218 EXPRESSION OP DEVOTION. Chap. VIII. 



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 ap- 

 proach 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 eye- 

 balls often gives to them an absurd appearance of ec- 

 static 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 prob- 

 ably a conventional one — the result of the common be- 

 lief 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 ges- 

 ture so appropriate to devotion, that it might be thought 

 to be innate; but I have not met with any evidence to 



25 Dr. Maudsley has a discussion to this effect in his 

 ' Body and Mind,' 1870, p. 85. 



26 ' The Anatomy of Expression,' p. 103, and ' Philo- 

 sophical Transactions,' 1823, p. 182. 



