butcher, the shoe-maker, the real tramp, the Greek, the sexual pervert,
etc. Hence follows an important law--_that if a fact is once recognized
correctly in its coarser form, then the possibility must be granted that
it is correct in its subtler manifestations_. The boundary between what
is coarse and what is not may not be drawn at any particular point. It
varies with the skill of the observer, with the character of the
material before him, and with the excellence of his instruments, so that
nobody can say where the possibility of progress in the matter ceases.
Something must be granted in all questions appertaining to this subject
of recognizable unit-characters and every layman pursues daily certain
activities based on their existence. When he speaks of stupid and
intelligent faces he is a physiognomist; he sees that there are
intellectual foreheads and microcephalic ones, and is thus a
craniologist; he observes the expression of fear and of joy, and so
observes the principles of imitation; he contemplates a fine and elegant
hand in contrast with a fat and mean hand, and therefore assents to the
effectiveness of chirognomy; he finds one hand-writing scholarly and
fluid, another heavy, ornate and unpleasant; so he is dealing with the
first principles of graphology;--all these observations and inferences
are nowhere denied, and nobody can say where their attainable boundaries
lie.
Hence, the only proper point of view to take is that from which we set
aside as too bold, all daring and undemonstrated assertions on these
matters. But we will equally beware of asserting without further
consideration that far-reaching statements are unjustified, for we shall
get very far by the use of keener and more careful observation, richer
material, and better instruments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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