ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of the face in the activities of the three personages, Messerschmidt, Hogarth, and Lichtenberg. Lichtenberg arrived at physiognomy after what he called a lifetime of observing human faces; he claimed that he had observed faces carefully since his childhood and in addition to his anti-physiognomic essay, his Sudelbücher are sprinkled with musings about the physical expression of character. Lichtenberg dismantled Lavater's claims on essentially two grounds. The first was his proposition that something social had to be involved in character and its interpretation. Social factors contributed to the formation of an individual's character and these comprised a major component of their personality. A second aspect of Lichtenberg's argument is the idea that pathognomy, the movements of the muscular and other non-rigid components of the face, convey more about a person's mindset than its fixed skeletal structure. Lichtenberg therefore drew attention to the face as a changeable entity.
