The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin (adult books to read TXT) 📕

The quotation from Steele is taken from this work.

[23] See a full acount,{sic} with references, by E. B. Tylor, `Researches into the Early History of Mankind,’ 2nd edit. 1870, p. 51.

The vivid recollection of our former home, or of long-past happy days, readily causes the eyes to be suffused with tears; but here, again, the thought naturally occurs that these days will never return.

In such cases we may be said to sympathize with ourselves in our present, in comparison with our former, state. Sympathy with the distresses of others, even with the imaginary distresses of a heroine in a pathetic story, for whom we feel no affection, readily excites tears.

So does sympathy with the happiness of others, as with that of a lover, at last successful after many hard trials in a well-told tale.

Sympathy appears to constitute a separate or distinct emotion; and it is especially apt to excite the lacrymal glands.

This holds good whether we give or receive sympathy.

Every one must have noticed how readily children burst out crying if we pity them for some small hurt. With the melancholic insane, as Dr. Crichton Browne informs me, a kind word will often plunge them into unrestrained weeping. As soon as we express our pity for the grief of a friend, tears often come into our own eyes.

The feeling of sympathy is commonly explained by assuming that, when we see or hear of suffering in another, the idea of suffering is called up so vividly in our own minds that we ourselves suffer.

But this explanation is hardly sufficient, for it does not account for the intimate alliance between sympathy and affection.

We undoubtedly sympathize far more deeply with a beloved than with an indifferent person; and the sympathy of the one gives us far more relief than that of the other. Yet assuredly we can sympathize with those for whom we feel no affection.

Why suffering, when actually experienced by ourselves, excites weeping, has been discussed in a former chapter.

With respect to joy, its natural and universal expression is laughter; and with all the races of man loud laughter leads to the secretion of tears more freely than does any other cause excepting distress.

The suffusion of the eyes with tears, which undoubtedly occurs under great joy, though there is no laughter, can, as it seems to me, be explained through habit and association on the same principles as the effusion of tears from grief, although there is no screaming.

Nevertheless it is not a little remarkable that sympathy with the distresses of others should excite tears more freely than our own distress; and this certainly is the case.

Many a man, from whose eyes no suffering of his own could wring a tear, has shed tears at the sufferings of a beloved friend.

It is still more remarkable that sympathy with the happiness or good fortune of those whom we tenderly love should lead to the same result, whilst a similar happiness felt by ourselves would leave our eyes dry.

We should, however, bear in mind that the long-continued habit of restraint which is so powerful in checking the free flow of tears from bodily pain, has not been brought into play in preventing a moderate effusion of tears in sympathy with the sufferings or happiness of others.

Music has a wonderful power, as I have elsewhere attempted to show,[24]

of recalling in a vague and indefinite manner, those strong emotions which were felt during long-past ages, when, as is probable, our early progenitors courted each other by the aid of vocal tones.

And as several of our strongest emotions—grief, great joy, love, and sympathy—lead to the free secretion of tears, it is not surprising that music should be apt to cause our eyes to become suffused with tears, especially when we are already softened by any of the tenderer feelings. Music often produces another peculiar effect.

We know that every strong sensation, emotion, or excitement—

extreme pain, rage, terror, joy, or the passion of love—

all have a special tendency to cause the muscles to tremble; and the thrill or slight shiver which runs down the backbone and limbs of many persons when they are powerfully affected by music, seems to bear the same relation to the above trembling of the body, as a slight suffusion of tears from the power of music does to weeping from any strong and real emotion.

Devotion.—As devotion is, in some degree, related to affection, though mainly consisting of reverence, often combined with fear, the expression of this state of mind may here be briefly noticed.

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.[25] Devotion is chiefly expressed by the face being directed towards 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 upwards and inwards; and he believes that “when we are wrapt 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.[26] That the eyes are upturned during sleep is, as I hear from Professor Donders, certain. With babies, whilst 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.

[24] `The Descent of Man,’ vol. ii. p. 336.

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. Rensleigh Wedgwood has apparently given[27] 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, are innate or truly expressive actions; 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, whilst they remained during past ages in an uncivilized condition.

[25] Dr. Mandsley has a discussion to this effect in his `Body and Mind,’ 1870, p. 85.

[26] `The Anatomy of Expression,’ p. 103, and `Philosophical Transactions,’

1823, p. 182.

[27] `The Origin of Language,’ 1866, p. 146. Mr. Tylor (`Early History of Mankind,’ 2nd edit. 1870, p. 48) gives a more complex origin to the position of the hands during prayer. CHAPTER IX.

REFLECTION—MEDITATION-ILL-TEMPER—SULKINESS—DETERMINATION.

The act of frowning—Reflection with an effort, or with the perception of something difficult or disagreeable—

Abstracted meditation—Ill-temper—Moroseness—Obstinacy Sulkiness and pouting—Decision or determination—The firm closure of the mouth.

THE corrugators, by their contraction, lower the eyebrows and bring them together, producing vertical furrows on the forehead—that is, a frown.

Sir C. Bell, who erroneously thought that the corrugator was peculiar to man, ranks it as “the most remarkable muscle of the human face.

It knits the eyebrows with an energetic effort, which unaccountably, but irresistibly, conveys the idea of mind.” Or, as he elsewhere says, “when the eyebrows are knit, energy of mind is apparent, and there is the mingling of thought and emotion with the savage and brutal rage of the mere animal.”[1] There is much truth in these remarks, but hardly the whole truth. Dr. Duchenne has called the corrugator the muscle of reflection;[2] but this name, without some limitation, cannot be considered as quite correct.

[1] `Anatomy of Expression,’ pp. 137, 139. It is not surprising that the corrugators should have become much more developed in man than in the anthropoid apes; for they are brought into incessant action by him under various circumstances, and will have been strengthened and modified by the inherited effects of use.

We have seen how important a part they play, together with the orbiculares, in protecting the eyes from being too much gorged with blood during violent expiratory movements.

When the eyes are closed as quickly and as forcibly as possible, to save them from being injured by a blow, the corrugators contract.

With savages or other men whose heads are uncovered, the eyebrows are continually lowered and contracted to serve as a shade against a too strong light; and this is effected partly by the corrugators.

This movement would have been more especially serviceable to man, as soon as his early progenitors held their heads erect.

Lastly, Prof. Donders believes (`Archives of Medicine,’ ed.

by L. Beale, 1870, vol. v. p. 34), that the corrugators are brought into action in causing the eyeball to advance in accommodation for proximity in vision.

A man may be absorbed in the deepest thought, and his brow will remain smooth until he encounters some obstacle in his train of reasoning, or is interrupted by some disturbance, and then a frown passes like a shadow over his brow.

A half-starved man may think intently how to obtain food, but he probably will not frown unless he encounters either in thought or action some difficulty, or finds the food when obtained nauseous.

I have noticed that almost everyone instantly frowns if he perceives a strange or bad taste in what he is eating.

I asked several persons, without explaining my object, to listen intently to a very gentle tapping sound, the nature and source of which they all perfectly knew, and not one frowned; but a man who joined us, and who could not conceive what we were all doing in profound silence, when asked to listen, frowned much, though not in an ill-temper, and said he could not in the least understand what we all wanted. Dr. Piderit[3] who has published remarks to the same effect, adds that stammerers generally frown in speaking, and that a man in doing even so trifling a thing as pulling on a boot, frowns if he finds it too tight.

Some persons are such habitual frowners, that the mere effort of speaking almost always causes their brows to contract.

[2] `Mecanisme de la Physionomie Humaine,’ Album, Legende iii.

[3] `Mimik und Physiognomik,’ s. 46.

Men of all races frown when they are in any way perplexed in thought, as I infer from the answers which I have received to my queries; but I framed them badly, confounding absorbed meditation with perplexed reflection.

Nevertheless, it is clear