484 P8YCH0L0OT. 



able to frame a substance which should be excitable enough to com- 

 pose the brain and spinal marrow, and yet which should not be so ex- 

 cited by exceptional stimulation as to overstep in its reactions those 

 physiological bounds which are useful to the conservation of the crea- 

 ture. " * 



Professor Bain, if I mistake not, had long previously 

 commented upon fear in a similar way. 



Mr. Darwin accounts for many emotional expressions 

 by what he calls the principle of antithesis. In virtue of 

 this principle, if a certain stimulus prompted a certain set 

 of movements, then a contrary-feeling stimulus would 

 prompt exactly the opposite movements, although these 

 might otherwise have neither utility nor significance. It is 

 in this wise that Darwin explains the expression of impo- 

 tence, raised eyebrows, and shrugged shoulders, dropped 

 arms and open palms, as being the antithesis of the frown- 

 ing brow, the thrown-back shoulders, and clenched fists of 

 rage, which is the emotion of power. No doubt a certain 

 number of movements can be formulated under this law ; 

 but whether it expresses a causal principle is more than 

 doubtful. It has been by most critics considered the least 

 successful of Darwin's speculations on this subject. 



To sum up, we see the reason for a few emotional re- 

 actions ; for others a possible species of reason may be 

 guessed ; but others remain for which no plausible reason 

 can even be conceived. These may be reactions which are 

 purely mechanical results of the way in which our nervous 

 centres are framed, reactions which, although permanent 

 in us now, may be called accidental as far as their origin 

 goes. In fact, in an organism as complex as the nervovis 

 system there must be many such reactions, incidental to 

 others evolved for utility's sake, but which would never 

 themselves have been evolved independently, for any utility 

 they might possess. Sea-sickness, the love of music, of 

 the various intoxicants, nay, the entire aesthetic life of man, 

 shall have to trace to this accidental origin. t It Avould be 

 foolish to suppose that none of the reactions called emo- 

 tional could have arisen in this gwrtst-accidental way. 



* La Paura, Appendice, p. 295. f See below, p. 637. 



