THE MIND'S MIRROR. 267 



plicable, Mr. Darwin holds, only on the supposition of their anti- 

 thetical nature. The servile or affectionate movements of the dog 

 are of no direct service to the animal, but represent the mere revul- 

 sion of feeling which represents nerve-force or emotion speeding into 

 channels of opposite nature from those into which in the angry 

 condition they had been directed. The shrugging of man's shoulders 

 may be selected as the best example of the antagonistic methods of 

 expression. Here we confess by sign language our inability to 

 perform an action, or as often exhibit a total indifference to the 

 matter in hand the polite comme il vous plaira ! accompanied by 

 this gesture, placing the latter before us in its true significance. As 

 to the origin of the expression, it may perhaps be most clearly 

 explained, as Mr. Darwin holds, by regarding it as the antithetical 

 and passive phase of actions and expressions which had for their 

 object some very active and direct piece of business most probably 

 that of attack. 



The third and last principle used to explain the origin of the 

 emotions is more strictly a matter of pure physiology than the pre- 

 ceding conditions. Mr. Darwin terms this last a principle involving 

 "the direct action of the nervous system." It acts independently 

 of the will from the first, and is independent to a certain extent of 

 habit likewise. A strong impulse or steady impression sent through 

 the brain causes a correspondingly large expenditure or liberation 

 of nerve force, which escapes by those channels which are first 

 opened for its reception, and thus produces very varied and marked 

 expressions. In such a category we might place the remarkable 

 changes which grief is known to effect in the colour of the hair, as 

 for instance where, in a man led forth to execution in India, the hair 

 was seen to undergo a change of colour as the culprit walked. 

 Muscular tremor and the quaking of limbs paralleled by the more 

 severe convulsions from fright of hysterical persons and young 

 children are forms of expression which cannot be explained save 

 on the idea of nerve-force speeding along the channels, which, 

 through some unknown condition of the nervous system, have been 

 opened for its reception in preference to others. So also the phe- 

 nomena of blushing illustrate Mr. Darwin's third principle, which 

 might well be termed the diffusion of nerve force, modified by habit, 

 by inheritance, and by personal peculiarities. Here a mental emo- 

 tion is transferred to the skin-surface, and especially but not invari- 

 ably to the face, producing the well-known tinge which Wilkinson, 

 in his " Human Body and its connection with Man," describes as 

 the " celestial rosy red," and which he defines as the " proper hue " 

 of love : whilst " lively Shame blushes and mean Shame looks 

 Earthly." Carried to an extreme degree, as in the case of the 

 Belgian " stigmatics," the same emotion produces the bleeding 



