266 Professor Karl Pearson [[March 13, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, March 13, 1003. 



The Right Hon. Sir James Stirling, M.A. LL.D. F.R.S., 



Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Professor Karl Pearson, F.R.S. 

 Character Beading from External Signs. 



[Abstract.] 



Referring to the delineation of character by physiognomy, phren- 

 ology, palmistry, handwriting, etc., he said that the only way of 

 determining whether there was any tnith in these methods was the 

 dull way of statistics. To this end he had for six years been 

 obtaining observations on school children, and had now some 6,000 

 records, about half being of boys and half of girls ; the observations 

 on the boys were, however, the only ones that so far had been reduced. 

 In connection with the problem he thought that folk-belief also should 

 be considered. For instance, so far as he knew, the colour of Judas 

 Iscariot's hair was not recorded ; yet by the old masters Judas was 

 painted with red hair, and in directions for passion plays his 

 representative was ordered a red wig. In proverbs a general pre- 

 judice against red hair was apparent, and the curly-haired person 

 also seemed to be objectionable. Again, why was roundness of face 

 associated with foolishness (e.g. Antony and Cleopatra, Act III., 

 sc. 3)? What about "fat-headed" people? and why were shrewd 

 people called " long-headed " ? 



The rest of the lecture consisted in the exhibition of statistical 

 tables showing the degrees of correlation between certain mental 

 characters and certain physical features, as indicated by the records 

 mentioned above, which were the results of observations and measure- 

 ments of a number of schoolmasters. The comparison of hair-colour 

 and eye-colour with temper, health, conscientiousness, intelligence, 

 popularity, etc., yielded the general conclusion that, on the whole, 

 the red boys were more conscientious, more quick-tempered, and 

 more delicate, the black ones being less conscientious, more sullen, 

 and less delicate. There seemed to be a good deal in the attempt 

 to read character by handwriting, and the investigation of 2000 

 specimens of handwritiug (classified into seven classes according to 

 general goodness) indicated that bad writing was a warning note. 

 With regard to the connection of size of head with intelligence, the 

 data taken from 1000 Cambridge undergraduates showed that on the 

 whole the head was longest in those who took first-class honours 

 and shortest in poll-men, but there was not enough correlation to 



