GESTURES NATURAL SIGNS OF THE PASSIONS. 507 



restricted to those gestures that are conveyed through their sense of 

 touch. 



Each acquired gesture is, like each acquired movement of the glottis, 

 an evidence of the possession of intellect. The infant and the idiot 

 have them not, because unable to appreciate their utility. The ges- 

 tures resemble the spoken language in this and many other respects. 

 The eye sees the gesture, to which the intellect attaches an idea as it 

 does to the sound conveyed by the organ of hearing; and the will 

 reproduces the gesture, in the same manner as it reproduces the sound 

 heard. The lower extremities are, also, slightly concerned in the func- 

 tion of expression. They are agitated when impatient, and incessantly 

 changing their position. The foot is stamped upon the ground in 

 anger; and, like the upper extremity, is employed to convey to the 

 object that has aroused the emotion the most unequivocal evidences of 

 expression. Occasionally, the lower extremity is used as a part of 

 conventional language, as when we tread upon the toes to arouse atten- 

 tion, or to convey insult. Nor are the internal organs foreign to the 

 function of expression. The respiratory movements are affected, the 

 number of respirations being accelerated or retarded, or manifesting 

 themselves under the different modifications of sighing, yawning, 

 laughing, and sobbing. The heart, too, throbs at times to such an 

 extent, that its action is perceptible externally; or, it may be retarded 

 or hurried in its pulsations, from a state of syncope or fainting to that 

 of the most violent palpitation. 



Lastly: the excretions, certain of them especially, are greatly impli- 

 cated in many of these moral changes. That of the tears is a well- 

 known and characteristic expression of grief more especially, but 

 occasionally of joy. The mind, however, may be so possessed by the 

 emotion, that the ordinary power over the sphincter muscles may be 

 more or less destroyed, and the contents of the rectum be spontane- 

 ously evacuated. The action of the stomach is, at times, inverted; 

 and, at others, the peristaltic action is augmented. Who has not felt, 

 whilst labouring under anxiety or dread, the constant desire not only 

 to evacuate the faeces, but also the urinary secretion ! 



It is obvious, from this detail, that there is scarcely a function, 

 which does not express some participation, when the mind is engaged 

 in deep emotion ; and that it would be vain to attempt to depict the 

 various forms under which these manifestations may occur. What has 

 been said will suffice to attract attention to the subject, which is not 

 devoid of interest to the anthropologist. 



In conclusion, we may refer to the question that has often been agi- 

 tated, whether these rapid and violent movements, that characterize 

 the expression of emotions, be instinctive or natural signs of the pas- 

 sion existing in the mind; or whether they be not voluntary muscular 

 exertions, called for by the stress of the case, and constituting the 

 means of resistance, or belonging simply to the outward manifestation 

 of the inward emotion. The supporters of the latter view contend, 

 that the various changes of facial expression or of gesture, which 

 accompany the different mental emotions and indicate their character, 



