On the Relations between Mind and Muscle. 1/3 



of a pit, the sight produces instantaneously a movement, the very opposite 

 to progression. In this case the vision and motion are all Out simultaneous, 

 and certainly have no intervening desire or volition. Some motions belonging 

 to this class take place in opposition to desire. Winking the eyes is a 

 motion which follows the sight of any thing which threatens the organ with 

 injury. It is a common trick among school boys to attempt to restrain 

 the action, when a body is made to appear to approach the organ j but it is 

 only after repeated trials that the attempt succeeds. 



4. The fourth class comprehends those movements which are prompted by 

 emotions. From this category we must by necessity exclude such move- 

 ments as are the objects of desire, though the exception does not extend to 

 those which merely follow the desire of other objects. Some of the most 

 common instances of the division under consideration, are the muscular 

 movements expressive of the passions. The greater number of these occur 

 in the face, and their character is familiar to every one. Whether the 

 recognition of the presence of a passion in another person be the effect of 

 instinct or of association, would perhaps admit of some question; but no 

 one doubts of the fact. Joy, sorrow, anger, complacency, fear, courage, 

 confidence, distrust, all have their lineaments in the quick darting motions 

 of the eye, the varied surface of the cheek, the expansile nostril, the pliant 

 lip, and the smooth or wrinkled forehead. All the changes in expression 

 occur merely because certain emotions have occurred, and there is no inter- 

 mediate mental event. A struggle for predominant expression often takes 

 place among the emotions, when several are present or occurring in quick 

 succession j but the strongest is cseteris paribus, that which is obeyed by 

 the muscles. No emotion is oftener contradictory of the others than de- 

 sire. A man conscious of a particular passion, and that it may be betrayed 

 by his face, desires to restrain the manifestation. His success will depend 

 on the degree of the first emotion, or on the frequency with which his 

 facial muscles have assumed an arrangement indicative of the state of 

 mind which lie wishes to simulate. Gestures are of a nature precisely 

 analogous to physiognomical expression. 



Under the present head we may also arrange those vocal movements 

 which communicate particular feelings, and are common to all ages of the 

 human being, and to all animals possessed of vocal organs. The shriek of 

 terror, tlie scream of pain, the sigh of grief, the yell of resentment, the ex- 

 clamations of joy and delight, are as every body knows involuntary, — nay, 

 sometimes a»<i-voluntary. But they may all own desire for their cause, 

 like gesticulations and changes of countenance, when we are anxious to 

 feign the passions which they indicate. The emotions which approach 

 more to intellectual conditions are also related with muscular actions al- 

 together involuntary. The perception of the beautiful, the sublime, the 

 wonderful, and the ludicrous, arc all attended with appropriate demonstra- 

 tions, and none more decidedly than the last. 



No. 3.— Vol. I. 2 A 



