Part 12

The foundation of Physiognomy is the different objects that present themselves to the senses, nay, the different ideas that arise on the mind, do make some impression on the spirits; and each an impression correspondent or adequate to its cause,—each, therefore, makes a different impression. If it be asked how such an impression could be effected, it is easy to answer; in short, it is a consequence of the economy of the Creator, who has fixed such a relation between the several parts of the creation, to the end that we may be apprized of the approach or recess of things hurtful or useful to us. Should this not be philosophical enough for our purpose, take the manner of the Cartesian language, thus: _the animal spirits moved in the organ by an object, continue their motion to the brain; from whence that motion is propagated to this or that particular part of the body, as is most suitable to the design of nature; having first made a proper alteration in the face by means of its nerves, especially the_ PATHETICI _and_ MOTORES OCCULORUM. See Dr. Gurther’s work, anno 1604.

The face here does the office of a dial-plate, and the wheels and springs, inside the machine, putting its muscles in motion, shew what is next to be expected from the striking part. Not that the motion of the spirits is continued all the way by the impression of the object, as the impression may terminate in the substance of the brain, the common fund of the spirits; the rest Dr. Gurther imagines, may be effected much after the same manner as air is conveyed into the pipes of an organ, which being uncovered, the air rushes in; and when the keys are let go, is stopped again.

Now, if by repeated acts, or the frequent entertaining of a private passion or vice, which natural temperament has hurried, or custom dragged on to, the face is often put in that posture which attends such acts; the animal spirits will make such passages through the nerves, (in which the essence of a habit consists,) that the face is sometimes unalterably set in that posture, (as the Indian religious are by a long continued sitting in strange postures in their pagods,) or, at least, it falls, insensibly and mechanically, into that posture, unless some present object distort it therefrom, or some dissimulation hide it. This reason is confirmed by observation: thus we see great drinkers with eyes generally set towards the nose; the abducent muscles (by some called bibatorii, or bibatory muscles,) being often employed to put them in that posture, in order to view their beloved liquor in the glass, at the time of drinking. Thus, also, lascivious persons are remarkable for the _oculorum mobilis petulantia_, as Petronius calls it. Hence also we may account for the Quaker’s expecting face, waiting the spirit to move him; the melancholy face of most sectaries; the studious face of men of great application of mind; revengeful and bloody men, like executioners in the act; and though silence in a sort may awhile pass for wisdom, yet sooner or later, St. Martin peeps through the disguise to undo all. “A _changeable face_,” continues Dr. Gurther, “I have observed to show a _changeable mind_, but I would by no means have what has been said be understood as without exception; for I doubt not but sometimes there are found men with great and virtuous souls under very unpromising outsides.”

“Were our observations a little more strict and delicate, we might, doubtless, not only distinguish habits and tempers, but also professions. In effect, does there need much penetration to distinguish the fierce looks of the veteran soldier, the contentious look of the practised pleader, the solemn look of the minister of state, or many others of the like kind?”

A very remarkable physiological anecdote has been given by De La Place, in his “_Pièces Interrestantes et peu connues_.” Vol. iv. p. 8.

He was assured by a friend that he had seen a voluminous and secret correspondence which had been carried on between Louis XIV. and his favourite physician De la Chambre on this science: the faith of the monarch seems to have been great, and the purpose to which this correspondence tended was extraordinary indeed, and perhaps scarcely credible. Who will believe that Louis XIV. was so convinced of that talent, which De la Chambre attributed to himself, of deciding merely by the physiognomy of persons, not only on the real bent of their character, but to what employment they were adapted, that the king entered into a _secret correspondence_ to obtain the critical notices of his _physiognomist_. That Louis XIV. should have pursued this system, undetected by his own courtiers, is also singular; but it appears by this correspondence, that this art positively swayed him in his choice of officers and favourites. On one of the backs of these letters De la Chambre had written, “If I die before his majesty, he will incur great risk of making many an unfortunate choice.”

This collection of Physiological correspondence, if it does really exist, would form a curious publication. We, however, have heard nothing of it.

De la Chambre was an enthusiastic physiognomist, as appears by his works: “The Characters of the Passions,” four volumes in quarto; “The art of Knowing Mankind;” and “the Knowledge of Animals.”

Lavater quotes his “vote and interest” in behalf of his favourite science. It is no less curious, however, to add, that Phillip Earl of Pembroke, under James I., had formed a particular collection of portraits, with a view to physiognomonical studies.

The great Prince of Condé was very expert in a sort of Physiognomy which shewed the peculiar habits, motions, and positions of familiar life, and mechanical employments. He would sometimes lay wagers with his friends, that he would guess, upon the Pont Neuf, what trade persons were of that passed by, from their walk and air.

The celebrated Marshal Laudohn would have entered when young, into the service of the great Frederick, King of Prussia; but that monarch, with all his penetration, formed a very erroneous judgment of the young officer, (as he himself found in the sequel,) and pronounced that he would never do; in consequence of which Laudohn entered into the service of the Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa, and became one of the most formidable opponents of his Prussian Majesty. Marshal Turrene was much more accurate in his opinion of our illustrious John Duke of Marlborough, whose future greatness he predicted, when he was serving in the French army as Ensign Churchill, and known by the unmilitary name of the “handsome Englishman.”

In the fine arts, moreover, we have seen no less accurate predictions of future eminence. As the scholars of Rubens were playing and jesting with each other, in the absence of their master, one of them was accidentally thrown against a piece on which Rubens had just been working, and a considerable part of it was entirely disfigured. Another of the pupils set himself immediately to repair it, and completed the design before his master returned. Rubens, on reviewing his work, observed a change, and a difference that surprised and embarrassed him. At last, suspecting that some one had been busy, he demanded an explanation; adding, that the execution was in so masterly a manner, that he would pardon the impertinence on account of its merit. Encouraged by this declaration, the young artist confessed, and explained the whole, pleading, that his officiousness was merely to screen a comrade from his master’s anger. Rubens answered, “if any one of my scholars shall excel me, it will be yourself.” This pupil was the great Vandyck.

Lavater, who revived physiognomy, has, unquestionably, brought it to great perfection. But it may justly be doubted whether he is not deceived in thinking that it may be taught like other sciences, and whether there is not much in his system that is whimsical and unfounded. Every man, however, has by nature, something of the science, and nothing is more common than to suspect the man who never looks his neighbour in the face. There is a degree of cunning in such characters, which is always dangerous, but by no means new. “There is a wicked man that hangeth down his head sadly; but inwardly he is full of deceit. Casting down his countenance, and making as if he heard not. A man may be known by his look, and one that hath understanding, by his countenance, when thou meetest him.”—In several of Lavater’s aphorisms, something like the following occurs: “A man’s attire, and excessive laughter, and gait, shew what he is.”

APPARITIONS.

Partial darkness, or obscurity, are the most powerful means by which the sight is deceived: night is therefore the proper season for apparitions. Indeed the state of the mind, at that time, prepares it for the admission of these delusions of the imagination. The fear and caution which must be observed in the night; the opportunity it affords for ambuscades and assassinations; depriving us of society, and cutting off many pleasing trains of ideas, which objects in the light never fail to introduce, are all circumstances of terror: and perhaps, on the whole, so much of our happiness depends upon our senses, that the deprivation of any one may be attended with a proportionate degree of horror and uneasiness. The notions entertained by the ancients respecting the _soul_, may receive some illustrations from these principles. In dark, or twilight, the imagination frequently transforms an inanimate body into a human figure; on approaching the same appearance is not to be found: hence they sometimes fancied they saw their ancestors; but not finding the reality, distinguished these illusions by the name of _shades_.

Many of these fabulous narrations might originate from _dreams_. There are times of slumber, when we are sensible of being asleep[38]. On this principle, Hobbes has so ingeniously accounted for the spectre which is said to have appeared to Brutus, that we cannot resist the temptation of inserting it in his own words. “We read,” says he, “of M. Brutus, (one that had his life given him by Julius Cæsar, and was also his favourite, and notwithstanding murdered him) that at Philippi, the night before he gave battle to Augustus Cæsar, he saw a fearful apparition, which is commonly related by historians as a vision; but considering the circumstances, one may easily judge it to have been but a short dream. For, sitting in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horror of his rash act, it was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him; which fear, as by degrees it made him wake, so it must needs make the apparition by degrees to vanish: and having no assurance that he slept, he could have no cause to think it a dream, or any thing but a vision.”—The well-known story told by Clarendon, of the apparition of the Duke of Buckingham’s father, will admit of a similar solution. There was no man in the kingdom so much the subject of conversation as the Duke; and, from the corruptness of his character, he was very likely to fall a sacrifice to the enthusiasm of the times. Sir George Viliers is said to have appeared to the man at midnight—there is therefore the greatest probability that the man was asleep; and the dream affrighting him, made a strong impression, and was likely to be repeated.

It must be confessed, that the popular belief of departed spirits occasionally holding a communication with the human race, is replete with matter of curious speculation. Some Christian divines, with every just reason, acknowledge no authentic source whence the impression of a future state could ever have been communicated to man, but from the Jewish prophets or from our Saviour himself. Yet it is certain, that a belief in our existence after death has, from time immemorial, prevailed in countries, to which the knowledge of the gospel could never have extended, as among certain tribes of America. Can then this notion have been intuitively suggested? Or is it an extravagant supposition, that the belief might often have arisen from those spectral illusions, to which men in every age, from the occasional influence of morbific causes, must have been subject? And what would have been the natural self-persuasion, if a savage saw before him the apparition of a departed friend or acquaintance, endowed with the semblance of life, with motion, and with signs of mental intelligence, perhaps even holding a converse with him? Assuredly, the conviction would scarcely fail to arise of an existence after death. The pages of history attest the fact that:—

“If ancestry can be in aught believ’d, Descending spirits have convers’d with man, And told him secrets of the world unknown.”

But if this opinion of a life hereafter, had ever among heathen nations their origin, it must necessarily be imbued with the grossest absurdities, incidental to so fallacious a source of intelligence. Yet still the mind has clung to such extravagancies with avidity; “for,” as Sir Thomas Brown has remarked, “it is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him that he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no future state to come, unto which this seems progressively and otherwise made in vain.” It has remained therefore for the light of revelation alone, to impart to this belief the consistency and conformation of divine truth, and to connect it with a rational system of rewards and punishments.

From the foregoing remarks, we need not be surprised that a conviction of the occasional appearance of ghosts or departed spirits, should, from the remotest antiquity, have been a popular creed, not confined to any distinct tribe or race of people. In Europe, it was the opinion of the Greeks and Romans, that, after the dissolution of the body, every man was possessed of three different kinds of ghosts, which were distinguished by the names of Manes, Anima, and Umbra. These were disposed of after the following manner: the Manes descended into the infernal regions, the Anima ascended to the skies, and the Umbra hovered about the tomb, as being unwilling to quit its connexion with the body. Dido, for instance, when about to die, threatens to haunt Æneas with her _umbra_; at the same time, she expects that the tidings of his punishment will rejoin her _manes_ below[39].

The opinions regarding ghosts which were entertained during the Christian era, but more particularly during the middle ages, are very multifarious; yet these, with the authorities annexed to them, have been most industriously collected by Reginald Scot. His researches are replete with amusement and instruction. “And, first,” says he, “you shall understand, that they hold, that all the soules in heaven may come downe and appeare to us when they list, and assume anie bodie saving their owne: otherwise (saie they) such soules should not be perfectlie happie. They saie that you may know the good soules from the bad very easilie. For a damned soule hath a very heavie and soure looke; but a saint’s soule hath a cheerful and merrie countenance: these also are white and shining, the other cole black. And these damned soules also may come up out of hell at their pleasure, although Abraham made Dives believe the contrarie. They affirme, that damned soules walke oftenest: next unto them, the soules of purgatorie; and most seldom the soules of saints. Also they saie, that in the old lawe soules did appeare seldom; and after doomsdaie they shall never be seene more: in the time of grace they shall be most frequent. The walking of these soules (saith Michael Andræas) is a moste excellent argument for the proofe of purgatorie; for (saith he) those soules have testified that which the popes have affirmed in that behalfe; to wit, that there is not onelie such a place of punishment, but that they are released from thence by masses, and such other satisfactorie works, whereby the goodness of the masse is also ratified and confirmed.

“These heavenlie or purgatorie soules (saie they) appeare most commonlie to them that are borne upon Ember daies; because we are in best date at that time to praie for the one, and to keepe companie with the other. Also, they saie, that soules appeare oftenest by night; because men may then be at best leisure, and most quiet. Also they never appeare to the whole multitude, seldome to a few, and commonlie to one alone; for so one may tell a lie without controlment. Also, they are oftenest seene by them that are readie to die: as Thrasella saw Pope Fœlix; Ursine, Peter and Paule; Galla Romana, S. Peter; and as Musa the maide sawe our Ladie: which are the most certaine appearances, credited and allowed in the church of Rome; also, they may be seene of some, and of some other in that presence not seene at all; as Ursine saw Peter and Paule, and yet manie at that instant being present could not see anie such sight, but thought it a lie, as I do. Michael Andræas confesseth that papists see more visions than Protestants: he saith also, that a good soule can take none other shape than a man; manie a damned soule may and doth take the shape of a blackmore, or of a beaste, or of a serpent, or speciallie of an heretike.”

Such is the accounts which Scot has given regarding the Popish opinion of departed spirits. In another part of his work, he triumphantly asks, “Where are the soules that swarmed in time past? Where are the spirits? Who heareth their noises? Who seeth their visions? Where are the soules that made such mone for trentals, whereby to be eased of their pains in purgatorie? Are they all gone to Italie, because masse are growne deere here in England?—The whole course may be perceived to be a false practice, and a counterfeit vision, or rather a lewd invention. For in heaven men’s soules remaine not in sorrow and care, neither studie they there how to compasse and get a worshipfull burial here in earth. If they did they would not have foreslowed so long. Now, therefore, let us not suffer ourselves to be abused anie longer, either with conjuring priests, or meloncholicall witches; but be thankfull to God that hath delivered us from such blindness and error[40].” This is the congratulation of a true Protestant at an early period of the reformation; and it is certain, that with the disbelief of that future state of purgatory, taught by the Romish church, the communication of the living with the dead became less frequent. Still, however, some belief of the kind prevailed, though less tinctured with superstition. An author, styling himself Theophilus Insulanus, who, half a century ago, wrote on the second-sight of Scotland, affixes the term _irreligious_ to those who should entertain a doubt on the reality of apparitions of departed souls. “Such ghostly visitants,” he gravely affirms, “are not employed on an errand of a frivolous concern to lead us into error, but are employed as so many heralds by the great Creator, for the more ample demonstration of his power, to proclaim tidings for our instruction; and, as we are prone to despond in religious matter, to confirm our faith of the existence of spirits, (the foundation of all religions,) and the dignity of human nature.” With due deference, however, to this anonymous writer, whom we should scarcely have noticed, if he had not echoed in this assertion an opinion which was long popular, we shall advert to the opposite sentiments expressed on the subject by a far more acute, though less serious author. The notion, for instance, of the solemn character of ghosts, and that they are never employed on frivolous errands, is but too successfully ridiculed by Grose[41]. “In most of the relations of ghosts,” says this pleasant writer, “they are supposed to be mere aërial beings without substance, and that they can pass through walls and other solid bodies at pleasure. The usual time at which ghosts make their appearance is midnight, and seldom before it is dark; though some audacious spirits have been said to appear even by daylight. Ghosts commonly appear in the same dress they usually wore when living: though they are sometimes clothed all in white; but that is chiefly the church-yard ghosts, who have no particular business, but seem to appear _pro bono publico_, or to scare drunken rustics from tumbling over their graves. I cannot learn that ghosts carry tapers in their hands, as they are sometimes depicted, though the room in which they appear, if without fire or candle, is frequently said to be as light as day. Dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghosts; chains and black vestments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign spectres, seen in arbitrary governments: dead or alive, English spirits are free. If, during the time of an apparition, there is a lighted candle in the room, it will burn extremely blue: this is so universally acknowledged, that many eminent philosophers have busied themselves in accounting for it, without ever doubting the truth of the fact. Dogs too have the faculty of seeing spirits[42].”

There are several other minute particulars respecting ghosts given by this author, for the insertion of which we have not room; yet it would be inexcusable to omit noticing the account which he has subjoined, of the awfully momentous errands upon which spirits are sent. “It is somewhat remarkable,” he adds, “that ghosts do not go about their business like the persons of this world. In cases of murder, a ghost, instead of going to the next justice of peace, and laying its information, or to the nearest relation of the person murdered, appears to some poor labourer who knows none of the parties; draws the curtain of some decrepit nurse, or alms-woman; or hovers about the place where the body is deposited. The same circuitous road is pursued with respect to redressing injured orphans or widows; when it seems as if the most certain way would be to go to the person guilty of the injustice, and haunt him continually till he be terrified into a restitution. Nor are the pointing out lost writings generally managed in a more summary way; the ghost commonly applying to a third person, ignorant of the whole affair, and a stranger to all concerned. But it is presumptuous to scrutinize far into these matters: ghosts have undoubtedly forms and customs peculiar to themselves.”

The view which Grose has taken of the character of departed spirits is pretty correct, although I have certainly read of some spirits whose errands to the earth have been much more direct. One ghost, for instance, has terrified a man into the restitution of lands, which had been bequeathed to the poor of a village. A second spirit has adopted the same plan for recovering property of which a nephew had been wronged; but a third has haunted a house for no other purpose than to kick up a row in it—to knock about chairs, tables, and other furniture. Glanville relates a story, of the date of 1632, in which a man, upon the alleged information of a female spirit, who came by her death foully, led the officers of justice to a pit, where a mangled corpse was concealed, charged two individuals with her murder; and upon this fictitious story, the poor fellows were condemned and executed, although they solemnly persevered to the last in maintaining their innocence. It is but too evident, in this case, by whom the atrocious deed had been committed.