most. important will occasionally be noticed and answered in the course of the work. I have an additional motive to be brief, which is, that most of these difficulties are included in the indescrib-. able minuteness of innumerable traits of character, or the impossibility of seizing, expressing, and analysing certain sensations and observations.

Nothing can be more certain than that the smallest shades, which are scarcely discernible to an unexperienced eye, frequently denote total opposition of character. How wonderfully may the expression of countenance and character be altered by a small inflexion or diminishing, lengthening or sharpening, even though but of a hair's breadth !

How difficult, how impossible, must this variety of the same countenance, even in the most accurate of the arts of imitation, render precision! How often does it happen, that the seat of character is so hidden, so enveloped, so masked, that it can only be caught in certain, and perhaps uncommon positions of the countenance; which will again be changed, and the signs all disappear, before they have made any durable impression! or, supposing the impression made,

these distinguishing traits may be so difficult to seize, that it shall be impossible to paint, much less to engrave, or describe them by language.

It is with physiognomy as with all other objects of taste, literal or figurative, of sense or of spirit. How many thousand accidents, great and small, physical and moral; how many secret incidents, alterations, passions; how often will 'dress, position, light and shade, and innumerable discordant circumstances, shew the countenance so disadvantageously, or, to speak more properly, betray the physiognomist into a false judgment on the true qualities of the countenance and character! How easily may these occasion him to overlook the essential traits of character, and form his judgment on what is wholly accidental! How surprisingly may the smallpox, during life, disfigure the countenance! How may it destroy, confuse, or render the most decisive traits imperceptible!

We will therefore grant the opposer of physiognomy all he can ask, although we do not live without hope, that many of the difficulties shall be resolved, which at first appeared to the reader and to the author inexplicable*.

It is highly incumbent upon me, that I should not lead my readers to expect more from me than I am able to perform. Whoever publishes a considerable work on physiognomy, gives his

The following lines, to the end of the Introduction, contain M. Lavater's own remarks on himself.

readers apparently to understand, that he is much better acquainted with the subject than any of his cotemporaries. Should an error escape him, he exposes himself to the severest ridicule; he is contemned, at least by those who do not read him, for pretensions which probably they suppose him to make, but which in reality he does not make.

The God of truth, and all who know me, will bear testimony, that from my whole soul I despise deceit, as I do all silly claims to superior wisdom and infallibility, which so many writers, by a thousand artifices, endeavour to make their readers imagine they possess.

4

First, therefore, I declare, what I have uniformly declared on all occasions, although the persons who speak of me and my works endeavour to conceal it from themselves and others, that I understand but little of physiognomy; that I have been, and continue daily to be, mistaken in my judgment: but these errors are the most natural and most certain means of correcting, confirming, and extending my knowledge.

It will probably not be disagreeable to many of my readers, to be informed, in part, of the progress of my mind in this study.

Before I reached the twenty-fifth year of my

age, there was nothing I should have supposed more improbable, than that I should make the smallest inquiries concerning, much less that I should write a book on, physiognomy. I was neither inclined to read nor make the slightest