gambler and gambling savage are not only similar, but the same. The savage at play will lose his wife, and children, and personal liberty; the other will throw away, in the same manner, what should support his wife and children, and keep himself out of a jail; and it is well if he stop short of self-murder. Is it possible to keep at too great distance from such enormities? and can the man, who once engages in this dreadful business, say when he will stop, or how far he may go? LET

NO SUCH MAN BE TRUSTED.

391. Our thoughts, as well as the real occurrences of life, may draw forth our passions; and one may work one's mind into a ferment of anger, or some other violent discomposure, without having been exposed to any temptation, and merely by ruminating on certain objects. When we find this to be the case, let us instantly give a new, and if possible an opposite, direction to the current of our thoughts. If any evil passion get hold of us, and will not yield to reason, if, for example, we be very angry with an injurious neighbour, let us cease to think of him, and employ ourselves in some other interesting and more agreeable recollection; let us call to mind some happy incident of our past life; let us think of our Creator, and of his goodness to mankind, and to us in particu lar; let us meditate on the importance of our present conduct, and of that tremendous futurity which is before us: or, if we be not at this particular

time well prepared for serious thought, let us apply to some book of harmless amusement, or join in some entertaining conversation: and thus we shall get rid of the passion that haunts us, and forget both its object and its cause.

SECTION VII.

Of the Passions, as they display themselves in the Look and Gesture.

392. PASSIONS being commotions of the body as well as of the mind, it is no wonder that they should display themselves in the looks and behaviour. If they did not, our intercourse with one another would be much more difficult and dangerous than it is; because we could not so readily discover the characters of men, or what is passing in their minds. But the outward expression of the passions is a sort of universal language; not very extensive indeed, but sufficiently so to give us information of many things which it concerns us to know, and which otherwise we could not have known. When a man is even at pains to conceal his emotions, his eyes, features, complexion, and voice, will discover them to a discerning observer; and when he is at no pains to hide or disguise what he feels, the outward indications will be so

significant, that hardly any person can mistake their meaning: his anger, for example, though he should not utter a word, will contract his brows, -flash in his eyes, make his lips quiver, and give irregular motions to his limbs. Sallust says of Catiline, that his eyes had a disagreeable glare, that his complexion was pale, his walk sometimes quick and sometimes slow, and that his general appearance betokened a discomposure of mind approaching to insanity.

393. It must be remarked here, that all are not equally quicksighted in discerning the inward emotion by means of the outward sign. Some have great acuteness in this respect, some very little; which may in part be owing to habits of attention or inattention. If there be men, as I believe there are, who study almost every countenance that comes in their way, whether of man or of beast, and if there be others who seldom mind things of that nature, it is reasonable to suppose that the former will have more of this acuteness than the latter. The talent I speak of is sometimes called skill in physiognomy, or physiognomony; which last form of the word is more suitable to its Greek original. Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers, wrote of it; and there were in ancient times persons whose profession it was to judge of the character from the outward appearance. One of these, having seen Socrates, without knowing who he was, pronounced him to be a very bad man, and enslaved to

some of the worst passions in human nature. This was reported to Socrates, as a proof of the presumption and folly of the physiognomist. But Socrates told them, that the man had discovered uncommon penetration; for that he was by nature subject to all those passions, though with the aid of reason and philosophy he had now got the better of them.

394. I remark, secondly, That as all human minds are not equally susceptible of warm emotion, so all human bodies are not equally liable to receive impressions from the mind. There is an awkwardness in the gestures of some people, and a want of meaning in their faces, which make the outward appearance pretty much the same at all times, unless they be under great agitation. This may be in part constitutional, and partly the effect of habit. That uniformity of feature which the stoics affected, and in which they supposed the dignity of man in a great measure to consist, was no doubt in many of them assumed and artificial. But when we see the looks of one child continually varying as his thoughts vary, and those of another rarely undergoing any sensible change, we must impute this diversity to constitution, as we cannot suppose there is art or affectation in the case. the countenance of Garrick there was more variety of expression than I ever saw in any other. This, after he became a player, he studied and practised with extraordinary application: but the same thing

In

was observable in him from his earliest years, as I have been assured by those who knew him when a boy.

395. I remark, thirdly, that all states of society do not allow equal scope to the outward and visible display of the passions. People in civilized life, from the awe in which they stand of the fashion, and of one another, are at pains to curb, or, at least, to hide, their more violent emotions: whereas, among savages, and persons little acquainted with decorum, there is hardly any restraint of this sort. Hence the intercourse of the latter is always more boisterous than that of the former, whether the conversation lead to joy or sorrow, merriment or anger; and their countenances are more deeply impressed with the traces of their predominant passions. Artists, too, as I have elsewhere remarked, who employ themselves in the nicer parts of mechanics, have, generally, a fixedness of feature suited to the earnest attention which they are obliged to bestow on their work: while those who can ply their trade, and amuse themselves at the same time with discourse, have, for the most part, smoother faces, and features less significant.

396. Though there are many, who, from inattention, or other causes, are not acute in discerning human characters; yet, almost every man is, to a certain degree, a physiognomist. Every one can distinguish an angry from a placid, a cheerful from a melancholy, a thoughtful from a thought