Volume 2

Essays on physiognomy; designed to promote the knowledge and the love of mankind / written in the German language by John Caspar Lavater, and translated [from the German] into English by Thomas Holcroft; to which are added One hundred physiognomonical rules, a posthumous work by Mr. Lavater; and memoirs of the life of the author, comp. principally from the life of Lavater, by G. Gessner.

  • Lavater, Johann Caspar, 1741-1801
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on physiognomy; designed to promote the knowledge and the love of mankind / written in the German language by John Caspar Lavater, and translated [from the German] into English by Thomas Holcroft; to which are added One hundred physiognomonical rules, a posthumous work by Mr. Lavater; and memoirs of the life of the author, comp. principally from the life of Lavater, by G. Gessner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not, that the morally good will not be saved, will not enter into the heaven of Christ, as soon as they shall know and love him. I hope in God, who is love, and has not spared his only begotten Son, but given him for us all: in this God I hope, that not only the half- christians, but even all the condemned, converted by the mediation of his Son, shall enter his heaven. When I speak of the elect, I mean the Christians who have part in the first resurrection, or if you rather choose so to express it, who, immediately after the resurrec- tion, shall enter the heaven of Christ. 1 am indeed ashamed to leave Socrates behind, even for a moment. Had he seen Jesus, he would have been a good Chris- tian, as Paul was, as soon as he saw him.—But there are not many Socrates. ‘“‘] strongly felt the force of your reasons for the sleep of souls, an opinion to which I had long been secretly inclined, since it at once removes innumerable difiiculties—but we find so many examples, of which we wait the explanation, that seem to indicate a state of conscious existence. I need not remind you of the rich man and Lazarus, whose state after death Christ appears to describe as it literally was; or of the thief on the cross; St. Stephen; St. Paul; or the apparition of Moses and Elias. Shall we not, at least, be com- pelled to make exceptions of these cases? However advantageous it might have been for me as a poet to assume the sleep of souls, one difficulty would yet remain, which you have yourself mentioned—I mean the appearance of departed spirits. I have never seen an apparition, nor is there any person related to me