364 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EYE LANGUAGE. 



Br LOUIS ROBINSON. 



NO part of the liuman countenance engages our attention so fre- 

 quently as tlie eyes. When face to face in conversation, we 

 do not look at the lips — although, as a rule, the attention is very 

 quickly taken by any movement — but at the eyes of the person with 

 whom we are speaking. So much is this the case that the habit 

 of many deaf people of watching the mouth always strikes us as 

 peculiar. In fact, one usually feels that there is a sense of incom- 

 pleteness in the association of mind with mind by means of conversa- 

 tion if there is not a continual interchange of glances making a kind 

 of running commentary on the words spoken. The same may be 

 said of ordinary greetings when two people shake hands: unless 

 there is at the same moment a meeting of friendly looks the cere- 

 mony loses much of its meaning. 



Xow why is there this continual meeting of eyes accompanying 

 all kinds of human intercourse? Partly, no doubt, it is attributable 

 to certain habits of comparatively recent date. The eye, " the win- 

 dow of the soul," is a more truthful exponent of the inward thoughts 

 than the tongue, and seeing that speech is very frequently used not 

 to tell the thoughts but to conceal them, we look to the eye for con- 

 firmation or the reverse for what our ears are taking in. 



Partly, I think, the habit is based upon an inbred instinct which 

 we have inherited from very remote ancestors, and which is ex- 

 hibited by many of the lower animals. One finds that very young 

 children, long before they acquire any knowledge of words, estab- 

 lish an understanding with those about them by means of the eye. 

 A babe of a few months old directs its glances to the eyes of those 

 round about it quite as much as an older person. A dog watches 

 its master's eyes habitually, and, as will be shown later, monkeys 

 use this method of ascertaining what is in the minds of those round 

 about them almost as much as we do. Many wild creatures instinc- 

 tively understand when they are being looked at. Thus a hare in 

 her seat will often allow a man to pass close by her if his gaze is 

 directed at some other object, but when she sees his eyes turned 

 toward her she seems to know that she is discovered, and is up and 

 away in an instant. 



Is it not Oliver Wendell Holmes who draws attention to the 

 automatic way in which we challenge the eyes of those we pass in 

 the street, and thus establish, every time we walk abroad, a species 

 of understanding with many persons who are otherwise complete 

 strangers? It is not too much to say that mind begins to communi- 



