that this is a discussion by a psychologist, not a philosopher or
literary critic: whatever concepts we use to categorize forms of
experience, they are never considered as final. That is, they are
the outcome of an interaction between construct and empirical
study; thus, the characteristics of physiognomic language I am
going to define here are for the most part tentative concepts which
will have to be modified and clarified through further research.

The problem of expressive language, as we see it, can be
advantageously conceived within a wider framework, that of per-
ception. Some of our studies on perception lead us to stipulate at
least two idealized modes of perception: the physiognomic and the
geometric-technical. These two modes imply different character-
istics of objects which we may discuss in terms of significant oppo-
sition.

One of the most striking characteristics of objects physiognom-
ically apprehended appears to be their all-pervading dynamics.
For instance, a picture of a bird in the sky, from the geometric-
technical standpoint, is definable in terms of its shape, its loca-
tion, etc.; but from the physiognomic view, there is movement
without physical displacement: the bird is in flight.

Again, in the geometrico-technical mode of apprehension,
qualities of persons are clearly segregated from qualities of im-
personal things. In physiognomic apprehension non-person ob-
jects and person-objects are undifferentiated as to these qualities.
The objects which in the geometrico-technical mode are regarded
as things with only spatio-temporal properties, are in physiogno-
mic perception seen as, e.g., harsh, threatening, depressed, etc.

A third characteristic of physiognomic perception is what we
have termed the total organismic involvement as contrasted with
the purely sensorial (visual, auditory) articulation of geometrico-
technically perceived objects. The organismic state is not simply
the ground against which the object is set, but itself partakes in
the formation of the object. This mode of perception becomes
strikingly explicit in the well-known phenomena of empathic res-
ponse, synaesthesia, etc.

A fourth characteristic of physiognomic perception - closely
related to the above - is the embeddedness of the perceived ob-
ject in an atmospheric context of feeling and action. This

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