Censoriousness and Vanity. I will answer these charges separately; and now proceed to reply to the first objection.

I teach no black art; no nostrum, the secret of which I might have concealed, which is a thousand times injurious for once that it is profitable, the discovery of which is therefore so difficult. I do but teach a science, the most general, the most palpable, with which all men are acquainted; and state my feelings, observations, and their consequences.

It ought never to be forgotten, that the very purport of outward expression is to teach what passes in the mind, and that to deprive man of this source of knowledge were to reduce him to utter ignorance; that every man is born with a certain portion of physiognomonical sensation, as certainly as that every man, who is not deformed, is born with two eyes; that all men, in their intercourse with each other, form physiognomonical decisions, according as their judgment is more or less clear; that it is well known, though physiognomy were never to be reduced to a science, most men, in proportion as they have mingled with the world, derive some profit from their knowledge of mankind, even at the first glance, and that the same effects were produced long before this question was in agitation. Whether, therefore, to teach men to decide with more perspicuity and certainty, instead of confusedly; to judge clearly with refined sensations, instead of rudely and erroneously with

sensations more gross; and, instead of suffering them to wander in the dark, and venture abortive and injurious judgments, to learn them by physiognomonical experiments, by the rules of prudence and caution, and the sublime voice of philanthropy, to mistrust, to be diffident and slow to pronounce, where they imagine they discover evil: whether this, I say, can be injurious, I leave the world to determine.

I think I may venture to affirm, that very few persons will, in consequence of this work, begin to judge ill of others, who had not before been guilty of the practice.

The second objection to physiognomy is, that "it renders men vain, and teaches them to assume a plausible appearance." The men thou wouldst reform are not children, who are good, and know that they are so; but men who must, from experience, learn to distinguish between good and evil; men who, to become perfect, must necessarily be taught their own various, and consequently their own beneficent qualities. Let, therefore, the desire of obtaining approbation from the good, act in concert with the impulse to goodness. Let this be the ladder, or, if you please, the crutch to support tottering virtue. Suffer men to feel that God has ever branded vice with deformity, and adorned virtue with inimitable beauty. Allow man to rejoice when he perceives that his countenance improves in proportion as his heart is ennobled. Inform him only, that to be good from vain mo

tives, is not actual good, but vanity; that the ornaments of vanity will ever be inferior and ignoble; and that the dignified mien of virtue never can be truly attained, but by the actual possession of virtue, unsullied by the leaven of vanity.

Let me now say a word or two as to the Ease and Difficulties attending the study of physiognomy. To learn the lowest, the least difficult of sciences, at first appears an arduous undertaking, when taught by words or books, and not reduced to actual practice. What numerous dangers and difficulties might be started against all the daily enterprises of men, were it not undeniable that they are performed with facility! How might not the possibility of making a watch, and still more a watch worn in a ring, or of sailing over the vast ocean, and of numberless other arts and inventions, be disputed, did we not behold them constantly practised! How many arguments might be urged against the practice of physic! and though some of them be unanswerable, how many are the reverse!

It is not just, too hastily to decide on the possible ease or difficulty of any subject which we have not yet examined. The simplest may abound with difficulties to him who has not made frequent experiments, and, by frequent experiments, the most difficult may become easy.

Whoever possesses the slightest capacity for, and has once acquired the habit of, observation

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and comparison, should he see himself daily and incessantly surrounded by hosts of difficulties, yet he will certainly be able to make a progress. There is no study, however difficult, which may not be attained by perseverance and resolution.

We have men constantly before us. In the very smallest towns there is a continual influx and reflux of persons, of various and opposite characters: among these, many are known to us without consulting physiognomy; and that they are patient or choleric, credulous or suspicious, wise or foolish, of moderate or weak capacity, we are convinced past contradiction. Their countenances are as widely various as their characters, and these variety of countenances may each be as accurately drawn as their varieties of character may be described.

There are men, with whom we have daily intercourse, and whose interest and ours are connected. Be their dissimulation what it may, passion will frequently, for a moment, snatch off the mask, and give us a glance, at least a sideview, of their true form.

Has Nature bestowed on man the eye and ear, and yet made her language so difficult, or so entirely unintelligible? and not the eye and ear alone, but feeling, nerves, internal sensations, and yet has rendered the language of the superficies so confused, so obscure? She who has adapted sound to the ear, and the ear to sound; she who has created light for the eye, and the eye for light; she who has taught man so soon

to speak, and to understand speech; shall she have imparted innumerable traits and marks of secret inclinations, powers, and passions, accompanied by perception, sensation, and an impulse to interpret them to his advantage; and, after bestowing such strong incitements, shall she have denied him the possibility of quenching this his thirst of knowledge? She who has given him penetration to discover sciences still more profound, though of much inferior utility; who has taught him to trace out the paths, and measure the curves of comets; who has put a telescope into his hand, that he may view the satellites of the planets, and has endowed him with the capability of calculating their eclipses through revolving ages; shall so kind a mother have denied her children (her truth-seeking pupils, her noble philanthropic offspring, who are so willing to admire and rejoice in the majesty of the Most High, viewing man his master-piece) the power of reading the ever-present, ever-open book of the human countenance; of reading man, the most beautiful of all her works, the compendium of all things, the mirror of the Deity?

Awake! view man in all his infinite forms! Look, for thou mayest eternally learn; shake off thy sloth, and behold. Meditate on its importance; take resolution to thyself, and the most difficult shall become easy.

Let me now mention the Difficulties attending this study. There is a peculiar circumstance attending the starting of difficulties. There are