.26o STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



been developed and perfected ? " The emotion, as we have seen, 

 may be said to include in its production the outward and visible 

 expression of an idea, and in this light emotional movements not 

 merely express each its particular thought, but correspond to the 

 well-defined mental state which gave origin to the thought. Emo- 

 tional movements in others are thus capable of exciting similar and 

 corresponding thoughts in ourselves. Nay, even words and language 

 fall into their definite place in the expression of the emotions, simply 

 when viewed as corresponding to ideas. " Speak the word/' says 

 Dr. Maudsley, "and the idea of which it is the expression is aroused, 

 though it was not in the mind previously ; or put other muscles than 

 those of speech into an attitude which is the normal expression of a 

 certain mental state, and the latter is excited." 



Turning to the emotions, we see the marked correspondence 

 between ideas and muscular expressions. Language expresses our 

 meaning through " audible muscular expression ; " and through 

 "visible muscular expression" the passions hold their outward sway. 

 Bacon's idea of the importance of the study of the expression of the 

 emotions is well known " the lineaments of the body do disclose 

 the disposition and inclination of the mind in general : but the 

 motion of the countenance and parts do not only so, but do further 

 disclose the present humour and state of the mind or will." It is no 

 mystery, but the plainest of inferences, that the play of prominent 

 and oft-repeated emotions may thus come to determine a special 

 configuration of face, which may reappear in after generations in the 

 " types " to which Lavater and his contemporaries directed so much 

 attention. 



For evil passions, cherish'd long, 



Had plough' d them with impressions strong, 



says Sir Walter Scott, in describing the features of Bertram ; and 

 the poet in such a case but repeats in aesthetic phrase the plain infer- 

 ences and facts of the science of life. 



The muscular acts involved in the production of the most 

 common emotions are not difficult to comprehend, and merely 

 involve an easy anatomical study. My friend Professor Cleland of 

 Glasgow has in a recent paper given an excellent example of this 

 mechanism, and has incidentally shown how attitudes and gestures 

 of body express correlated workings of mind. In the expression of 

 movements of receiving and rejecting of welcome and repulse the 

 chief muscles are concerned. The pectoralis major, or chief muscle 

 of each side of the breast, is chiefly concerned in the act of embrace 

 and welcome ; a second (the latissimus dorsi) being employed in the 

 act of rejection this latter muscle might in fact, as Dr. Cleland re- 

 marks, " be called the muscle of rejection," a name which would ex- 

 press its action more accurately as well as more becomingly than that 



