'Acquainted With His Real Character'

We all do it, even the most sophisticated and open-minded among us: we draw conclusions about people based on their physical appearance. Sure, there’s pretty/handsome versus ugly/plain. Most men will pause when they see a beautiful woman. That’s natural, not depraved. But we read faces and bodies in ways other than aesthetically. In The Spectator on this date, June 8, in 1711, Joseph Addison writes: “[E]very one is in some Degree a Master of that Art which is generally distinguished by the Name of Physiognomy; and naturally forms to himself the Character or Fortune of a Stranger, from the Features and Lineaments of his Face. We are no sooner presented to any one we never saw before, but we are immediately struck with the Idea of a proud, a reserved, an affable, or a good-natured Man; and upon our first going into a Company of Strangers, our Benevolence or Aversion, Awe or Contempt, rises naturally towards several particular Persons before we have heard them speak a single Word, or so…