Physiognomy are irascible". The principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) who was briefly a friend of Goethe. Lavater's essays on physiognomy were first published in German in 1772 and gained great popularity. These influential essays were translated into French and English. Lavater found 'confirmation' of his ideas from the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), and the Italian Giambattista Della Porta (1535–1615). Browne in his "Religio Medici" (1643) discusses the possibility of the discernment of inner qualities from the outer appearance of the face, thus: He reaffirmed his physiognomic beliefs in "Christian
Physiognomy Middle Ages when practised by vagabonds and mountebanks. It was then revived and popularised by Johann Kaspar Lavater before falling from favour again in the late 19th century. Physiognomy as understood in the past meets the contemporary definition of a pseudoscience. Popular in the 19th century, it has been used as a basis for scientific racism, along with physical anthropology. No clear evidence indicates physiognomy works—but the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning for facial recognition has brought a revival of interest, and some studies that suggest that facial appearances do "contain a kernel of truth" about a person's