ABSTRACT
HOW far are outer physical characteristics indicative of personality traits? Height and weight, body build, dimensions of the head and bumps on the skull, shape of profile, height of forehead, size of jaw, colour of hair and eyes, shape of the fingers, lines on the palm—all these at various times have been regarded as significant, and still play a part in popular lore. Red hair is sometimes said to show irritability, blue eyes—innocence; the jaw reveals determination or weakness, the forehead intellect, and so on. The ancient Greeks attributed to people the characteristics of animals which they resembled. For example, people with aquiline features were noble, but grasping, like eagles. Lavater and the physiognomists made careful studies of the features of outstanding people—artists, philosophers, soldiers, criminals—on the assumption that others who resembled them physically would be similar psychologically. The phrenologists analysed personality into a series of propensities and faculties, the strength of each of which was represented by the protuberance of a certain section of the skull. We should also mention, in passing, the astrologers' claim that personality is influenced by the stars under which one is born, since a remarkable number of people, particularly women, appear to find this credible. Many of our epithets for personality—martial, saturnine, lunatic, etc., derive from such superstitions.
