Aristotle's works:: Containing the Master-piece, Directions for Midwives, and Counsel and Advice to Child-bearing Women with Various Useful Remedies — Aristotle — John Shaqi
Aristotle's works:: Containing the Master-piece, Directions for Midwives, and Counsel and Advice to Child-bearing Women with Various Useful Remedies
Aristotle · en
Every man hath a certain gait or motion, and so in like manner hath
every woman; for a man to be shaking his head, or using any light motion
with his hands or feet, whether he stands or sits, or speaks, is always
accompanied with an extravagant motion, unnecessary, superfluous and
unhandsome. Such a man, by the rule of physiognomy, is vain, unwise,
unchaste, a detractor, unstable, and unfaithful. He or she whose motion
is not much when discoursing with any one, is for the most part wise and
well bred, and fit for any employment, ingenious and apprehensive,
frugal, faithful, and industrious in business. He whose posture is
forwards and backwards, or, as it were whisking up and down, mimical, is
thereby denoted to be a vain silly person, of a heavy and dull wit, and
very malicious. He whose motion is lame and limping, or otherwise
imperfect, or that counterfeits an imperfection, is denoted to be
envious, malicious, false, and detracting.
_Judgments drawn from the Stature of Man._
Physiognomy draws several judgments also from the stature of man, which
take as followeth: if a man be upright and straight, inclined rather to
leanness than fat, it shows him to be bold, cruel, proud, clamorous,
hard to please, and harder to be reconciled when displeased, very
frugal, deceitful, and in many things malicious. To be tall of stature,
and corpulent with it, denotes him to be not only handsome but valiant
also, but of no extraordinary understanding, and which is worst of all,
ungrateful and trepanning. He who is extremely tall, and very lean and
thin, is a projecting man, that designs no good to himself, importunate
to obtain what he desires, and extremely wedded to his own humour. He
who is thick and short, is vain, envious, suspicious, and very shallow
of apprehension, easy of belief, but very long before he will forget an
injury. He who is lean and short, but upright withal, is, by the rule of
physiognomy, wise and ingenious, bold and confident, and of a good
understanding, but of a deceitful heart. He who stoops as he goes, not
so much by age as custom, is very laborious, a retainer of secrets, but
very incredulous, and not easy to believe every vain report he hears. He
that goes with his belly stretching forth, is sociable, merry, and easy
to be persuaded.
CHAPTER IV.
_Of the Power of Celestial Bodies over Men and Women._