PHYSIOGNOMY. 337 



vidual even before he opens his mouth, or any one 

 action of his is known. All the blandishments which 

 a treacherous person can put on will not hide the 

 villain. That is his main purpose, and as such it 

 takes possession of his whole frame ; and probably 

 nobody, at all in the habit of studying character, 

 ever saw and examined his man and was subse- 

 quently deceived, without having a previous sus- 

 picion that such would be the event. 



To reduce that to any thing like a science which 

 one man can communicate to another in words is 

 another and a far more difficult matter; and it is 

 almost as hopeless to expect that a man can be able 

 to tell how he sees those fine shades of distinctions, 

 as that he shall be able to tell how he sees objects 

 at all ; it is not in the form of the head, or in that 

 of the features, so that physiognomy and craniology 

 are but scraps of the science, resembling indeter- 

 minate problems in calculation, because all the con- 

 ditions for determining the answer are not known, 

 and so the answer itself may be almost any thing. 

 A man under the dominion of any resolved purpose, 

 however he may strive to hide it, is imbued with the 

 character of that purpose all over ; and he who seeks 

 to determine what that purpose is from the head or 

 the face, or both together, is to the man who actu- 

 ally sees what the purpose is, what any common 

 painter is to Raphael, in painting a blind man. The 

 common painter's blind man is simply a man with 

 his eyes shut, while all the rest of his body is in 

 perfect repose and confidence that they will open 

 again whenever he needs them. But Elymas, the 

 sorcerer, in Raphael's cartoon, is blind to the very 

 tips of the fingers and the points of the toes. Con- 

 ceal all the figure except a hand or a foot, and yet 

 you will immediately perceive that that hand or foot 

 is purposeless and in the dark. 



In the greatest variations, or varieties, as the 

 instances of variation are called, even in those that 

 Ff 



