Insight Editions · No. 448
Studies in Character Analysis
Phrenology, Palmistry, Physiognomy, Graphology and Oriental Character Analysis
Manly P. Hall
Hall's practical survey of five arts that read character from the body: phrenology, palmistry, physiognomy, graphology and Chinese face reading, with their rules, history and an ethic of kindness.
A study guide to Studies in Character Analysis by Manly P. Hall (Studies in Character Analysis, Philosophical Research Society, Los Angeles, 1980 (introduction dated February 1958; 2009 layout); introduction and five parts). Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the author or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
CORE CLAIM
Hall surveys five traditional arts that read character from the body: the skull (phrenology), the hand (palmistry), the face (physiognomy), handwriting (graphology) and the Chinese system of face and body omens. His shared premise is that the inner life marks the body, and his ethic is that analysis must encourage, never condemn.
SCOPE
An introduction on evidence and ethics, then five practical outlines: Gall's phrenology with its three temperaments, three regions, seven groups and 42 faculties; palmistry's hand types, mounts, lines and time measures; physiognomy from Aristotle and Porta to Lavater, with zones, the Line of Incident and the features; graphology's size, slope, shape, spacing, strokes, capitals and signatures; and the Chinese axioms Hall learned from a visiting physiognomist in San Francisco.
KEY FIGURES
Franz Joseph Gall; J. G. Spurzheim; George Combe; O. S. and L. N. Fowler; James Braid; Gardner Murphy; Cheiro (Count Louis Hamon); Aristotle; Giambattista della Porta; Jerome Cardan; Joannis Taisnier; Richard Saunders; Johann Kaspar Lavater; John Evelyn; Cesare Lombroso; Napoleon; Elizabeth I; Abraham Lincoln.
BEST FOR
Readers curious about the history of character reading, writers and artists who want a vocabulary for faces and hands, and anyone who wants to see how these systems worked from the inside before weighing what science has made of them.
The Book on One Page
Five handbooks in one: how traditional analysts read the skull, the hand, the face, the pen and the Chinese omens, framed by Hall's plea for kindness.
This is Hall the reference writer, not Hall the mystic. Originally a set of articles, the book gives working outlines of five arts of character reading, with their history, their categories and their rules of delineation. It is plain, orderly and often practical, closer to a field manual than to a philosophy.
The book has one premise and one ethic. The premise is that "the internal life is revealed through both structure and function of the body," so that skull, hand, face and script should agree. The ethic is that the analyst "will never condemn, but will seek to strengthen the good." Hall wants these arts revived as vocational guidance, a way to help young people find their work.
"Structure tells us what the person is; while expression and mannerism tell us what he does." This line from the physiognomy chapter is the key to all five systems.
Why Hall wrote it. The articles date from the late 1950s, when psychology was rising and the older arts were in disrepute. Hall's aim is not to defend every rule but to keep a body of observation from being lost, and to suggest that modern vocational and personality psychology might find useful leads in it. He is also writing as a teacher of self-knowledge: every chapter turns its findings toward what the reader can do about weaknesses. That pastoral tone separates the book from fortune-telling manuals, even where the content overlaps.
What this edition adds. Each chapter keeps Hall's structure and rules in compressed form, with tables and diagrams for the main categories, then closes with a critical lens on what later research found. The aim is to let the reader see each art as its practitioners saw it, and then to see it as the evidence does.
| Ch | Title | One-line payload |
|---|---|---|
| Intro | Introduction | Tradition, observation and experiment; train the analyst; never condemn. |
| 1 | Phrenology | Gall's brain map read by head shape, not bumps: temperaments, regions, groups and 42 faculties. |
| 2 | Palmistry | Hand types, seven mounts, major lines and time measures; prints record change. |
| 3 | Physiognomy | From Aristotle to Lavater: three types, four zones, the Line of Incident and the features. |
| 4 | Graphology | Script read whole, then by size, slope, shape, spacing, strokes, capitals and signature. |
| 5 | Oriental Character Analysis | Chinese axioms of body and face, recorded from a master in San Francisco. |
Read it as a historical document and a vocabulary, not as a diagnostic tool. Every system here has been tested and failed controlled tests of predictive validity. What survives is Hall's ethic: observe carefully, judge slowly, read the whole person and use what you see to help.
"There is more to every individual than we can ever know, and the analyst ... must be endowed with a certain gentleness and humility of spirit."
THE ANALYST'S TEMPERIntroduction
Hall sets out his case for open-minded study and his rules of conduct: train hard, read the whole, never condemn.
An outline, not a course. Hall calls the book "an outline of popular systems." Serious students must read the long literature and also the critics, whose doubts "should be examined in a spirit of open-minded investigation." He argues that a negative scientific verdict is not final, since scientific opinion "has frequently been reversed."
Three criteria. Any branch of learning is judged by tradition, observation and experiment. Character analysis has the first two in abundance; experiment is harder, but partly met by applying the rules in daily practice. Hall's star witness is Cheiro, who told him he had read over 25,000 hands in nearly fifty years and tracked the careers of his clients.
| Criterion | Hall's claim | The weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Tradition | Centuries of honoured practice | Age does not prove accuracy |
| Observation | Records kept by famous analysts | Hits remembered, misses forgotten |
| Experiment | Rules applied in practice | No blind tests offered |
| Sincerity | Pioneers lost money and prestige | Sincerity is not evidence |
System and practitioner. Two questions decide reliability: is the system true, and is the analyst well trained and free of prejudice? Hall compares medicine, where doctors also disagree. He grants that experience sharpens intuition, but says analysts themselves insist their conclusions come from the rules and the body in front of them.
Hall knew "a genial and delightful old gentleman" who analysed young people for their parents. Clients found his suggestions "inspiring and helpful," and many of his findings were borne out. Any art "which impels the individual to search in himself for neglected abilities" meets a real need.
Fatalism and harm. Could readings discourage people? Hall thinks it unlikely: serious practitioners have "strong humanitarian instincts," and there is "an unwritten law against dismal delineations." The danger lies with amateurs. And the personnel manager already judges by appearance; better that he be trained than guided by private prejudice.
One body, many readings. If the systems are sound, they should agree. Hall notes that people who consult several kinds of analyst report readings "fundamentally in agreement."
"If we believe that we have discovered important character traits in another person, we will never condemn, but will seek to strengthen the good." Any other attitude "reveals our own immaturity."
Doctors disagree too. Hall's comparison with medicine is worth following. Two physicians may read the same symptoms differently, yet nobody concludes that medicine is false. The difference, he admits implicitly, is that medicine can test its diagnoses against later events in a controlled way. Character analysis has records, but they were kept by admirers. Hall's answer is that those admirers "would not have failed to notice glaring or frequent errors." That is a reasonable hope, but it is not a test.
Martyrs, not exploiters. The founders of these arts, Hall says, were not out for money: "Most of them suffered much more in terms of loss of prestige and depletion of income than they ever gained." Lavater, Fowler and Spurzheim were "sober and sincere persons, defending their convictions against ridicule and even scientific persecution." The point matters for his reader: he wants these figures treated as researchers, not showmen.
Vocational guidance. The strongest practical case Hall makes is for the young. Most young people "drift along, uncertain as to the profession or trade for which they are best suited." Character analysis in past centuries did the work now called vocational guidance, and Hall thinks vocational psychology "would be strengthened" if it knew the older principles. As Lavater said, the habit of reading character sharpens judgment in every profession.
The analyst exposed. Hall closes the introduction with a shrewd warning. If we condemn someone on the strength of our reading, our harshness "might well be used against us by another analyst." The way we read others is itself a reading of us. Knowledge of character exists so that "we may live better," and only that use justifies it.
Hall's own position. Hall does not claim to have proved anything. "Our purpose is not to prove, but merely to present certain long-accepted traditions and practices." The final judgment, he says, "rests with those who master their principles, accepting or rejecting by valid evidence alone." That is a fair standard, and it is the one by which the critical lenses in this edition measure each system.
Hall's evidence is testimonial: famous names, long careers, satisfied clients. That is exactly the kind of evidence that the Barnum effect explains, where people accept vague, flattering descriptions as accurate. Agreement between readings may reflect shared cues such as dress, speech and manner, not the rules. Cheiro's "Count Louis Hamon" was a self-styled title; he was born William John Warner. The ethic is sound; the epistemology is not.
Phrenology
Gall's map of the mind on the skull, read by overall head shape: three temperaments, three regions, seven groups and forty-two faculties.
Gall and his heirs. Phrenology is "an empirical system of physiology" that works like a psychology. Its founder, Franz Joseph Gall (born in Baden, 1758), studied in Strasbourg and Vienna and became physician to the imperial family. He announced his craniology around 1800, presented it to the Institute of France in 1808 and died in 1828, his skull placed in his own collection.
Spurzheim and Combe carried it further and coined or spread the name. Combe examined the heads of Queen Victoria's children in 1846 at Prince Albert's request and advised on their education. In America, the Fowlers produced the famous busts and charts.
- Franz Joseph Gall. Founder, "the physiology of the brain."
- J. G. Spurzheim. Systematiser and populariser.
- George Combe. The Constitution of Man; adviser to the royal household.
- O. S. and L. N. Fowler. American busts and the 42-faculty chart.
- James Braid. Saw faculty responses under trance in 1841.
Brain as instrument. Hall rejects the materialist reading. The brain is "the instrument through which the mind, a super-physical but not a supernatural structure, reveals its activities." The real objection, citing Gardner Murphy, is not localisation itself but itemising traits like "the poetic gift" into "minute corners of the brain."
Partial support. Hall cites the work of Fritsch, Hitzig and Brodmann on speech and motor areas, and a frontal-lobe surgery case in which judgment, restraint and memory declined. These, he says, "may not be said to confirm phrenology," but they weaken the blanket denial that faculties have locations.
"There is nothing in phrenology which declares that faculties are to be measured from the hills and vales of the skull's surface." The analyst imagines a centre near the pons and measures radial lines to the skull's edge. The longer the line, the stronger the faculty. Faculties show in groups, not as isolated knobs.
Organic quality. The first question is refinement. Coarse features, thick skin and gross extremities suggest less delicate attitudes; fine texture and mobile expression, where moods mark the face instantly, suggest a body "available to the purposes of the mind." Beauty is no guide: Hall cites Lincoln's rugged grandeur.
Size. "All other things being favorable, size is an indication of power." But size must be read against the body: "you cannot discover a wise man with a tape measure." Napoleon had a large head on a small body, showing vigour and ambition but, Hall says, weakness in idealism and veneration.
| Temperament | Build | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Motive | Wiry, muscular, long face, strong cheekbones | Ambitious, decisive, emphatic, undiplomatic |
| Vigorous (Hall's second type) | Heavy-set, round face, short neck, small hands and feet | Agreeable, humorous, versatile, amiable |
| Mental | Slender, egg-shaped face, high forehead, fine hair | Graceful, imaginative, artistic, slightly melancholy |
Mixed types. Pure temperaments are rare; most people are compounds such as mental-motive, and the blend shows versatility or divided interests.
The seven groups. Within the regions sit seven groups: moral-religious, semi-intellectual, rational, perceptive, selfish sentiments, selfish propensities and social or domestic. A broad, deep back of the head puts emphasis on personal concerns; a dominant crown on the noblest sentiments.
Forty-two faculties. The Fowler chart lists 42, from amativeness at the base of the skull to agreeableness at the front. Some are familiar (benevolence, firmness, hope, causality); others are period terms like philoprogenitiveness (love of children) and inhabitiveness (love of home). Each is assigned to a spot on both sides.
Scoring. Some practitioners rate each faculty from 1 to 10, with 5 the norm. Strong development in one group usually means weakness in an incompatible one: "Higher intelligence is usually incompatible with destructiveness and acquisitiveness."
Not fortune-telling. "Phrenology is not a predictive art." Its purpose is to show developed and undeveloped capacities, and "the recognition of undeveloped faculty areas is a constant invitation to self-improvement." Hall claims heads change somewhat with use, and that over-developed faculties can be balanced by cultivating others.
Modesty for the amateur. The pioneers examined thousands of heads; a beginner should be "appropriately modest and refrain from all excessive or dogmatic conclusions."
Delineation by landmarks. Locating faculties precisely is the practical difficulty. Phrenologists use three fixed points: the bridge of the nose, the opening of the ear and the occipital bump at the base of the skull. Distances forward, back and up are learned from the chart. Hands are needed mainly because hair hides the shape; the analyst is "simply discovering the true shape of the head, and not looking for bumps."
A typical American head. Hall notes that the American head "is likely to be a compound," as one would expect of a mixed population. One temperament still dominates, and contributions from the others are weighed in the final judgment. If the regions conflict with the temperament, the direction of the conflict becomes part of the reading.
Compatibility and polarity. Many phrenologists believed compatibility between two people could be read from their heads. Another school held that in men the right half of the head is positive (strength toward externals) and the left negative (strength toward the self), and the reverse in women. Imbalance between the two sides of the same faculty then became a point of analysis.
Faculties in combination. "All human aptitudes and abilities result from the combinations of consistent factors." A gift needs support: musical talent (tune) without continuity, time and order is unlikely to produce a composer. "When such consistency is not apparent, excellence or outstanding achievement are unlikely." This is the most defensible idea in the chapter, since it treats ability as a pattern rather than a single trait.
Heads change. Hall claims that examination of heads at different ages shows modest change as faculties are exercised. Work can enlarge areas that were weak, while most people follow their inclinations, so the head usually stays consistent. The doctrine is optimistic: no one must "live with his character as it is."
Combe's examination of the royal children in 1846 was the high point of phrenology's social standing. Prince Albert called him back to re-examine them and thanked him in writing for "the kind interest you have taken in their welfare." Within a generation, scientific opinion had moved decisively against the system.
Why it mattered. Phrenology's failure should not hide its influence. It was among the first attempts to treat the mind as something with parts that could be studied through the body, and it encouraged ordinary people to think about education by aptitude. Its popularity in Victorian Britain and America helped spread the idea that character could be improved by training, which is the part Hall most values. The chart was wrong; the hope that people can know and develop themselves was not.
Phrenology was refuted in the 19th century: Flourens's lesion studies found no such faculty map, and skull shape does not track the brain beneath it in the way required. A 2018 Oxford study of about 6,000 brain scans found no meaningful link between scalp curvature and personality-related faculties. Braid's trance subjects are better explained by suggestion. Gall's real legacy is the idea of localisation, later confirmed for speech by Broca in 1861, not his chart.
Palmistry
Hand types, seven mounts, the great lines and their timing: chiromancy as a rule-bound art, with prints that record change.
Old and widespread. Chiromancy reads the flexion folds of the palm, which "like fingerprints, differ with every individual." Hall cites Chinese practice of five thousand years, Greek references and Indian tradition, with the art reaching Europe largely through the Roma.
Why it lasted. Two reasons: it is simple, and its rules were fixed early into "a series of inflexible rules," so readings were consistent. There are no dice or cards and "no element of chance." A novice can check his own hand against a standard text.
Cheiro told Hall there were no conclusive physiological data, but that the hands had become closely tied to the mind through use. "Provable or improvable, scientific or unscientific," he believed, character can be read and the future predicted. The proof would lie in the records kept over time.
Prints, not glances. Modern practice takes ink impressions, which show fine lines invisible to the eye and allow comparison over years. Prints reveal that lines change, and Hall asks why, if the folds are only mechanical, the Head Line should change in one person and the Fate Line in another, "coincident with known alterations" in their lives.
Three grades. The elementary hand is coarse, thick-skinned, few-lined. The conventional hand is square and balanced, with more lines. The hypersensitive hand is long and slender, pale, with a network of fine lines.
Four types by fingertip. Blunt rounded tips mark the physical hand; conical tips the mental-emotional; square tips the spatulate hand of energy; slender pointed tips the psychic hand. Many palmists add a "typical American or Anglo-Saxon" blend of square and rounded.
| Finger | Planet | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Index | Jupiter | Judgment, authority, higher mind |
| Middle | Saturn | Fate, destiny, completion |
| Ring | Sun | Fame, fortune, prestige |
| Little | Mercury | Self-expression, versatility, literature |
| Thumb | (none) | Will, self-control or self-indulgence |
The thumb. A thumb at right angles to the hand shows independence; one that clings shows less individuality. A long top joint means strong will; an exaggerated, knob-like top joint, only if the rest agrees, "danger of criminal tendencies." Smooth knuckles are impulsive; knotted ones reflective.
The mounts. Venus at the thumb's base rules passions and appetites; the Moon opposite, imagination; Mars, activity; Jupiter, honour; Saturn, duty; the Sun, recognition; Mercury, versatility. The hollow centre is the Plain of Mars, "the battle-field of the human struggle."
The Heart Line. Ending on Jupiter means sincere, honourable affection; between the first and second fingers, calm sincerity; on Saturn, more selfish and physical emotions. It is the line most often chained or broken, marking emotional strain.
The Fate Line. Its strength marks dedication to one aim, though ordinary success is possible without it. Rising inside the Life Line, the person is held by family early; rising near the Moon, he is helped by others. Stopping at the Head Line, the mind blocked the career; at the Heart Line, the emotions did.
Minor lines and marks. The Health Line is best absent. Marriage Lines sit under the little finger; the Girdle of Venus, if complete, makes for over-romance; the bracelets at the wrist count 25 years each. Among marks, the square protects, the island signals loss, the cross is a burden, the triangle brings order.
A normal line spans 70 to 80 years. Where the Fate Line crosses the Head Line marks about age 40; the Heart Line, about 55. Half the Head or Heart Line is mid-life. Marriage timing is read upward from the Heart Line toward the little finger.
Breaks are warnings. A break in the Life Line marks a period to guard health; in the Head Line, risk to the mind. Hall's practical note is the hopeful one: if the person reorganises his life beforehand, "protective lines may appear." The hand, in this view, records changeable tendencies, not fixed fate.
Right and left. Usually the left shows inheritance and the right what one has made of it, reversed for the left-handed. Signs on both hands count more. The right is normally more developed, showing that "most people do advance beyond their hereditary allotments."
The gorilla's palm. Hall reports that he once examined a gorilla's hand and found the essential lines present but rudimentary, as he expected. He uses this to argue that line complexity grows with sensitivity and skill. The observation is interesting, but primate palms also carry flexion creases for the same mechanical reasons as ours.
Hands and feet. Cheiro believed character could also be read from the feet, as the Chinese do. Hall adds that there is "some scientific ground" for treating disease by pressing nerve centres in hands and feet, a nod to what later became reflexology. He uses it to support the general idea that extremities mirror the whole.
Fingernails. Hall's chart gives health readings for nails: broad curved nails, throat and chest; slender almond nails, delicate lungs; broad shallow nails, the heart; triangular nails, the nerves. Missing half-moons mean low energy, and horizontal ridges show "a recent period of physical or psychological crisis." The last point has real medical support: illness can leave transverse grooves in growing nails.
The quadrangle and triangle. The space between the Head and Heart Lines is the Quadrangle. Clear and well shaped, it shows mental honesty; too narrow, intolerance; too wide, breadth without depth; pinched in the middle, bigotry. The Triangle of Life, Head and Health Lines shows generosity and sincerity when well formed and self-centredness when distorted.
Finding fragments. The Fate and Sun Lines often appear only in short sections. Hall's tip is to imagine a vertical band the width of the base of the relevant finger, running down toward the wrist; small vertical marks inside it are probably part of the line. It is a good example of how the art handles ambiguity: by rule, not by test.
Children Lines. Hall is candid here. Cheiro told him there was no way to distinguish one's own children from adopted children or others one cares for, and the absence of such lines "does not apparently indicate that there can be no children." "Further research on this problem is indicated." The admission is to his credit.
Recommended texts. Hall points students to Cheiro's Language of the Hand (1897), with prints of Mark Twain, Vivekananda, Melba and Sullivan, and to Saint-Germain's Study of Palmistry for Professional Purposes, with 1,250 illustrations.
Why it lasted so long. Of the five arts, palmistry is the most portable: no instruments, no writing sample, only an outstretched hand. A reading is also intimate, since the analyst holds the client's hand and looks closely, which builds trust and encourages the client to talk. Hall does not discuss this, but it helps explain why readings feel accurate: the reader receives a stream of cues from voice, dress and reaction while studying the lines. The rules give structure; the conversation gives most of the content.
Palm creases form before birth, around the third month of fetal life, shaped by hand movement and genes. They do have medical uses: a single transverse crease is more common in some genetic conditions. But studies find no reliable link between Life Line length and lifespan, and no controlled support for character or event prediction. Lines change with age, weight and work, which explains Cheiro's observation more simply than psychology does.
Physiognomy
The face as index of character: Aristotle's animal comparisons, Lavater's observations, three types, four zones, the Line of Incident and the features one by one.
An old art. Physiognomy treats the face as an index of disposition. Its earliest traces are in poets: Homer, Juvenal and Lucian. Physiognomists liked Proverbs: "A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance." Even Francis Bacon allowed a link between mind and features.
Aristotle's device. The first organised work, attributed to Aristotle, compared human faces with those of animals, birds and reptiles. His authority gave the art respectability through the Middle Ages. Avicenna tied it to medicine; Albertus Magnus thought it worth study; Porta drew the "man who looks like the bull."
- Antiquity. Homer, Juvenal, Lucian; Aristotle's treatise.
- Middle Ages. Avicenna, Albertus Magnus; respectable.
- 16th to 17th centuries. Golden age: Cardan, Taisnier, Porta, Saunders.
- 18th century. English law treats physiognomists as vagabonds.
- Lavater (1741 to 1801). Fresh observation, five great volumes.
- 19th century. Bell, Darwin, Lombroso and Havelock Ellis.
Little originality. The 17th-century writers "followed the traditional pattern" and copied each other's woodcuts. Saunders, whose name Franklin borrowed for Poor Richard, said every physician should know physiognomy, and linked it to moles.
Lavater. Johann Kaspar Lavater broke with the tradition and examined "innumerable faces and heads." He is criticised for lack of order, but Hall thinks modern psychology "will ultimately discover Lavater." Later, Sir Charles Bell linked expression to physiology, influencing Spencer and Darwin.
Four uses. Hall lists art (painters exaggerating features to show type), medicine (pain and disease in the face), anthropology (family and group resemblance) and criminology (Lombroso). John Evelyn even analysed famous people from portraits on coins and medals.
| Type | Build | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Elementary | Rough features, asymmetry, strength over fineness | Force, brute power; mind serves body |
| Normal | Better symmetry, controlled body | Average; business or professional ability |
| Sensitive | Fine texture, small pores, delicate build | Creative; body an instrument of purpose |
The soul refines the body. "It is assumed that this entity must gradually conquer the body." The power of the soul "is said to refine the body," making it more responsive. Low organic quality means the soul "has not accomplished its own liberation." This is Hall's metaphysics showing through the manual.
Balance. It is fortunate if zones 1 to 3 are about equal and zone 4 a third smaller. "The temperament is built upward from the chin." A receding chin weakens the personality; a high forehead must be supported from below, great "of itself, and not because the other parts are small."
Draw a line in profile from chin point to the most forward part of the forehead. Vertical means harmony and artistic talent. Slanting inward (forehead forward) suggests the abstract thinker, if the chin holds. Slanting outward (chin forward) means physical drives and shrewd realism.
Astrology on the face. Saunders (1671) spread the zodiac across the face: Cancer at the forehead, Capricorn at the chin, the two ears to Aries and Libra. Modern writers assign the eyes to the luminaries, the nose to Mars, the forehead to Jupiter, the ears to Saturn. Facial marks were used to rectify unknown birth times.
The eyes. "All eyes are alike"; it is the structure around them that speaks. Wide-set eyes show breadth of vision; close-set eyes, narrow perspective. Deep-set eyes mark a strong inner life; protruding eyes, impulse over reflection. Lids veiling the upper third are normal; failure to meet another's gaze is an adverse sign.
The nose. "The nose is to the face what the thumb is to the hand." A large nose carries large purposes; the aquiline nose leads and dominates; the straight Greek nose seeks beauty and fulfilment; the turned-up nose is moody. Wide nostrils mean a strong hold upon life.
Lavater read in Voltaire's portrait greatness and tremendous energy, but no cordiality or "sublimer sentiments." The face "lacks the secret charm which might cause us to transmute admiration into love." He was equally frank about his own engraved likeness, which he thought made him "slightly insipid."
Mouth, chin, ears. A moderate mouth is best; thin lips in a narrow face show hypercriticism; corners that fall reveal years of self-pity, unless happy eyes "rescue the appearance." A well-shaped chin protects moderation; large ears go with benevolence; small lobes, self-centredness.
Expression as test. The analyst may ask leading questions and watch the reaction. A face that stays bland and cannot be moved is "generally speaking, a bad sign," indicating secretiveness and lack of warmth.
"No one feature of the face can be a true index to the total personality." Find the strongest feature, see how it is supported, and look for what breaks harmony, since that shows "where the greatest amount of personality adjustment should be made." Practise first on strangers' photographs.
Beware of prettiness. "Never be misled by superficial prettiness. Look always for strength." People deceived by handsome faces conclude the face lies; Hall says they simply read it badly.
Hair and hairline. Hall reads the retreating hairline symbolically: age should reveal the "abstract qualities of the mind usually concealed in youth." Retreat at the sides shows executive ability; at the centre, less ambition. Fine hair suggests nervous tension and strong imagination; coarse hair, endurance. The red-haired person "is not always the combative individual that he is supposed to be."
The eyebrows. A slight, uneven arch is best. A high, pencilled arch inclines to superficiality; very straight brows bring keenness but "deficiency of sympathy." Bushy brows go with stubbornness, and brows that meet over the nose with "an instinct to violence," so that self-control should be cultivated. Every adverse reading in Hall comes with a remedy.
Remedies, not verdicts. This is the chapter's quiet strength. Close-set eyes: "attain depth of understanding," appreciate others, practise tolerance. Protruding eyes: cultivate responsibility, be punctual, inform yourself so you can join conversation, and do not imagine charm "is a substitute for intelligence." A small nose: strengthen resolution, practise continuity. The analysis is a prompt for self-discipline.
Polarity of the face. If a man's right side and a woman's left side are stronger, Hall calls it adequate polarisation; the reverse makes the man less positive and the woman "unduly aggressive." Such views now read as period assumptions about gender, but they show how thoroughly the system was built on paired opposites.
Posture. The tilt of the head alters the Line of Incident: a raised face makes the forehead seem to recede, a bowed head makes it seem to jut. Scholars tend to stoop; soldiers stand straight. Hall counts posture as legitimate evidence, but warns that it is shaped by vocation as well as character.
Faces of Christ. Lavater compared silhouettes of Christ's head from famous paintings and chose one as "the noblest and best balanced." Taisnier drew idealised heads of Peter and Paul to fit their characters in Scripture. Hall notes the circularity frankly: appearances were "created for them appropriate to the temperaments for which they are remembered."
What survives. Physiognomy has the most living descendants of the five arts. Portrait painters, actors and caricaturists still use its vocabulary; doctors still read pain and illness in faces; and research on facial expression, following Bell and Darwin, became a real science of emotion. What failed was the claim that fixed structure reveals fixed character. Hall's own distinction points the way: expression, which shows "what he does," carries far more information than bone, which he thought showed what a person is.
Research on first impressions shows people agree strongly about what a face "says," but those judgments are weakly accurate at best. Lombroso's criminal types collapsed under testing. Some of Hall's readings carry period bias, such as linking blue eyes with "the rise of Western culture." Modern attempts to infer character from faces by algorithm have drawn heavy criticism for reviving physiognomy with the same flaws.
Graphology
Handwriting as a self-portrait: read the page whole, then size, slope, shape, spacing, speed, strokes, capitals, punctuation and the signature.
A modern art. Unlike the others, graphology "does not descend to us from ancient times." It grew with psychoanalysis, and when tied to it is called psycho-graphology. Its critics say results under test "are inconclusive"; Hall keeps the question open.
Writing reflects culture. Chinese, Egyptian and Maya scripts differ because their makers chose forms by temperament. Medieval scribes and later copybooks imposed standard styles, leaving little room for personality, which Hall reads as a mirror of an age of conformity.
Hall observed that American handwriting had deteriorated in fifty years: little school practice, the typewriter for anything long. The signature stays firm, but the body of a note shows "the mind advancing more rapidly than the hand." "The personal growth and organization of the human being are defeated by the very commodities which he has worked so hard to perfect."
Read the whole page. Pioneers studied single letters; the modern trend is to "consider an example of writing in its entirety," as one would a painting. The best sample is a hasty note, written without knowing it will be analysed. A signature is "a mask, or a dramatic flourish of the personality."
Descriptive words. Bold, angular, rounded, orderly, flowing, cramped: "In most cases, these terms are applicable also to the person." Check consistency: does the writing fade down the page (a starter who loses interest)? Are the margins bad (poor planning)? Is it illegible (giving little, demanding much)?
| Factor | Large or wide | Small or narrow |
|---|---|---|
| Size | Extraversion, wish to be noticed | Analysis, modesty, detail work |
| Spacing | Mental breadth, extravagance | Narrowness, thrift |
| Margins | Artistic, conventional, space-loving | Practical businessman |
| Capitals | Self-esteem, egotism if over four times | Humility, servility if no taller |
| Finals | Generosity, liberality | Abruptness |
Slope. The slope of the line shows mood, rising with optimism and falling with depression. The slope of the letters shows emotion: strong right slant, super-sensitivity; moderate slant, normal feeling; vertical, intellect; backhand, introversion, and in extremes "a life locked within its own internal conflicts."
Open and closed. Tightly shut a, o, d and g suggest secretiveness; partly open ones, frankness. "It is not fortunate to be a one-man closed corporation."
Connections. Linking words suggests logic and obstinacy; separated letters suggest intuition or impatience with logic. Ingenious joins suggest originality.
Speed and pressure. Rapid, consistent writing shows alertness; writing that starts fast and dwindles shows boredom. Labour can mean scholarship and discretion or, if the forms are unpleasant, concealment. Heavy strokes show strong appetites; light down-strokes, freedom from the senses. The ball-point pen, Hall notes, blunts this test.
Flourishes. Ornament signals respect for convention or a wish to be noticed; its absence, intellectual freedom. "Modest writing, like modest clothing, indicates the well-adjusted individual." A mediocre person in high office may develop flourishes from "an almost pathetic desire to be respected."
Punctuation. Careful punctuation shows self-control and a wish to be clear; dashes for everything, superficiality; none at all, irresponsibility. A small cross for an i-dot suggests sentimentality.
The clerk signs "Jonathan Wilberforce Snodgrass"; the executive "J. W. Snodgrass"; the tycoon "Snodgrass," then initials. Napoleon went from "Napoleon Bonaparte" to "Napoleon" to "NAP." Abbreviation tracks rising estate and swelling ego. Elizabeth I's ornate state signature shows "a powerful and self-centered person with highly dramatic instincts."
Collect samples. Hall's last advice is practical: gather handwriting from friends, compare, and learn by experience. Graphology, like the others, is "largely a matter of interpreting basic symbols."
What the signature hides. A signature that matches the body of the letter shows consistency; one far grander than the text shows a personality "not supported by the deeper characteristics." Encircling flourishes suggest secretiveness. "The well-integrated individual writes consistently, signs modestly, and is naturally direct."
Age, illness and crisis. Some of graphology's claims are modest and plausible. Children write in a childish hand, adults more firmly, the aged shakily; certain mental illnesses show disorder in writing as in thought. Hall adds that crises leave marks that disappear when the crisis passes, so diagnosis should include samples from people under strain.
Large people, small writing. Hall notes the curious tendency for tall people to write small and small people to write large, and for bold writing either to show self-confidence or to compensate for a deficiency. Inherited peculiarities can surface in middle life. Genius, he says, can often be detected, but criminal tendencies are hard to see.
Three stages of size. Medium writing without distinguishing marks may indicate an ordinary person "not suited for exceptional attainment"; with interesting variations, an intellectual or executive. Large writing that fits only a few words to a line suggests an exhibitionist. The finest small hand is, at its highest, "mystical, religious, or creative."
Cross-strokes. Bold t-bars show combativeness and resistance to influence; light, clear ones, a serious mind. A t-bar rising at the end strengthens ambition; one falling at the end shows a person "strongly opinionated and persistent." Missing or careless bars suggest an easy-going nature.
Finals and fear. Finals ending in small upward curves show wit and humour; dropping finals, taciturnity. Exaggerated descending finals are linked with fear of death or tragedy. Strokes extended to fill the ends of lines were read by older writers as suspicion: the writer fears words will be added.
Neatness and corrections. "Neatness without flourishes is a good sign." Occasional corrections are fine, but a writer who cannot finish a letter without changing his mind half a dozen times shows disordered thinking. A page with "nearly every fault" is a reason to hesitate before giving its writer responsibility.
Recommended texts. Hall names Teltscher's Handwriting: An Introduction to Psycho-graphology, and older books by Rexford and Baughan. His real recommendation is a collection of samples from people you know.
Graphology in practice. Hall wrote when graphology was moving into personnel work, especially in Europe, where some firms still request handwritten letters from applicants. His own caution is clear: he wants the sample unguarded, the analysis holistic, and the conclusions modest. The trouble is that a handwritten letter also reveals content, vocabulary and education, which carry most of whatever predictive signal exists. Strip those away, as controlled studies do, and the strokes alone say very little about character.
Controlled studies and meta-analyses since the 1980s find graphologists do no better than chance or than untrained people reading the same text for content when judging personality or job performance. Handwriting does carry real information: forensic document examiners match writers, and tremor can signal illness, as Hall notes for age and crisis. The leap from stroke shape to character is where the evidence fails, and graphology should not be used in hiring.
Oriental Character Analysis
Hall's notes from a Chinese master in San Francisco: axioms of body and face that reveal as much about Chinese values as about character.
Hall as amanuensis. A celebrated Chinese physiognomist visited San Francisco and taught a seminar in Chinatown. Hall took the course and copied his rules; "the concepts here set forth are definitely and distinctly his."
The premise. "Every inward emotion and thought impresses itself indelibly upon the body." The Chinese also weigh bone structure for constitution and longevity, and read gestures, voice and taste. In a conventional society, small things, "the manner of holding a teacup," carry large meaning.
The Chinese analyst "neither invents nor digresses." A rule a thousand years old is "twice as true" as one five hundred years old. Hall defends this: "the longer a tradition is remembered, the more likely it is to have meant something," since humanity forgets what it disproves.
| Axiom | Gloss |
|---|---|
| Long legs walk too much | Restlessness, unfinished tasks |
| Long body, short legs, counts money | The settled shopkeeper prospers |
| Round shoulders never poor | Bent by work and by wealth |
| Standing very straight is not healthy | Pride or a hidden infirmity |
| Round-shouldered man reads and becomes wise | The scholar bowed to learning |
| Small feet on large body, comfort | Unfit for haste, sheltered |
| Large feet on small body, restless | Walks out in a crisis |
| Expansive waistline, riches and long life | "Weight and worry are not friends" |
| Successful Buddha-gods are fat | Thin people have bad dispositions |
Hunger and holiness. Hall reads the plump gods of China as the hope of a people who had suffered hunger through history: "the divine state should be associated with a square meal." He notes the West's echo: "a lean and hungry look."
Equal thirds. If the three parts are equal and of good texture, judgment is sound and success likely. Then six features are added: ears, eyes, brows, cheeks, nose and chin. Coarse features limit the field of success but do not deny it.
Forehead and brows. A broad, smooth, unlined forehead gives brilliance between twenty and thirty. Three unbroken horizontal lines promise distinction; a single deep vertical crease detracts, "but may be corrected through a change in temperament." Baldness is "a sign of success." Brows that slant up toward the nose are the "Buddha eye," fit for contemplation.
Eyes. "The dull eye denies success, regardless of other testimony." The long, keen eagle eye gives nobility; deep-set eyes, reserve; close-set eyes, jealousy. Colour does not matter, but the whites should be clear. Fine lines just below the eyes record "good deeds done to others."
"The bigger the earlobe, the greater the blessing." Buddhas and saints have long lobes; "the Buddha ear hears all." Small or missing lobes signify frantic searching for happiness, due "principally to lack of self-control."
Cheeks, mouth and teeth. Full cheeks mean mind controls temper. A mouth that turns up is fortunate: "words from a mouth that smiles will always have force." "Thin lips lie." "Full lips serve others, have many friends, and live life doing good." Even, white teeth "never have to worry about food or clothing."
Chin and nose. A strong, square chin means long life; a pointed chin, nervousness and shorter life. The teacher said Lincoln's chin could not have given him a long life. The nose governs ages 25 to 50: long and slightly arched, executive power; hooked, "sharp nose, sharp tongue." Deep nose-to-mouth lines signify longevity.
Moles. Moles near the brows bring early distinction; near the mouth, the old rule says, danger of violent death. Hall ends on a single fact: "Abraham Lincoln had a mole on both sides of his face near the mouth."
After the axiom that thin people have bad dispositions, Hall adds: "The reader who is on the slender side please remember that this aphorism does not necessarily express the viewpoints of the present compiler." The chapter is a faithful record, with Hall's raised eyebrow visible between the lines.
Bones and breeding. The Chinese system pays special attention to bone structure, "the evidence of the primary constitution, the seat of longevity." It also holds that "superiority is the true aristocracy," and that the true aristocrat must bear the marks of breeding and attainment on his body. The idea is the same as Hall's "organic quality," expressed through Confucian values.
Posture and health. The axiom that standing very straight is unhealthy makes a philosophical point. "Health is not of the body, but comes through the body as the result of an internal philosophical normalcy." A person who stands rigidly erect is either proud or correcting an outward fault. Hall links it to the Platonist image of the empty head of grain that stands tallest.
Hair, beard and harmony. The Chinese rule is consistency first, then texture, then pattern. Thin hair with heavy brows is an ill omen; "Light eyebrows should accompany light moustache." The scholar's few scraggly beard-hairs are "a most elegant and scholarly state of affairs." Colour hardly matters.
More on the brows. Very high arches mark rulers and executives; brows that dip at the outer ends, early difficulty; brows joined in a line, one-pointed will and probable wealth; broken brows, a risk of imprisonment. The longer the brows toward the temples, the greater the distinction and philosophical attainment.
Cheekbones. High cheekbones with full cheeks portend help from superiors. A horizontal cheekbone marks "an unusual individuality" with "a destiny peculiar to himself." A vise-like square jaw is headstrong and dictatorial, "not easy to work with."
American lips. The teacher observed that Americans have shorter upper lips than Chinese, which in his system means shorter lives. Hall records this without comment, along with the teacher's quip that deep lines from nose to mouth "are not fashionable on the face of ladies, but they will live longer, just the same."
What the system values. Read as a whole, the Chinese axioms reveal a culture's priorities: wealth over adventure, settled trade over travel, scholarship, long life, sons and harmony. Hall's teacher reads the body for fortune as much as character, which places this system closer to divination than the Western arts Hall presents earlier.
East and West compared. The Chinese and Western systems share a surprising amount: both divide the face into three or four horizontal zones, both prize balance among the parts, both read a strong chin as endurance and large ears as benevolence, and both insist on blending testimonies. The differences are telling. The Chinese read the face as a timeline of fortune, attend to bone and longevity, and care little for eye colour; the Westerners read temperament and aptitude. Hall's teacher reads the body for what will happen; Lavater reads it for who someone is.
Chinese face reading (mian xiang) is a rich cultural tradition, but its omens encode values such as wealth, sons and status rather than tested findings. Hall's gloss on foot-binding as a mark of refinement is reported without comment and needs one: it was a harmful practice, abolished in the 20th century. The Lincoln mole note is a post-hoc fit, the kind of example that makes any system look predictive.
What the Book Adds Up To
Five systems, one premise and one ethic: the body expresses the person, and whoever reads it must do so slowly, whole and kindly.
Read together, the five parts show one method under different names. Each system starts with the quality of the instrument, sorts people into a few broad types, divides the body into levels that echo mind, emotion and appetite, then reads specific signs and insists that no sign be taken alone. Each ends in counsel rather than verdict. The method's weakness is the same everywhere: its rules were never tested against outcomes by people blind to the subject. Its strength is also the same: it trains attention to people and pairs that attention with an ethic of encouragement. Hall's book is most useful today as a history of how people tried to read each other, and as a reminder that the urge to judge character from appearance did not die with phrenology; it moved into interviews, photographs and algorithms.
There is also a personal lesson in the book. Each system, read sympathetically, is a checklist for self-examination: Am I balanced between thought, feeling and appetite? Do I finish what I start? Is my outward manner consistent with my inner life? Do I give as much as I ask of others, in conversation and on the page? Hall's analysts nearly always turn a finding into a discipline: cultivate tolerance, practise continuity, strengthen resolution, look people in the eye. Those prescriptions do not depend on the shape of a skull or the slope of a line. They are plain moral advice, and they hold up whatever one thinks of the systems that carried them. The best way to use the book, then, is to borrow its attention and its kindness and to leave its certainties behind.
Master Takeaways
- Never condemn. Use any insight to strengthen the good.
- Read the whole, not one sign. Every system warns against isolated features.
- Structure shows capacity; expression shows use. What a person is versus what he does.
- The analyst is half the result. Training and freedom from prejudice decide quality.
- Testimony is not proof. Satisfied clients and famous careers are weak evidence.
- Beware of prettiness. Appearance can mislead an untrained observer.
- Organic quality first. Each system begins with the refinement of the body.
- Three levels recur. Mind, emotion and appetite in skull, face and script.
- Phrenology reads shape, not bumps. Radial measures from a centre.
- Phrenology is not predictive. Its aim is self-improvement.
- The hand records change. Hall's palmists keep prints over years.
- Breaks are warnings, not sentences. Changed habits change the reading.
- The chin supports the face. Temperament is built upward.
- A blank face is a bad sign. Reaction reveals warmth.
- The hasty note tells most. Signatures are masks.
- Modest writing marks balance. Ornament seeks approval.
- Shrinking signatures track ego. Napoleon's "NAP."
- Tradition encodes values. Chinese omens reflect hunger, wealth and family.
- Vocational guidance is the best use. Help the young find their work.
- The urge to read faces persists. It now lives in hiring and algorithms.
Frameworks & mental models
| Framework | What it says | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Tradition, observation, experiment | Three tests for any art | Intro |
| System and practitioner | Reliability needs both | Intro |
| Three temperaments | Motive, vigorous, mental | 1 |
| Regions, groups, faculties | Nested map of the head | 1 |
| Hand grades and types | Refinement plus fingertip shape | 2 |
| Mounts and lines | Planets and life channels on the palm | 2 |
| Four zones | Face read from chin to crown | 3 |
| Line of Incident | Profile angle of chin and brow | 3 |
| Three script levels | Upper, middle and lower zones | 4 |
| Three thirds of life | Face read as a timeline | 5 |
None of the five systems has passed controlled, blind testing of its central claims. Phrenology was refuted, palmistry and Chinese face reading lack predictive support, physiognomic impressions are consistent but inaccurate, and graphology performs at near chance for personality. Hall's appeal to tradition and sincerity cannot fill that gap, and some readings carry period and cultural bias. Yet the book is honest about its limits, asks readers to study the critics, and repeats an ethic, read slowly, read whole, never condemn, that would improve many modern judgments of people.
Who's who
| Figure | Role in the book |
|---|---|
| Franz Joseph Gall | Founder of phrenology |
| J. G. Spurzheim and George Combe | Developed and spread phrenology |
| O. S. and L. N. Fowler | American phrenological busts and charts |
| James Braid | Surgeon who saw trance responses to faculty areas |
| Gardner Murphy | Psychologist, measured critic of Gall |
| Cheiro (Count Louis Hamon) | Famous palmist and Hall's informant |
| Aristotle | First organised physiognomy, animal comparisons |
| Giambattista della Porta | Animal-face woodcuts |
| Richard Saunders | Physiognomy, moles and the zodiac on the face |
| Johann Kaspar Lavater | Leading modern physiognomist |
| John Evelyn | Read character from coins and medals |
| Cesare Lombroso | Criminal physiognomy |
| Napoleon | The shrinking signature |
| Elizabeth I | The dramatic state signature |
| Abraham Lincoln | Rugged face, short-life chin, moles |
Connect it
- AI face and voice analysis. Systems that infer personality or honesty from faces repeat Lavater's leap with more data. Treat such claims with the same tests Hall's arts failed: blind validation against outcomes.
- Hiring and bank onboarding. Hall's personnel manager judges by appearance anyway. In banking and enterprise hiring, structured interviews and work samples are the evidence-based replacement for "reading" people.
- Read the whole, weigh testimonies. Hall's rule of combining signs maps onto model ensembles and risk scoring: no single feature should decide; look for agreement and flag conflicts.
- The Barnum effect in dashboards. Vague, flattering summaries feel accurate. AI-generated reports need specific, falsifiable claims to avoid the palmist's trap.