65 



Lecture on 



FACIAL EXPRESSION. 



By A. W. Hare, M.B., &c, Professor of Surgery in the Owens 



College, Victoria University, Manchester. 



The practical study of the expression of the human face, 

 as an index of the quality and intent of the mind that is 

 living and working behind it, is one that has been engaged 

 in from time immemorial by the members of our race, 

 and one in which we unconsciously or consciously are no less 

 constantly exercising our mental powers. This practical 

 study has been an essential element in human life since that 

 far-off day when the social instincts of our nature asserted them- 

 selves and drew men together to live in communities, where 

 each and all were alike concerned in upholding the common 

 good. For the most part that study has been pursued in a 

 purely practical and utilitarian spirit, the intense momentary 

 importance of a right interpretation of expression in others 

 having to a great extent displaced any thought of a more 

 systematic enquiry into the how, or the why, or as to whether 

 there were, in fact, any ulterior significance in the facial expres- 

 sion of emotion, or anything more to be gained from its study 

 than a practical means towards effecting some immediate 

 object. But the analogies drawn from the study of other human 

 capacities that have for long been the subject of most interesting 

 enquiries, as, for instance, the mechanism of locomotion, the 

 physics of respiration, and the ultimate chemistry of that and 

 of many other vital processes, have naturally led to the suppo- 

 sition that the study of physiognomy, as regards its essential 

 character, and the rationale of its influence in human activities, 

 will yield no less valuable results to the student. As far as the 

 study has advanced in the meantime, that anticipation has 

 been amply fulfilled ; and, as in every other branch of experi- 



