of the negligence of his character, which does him no honour. As are the teeth of man, that is to say, their form, position, and cleanliness (so far as the latter depends on himself,) so is his taste. Wherever the upper gum is very visible at the first opening of the lips, there is generally much cold and phlegm. We Much, indeed, might be written upon the teeth, though they are generally neglected in all historical paintings. To be convinced of this, we need but observe the teeth of an individual during the course of a single day, or contemplate an apartment crowded with fools. should not then, for a moment, deny that the teeth, in conjunction with the lips, are very characteristic; or that physiognomy has gained another token, which triumphs over all the arts of dissimulation. The Chin. I am, from numerous experiments, convinced that the projecting chin ever denotes something positive, and the retreating something negative. The presence or absence of strength in man is often signified by the chin. I have never seen sharp indentings in the middle of the chin but in men of cool understanding, unless when something evidently contradictory appeared in the countenance. The pointed chin is generally held to be a sign of acuteness and craft, though I know very worthy persons with such chins. Their craft is the craft of the best dramatic poetry. The soft, fat, double chin, generally points out the epicure; and the angular chin is seldom found but in discreet, well-disposed, firm men. Flatness of chin speaks the cold and dry; smallness, fear; and roundness, with a dimple, benevolence. CHAP. XII. Of Sculls. How much may the anatomist see in the mere scull of man! How much more the physiognomist! And how much the most the anatomist who is a physiognomist! I blush when I think how much I ought to know, and of how much I am ignorant, while writing on a part of the body of man which is so superior to all that science has yet discovered-to all belief, to all conception! I consider the system of the bones as the great outline of man, and the scull as the principal part of that system. I pay more attention to the form and arching of the scull, as far as I am acquainted with it, than all my predecessors; and I have considered this most firm, least changeable, and far best defined part of the human body, as the foundation of the science of physiognomy. I shall therefore be permitted to be particular in my observations on this member of the human body. I confess, that I scarcely know where to begin, where to end, what to say, or what to omit. I think it adviseable to premise a few words concerning the generation and formation of human bones. The whole of the human foetus is at first supposed to be only a soft mucilaginous substance, homogenous in all its parts; and that the bones themselves are but a kind of coagulated fluid, which afterwards becomes membraneous, then cartilaginous, and at last hard bone. As this viscous congelation, originally so tranparent and tender, increases, it becomes thicker and more opaque, and a dark point makes its appearance different from the carti lage, and of the nature of bone, but not yet perfectly hard. This point may be called the kernel of the future bone, the centre round which the ossification extended. We must, however, consider the coagulation attached to the cartilage as a mass without shape, and only with a proper propensity for assuming its future form. In its earliest, tenderest state, the traces of it are expressed upon the cartilage, though very imperfectly... With respect to the bony kernels, we find differences which seem to determine the form of the future bones. The simple and smaller bones have each only one kernel; but, in the more gross, thick, and angular, there are several, in different parts of the original cartilage; and it must be remarked, that the number of the joining bones is equivalent to the number of the kernels. In the bones of the scull, the round kernel first is apparent, in the centre of each piece; and the ossification extends itself, like radii from the centre, in filaments, which increase in length, thickness, and solidity, and are interwoven with each other like net-work. Hence these delicate, indented features of the scull, when its various parts are at length joined. We have hitherto only spoken of the first stage of ossification. The second begins about the fourth or fifth month, when the bones, together with the rest of the parts, are more perfectly formed, and, in the progress of ossification, include the whole cartilage, according to the more or less life of the creature, and the original different impulse and power of motion in the being. Agreeable to their original formation through each succeeding period of age, they will continue to increase in thickness and hardness. But on this subject anatomists disagree-so let them. Future physiognomists may consider this more at large. I retreat from contest, and will travel in the high road of certainty, and confine myself to what is visible. Thus much is certain, that the activity of the muscles, vessels, and other parts which surround the bones, contribute much to their formation, and gradual increase in hardness. The remains of the cartilaginous in the young bones, will, in the sixth and seventh month, decrease in quantity, harden, and whiten, as the bony parts approach perfection. Some bones obtain a certain degree of firmness in much less time than others; as, for example, the scull bones, and the small bones within the ear. Not only whole bones, but parts of a single bone, are of various degrees of hardness. They will be hardest at the place where the kernel of ossification began, and the parts adjacent; and the rigidity increases more slowly and insensibly, the harder the bones are, and the older the man is. What was cartilage will become bone; parts that were separate will grow together, and the whole bones be deprived of moisture. Anatomists divide the form into the natural or the essential, which is generally the same in all bones in the human body, how different soever it may be to other bodies; and into the accidental, which is subject to various changes in the same individual, according to the influence of external objects, or, especially, of the gradations of age. The first is founded in the universality of the nature of parents, and the circumstances which naturally and invariably attend propagation. Anatomists consider only the designation of the bones individually; on this, at least, is grounded the agreement of what they call the essential |