LAVATER, JOHANN KASPAR. — Protestant writer and parish priest, born in Zurich on 15 November 1741, died there on 2 January 1801. He formed his philosophical and religious culture on the works of Zwingli, Leibniz, and Rousseau. The influence of Enlightenment rationalism was gradually tempered by his overall Pietist mysticism. Appointed deacon of the Zurich orphanage and later pastor at the church of St. Peter, he was a remarkable orator.
His best-known works are: *Geheimes Tagebuch von einem Beobachter seiner selbst* (1771–73); *Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe* (1775–78). He applied the psychological method to physiognomic inquiry, aiming to grasp, alongside human traits, the motives for the elevation of the human creature to God. He also composed lyric and epic poetry of minor importance; his literary output remains, on the whole, fragmentary, in part contradictory, and lacking scientific foundation, as evidenced, among other things, by his interest in occultism.