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The problem of physiognomy is the problem of the relation between the static mental forces and the static bodily forces, just as the problem of physiological psychology deals with the dynamic aspect of the same relations. It is a great error in method, and in fact, to treat the study of physiognomy, because of its difficulty, as impracticable. And yet this is the attitude of contemporary scientific circles, unconsciously perhaps rather than consciously, but occasionally becoming obvious as for instance in the case of the attempt of von Möbius to pursue the work of Gall with regard to the physiognomy of those with a natural aptitude for mathematics. If it be possible, and many have shown that it is possible, to judge correctly much of the character of an individual merely from the examination of his external appearance, without the aid of cross-examination or guessing, it cannot be impossible to reduce such modes of observation to an exact method. There is little more required than an exact study of the expression of the characteristic emotions and the tracking (to use a rough analogy) of the routes of the cables passing to the speech centres.


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