148 THE METHOD OF DARWIN. 



causing obliquity of the brows with puckering 

 and swelling of their inner ends, so that the 

 exact expression, in every detail, of grief or 

 anxiety was assumed " 



"When children scream they contract the 

 orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles, 

 primarily for the sake of compressing their 

 eyes, and thus protecting them from being 

 gorged with blood." By observation on the 

 little girl and his own children he found that 

 the peculiar expression characteristic of grief 

 was the combined result of the reflex contrac- 

 tion of the muscles around the eye to protect it 

 by closing it, and the voluntary contraction of 

 other muscles to keep it open. In children the 

 unrestrained expression of suffering called into 

 action only one set of these muscles. These 

 were the factors in his possession for the solu- 

 tion of the problem. He knew that the eleva- 

 tion of the inner ends of the eyebrows was due 

 to the effort to keep the eyes open. " I there- 

 fore expected to find with children," he said, 

 "that when they endeavored either to prevent 

 a crying-fit from coming on, or to stop crying, 

 they would check the contraction of the above- 

 named muscles, in the same manner as when 

 looking upwards at a bright light; and conse- 

 quently that the central fasciae of the frontal 



