1892.] on Emotional Expression. 657 



their own constitution. The facts bearing on emotional expression 

 which Darwin observed or with scrupulous discrimination collected, 

 remain and must always remain, unassailable, of high value to the 

 naturalist and psychologist, but the laws by which he sought to 

 systematise these facts are open to question. 



As regards Darwin's second principle, that of Antithesis, accord- 

 ing to which certain movements are expressive of certain emotions, 

 simply because they are the opposites of other movements which are 

 expressive of opposite emotions, I have all along felt some diffi- 

 culty in accepting it. In physiology we know nothing of antithesis, 

 though we see a good deal of antagonism ; and it is difficult to 

 believe tliat a whole series of movements of a very definite and 

 positive character, betokening mental states, are merely the negations 

 of other movements betokdning other mental states. It is difficult to 

 believe also that a series of emotions, those, according to Darwin, 

 antithetically expressed, existed without any appropriate expression 

 of their own, until they had tacked on to them certain movements 

 not really related to them, but contrary to other movements by which 

 the emotions farthest removed from them are displayed. Each 

 emotion, I conceive, must have a language of its own, adequate to its 

 requirements, evolving with its evolution, and cannot be dependent 

 on the inverted echo of the utterances of the emotion with which it is 

 least in sympathy. Then it is difficult, I might say impracticable, to 

 arrange the emotions in pairs of opposites ; indeed, only with the 

 very primitive emotions can this be clone, for during the development 

 of the mental faculties in the individual and race the emotions 

 branch out in various directions, and it is not possible to trace out any 

 parallelism in the lines they pursue, or to say what is the opposite of 

 a highly dijBferentiated emotion. Humility is the opposite of both 

 pride and vanity, but pride and vanity have entirely distinctive 

 expressions, and it is imj)ossible that the expression of humility can 

 be opposite to the expression of both. 



Again, when we study the movements of the body systematically, 

 we discover that opposite movements are not always significant of 

 opposite states of mind. Clenching of the fist, produced by strong 

 flexion of the hand and arm, is undoubtedly expressive of anger ; but 

 the opposite movement, strong extension of the hand and arm, is not 

 expressive of the opposite emotion, conciliatory good humour, which 

 is expressed by the open hand — a position intermediate between the 

 two. So far is it from being the case that opposite emotions are 

 necessarily expressed by opposite movements, that the extremes of 

 contrary passions are sometimes exj)ressed by the same actions. Sir 

 Joshua Reynolds noticed this, and pointed as instances to a Bacchante 

 in frantic joy, with a facial expression not unlike that of a Mary 

 Magdalene in overwhelming grief. Excessive happiness and bitter 

 sorrow may both fill the eyes with tears. Laughter may be the out- 

 burst of joy, or the cynical mask of poignant suffering. I do not 

 believe that the expressions of different emotions are ever identical. 



