so, nor is the look of the eye, or even the outline of the nose, especially at the tip. Rude as the under lip may be, there is nothing in the outline of the chin betokening want of understanding. Dry, joyless, cold, but neither stupid nor weak. The top of the back part of the head is certainly, from defect of drawing, too small, injurious to the countenance, and contradictory to the eyebrow.

VI.

OF THE CONGENIALITY OF THE HUMAN

FORM.

IN organization nature continually acts from within to without, from the centre to the circumference. The same vital

powers that make the heart beat give the finger motion: that which roofs the scull arches the finger nail. Art is at variance with itself; not so nature. Her creation is progressive. From the head to the back, from the shoulder to the arm, from the arm to the hand, from the hand to the finger, from the root to the stem, the stem to the branch, the branch to the twig, the twig to the blossom and fruit, each depends on the other, and all on the root; each is similar in nature and form. No apple of one branch can, with all its properties, be the apple of another; not to say of another tree. There is a determinate effect of a determinate power. Through all nature each determinate power is productive only of such and such determinate effects. The finger of one body is not adapted to the hand of another body. Each part of an organized body is an image of the whole, has the character of the whole. The blood in the extremity

of the finger has the character of the blood in the heart. The same congeniality is found in the nerves, in the bones. One spirit lives in all. Each member of the body is in proportion to that whole of which it is a part. As from the length of the smallest member, the smallest joint of the finger, the proportion of the whole, the length and breadth of the body, may be found; so also may the form of the whole from the form of each single part. When the head is long, all is long; or round when the head is round; and square when it is square. One form, one mind, one root, appertain to all. Therefore is each organized body so much a whole that, without discord, destruction, or deformity, nothing can be added or diminished. Every thing in man is progressive; every thing congenial; form, stature, complexion, hair, skin, veins, nerves, bones, voice, walk, manner, style, passion, love, hatred. One and the same spirit is manifest in all. He has a determinate sphere in which his powers and sensations are allowed, within which they may be freely exercised, but beyond which he cannot pass. Each countenance is, indeed, subject to momentary change, though not perceptible, even in its solid. parts; but these changes are all proportionate: each is measured, each proper, and

peculiar, to the countenance in which it takes place. The capability of change is limited. Even that which is affected, assumed, imitated, heterogeneous, still has the properties of the individual, originating in the nature of the whole, and is so definite that it is only possible, in this, but in no other, being.

I almost blush to repeat this in the present age. What, posterity, wilt thou suppose, thus to see me obliged so often to demonstrate, to pretended sages, that nature makes no emendations? She labours from one to all. Hers is not disjointed organization; not mosaic work. The more of the mosaic there is in the works of artists, orators, or poets, the less are they natural; the less do they resemble the copious streams of the fountain; the stem extending itself to the remotest branch.

The more there is of progression, the more is there of truth, power, and nature: the more extensive, general, durable and noble, is the effect. The designs of nature are the designs of a moment. One form, one spirit, appear through the whole. Thus nature forms her least plant, and thus her most exalted man. I shall have effected nothing by my physiognomonical labours if I am not able to destroy that opinion, so tasteless, so

unworthy of the age, so opposite to all sound philosophy, that nature patches up the features of various countenances, in order to make one perfect countenance; and I shall think them well rewarded if the congeniality, uniformity, and agreement of human organization, be so demonstrated that he who shall deny it will be declared to deny the light of the sun at noon day.

The human body is a plant; each part has the character of the stem. Suffer me to repeat this continually, since this most evident of all things is continually controverted, among all ranks of men, in words, deeds, books, and works of art.

It is therefore that I find the greatest incongruities in the heads of the greatest masters. I know no painter of whom I can say he has thoroughly studied the harmony of the human outline, not even Poussin; no, not even Raphael himself. Let any one class the forms of their countenances, and compare them with the forms of nature; let him for instance draw the outlines of their foreheads, and endeavour to find similar outlines in nature, and he will find incongruities which could not have been expected in such great masters.

Excepting the too great length and extent, particularly of his human figures, Chodo