352 CONCLUDING REMARKS Chap. XIV. 



other gestures are inherited, we may infer from their 

 being performed by very young children, by those born 

 blind, and by the most widely distinct races of man. 

 We should also bear in mind that new and highly pecul- 

 iar tricks, in association with certain states of the mind, 

 are known to have arisen in certain individuals, and to 

 have been afterwards transmitted to their offspring, in 

 some cases, for more than one generation. 



Certain other gestures, which seem to us so natural 

 that we might easily imagine that they were innate, ap- 

 parently have been learnt like the words of a language. 

 This seems to be the case with the joining of the uplifted 

 hands, and the turning up of the eyes, in prayer. So 

 it is with kissing as a mark of affection; but this is in- 

 nate, in so far as it depends on the pleasure derived from 

 contact with a beloved person. The evidence with re- 

 spect to the inheritance of nodding and shaking the 

 head, as signs of affirmation and negation, is doubtful; 

 for they are not universal, yet seem too general to have 

 been independently acquired by all the individuals of 

 so many races. 



We will now consider how far the will and conscious- 

 ness have come into play in the development of the 

 various movements of expression. As far as we can 

 judge, only a few expressive movements, such as those 

 just referred to, are learnt by each individual; that is, 

 were consciously and voluntarily performed during the 

 early years of life for some definite object, or in imita- 

 tion of others, and then became habitual. The far greater 

 number of the movements of expression, and all the more 

 important ones, are, as we have seen, innate or inherited; 

 and such cannot be said to depend on the will of the 

 individual. Nevertheless, all those included under our 

 first principle were at first voluntarily performed for a 



