Since Lavater took Christ literally,—as described by the Scriptures, and by most commentators,—he let this representation serve so far for the supplement of his own being, that he ideally incorporated the God-man into his own individual humanity, until he finally was able to imagine himself melted into one and united with him, and, indeed, to have become the same person.
This decidedly literal faith had also worked in him a perfect conviction that miracles can be wrought to-day as well as heretofore. Accordingly, since in some important and trying emergencies of his earlier days, he had by means of earnest and indeed violent prayer, succeeded in procuring an instantaneous and favorable turn of the impending calamity, no mere cold objections of the reasoning intellect would make him for a moment waver in this faith. Penetrated, moreover, by the idea of the greatness and excellence of Humanity as restored by Christ, and through Him destined to a blissful immortality, but, at the same time, fully sensible of the manifold requisitions of man's heart and mind, and of his insatiable yearnings after knowledge, and, moreover, feeling in himself that desire of expanding himself into the infinite to which the starry heavens seem so sensibly to invite us, he wrote under these feelings Iris "Prospects of Eternity," which must have appeared a very strange book indeed to the greater part of his contemporaries.
All this striving, however, all wishes, all undertakings, were overborne by the genius for physiognomy, which nature had bestowed upon him. For, as the touchstone, by its blackness and peculiar roughness of surface, is eminently fitted to distinguish between the metals which are applied to it; so that pure idea of humanity, which Lavater carried within himself, and that sharp yet delicate gift of observation, which at first he exercised from natural impulse occasionally only and accidentally, but afterwards with deliberate reflection and regularly, qualified him in the highest degree to note the peculiarities of individual men, and to understand, distinguish, and express them.
Every talent which rests on a decided natural gift, seems from our inability to subordinate either it or its operations to any idea to have something of magic about it. And, in truth, Lavater's insight into the characters of individuals surpassed all conception; one was utterly amazed at his remarks, when in confidence we were talking of this or that person; nay, it was frightful to live near a man who clearly discerned the nicest limits by which nature had been pleased to modify and distinguish our various personalities.
Every one is apt to believe that what he possesses himself may be communicated to others; and so Lavater was not content to make use of this great gift for himself alone, but insisted that it might be found and called forth in others, nay that it might even be imparted to the great mass. The many dull and malicious misinterpretations, the stupid jests in abundance, and detracting railleries, this striking doctrine gave rise to, may still be remembered by some men; however, it must be owned that the worthy man himself was not altogether without blame in the matter. For though a high moral sense preserved the unity of his inner being, yet, with his manifold labors, he was unable to attain to outward unity, since he did not possess the slightest capacity for philosophical method, nor for artistic talent.
He was neither Thinker nor Poet; indeed, not even an orator, in the proper sense of the term. Utterly unable to take a comprehensive and methodical view, he nevertheless formed an unerring judgment of individual cases and these he noted down boldly side by side. His great work on Physiognomy is a striking proof and illustration of this. In himself, the idea of the moral or of the sensual man might form a whole; but out of himself he could not represent this idea, except practically by individual cases, in the same way as he himself had apprehended them in life.
That very work sadly shows us how in the commonest matter of experience so sharp-sighted a man, may go groping about him. For after spending an immense sum and employing every artist and botcher living, he procured at last drawings and engravings, which were so far without character, that he is obliged in his work to say after each one that it is more or less a failure, unmeaning and worthless. True, by this means, he sharpened his own judgment, and the judgment of others; but it also proves that his mental bias led him rather to heap up cases of experience, than to draw from them any clear and sober principle. For this reason he never could come to results, though I often pressed him for them. What in later life he confided as such to his friends, were none to me; for they consisted of nothing more than a collection of certain lines and features, nay, warts and freckles, with which he had seen certain moral, and frequently immoral, peculiarities associated. There were certainly some remarks among them that surprised and riveted your attention; but they formed no series, one thing followed another accidentally, there was no gradual advance towards any general deductions and no reference to any principles previously established. And indeed there was just as little of literary method or artistic feeling to be found in his other writings, which invariably contained passionate and earnest expositions of his thoughts and objects, and supplied by the most affecting and appropriate instances, what they could not accomplish by the general conception.
Abuse of the Term—Genius.