How do the physiognomical characters of the cranium agree 

 with the portraits of Swedenborg? 



To identify, with only the guidance of portraits of a deceased 

 person, the skull which has been his during life, is, in most eases, a 

 very difficult undertaking. Undoubtedly, even crania possess individual 

 characteristics, which may at times be very strongly marked, but on 

 account of the soft parts which clothe all parts of the bony frame, and 

 on account of the hair, which conceals a great part of the contour 

 lines of the head, these characters are seen only in a greatly modi- 

 fied form in the living faee^ while, on the other hand, the greater part 

 of the details which in the latter cooperate to form the characteristic ge- 

 neral image, such as the more delicate features around eyes and mouth, 

 color tints, etc., is not at all represented in a death's-head. It is almost 

 exclusively the relative proportions between the different parts of the 

 face and the relief itself of the rather limited parts of the facial skele- 

 ton, upon which the overlying soft parts are of slight and relatively 

 uniform thickness, which can be the object of a direct comparison. 



It is also self-evident that in an investigation of this kind the 

 conclusions must, as a rule, be drawn with a certain reserve. Even 

 in cases where a fully satisfactory agreement is found between the 

 comparable characters of a cranium and a death-mask or a portrait, 

 one must also reckon with the possibility of two different individuals 

 having crania of precisely the same type. Only in exceptional cases 

 can one arrive at an absolutely sure result, and that only in a nega- 

 tive respect, that is to say, if one can firmly establish that the pro- 

 portions of the given cranium and of the representation are so diffe- 

 rent that the former could not without violence to the' anatomical relations 

 be fitted into the contours of the latter. Of course, for a conclusion of 

 this kind, the absolute reliability of the representation must be guaranteed. 



The comparison will, of course, be easiest and surest if there 

 be at hand a successful death-mask of the person who is the object of 



