Expression of the Emotions,
page 133.
Young orangs, when tickled, grin and make a chuckling sound; and Mr. Martin says that their eyes grow brighter. As soon as their laughter ceases, an expression may be detected passing over their faces, which, as Mr. Wallace remarked to me, may be called a smile. I have also noticed something of the same kind with the chimpanzee. Dr. Duchenne—and I can not quote a better authority—informs me that he kept a very tame monkey in his house for a year; and, when he gave it during meal-times some choice delicacy, he observed that the corners of its mouth were slightly raised; thus an expression of satisfaction, partaking of the nature of an incipient smile, and resembling that often seen on the face of man, could be plainly perceived in this animal.
EXPRESSION OF THE DEVOUT EMOTIONS.
Page 220.
With some sects, both past and present, religion and love have been strangely combined; and it has even been maintained, lamentable as the fact may be, that the holy kiss of love differs but little from that which a man bestows on a woman, or a woman on a man. Devotion is chiefly expressed by the face being directed toward the heavens, with the eyeballs upturned. Sir C. Bell remarks that, at the approach of sleep, or of a fainting-fit, or of death, the pupils are drawn upward and inward; and he believes that “when we are rapt in devotional feelings, and outward impressions are unheeded, the eyes are raised by an action neither taught nor acquired”; and that this is due to the same cause as in the above cases. That the eyes are upturned during sleep is, as I hear from Professor Donders, certain. With babies, while sucking their mother’s breast, this movement of the eyeballs often gives to them an absurd appearance of ecstatic delight; and here it may be clearly perceived that a struggle is going on against the position naturally assumed during sleep. But Sir C. Bell’s explanation of the fact, which rests on the assumption that certain muscles are more under the control of the will than others, is, as I hear from Professor Donders, incorrect. As the eyes are often turned up in prayer, without the mind being so much absorbed in thought as to approach to the unconsciousness of sleep, the movement is probably a conventional one—the result of the common belief that Heaven, the source of Divine power to which we pray, is seated above us.
A humble kneeling posture, with the hands upturned and palms joined, appears to us, from long habit, a gesture so appropriate to devotion, that it might be thought to be innate; but I have not met with any evidence to this effect with the various extra-European races of mankind. During the classical period of Roman history it does not appear, as I hear from an excellent classic, that the hands were thus joined during prayer. Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood has apparently given the true explanation, though this implies that the attitude is one of slavish subjection. “When the suppliant kneels and holds up his hands with the palms joined, he represents a captive who proves the completeness of his submission by offering up his hands to be bound by the victor. It is the pictorial representation of the Latin dare manus, to signify submission.” Hence it is not probable that either the uplifting of the eyes or the joining of the open hands, under the influence of devotional feelings, is an innate or a truly expressive action; and this could hardly have been expected, for it is very doubtful whether feelings such as we should now rank as devotional affected the hearts of men while they remained during past ages in an uncivilized condition.
FROWNING.
Expression of the Emotions,
page 225.
We may now inquire how it is that a frown should express the perception of something difficult or disagreeable, either in thought or action. In the same way as naturalists find it advisable to trace the embryological development of an organ in order fully to understand its structure, so with the movements of expression it is advisable to follow as nearly as possible the same plan. The earliest and almost sole expression seen during the first days of infancy, and then often exhibited, is that displayed during the act of screaming; and screaming is excited, both at first and for some time afterward, by every distressing or displeasing sensation and emotion—by hunger, pain, anger, jealousy, fear, etc. At such times the muscles round the eyes are strongly contracted; and this, as I believe, explains to a large extent the act of frowning during the remainder of our lives. I repeatedly observed my own infants, from under the age of one week to that of two or three months, and found that, when a screaming-fit came on gradually, the first sign was the contraction of the corrugators, which produced a slight frown, quickly followed by the contraction of the other muscles round the eyes.
* * * * *