PHYSIOGNOMY.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 968, 6 December 1882, Page 3

PHYSIOGNOMY.

Last evening Mr O. E. Hugo delivered his first lecture to a good and evidently appreciative audience. He commenced his discourse-by questioning the claims of phrenology, and stated that though the theory itself is unquestionably correct, ns proved by Prof. Ferrier’s experiments, yet we knew comparatively nothing about the localisation of cerebral functions. At all events no scientific man would maintain that we could put our finger on every half inch of the skull ami say “ Here is the organ of tune, time, color, &o.” None but quacks could display such pretentious dogmas. He quoted from the works of several leading German physiologists to show that in the “ fatherland of mental science, Spursheim’s system is completely ignored.” Physiognomy was, in his opinion, both a more practical indicator of. character, and more in accordance with science, inasmuch as every emotion and feeling, every form of bodily disease, is accompanied with a certain facial expression, and every modification of habit and character alters the features. The lecturer laid down the general principles of his system, the first of which was temperament, which he based on a physiological basis, and notasaphrenologiston a pathological state of human constitution. He recognised five temperaments, namely, the cephalic, the thoracic, the bony, the mnscnlar, and the abdominal. He then described the physiognomy of reflection, action, indolence, sincerity, hypocrisy, dishonesty, animalism, and idealism. The lecture was illustrated by large diagrams, and was interspersed with many humorous anecdotes which provoked great laughter. At the conclusion several gentleman walked up and down the floor, and from their walk Mr Hugo pointed out some of their most prominent traits. More minutely he described some who mounted the platform, and the applause of the audience proved the correctness of the delineations. Tonight the last lecture will bo delivered, and the subject is “ Signs of love in lips, eyes, chin, <&c.