17. Claiming to identify an individual’s character through external appearances, physiognomy fell into disrepute during the Middle Ages before a resurgence during the Early Modern Period
Stemming from ancient notions correlating a relationship between an individuals’ external appearance and internal characteristics, Aristotle, contending “it is possible to infer character from features”, served as one of the earliest known proponents of the theory of physiognomy. Adopted during the Middle Ages, the widely believed scientific theory linking personality to outwards appearance fell into disrepute during the Late Middle Ages, with Henry VIII of England outlawing the teaching of the flawed theory and Leonardo da Vinci notably dismissing physiognomy as without “scientific foundation”.
Revived during the late-18th century by Johann Kaspar Lavater, the Swiss pastor built heavily upon the work of English philosopher Sir Thomas Brown from a century earlier. Asserting “there are mystically in our faces characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls”, Lavater’s renewal of the debate surrounding physiognomy was initially met with mixed reactions. Growing in popularity, however, during the remainder of the 18th and into the 19th centuries, physiognomy was even used during the foundations of criminology as well as for the purposes of scientific racism. Nevertheless, with the advent of the Modern Age, physiognomy has increasingly fallen into disuse and is broadly rejected by the scientific community as both inaccurate and unscientific.