Maclean The Logic of Physiognomony in the Late Renaissance

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Early Science and Medicine 16 (2011) 275-295 www.brill.nl/esm

e Logic of Physiognomony in the Late Renaissance

Ian Maclean All Souls College, Oxford*

Abstract is article studies the advances made in the logic of Renaissance physiognomy fromthe state of the subject in antiquity and the Middle Ages. e properties and accidentsof the human body are investigated in the context of the signs selected by physiogno-mers, whether univocal or in syndromes, strong or weak in character, negative orpositive, consistent with each other or contradictory. When these signs are translatedinto propositions, the construction of argument which flows from them is shown tobe ut plurimum reasoning, in which an element of quasi-mathematical proto-proba-bility and hermeneutical thinking (in the treatment of ambiguity and obscurity) maybe detected. ese allow the question “is x more likely to be the case than y or z? ” to be

answered through a variety of procedures. Renaissance physiognomy is shown to be adiscipline in which a novel combination of rational procedures come together, and asite of conceptual change in respect of property and accidence.

Keywordsphysiognomy, logic, Renaissance, probability, semiology, hermeneutics, proprium,accidens

Like medical diagnosis and various other divinatory practices, physi-

ognomony is grounded in the interpretation of signs. In an ideal world,the interpretation of such signs would yield indubitable knowledge; butfor that to be the case, a number of necessary conditions have to besatisfied in traditional logic. The sign would have to refer to one thingonly; it would have to be in a straightforward causal relationship to thatthing; it would have always to designate that thing; its absence wouldhave to signify the absence of the thing; it would have to be intelligible

* Ian Maclean, All Souls College, Oxford OX1 4AL, England ([email protected]).



276 I. Maclean / Early Science and Medicine 16 (2011) 275-295

(i.e., it would have to be expressed in a language not of proper but ofcommon terms); it would have to be clear (as opposed to obscure),

univalent, complete and immediate. In other words, the sign wouldhave to give access to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but thetruth; the truth in this case being a correspondence, or as the philoso-phy of the Middle Ages and Renaissance would have it, “an adequationof the thing to the intellect.”1

It will come as no surprise that for reasons which arise not only fromthe nature of the human subject, but also of the sign itself and even ofscholastic logic, this ideal situation does not obtain. The physiogno-

monic treatises (broadly understood) inherited from the ancient worldand the Middle Ages by the Renaissance, while for the most part madeup of inventories of signs, refer to a variety of semiological and logicalproblems, all of which are appropriated and repeated by their lateremulators.2 The question therefore arises: was anything written in thelate Renaissance which would have surprised the most astute of theancient or medieval authors, such as pseudo-Aristotle, Anonymus Lati-nus, Michael Scot, or John Buridan, or which could not have beenconceived of by them (even if they did not actually articulate it)?3 I think that there is, and that it is to be found in a drift from logictowards hermeneutics and proto-mathematical probability, as well asin subtle semantic transformations of a number of terms, most notably

1) All these potential difficulties are mentioned in pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica .On the notion of truth, see Gudrun Schulz, Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei :Untersuchungen zur Wahrheitslehre des omas von Aquin und zur Kritik Kants an einemüberlieferten Wahrheitsbegriff (Leiden, 1992).2) Martin Porter, Windows of the Soul: e Art of Physiognomy in European Culture,1470-1780 (Oxford, 2005) contains an exhaustive bibliography of ancient, medievaland Renaissance texts.3) See Simon Swain (ed.), Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul: Polemon’s Physiognomy fromClassical Antiquity to Medieval Islam (Oxford, 2007) (with editions and translationsof the texts of Polemon, Adamantius, Anonymus Latinus and pseudo-Aristotle); Jole

Agrimi, Ingeniosa scientia nature: studi sulla fisiognomica medievale (Florence, 2002); Josef Ziegler, “Text and Context: On the Rise of Physiognomic ought in the LaterMiddle Ages,” in De Sion exibit lex et verbum domini de Hierusalem: Essays on MedievalLaw, Liturgy and Literature in Honour of Amnon Linder , ed. Yitzak Hen (Turnhout,2001), 159-82; and id., “Philosophers and Physicians on the Scientific Validity ofLatin Physiognomy, 1200-1500,” Early Science and Medicine , 12 (2007), 285-312.



277I. Maclean / Early Science and Medicine 16 (2011) 275-295

probabilitas , coniectura , certitudo , genus , proprium and accidens ; and theexplicitly loose use of terms and logic in the discipline of medicine

which were carried over into physiognomony (or borrowed from it, insome cases) which I have discussed at length elsewhere. This articlebrings together into a single argument the scattered material relatingto physiognomony and logic in my previous investigations.4 In a muchmore extensive study, one might contextualize the changes that occurin this field inside the discourses and institutions in which they occurred;here I am going to give an internalist account of them, in order to makepossible in due course a comparison with the logical analysis employed

in physiognomonic texts of later periods.

1. e Problem of Demonstrative Knowledge in Physiognomonyand Medicine

Physiognomony in the Middle Ages was defined by one of its earliestand most influential exponents, Michael Scot, as a ‘scientia naturae’:that is, a body of knowledge obeying certain rules of argument which

is subalternated to natural philosophy. Some commentators referred tophysiognomony as a necessary (i.e., demonstrative) science, but JohnBuridan does not, preferring to associate it with ‘probability’, by whichhe means that it has the character of a ‘scientia a posteriori’, that is, onethat relies not on necessary premisses but on ones which are plausibleor true for the most part, and which depends on effects and not causes.5

When physicians begin to discuss physiognomony in the later Middle Ages, they stress the fact that the bodily signs accessible to the senseson which physiognomony depends demonstrate the interaction of soul

4) Ian Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance: e Case of Learned Medi- cine (Cambridge, 2001), esp. 181-88, 315-19; idem, Le monde et les hommes selon lesmédecins de la Renaissance (Paris, 2006), 95-109.5) e first quaestio (“utrum per physonomiam potest haberi aliquod certum iudiciumde moribus hominum”) in Buridan's quaestiones on Aristotle’s Physiognomy (Oxford,Bodleian Library, MS Can Misc. 422, fol. 112r) makes this claim: “…quia moresmutantur etiam dicendum est quod de casu sit certum iudicium de moribus actualibussed tamen de inclinatione naturali ex quo tunc verisimiliter arguitur ad omnes actualeset non consequentia necessaria sed vere similiter probabilis.” I owe this reference tothe reader of this article for ESM.




and body, and they link this to the theory of temperament or complex-ion, according to which humoral changes affect behaviour and can be

perceptible to the physician’s gaze and his other senses.6 This associatesphysiognomic signs with a causal structure, and dignifies the practiceof physiognomony thereby.7 The aspiration to characterize physiog-nomony as demonstrative led one Renaissance commentator (JacquesFontaine) to reorganize the text of the pseudo-Aristotelian Physiogno- monica , so as to turn it into an a priori science like the Physics , in whichthe causes are stated ab initio in the form of principles or premisses.He does however concede that even in this form, physiognomony is

a scientia ut plurimum; that is, it applies only in most cases, and itsnecessity is therefore not that of a demonstrative science.8 Like medi-cine, physiognomony comes to be described as an art as well as a science,possessing necessary, true and invariable praecepta , even if it is con-

6) Ziegler, “Philosophers and Physicians,” 311 points out that Bartolomeo della Roccaalias Cocles links physiognomony also to celestial causation, which according to himlies behind every natural object in the sublunary world. Pietro d’Abano had producedthe same claim two centuries earlier in his Liber compilationis physiognomiae . I owe

this point to the anonymous reader of this article for ESM.7) See Ziegler, “Philosophers and physicians,” esp. 310 (quoting Pietro d’Abano’s defi-nition: “physiognomia est scientia passionum anime naturalium corporisque acciden-tium habitum vicissim permutantium utriusque”; and Jole Agrimi, Ingeniosa scientianature: studi sulla fisiognomica medievale , Florence, 2002).8) Jacques Fontaine, Phisiognomia Aristotelis ordine compositorio edita ad facilitatemdoctrinae [...] commentariis illustrata brevissimis et propter methodum praespicuam facil- limis (Paris, 1611), 5-13: “Aristotelis laborem doctis offerens, methodum resolutivamsub obscuram addiscentibus est sequutus, nos studentes facilitati dedita opera inveni-mus eum ordinem, evitantes prolixitatem et diversarum opinionum enumerationem,

[…] Physiognomia est subalternata Physicae […] satis nobis esse debet si alteramnecessitatem quam noster author vocat ex suppositione et ut plurimum posset in hacreperiri”; Guglielmo Gratarolo, Opuscula: de memoria reparanda, augenda, conservan- daque, ac de reminiscentia: tutiora omnimodo remedia, praeceptiones optimae. De prae- dictione morum naturarumque hominum, cum ex inspectione partium corporis, tum aliismodis. De temporum omnimoda mutatione, perpetua et certissima signa et prognostica (Basle, 1554), 75: “physiognomiam scientiam esse necessariam, quo per ipsam prae-dicimus aptitudines naturales ad affectus vel mores: quo vero per ipsam praedicimusaffectus vel mores actuales nec est scientia necessaria, nec firma: verum quia hominesplerunque vivunt sensu, et non nisi sapientes vivunt ratione, ideo physiognomia etscientia praedicendi mores actuales et affectus ut in pluribus, quoniam plures appetituet sensu vivunt quam ratione.”




jectural in respect of its practice; physiognomony and its allied divina-tory practices come also to be characterized as a combination of ratio

(the rules) and experientia (their application to individual cases by apractised exponent).9

2. Genus , proprium, Accident

Renaissance thinkers had new materials at their disposition, includingnovel medical theories of diagnosis and prognosis, the rhetorically struc-tured dialectic of Rudolph Agricola and Petrus Ramus, and a number

of newly available ancient texts, most notably Galen’s Quod animi morescorporis temperamenta sequantur and Hippocrates’s Airs, waters, places .10 They incorporated this richer textual resource in their works, and devel-oped some of its propositions in subtle ways inside the parameters ofdiscussion permitted by theological authorities. The interaction of souland body, and other material determinants which act on the humanbeing such as region, climate, diet, mode of life, race and sex cameunder renewed scrutiny.11 But such material influences were not seen

as wholly determinant, except in the case of animals12

: the much-quoted

9) Girolamo Cardano, De libris propriis , in Opera omnia , ed. Charles Spon (Lyon,1663), I:144, declares that Physiognomony is a “contemplatio maxime rationalis,iudicium postulans, et participationis dialecticarum regularum Ptolemaei usum exer-cens”: Ptolemy’s rules are set out in Cardano’s Dialectica (ibid ., I:307); also Iodocus

Willichius, Physiognomonica Aristotelis latina facta: addita est eiusdem interpretis oratioin laudem Physiognomoniae (Wittenberg, 1538), A4r. (reference to “physiognomonica[…] experientia et ratione confirmata”); ibid ., B2v: “neque physiognomiae praecepta

necessaria sunt, sed propensionem quamdam commonstrant.” For a full discussion ofrelevant parallels with medicine, see Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance .10) On these points see ibid .11) Fontaine, Physiognomia , 15 gives four possible meanings to “aliud sequi aliud”: “uteffectus suam causam; ut causa secundaria primariam; ordine temporis et proportione;ut causa sequitur instrumentum in agendo,” the last of which applies to soul and body(23): “anima operando sequitur corporis dispositionem, et per consequens ex dispo-sitionibus corporis licet coniicere inclinationes et propensiones animae naturales.”12) addaeus Hagecius ab Hajek, Aphorismorum metoposcopicorum libellus unus (Prague, 1562), sig. B1v: “Quod ad certitudinem huius artis attinet, id cogitare singulidebent, artem esse qualis Medicina et Astrologia, quae quanquam utraque cultior sithac nostra, et certa Methodo constituta: tamen quia versatur circa ea, quae plaerumque




case of the sexually moderate and clever Socrates (whose appearanceled Zopyrus the physiognomer to declare that he was by nature lecher-

ous and stupid), showed the exercise of reason could combat and annulmoral propensities. Geographical determination was also not absolute:Scythians might be stupid as a rule, and Athenians clever: but there wasat least one example of a Scythian philosopher, and at least one asinine

Athenian.13 These exceptions within the rule have an effect of looseningthe meanings of such terms as ‘genus’ and ‘signum’; it can in extremis reduce physiognomonic interpretation to unique acts of judgement

without any general application.14 I shall begin with a brief examination

of the first term, before passing to the nature and logic of the second.The zoological parallels used in physiognomony allow its practitio-ners to assert that animals are determined in their nature and cannotuse reason to liberate themselves from it; in this sense physiognomonyis a necessary science, as it relates to invariable relationships betweendispositions and corporeal features. But there is a problem in determin-ing the nature of given features: are they proper to their species (hencepart of the formal definition of their substance) or are they accidents,arising from transient and contingent material changes in secondaryqualities (accidentia are both the qualities which are non-essentially

accidunt, in eo cum eis communicat. Ingenium, mores, fortuna, et casus quidam nonobscure cognosci possunt, et plaeraque signa habemus certissimorum eventuum, etplura profert dies in lucem. Non potest etiam haec ita sibi constans et perpetua essein hominum naturis, ac in brutorum animantibus, propterea quod haec solo naturaeinstructu feruntur, illae vero etsi ad quaedam sunt propensae; tamen institutione eteducatione plaerumque mutantur.”13) Fontaine, Physiognomia , pp. 13: “omnes homines ut plurimum sequi solere incli-

nationes suas naturales”; Cicero, Disputationes Tusculanae , iv.80; Apuleius, Apologia ,24.33; Galen, Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequantur , in Opera omnia ,ed. C.G.Kühn (Leipzig, 1821-33), IV:822. e Secretum secretorum attributes theSocrates anecdote to Hippocrates,14) Camillo Baldi, In Physiognomica Aristotelis commentarii [...] ed. Girolamo Tam-borini (Bologna, 1621), 45: “non enim nos de toto genere humano iudicium ferretentamus,neque de omnibus humani generis passionibus, sed de quibusdam et decertis hominibus tantum […] certo in loco habitantibus, et certas quasdam habentibusconditiones, iisdem cibis vescentibus, et consimiliter corpus exercentibus, ac demumde ipsis individuis similiter, et non omnes animi passiones iudicamus, sed eas tantumquibus accidit mutare corpus […].” e use of certus as a synomym of quidam is ofinterest here.




associated with substances, and, in more strictly medical terms, symp-toms). In zoological treatises, the definition of genus depends on the

distinction between proprium (which relates to the essence) and accident(which is only qualitative). The former question may require a speciesto be defined in defiance of what is commonly accepted (the white crowis a crow, for example; blackness is a quality, and cannot be part of thedefinition of the species). This may also lead to the designation as anaccident of a qualitative feature that none the less seems to be a property(e.g., the fact that man’s hair goes grey); such features are referred to asinseparable accidents. As the sixteenth century progresses, one may

detect a greater willingness to accept a merging of proprium and acci-dent. Some theorists even speak on the authority of Galen of ‘propriaaccidentia’.15 As a result of this development, ‘property’ can encompasscertain accidental features in zoological and botanical treatises, and thishas consequences not only for the concepts of genus and species, butalso for the physiognomonic sign, to which I shall now turn.

The locus classicus in which semiological inference is related directlyto physiognomony is set out in Aristotle’s Prior Analytics ii.27 (70b12ff.):

[Supposing that] one grants that body and soul change together in all naturalaffections [...] and also that there is one sign of one affection, and that we canrecognise the affection and the sign proper to each class of creatures, we shall ableto judge character from physical appearance [...] in the first figure, provided thatthe middle term is convertible with the first extreme, but is wider in extensionthan the third term and not convertible with it: e.g., if A stands for courage, B forlarge extremities and C for lion. en B applies to all of that to which C applies,and also to others, whereas A applies to all that to which B applies, and to nomore, but is convertible with B. Otherwise there will not be one sign of one affec-tion.

The condition of univocality is stated, together with that of convert-ibility (all those with large extremities are brave; all brave animals have

15) See Ian Maclean, “White Crows, Graying Hair and Eyelashes: Problems for Natu-ral Historians in the Reception of Aristotle’s Logic and Biology from Pomponazzi toBacon,” in Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe , ed. GiannaPomata and Nancy Siraisi (Cambridge, Mass., 2006), 147-79. Galen refers to “idionsymptoma” (see ibid ., 174).




large extremities: this is a proprium, in logical terms). Several otherconditions are implied (clarity; the absence of the sign must betoken

the absence of the character trait; the character trait must be the causeof the sign). Under these conditions, the predicate ‘courageous’ is acorrect demonstrative inference from the sign ‘having large extremi-ties’.16

Problems arise from this Aristotelian example. The first of these isthe fact that univocal proper signs of this kind are not in fact found inphysiognomony: at best, inferences are usually made from a number ofsigns (indeed, it is said to be folly to rely on one sign alone).17 The

stricter logicians refuse to accept that this is demonstrative in an Aris-totelian sense18; but others are willing to consider them so. These writ-ers (among them Sanctorius) accept that the proposition p is a correct

16) Giambattista della Porta, De humana physiognomonia (Hanau, 1593), 57-59.17) Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica , ii, 806b 36ff.: “Generally speaking, it is foolishto put one’s faith in any one of the signs: but when one finds several of the signs inagreement in one individual, one would probably have more justification for believingthe inference true.” Fontaine, Physiognomia , 40-45; Baldi, In Physiognomia Aristotelis

commentarii , 41; Della Porta, De humana physiognomia , 55 points out that this appliesto common signs only, and adds a confirmation of the point from a Galenic source:“uni signorum credere fatuum esse, scilicet communium: sed plura circa unum con-venientia pensiculanda esse, et plura testimonia ad unum accommodanda, ut ex iis moxsecurius iudicium proferatur. Quod est etiam a Galeno confirmatum, qui Physigno-monos multum errare crederit, quid uni signorum credant, nisi proprium signum idfuerit.” See also Galen, De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis , v.5, in Opera , ed. Kühn, IV:257 (the error of Posidonius). Cf. Fontaine, Physiognomia , 34: “[…] signa autem suntaut propria aut communia, quae a Galeno dicuntur propria vel inseparabilia. Siquidemex communibus signis suas textuerit ratiocinationes aliquis, non erit demonstrativa

argumentatio. Nam demonstratio ex propriis et necessariis constat ex Aristotele lib 1de demonstr. Neque certe rationi consonum est, si cervo cum cane aliquod signumest commune, illud magis significare mores cervi quam canis: ut enim propria signaaliquid peculiare denotant, ita communia commune, quae Physiognomo nullo modocommoda esse possunt.”18) Sanctorius Sanctorius, Methodi vitandarum errorum omnium, qui in arte medicacontingunt libri quindecim (Geneva, 1630), col. 84 (on the four common signs ofpleurisy): «Error logicus committitur, quia quatuor signa pathognomica universalitersumpta constituunt argumentum a positione consequentis ad positionem antecedentis,veluti si homo, est animal, sed est animal, ergo est homo, quod non valet, est enimin secunda figura ex duabus aff. et multis modis peccat, ut alibi ostendimus, est dolorlateris, tussis, difficultas spirandi, et febris acuta, ergo pleuritis, non valet nisi sic fiant




and demonstrative inference from the syndrome of signs s1,s

2, s

3[…];

in the case of courage, for example, we might add to large extremities

a loud voice and a hairy chest, and produce a syndrome.19 In medicine,such a syndrome is known as a pathognomonic sign: one which un-equivocally allows the doctor to infer the presence of one illness andno other. The logical consequences of this are spelt out by Cardano,

who writes as follows:

Pathognomonic signs must be either proper or inseparable (i.e., pertaining to anaccidental feature of the body which is inalienable), or both […] From a propersign it is valid to argue as follows: a certain sign is present, so a certain passion(i.e., illness) is present. From an inseparable sign, it is valid to argue in the nega-tive mode as follows: a certain sign is absent, so a certain passion is absent. Fromsigns which are both proper and inseparable, it is valid to argue both affirmativelyand negatively […] [in the case of pleuritis] five signs are invoked, all inseparable,none proper: acute fever, stabbing pain, difficulty in breathing, coughing, a hardand dense pulse. All these signs are inseparable, but it is valid to argue in the neg-ative mode in the following way: there is no acute fever, therefore there is no pleu-ritis; there is no stabbing pain, therefore there is no pleuritis, etc. But none of thesigns is proper, so it is not valid to argue as follows: there is an acute fever, so there

is pleuritis, because acute fever is a sign of other illnesses. From this it results thatthere is a proper and inseparable sign, from which it is valid to argue both affir-matively and negatively as follows: all five signs are present, so it is necessarily acase of pleuritis; not all the signs are present, so it is not a case of pleuritis.20

convertibiles termini, est dolor lateris pungitivus, ergo pleuritis: et caetera limitentur,et coarctentur signa propria, ut infra, si velimus inferre consequentias.”19) Ibid .: “Nota autem, ut aliquid certi dicere possumus duo requiris, unum est, utplura signa sint, quae idem testentur, alterum est, ut nullum quod designat contrariumaffectum, vel consequens ad contrarium, adsit, ut dico fortem hunc esse, primum quo-

niam habet magnas extremitates, latum pectus, pilosumque, os grande, carnem durum,deinde quoniam in eodem non apparet quid quam eorum signorum, quod vel timoremarguat, vel animi mollitiem, vel avaritiam, quae duo per se quidem non opponunturfortitudini, at comitari soleat tamen timiditatem.” Different combinations of signsmay of course yield a range of different conclusions: [Anonymus Latinus], De diversahominum natura prout a veteribus philosophis ex corporum speciebus reperta est, cogno- scenda , ed. Antoine du Moulin (Lyon, 1549), passim gives worked examples of this.20) Cardano, De epilepsia , in Opera , X:398: “de pathognomonicis agendum est quaedenotant nobis passiones, ubi suppono signa debere esse, vel propria, vel inseparabilia,vel utrumque: si signa nullum habeant horum trium, frustra adducuntur a medicis; insigno proprio licet arguere affirmative, est illud signum; ergo illa passio; in signo insepa-rabili, licet arguere negative, est illud signum; ergo neque illa passio; in signo quod




There is an inductive implication here: the four signs must be an ex-haustive enumeration of relevant signs, as set out in Prior Analytics ,

ii.23, (68b 29), otherwise the logic does not work. The signs which aredescribed here as inseparable accidents can of course be transient: thereare also physiognomonic signs which are of this nature and yet whichare effects of moral states (blushing, for example, is a sign of a propen-sity to shame). Any attempt to accommodate temporality in the logicof signs leads however to considerable difficulties which I shall pass overhere.21

The introduction of proper and inseparable (or proprium and accidens

inseparabile ) reveals two more problems. The first is that the objectof physiognomony (the material human body) is subject to temporalchange and is itself radically individual. Its signs are therefore like thoseof Rhetoric , i.2 (1356b 1ff., likely or probable signs which occur onlygenerally (‘hos epi to polu’: ‘ut multum’, ‘ut plurimum’, ‘magna exparte’); that is to say, even if generally they are accepted as having acertain referent , they are capable of having a different one. This hastwo consequences:

1. We may now have to consider the following adaptation of a syl-logism in the first figure (i.e., one in which the major and minor prop-ositions are both universal and affirmative):

habeant utrumque, licet arguere, et affrimative, et negative: et quamquam in praesentimorbo [epilepsia] Paulus adducat multa signa quae nihil habeant in se certitudinis,quoniam non sunt neque propria, neque inseparabilia, tamen Galenus adducit tria,

quae sunt inseparabilia, nullum tamen est proprium. Sed ex illis tribus simul collectisfit unum signum proprium, et est quomodo in pleuridite; ibi adducuntur quinquesigna, omnia sunt inseparabilia, nullum eorum per se est proprium, sed omnes simulefficiunt unum signum proprium: acuta febris dolor pungitivus, difficultas anhelitus,tussis, pulsus durus, et densus. Omnia haec sunt inseparabilia, et ab eis licet arguerenegative, non est febris acuta, ergo non est pleuritis; non est dolor pungitivus, ergonon est pleuritis; sed tamen nullum est proprium; neque enim valet, est febris acuta,ergo pleuritis, quoniam febris acuta est etiam in aliis morbis, et sic de aliis. Ex hisefficitur unum proprium et inseparabile, a quo licet arguere, et affirmative et negative:sunt omnia haec signa, ergo necessario est pleuritis: non sunt, ergo non est.” See alsoMaclean, Logic, Signs and Nature , 289-90.21) See ibid ., 293-303.




A is for the most part BB is for the most part C

A is therefore for the most part C

This is true logically, as the quantifier (for the most part) is not distin-guished from the quantifier (all) when applied to predicates. It is notnecessarily true mathematically, if we assign finite values to ‘for the mostpart’ and to the terms A, B and C.22

2. The second problem concerns the rule and exception. If thingsare only what they are as logical categories for the most part, then the

definition by genus and differentiae (e.g., man is a mortal, rationalanimal) fails; identity of species become dangerously close to similarity.This is clearly perceived by doctors at the time, who refer to ‘for themost part’ definitions (or rather descriptions) to account for the variety

within animal species: or to put it differently, they apply the rhetoricalrule of ‘more or less’ in determining normality (being born with sixfingers does not make one a monster; but being born with two headsdoes). The same rule is applied to zoology by natural philosophers in

respect of animal traits such as beaks.23

This threatens the parallels madein physiognomony between animals and humans.

3. Semiological Inferences and Hermeneutics

As well as the object of physiognomony posing problems, there are alsoproblems arising from weak or fallacious semiological inferences. Theseare enumerated in Aristotle’s various logical treatises. It is legitimate to

reason from signs for particular cases as follows: All who have milk are pregnantThis woman has milk

Therefore she is pregnant.

22) See ibid ., 186-89.23) Ian Maclean, “Evidence, Logic, the Rule and the Exception in Renaissance Law andMedicine,” Early Science and Medicine , 5 (2000), 227-57; idem, Le monde et les hommes .




But the following syllogism is a fallacy:

Pittacus [shows signs of] goodnessPittacus [shows signs of] wisdom

Therefore all wise men are good

And this syllogism, which is more insidious, is an example of the fallacyof the consequent: (all A is B; therefore all B is A):24

All who are pregnant are sallow This woman is sallow

Therefore this woman is pregnant.25

This last syllogism also demonstrates the problem of plurivalency insigns: sallowness has more than one referent, as does pallor, for example,

which may betoken a number of moral or physical propensities: mel-ancholy, fear, love, coldness, anger.26

One might assume that such errors are peremptorily rejected, butthis is not the case. The logician and medical doctor Claude Aubéry (d.

1596), for example, produces an alternative version of the physiogno-monic syllogism, not in relation to bodily features but to the curativeproperties of plants, which, according to Paracelsus whose disciple heis, have physiognomies. This runs as follows:

Coltsfoot is associated with pulmonary congestion Therefore pulmonary congestion is associated with coltsfoot.27

This is reminiscent of the weak inferential associations referred to byGiambattista della Porta in his Physiognomonica , and related to a rhe-torical rather than logical argument (or more precisely, enthymeme) of

24) Aristotle, De sophisticis elenchis , vii, 169b 10f.25) Aristotle, Prior Analytics , ii, 27, 70a 2ff.26) Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature , 148-59, 181-89.27) Ibid ., 131-32: Claude Aubéry, Organon, id est, instrumentum doctrinarum omniumin duas partes divisum, Nempe, in analyticum eruditionis modum, et dialecticam, sivemethodum disputandum in utramque partem (Morges, 1584), 151. On Paracelsus andphysiognomy, see Maclean, Le monde et les hommes , 102.




which the standard example comes to be the following: “Atalanta isn’ta virgin, because she goes wandering in the woods with young men.”

Della Porta’s examples are “he is poor, therefore he is obsequious”; or“he is irascible, morose, blunt, therefore also envious.”28 In both cases,the consequence of the first term or set of terms follows necessarily fromthe theory of character, but may not be supported by physiognomonicsigns.29 A final example, which we shall meet again, is the following,taken from Aristotle’s work on sophisms: this man is smartly dressed,or is seen to be wandering around at night: therefore he is an adulterer.30

These are examples of faulty inferences: there are also weaknesses in

the nature of the sign, arising from the fact that it may not have therequired degree of certainty. Doctors and physiognomers concede thattheir concept of sign, just as their concept of genus, is looser than thatof logicians.31 They acknowledge the following semiological problems:

1. Not all the propensities of the human body yield signs, and notall the signs on the human body betoken propensities. Some naturalpropensities, and all acquired dispositions (such as being a mathemati-cian) produce no signs32; and there are signs which are not caused bypropensities, such as insignificant lines on the face and hands. We may

28) Della Porta, De humana physiognomonia , 49: “est et alter mores coniectandi modus,quem nullus ante Aristotelem aggressus est, ut ipse in suis Physiognomonicis testatur:et hic modus syllogisticus est, per quem ex duabus vel pluribus passionibus alias possi-mus coniectari, et aliae inferuntur, cuius apud Rhetores est usus, Hic pauper est: ergoblandus. Si ex signis hominem cognoscimus iracundum, tristem, et immorigeratum;possumus ex his continuo inferre, hunc etiam invidiae nota carere non posse, sednecessario invidum esse, etsi in eius facie, vel corpore invidiae notae nullae extant, ethunc modum dialectico adscribit, cum ex una conclusione illata, aliam inferat; nam

tria illa accipiuntur, ut priora et antecedentia, et quarta affectio, ut conclusion infertur.”See also Aristotle, Rhetoric , i.2.8, 1355a-b; Quintilian, Institutio , v.9.12.29) eophrastus’s Characters do not have much impact in the Renaissance, but variouscharacters as moral types were known through Aristotle’s Rhetoric , ii.12-14, 1388b ff.30) De sophisticis elenchis , v, 167b 9f.31) Emilio Campilongo, Semeiotike , ed. Johann Jessenius a Jessen (Wittenberg, 1601),f.12r; Scipione Chiaramonti, De coniectandis cuiusque moribus et latitantibus animiaffectionibus σηµέιωτικη moralis seu de signis (Venice, 1625), 2.32) See Della Porta, De humana physiognomonia , 49. Fontaine, Physiognomia , 12 refersto Matthew 6:16, and the reverse possibility (that hypocrites can counterfeit the signsof a sad countenance while fasting); Gratarolo, Opuscula , 75 refers to John 7:24 in asimilar vein; ibid ., 77, on natural as opposed to accidental signs.




link the presence of redundant signs to theories of codes current in thelate Renaissance, where they are known as nuls.33 This brings together

the hermeneutical practice of deciphering language with that of deci-phering bodily signs. A consequence of this is the emergence of twopossible approaches to signs, which mark today the difference betweenphenomenological semiology and that of analytic philosophy: in theone case, all signs are said to be reducible to propositions; in the other,a clear difference is maintained between signs which do not involve aprocess of mental translation (e.g., measle spots), and those which do(e.g., linguistic utterances). This distinction is often expressed in the

Renaissance as one between intelligible and sensible signs.34

SeveralRenaissance physiognomers speak of the body as though as of a text.35

33) Cardano, Metoposcopia , 1-5, cited in Maclean, Le monde et les hommes , 95-99; idem,Logic, Signs and Nature , 292n (on nuls).34) Girolamo Cappivaccius, Opera omnia , ed. Johann-Hartmann Beyer (Frankfurt,1603), 282: “signum ergo medicum est propositio”; Giovanni Argenterio, Opera (Venice, 1606-7), 101: “porro sive signa, sive indicia, vel notas, vel alio verbo voces,quod rem occultam declarat nihil referre velim. Non enim inter haec nomina eam dif-

ferentiam agnoscimus, quam Graeci ponunt inter semeion et tekmerion quod sicilicet,hoc necessarium sit indicium, illud vero non necessarium existat. Atque illud etiamignorari nolim, latius a nobis signi nomen sumi quam ab Aristot. capiatur. Ille enimtantummodo ab effectis signa sumi docet. Nos vero quicquid potest aliquid eorumquae in corpore nostro fiunt significare, nomine signi donamus. Porro significareest tacite admonere unum ex alio: fit autem tacita haec admonitio ex comparationerei significandi cum significata, simul enim a[t]que facta est huiusmodi comparatio,deprehendit intellectus quod quaerebat: qua ratione ex fumo significare ignem dici-mus. Nam quum notum sit effectus a suis causis nasci, non mirum est si uno cognitoaliud protinus animus concipit, id quod est significare, quapropter eadem re utimur

ad significandum, indicandum, et demonstrandum, nam ex causa morbi relata adea quae facienda sunt in aegrotis elicitur indicatio, ex eadem confecto syllogismo fitdemonstratio ad symptomata morborum probanda, quum autem affectionem ali-quam congoscere volumus absque expressa ratiocinatione causa huisumodi signumsit. Omnia ergo haec probant ex uno diversa, prout ad diversa referuntur.” On themodern debate, see Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature , 155. Some commentators classsigns by Aristotelian category: see Baldi, In Physiognomica Aristotelis commentarii , 22.Scipione Chiaramonti, De coniectandis cuiusque , 3: “signum est sensibile quippiam,quo existente vel facto, mos certus subest, vel necessario, vel probabili nexu. Dicovero necessario, vel probabili nexu, ut a necessitate abstraham, quae vix unquam insignis morum reperitur.”35) Cardano, Metoposcopia , 1-5; Della Porta, De humana physiognomia , 52.




Individual signs are said in one ancient text to be analogous to letters36;this means that the words they spell out are subject to the same rule as

that pertaining to language, namely, that communicability is only pos-sible through common signs. If all individual characters expressed them-selves through unique signs equivalent to proper names, then there

would be no communication. (This is the third discipline-specificmeaning of proper we have met).37 So the signs on the body, althoughproper or inseparably accidental to the body bearing them, must formpart of a common vocabulary to yield physiognomonic information. Asubsequent problem arising from common signs is the fact that they

do not form part of a demonstration, for which convertible proper signsare needed, as has already been said. So there is a potential confusionof grammar, logic and hermeneutics on this point.38

2. A second problem, also analogous to linguistic analysis, arises fromambiguity and obscurity. Ambiguous meaning in utterances arises eitherfrom plurivalence in words or from different construals of grammaticalrelations; the same can apply to the signs on the body. Individual signsmay betoken more than one thing, or in combination they may yieldseveral senses. Obscurity is also a common problem. In both cases,

protocols of disambiguation or clarification have to be established. This would be easier in the case of bodily signs, if they all had a simple causalrelationship to that of which they are a sign (large extremities causebravery); but they may also arise from an effect; or from both cause andeffect.39

36) [Anonymus Latinus], De diversa hominum natura , 3: the parallel with letters andatoms derived from Lucretius is found in medieval texts discussing atomism, and itmay well have theologically dangerous undertones. Zenon Kaluza, “Le De universalireali de Jean de Maisonneuve et les Epicurei litterales,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Phi- losophie et eologie , 35 (1986), 465-516; also idem, Les querelles doctrinales à Paris:nominalistes et réalistes aux confins du XIVe et du XVe siècles (Bergamo, 1988); LucaBianchi, Censure et liberté intellectuelle à l’Université de Paris (XIIIe-XIVe siècles) (Paris,1999). Letters (from the Psalms) are also used in the interpretation of dreams (see AllSouls College, MS 81, f. 211-2).37) Physiognomica , i, 805b 22: “if anyone were to pick out the individual characteristicsof each animal, he would not be able to explain of what these are the signs”; Fontaine,Physiognomia , 34, cited above, note 16.38) Fontaine, Physiognomia , 35-639) Chiaramonti, De coniectandis cuiusque moribus , 3 divides signs as follows: “causainfert effectum [signum effectus latentis]; effectus infert causam [signum causae




3. Except in the case of proper, (convertible) signs, the absence of asign does not necessarily betoken the absence of a propensity. A passage

from Aristotle’s Rhetoric to Alexander , xii (1430b 30ff.) makes some ofthese points:

One thing is a sign of another—not any casual thing of any other casual thing,nor everything whatever of everything whatever, but only a thing that normallyprecedes or accompanies or follows a thing. Something happening may be a signnot only of something happening but also of something not happening, and some-thing that has not happened may be a sign not only that something is not a factbut also that something is a fact. A sign may produce either opinion or full knowl-

edge; the best kind of sign is one that produces knowledge, but one that causesan extremely probable opinion is the second best kind.

Here mention is made not only the possibility of signs bearing negativeinformation, and of absence or omission being possibly a sign of some-thing positive, but also of a hierarchy of certainty, to which I shallreturn.

4. We shall have also to come to grips with the possibility of theconfluence of contrary signs in a given case. A number of principles

can be adduced to deal with such contrary indications. The first is tosuspend judgement, a course recommended by at least one text.40 Thesecond is to believe the greater number of mutually consistent signs.The third is to give credence to the stronger signs (‘signa potentiora’).Various hierarchies are provided to enable this choice to be made, themost common being that the preference is to be given to signs of andclose to the eyes; thereafter the face; and in last place those associated

with the abdomen.41 A final category of sign is the sign or selection of

latentis]; effectus infert effectum [signum rerum consensus [sive] sympathia].” Cf. Cas-par Peucer, Commentarius de praecipuis divinationum generibus (Wittenberg, 1553), f.60r: “[signa] sive causae significatorum, sive effectus, sive causis effectibusve copulata.”40) Pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica , ii, 806a 25ff.; Camillo Baldi, In Physiognomica

Aristotelis commentarii , 44: if signs are not “certa et habent contrarietatem aliquaminter se, tali casu suspendendum est iudicium, nisi alterum signum altero praevaleat.”41) Ibid ., 46, (from eyes to abdomen); another hierarchy of signs is given on p. 41:“signa quae sumuntur ab apparentia, quam vocant morem, et a motibus, et a figuracorporis, omnino aliis sunt efficaciora, vel quoniam minus ad voluntate pendent, velquoniam magis ab ea animae parte, quae virtus est in corpore, et immediatius nas-




signs designated by an authority (a seasoned physiognomer) to be dom-inant in any one act of judgement.42 This has a medical parallel in the

practice of indication. The doctor who has to decide the treatment, thestrength of the dosage and the frequency of its administration does soby an act of intuition informed by his knowledge of the precepts of themedical art and his practical experience.43 The physiognomer deals withequivocal information in the same way; or he follows the conditionallogic set out in a worked example by Anonymus Latinus, who uses onesign to attenuate the force of another:

is man has the eyelids of a chatterer, but the brow of a thinker and the eyes ofa madman. e brow does not allow him to be a complete chatterer and the eye-lids detract from the thoughtful brow; then again the fierceness of the eyes ratheraffects the state of the brow. According to these things, the man is judged less ofan inopportune chatterer and impetuous character rather than obviously mad.44

4. Proto-probability

We have now reached a point where logic, which has already in one

case given way to hermeneutics, now gives way to an inchoate ver-sion of probability: in other words, the question is not “what is entailed,implied or presupposed by x” but “is x more likely y or z?”45 Such

cuntur, faciei enim appraentiam pro libito non mutabis, neque corporis formam, autsaltem maxima cum difficultate.” 42) Fontaine, Physiognomia , 46.43) Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature , 306-14.44) [Anonymus Latinus], De diversa hominum natura , 11.45) Camillo Baldi, In Physiognomica Aristotelis commentarii , ch. 5, 41-46: “qua rationeprocedendi sit in iudicando et quibus signis maior fides, quibus minor sit adhibenda?”In a complex and dense exegesis of the pseudo-Aristotle, Physiognomonica , ii, 806b36ff., Baldi says that it is impossible for there to be opposite affections in the samesubject at the same time, or for signs to be perfectly equal in force. He asserts that morethan one sign must be invoked, sets out two orders of signs (‘certiora’ and debiliora’),and a number of rules, among which are the following: “1. cui inest apparentia conse-quens actum talis passionis, ille inest propensio ad talem actum et operationem secun-dum illam passionem et dispositionem; 2. Quorum hominum corpora, vel actionesaliquod certum animal referent, illorum etiam animi propensiones et mores eiusdemanimalis imitantur; 3. Cum duo apparebunt signa contraria, quorum unum altero sitmanifestius, et robustius, secundum id, quod est fortius et robustius est iudicandum.




probability exists in a number of forms in relevant medical and physi-ognomonic texts: relative frequency, dominance, some presence of error,

inexactness, approximation, arguments from suspicion and presump-tion; in other words, forms of deductive or non-deductive inferencefrom complex evidence which take into account its incompleteness.

I have not got the space to review all of these possibilities, but wishhere to draw attention to the act of bricolage by which a judgement isreached about the strength of the evidence for a given conclusion. Inmedicine, the anti-Galenist Giovanni Argenterio (1513-1572) providesan example of a quasi-quantified rule for judging the relative strength

of prognostic signs against their number:

If an equal number of signs are found, those which have the greater force deter-mine the prediction; if the force of the signs is equal, then the greater numberoffers the certain indication of what will happen; but if an equal number of goodand bad signs are mixed together, then recourse will have to be had, as Galen says,to an experienced medical practitioner, who has frequently engaged in predictionand will somehow recognize the hidden powers of the eventual victor and whatprevails in given diseases.46

The patient will not languish because the experienced doctor, unlikeBuridan’s ass, will always be intuitively inclined to one interpretationof the evidence over all others.

4. Si duo signa aequalia, et aequaliter apparentia, et oppositas passiones designantiain eodem subiecto reperientur aliquando, quorum unum sit prioris ordinis, et alterumposterioris secundum indicationem signi, quod est prioris ordinis iudicabimus.” [eordo is given on p. 46: “[plura signa posterioris ordinis] certa, stabilia et simul conve-nientia, superant illud, quod quamvis sit primi ordinis, tamen solitarium est.” But itis also true that “plura paucioribus semper, apparentia magis iis quae minus apparentet certiora act pollentiora incertioribus, et debilioribus praecellunt […].” [AnonymusLatinus], De diversa hominum natura , 10 has a rather different list of rules (“multapaucis praeponenda sunt; clara obscuris; potiora minoribus”).46) Argenterio, Opera , col. 1780: “quod si par numerum [signorum] reperiatur, quaemaiorem vim habent, praedictionem attrahunt: quod si aequalis signorum vis fuerit,maior numerus certa praebet futuri indicia, at si bona malis permixta vi et numeroparia videantur, exercitato in artis operibus viro opus est, inquit Galenus, qui ea saepe-numero sit contemplatus, latentesque adhuc quodam modo vicentis vires, et quid insingulis morbis praevaleat, praenoverit.” Camillo Baldi, In Physiognomica Aristoteliscommentarii , 46 reports Agostino Nifo as saying that it is impossible for two signssignifying two opposite passions to be truly equal.




The text which first expressly submits all these logical problems to aprimitive version of quantified analysis and transforms the standard

examples is a book on physiognomony published in 1625 by ScipioneChiaramonte (1565-1652), who taught mathematics at Perugia and,later, philosophy at Pisa. There, the author gives the much-quotedexample of the sign of pallor betokening a finite number of things(melancholy, fear, cold, anger, amorous passion), and shows how a pal-lid individual can be interpreted as being increasingly likely to be suf-fering from one of these states by a process of elimination; if four ofthe five could be eliminated this would allow one to be certain as to

how to interpret the sign. This logical process can also be transferredto cases of infinite probability, where the common signs of a conditioncan form a syndrome of signs which is persuasive. If (in the standardexample I have quoted) a woman has breast milk, it may be the casethat she is pregnant; if she also has amenorrhea, bizarre appetites, fre-quent vomiting, and is lethargic, she is more likely to be pregnant.

Chiaramonte points out that most physiognomonical signs are com-mon or equivocal, and have to be conjoined with others to yield evenprobable information (e.g., wandering around at night is a sign of anadulterer, a thief, a sleepwalker, and no doubt other things; wearingfine clothes is a sign of an adulterer, a rich man, an actor, and no doubtother things; but wandering around at night in fine clothes is more likelyto be a sign of an adulterer than of anything else).47 This example is

47) Chiaramonti, De coniectandis cuiusque moribus , 5-6. e sequence of reasoningruns as follows: the fully satisfactory case is of a sign as cause, in the first figure: who-ever exposes his life for a friend truly loves him; Pylades exposed his life for Orestes;

therefore Pylades truly loves Orestes. In the second figure, the sign cannot be usedconvertibly: whoever is afraid is pale; John is afraid; therefore he is pale; and it caneven give rise to paralogisms: Hector is strong; Hector stutters; therefore all stutterersare strong. But the paralogism of the last example can be eliminated in the case of aperfect induction (i.e., one which covers every individual case, showing that Hector,

Achilles and Samson, the only three men who can be called strong, all stutter); andthere are ways of increasing the probability of the second case. Let us say that pallor isa sign of a person who is afraid, a person in love, a person who is cold, a person who isangry, and a person who is falling sick (and nothing else). e syllogism: pallor is a signof fear; John is pallid; therefore John is afraid ‘lacks necessity’ and only has ‘refractedprobability’, according to Chiaramonte; but if you can show that John is not in love, isnot afraid, is not cold and is not angry, with each successive demonstration “a certain




adapted by Chiaramonte from the Aristotelian sophism I have alreadymentioned above (p. 287), and shows the proximity of this sort of

reasoning to modes which were universally seen to be erroneous at thistime. The same form of reasoning can be found in diagnostic writing.48

5. Conclusion

I am now in a position to offer an answer to the question: what would Aristotle and Buridan have found surprising about the discussions ofthe logic of physiognomony at the end of the Renaissance? They would

certainly have been aware of the ut plurimum character of the art, andthe problems arising from the hierarchy of signs; what might have

(and growing) degree of probability is reached” (“quod, si ostendatur, qui pallet, nonamare, gradus aliquis accedit probabilitatis. Crescit autem, si neque aegrotare mon-stretur. Quod, si alia omnia membra; praeterquam timoris tollerentur, argumentumevaderet ex numeratione sufficienti partium. […] vagari noctu est signum communeadulterii, sed convenit et aliis, ut furi. Ornatus vestium est signum et ipsum adulterii

commune. Singula debilem fiem adulterii faciunt, at simul congesta maiorem, quoplura vero coniungimus signa, eo magis intenditur vis rationis.” An interesting medicalparallel is offered by Giambattista da Monte, Medicina universa , ed. Martin Weindrich(Frankfurt, 1587), i.107: “argumentum a signis consequentibus verisimilibus, et ubimulta signa concurrunt, suspicionem augent, licet certitudinem non faciant. Ita in hocnobili iuvene [the subject of the consultation about a patient possibly suffering fromsyphilis] est suspicio accessisse aliquam infectionem primo ex bubonibus, et ulceribuspudendorum quae in omnibus solent contingere ante morbum gallicum licet nonvertatur; ita ut non in omnibus qui bubones et ulcera pudendorum patiuntur, mor-bus gallicus consequatur. Accedit gravitas capitis prius non percepta, quae sequitur ad

eum morbum et curavi multos, et credo Clariss. hos Doct. multos etiam vidisse quinullum aliud symptoma habebant praeter dolorem capitis, et tamen laborabant morbogallico. Praeterea in ulceribus est adustio et nigredo, quod si furunculi quos patitur,sedem etiam duram seu basim solidiorem haberent, augeretur magis suspicio, ita utdevenirem ad certiorem coniecturam. Hinc habeo magnam suspicionem ex omnibussimul additis de morbo gallico [...].”48) Sanctorius Sanctorius’s Methodi vitandarum errorum, cols. 57-58, is not presentedas a mathematical approach, but by employing six sources of signs and using themas a means of eliminating possibilities, it operates very much as Chiaramonte’s risingscale of certainty. Sanctorius claims here that it will provide indubitable results, butelsewhere (cols. 94-116) only that it will provide the most probable result. See Maclean,Logic, Signs and Nature , p. 300-1.




surprised them were the consequences for zoology (the rethinking ofaccidence and property), the application of hermeneutics and rhetorical

analysis (not in the service of persuasion, but of argument and approx-imative truth), and the new proto-quantified version of probability.The symptomatic word groups which reveal these changes are thoseconcerning genus, accident and proprium; those concerning the excep-tion and the rule; and those concerning certainty, conjecture and prob-ability. What is specially striking, is the competing senses of given wordsin different disciplinary settings (proprium for example, or probabilisor certus or coniectura 49); as physiognomony is a place where several

disciplines meet, it becomes a privileged site of conceptual change inthe late Renaissance.50

49) Fontaine, Physiognomia , passim and 42: “signa magis perspicua et certiora”; 45:“collectionem [signorum] rationi consonam et probabilem”; Camillo Baldi, In Physiog- nomica Aristotelis commentarii , 41-47 has many uses of certus and probabilis showingsemantic variation or slippage; also Della Porta, De humana physiognomia , 55 (‘fixissignis’). [Anonymus Latinus], De diversa hominum natura , 3 (du Moulin’s reference to‘verisimila coniecturae’) and Johannes de Indagine, Fisionomia con grandissima brevitàda i libri di antichi filosofi , ed. Antoine du Moulin, trans. Paolo Pinzio (Lyon, 1550),

ff. 3-4 on the uncertainty of the sciences of his day, but the need to make conjectures(without which America would not have been discovered). He associates the revival ofphysiognomony and chiromancy to this willingness to make guesses. On the changeis some of these word groups, see Ian Maclean, “Expressing Nature’s Regularities andtheir Determinations in the Late Renaissance,” in Natural Law , ed. Lorraine Dastonand Michael Stolleis (Aldershot, 2008), 29-44. On ‘gradus certitudinis’, see Maclean,Logic, Signs and Nature , 183n. On conjecture, see ibid ., 290-91.50) I have not addressed the questions about the change from the Middle Ages to theRenaissance suggested by Ziegler, “Philosophers and Physicians,” 312 (did the relega-tion of the Secretum secretorum to the sidelines of scholarly discourse play a significantrole in undermining physiognomony’s status as a valid science? Where was physiog-nomony being discussed—in academies or in universities?).



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Maclean The Logic of Physiognomony in the Late Renaissance