266 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



mother-in-law. One of this gentleman's daughters has inherited the 

 same peculiarity, modifying the action, so that the palm and not the 

 wrist strikes the nose. In lower animals many such illustrations of 

 truly serviceable habits might be given. The perpetuation of such 

 habits is simply a matter of "reflex nervous action" as much, 

 indeed, as the unconscious act of drawing back the hand from a 

 burning surface, or of closing the eyes in a sudden flash of light. 

 On this first principle, then, we may explain many forms of ex- 

 pression, as depending upon sensations of varying nature which 

 first led to voluntary movements; and these latter, in turn, and 

 through the ordinary laws of nervous action, have become fixed 

 habits, notwithstanding that they may be perfectly useless to the 

 animal form. In their most typical development, 'such expressions 

 appear before us as the results of inheritance. No better illustrations 

 of such inherited habits in man could be found than in the numerous 

 acts which accompany furious rage and vexation, or the fighting 

 attitude in which an opponent is defied without any intention of 

 attack. And on some such principle as the foregoing may we 

 reasonably enough explain the act of uncovering the eye-tooth 

 before alluded to, in the act of snarling or defiance. " This act in 

 man reveals," says Mr. Darwin, "his animal descent, for no one, 

 even if rolling on the ground in a deadly grapple with an enemy, 

 and attempting to bite him, would try to use his canine teeth more 

 than his other teeth. We may readily believe," adds our author, 

 "from our affinity to the anthropomorphous apes, that our male 

 semi-human progenitors possessed great canine teeth, and men are 

 now occasionally born having them of unusually large size, with 

 interspaces in the opposite jaw for their reception." 



Mr. Darwin's second principle on which the expression of the 

 emotions and their origin may be accounted for, he terms that of 

 "antithesis." By this term he means to indicate the fact that 

 certain mental states lead to certain definite acts, which, as just 

 explained by the first principle, may be serviceable to the animal 

 or which may in time lose both their serviceable tendency and their 

 original meaning, as we have also seen. Now, if we suppose that a 

 directly opposite phase of mind to these first mental states is pro- 

 duced, actions may follow which will express the latter and not the 

 original states. These antithetical and antagonistic actions are of no 

 use, but at the same time they may be expressive enough. The dog 

 who approaches an intruder with irate growl, erect head and tail, 

 stiff ears, and a general attitude of attack, on discovering that he has 

 been menacing a friend, at once changes his expression. He fawns 

 upon the supposed antagonist, becomes servile to a degree, and 

 completely reverses his former attitude. Such is an example of the 

 antagonistic nature of certain modes of expression, which are ex- 



