228 ILL-TEMPER. Chap. IX. 



is that of convergence; and Professor Donders remarks, 

 as bearing on their divergence during a period of com- 

 plete abstraction, that when one eye becomes blind, it 

 almost always, after a short lapse of time, deviates out- 

 wards; for its muscles are no longer used in moving the 

 eyeball inwards for the sake of binocular vision. 



Perplexed reflection is often accompanied by certain 

 movements or gestures. At such times we commonly 

 raise our hands to our foreheads, mouths, or chins; but 

 we do not act thus, as far as I have seen, when we are 

 quite lost in meditation, and no difficulty is encountered. 

 Plautus, describing in one of his plays 7 a puzzled man, 

 says, " Now look, he has pillared his chin upon his 

 hand." Even so trifling and apparently unmeaning a 

 gesture as the raising of the hand to the face has been 

 observed with some savages. M. J. Mansel Weale has 

 seen it with the Kafirs of South Africa; and the native 

 chief Gaika adds, that men then " sometimes pull their 

 beards." Mr. Washington Matthews, who attended to 

 some of the wildest tribes of Indians in the western 

 regions of the United States, remarks that he has seen 

 them when concentrating their thoughts, bring their 

 " hands, usually the thumb and index finger, in contact 

 with some part of the face, commonly the upper lip." 

 We can understand why the forehead should be pressed 

 or rubbed, as deep thought tries the brain; but why the 

 hand should be raised to the mouth or face is far from 

 clear. 



Ill-temper. — We have seen that frowning is the nat- 

 ural expression of some difficulty encountered, or of 

 something disagreeable experienced either in thought or 

 action, and he whose mind is often and readily affected 



7 ' Miles Gloriosus,' act ii. sc. 2. 



