Chap. IX. REFLECTION. 221 



is much truth in these remarks, but hardly the whole 

 truth. Dr. Duehenne has called the corrugator the 

 muscle of reflection; 2 but this name, without some lim- 

 itation, cannot be considered as quite correct. 



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 un- 

 less he encounters either in thought or action some dif- 

 ficulty, 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 under- 

 stand what we all wanted. Dr. Piderit, 3 who has pub- 

 lished 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 



to save them from being 1 injured by a blow, the corrugators 

 contract. With savages or other men whose heads are 

 uncovered, the evebrows are continually lowered and con- 

 tracted 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. Last- 

 ly, 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. 



2 ' Mecanisnie de la Physionomie .Humaine,' Album, 

 Legende iii. 



3 ' Mimik und Physiognomik,' s. 46. 



