Working Paper on Astrological Physiognomy: History and Sources

<strong>Working</strong> <strong>Paper</strong> on Astrological Physiognomy: History and Sources
The Diana of Grecian sculpture furnishes a fine example of the motive temperament thus
modified.
The second modification is that in which the ligaments and the articulations which they form
are proportionally small, which corrects the tendency to angularity which is characteristic of this
temperament, and tends to round the contour of the joints. This will be particularly observable in
the wrists and ankles.
The third modification of this temperament is that which presents proportionally shorter
bones, and, except around the pelvis, smaller and more rounded muscles, affording less strongly
marked reliefs and more of that rounded plumpness essential to the highest style of female
beauty. In this characteristic, it approaches the vital temperament, to which this modification is
allied.
In accordance with the law of homogeneousness, stated, explained, and illustrated in the
preceding chapter, we find, on examining this temperament more closely, that it is characterized
in details, as well as in general form, by length. The face is oblong, the head high, the nose long
and prominent, and all the features correspond. This structure indicates great power and activity
in some particular direction, but lack of breadth or comprehensiveness.
An abnormal development of the motive temperament, is which the vital and mental systems
are both sacrificed to mere animal strength, forms what the ancients called the athletic
temperament. It is marked by a head proportionally small, especially in the coronal region; a
thick neck; broad shoulders; expanded chest; and strongly marked muscles, the tendons of which
are apparent through the skin. The Farnese Hercules furnishes a model of the physical attributes
of this abnormal condition, in which brute strength usurps the energies necessary to the
production of thought, and leaves its possessor decidedly deficient in all the higher mental and
moral manifestations. The celebrated state of the Dying Gladiator also represents the same
bodily and mental constitution.”
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