10 
lavater’s 
miration of every age by their ftriking beauty and 
exatt fymmetry. 
Confequently, in conjunftion with Leonard de 
Vinci, that great mafter was bell qualified to efta- 
blifli, as he did, thofe famous academies in Italy, 
which even Raphael did not difdain to confult. 
Hence the principal qualification for juft defigns 
appears to be derived from an attentive ftudy of the 
human frame, confidered in all its parts, poftures, 
and points of view. The ftudent muft therefore 
fee, direct, or perform the chief furgical operations, 
fo far as to fift into the maze or inner works of that 
ajtonijhing machine, while he flackens or loofens the 
mufcles, and proves, by feeling or ocular demon- 
ftration, the exiftence even of the flighteft excref- 
cence, tallying with the models before him. He 
ftiould obferve minutely how different particles of 
the bony fyftem are put out of order, and wound up 
again by adding frefli fprings to the mufcles; and 
it is equally neceffary for him to make other expe- 
riments, to difcover the outward effect of interior 
changes in the grand clock-tvork in queftion ; for, 
w^hen the caufes are known, their effe6ts can be 
more juftly delineated. 
Nature is moft faithfully copied by a painter that 
fees her fecret works through a veil, becoming 
tranfparent in his eye after he has ftudied anatomy. 
A (ingle look then fuffices for him to take off the 
likenefs of thofe vifible obje6ls, which he fixes on 
his canvafs with equal fidelity and precifion. 
It 
