MUSCLES 209 



If an ape can express a good many of the coarser emotions of 

 an animal by the action of its facial muscles, and through kindness 

 and training exhibit some of the finer ones, there is a wide distance 

 between this level of attainment and the multiplied moods and 

 unnumbered varieties of expression which give to the human face 

 its unique charm. If we can express pleasure, pain, anger, contempt, 

 hatred, surprise, affection, sympathy, fear, hope, reflection, per- 

 plexity, gaiety, melancholy, cunning (and many another can be 

 supplied) what a remarkable field of physiology in terms of anatomy 

 we have in the facial muscles ! There is a very obvious reason 

 why none of these emotions have been fixed in an objective form 

 in ape or man, as the patch of reversed hair is on the back of a lion, 

 for moods and states of feeling in every individual man are subject 

 to such endless variations that it would be impossible for them to 

 stamp any individual face with a record of even one emotion which 

 could be transmitted to descendants, to say nothing of the incon- 

 ceivably great probability that heredity would at once swamp 

 any initial modification. 



Three Stages. 



The stages then are but three — mental states, specialisation 

 of small muscular bundles from an existing simple sheet of muscle, 

 and disuse of the remaining portions, and in this small but highly 

 significant field we see structures created independently of will as 

 servants of the brain, and without any survival -value in their 

 earliest stages. It is more than likely no monkey, ape, or early 

 man whose face was covered with thick hair from his eyes down- 

 wards, ever saved his life or gained a better mate by reason of the 

 subtle modification of a tiny muscle which was proceeding pari 

 passu with the growing complexity of his convolutions and their 

 manifested emotions. This is not to claim that a more modern 

 man or woman would not find sexual selection of value by reason 

 of his or her more pleasing or commanding facial expression. That 

 the initiative of these alluring modifications was simple and 

 Lamarckian cannot be gainsaid, whatever the fruit of the finished 

 process may be to-day. We know in our own experience that 

 many a handsome person with good features and little expres- 

 sion is often unsuccessful in the matrimonial market, when 

 another with defective features and a fine, delicate, attractive 

 expression takes the prize. So the early story of the formation 

 of muscles of expression is seen to be a page in the evolution of 

 the indifferent. 



