Johann Kaspar Lavater, the German-Swiss poet, physiognomist, and theologian, was born in Zürich. He studied at the gymnasium there under the literary critics Johann Jakob Bodmer and Johann Jakob Breitinger. Later, in northern Germany, he attended the lectures of the Protestant pastor Johann Jakob Spalding, who, influenced by the Earl of Shaftesbury and the English moralists, sought to reconcile reason and sentiment and stressed the moral and religious conscience. While in northern Germany Lavater also met Johann Georg Sulzer, Moses Mendelssohn (whom he later tried to convert to Christianity), the dramatist Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, and other persons of note. Returning to Zürich in 1764, he held various posts in churches there from 1769 on. He traveled widely in Germany, was acquainted with many culturally important people, and was one of the most sought-after and famous persons of that time. As a poet...