74 Facial Expression. 



one's own past experience by the antecedent emotions of another 

 mind. Yet this method brings out an important point in 

 regard to facial expression as a training to the mind. It is very- 

 hard, if not impossible, for an unsophisticated person to assume 

 any other expression than that which interprets the present 

 slate of the mind ; it is difficult to look happy and feel sad. If 

 to look happy is not to be happy, it is a very short step from 

 the one to the other. Hence it is very important in the psy- 

 chological training of children to study their expression, and 

 above all to prevent by every possible means, the growth of a 

 permanently ill-natured expression. It is the surest way to 

 guard against the development of every kind of malefactor in 

 the future ; and it is a matter in which every human being is a 

 responsible agent. This responsibility is two-fold ; it is not 

 only a duty to remove any cause for the unhappiness that the 

 expression may betray ; but, if I may so put it, to set a good 

 example oneself in the matter of a happy expression. For one 

 of the most interesting points connected with the various facial 

 expressions is their contagiousness. Such movements as 

 yawning are eminently contagious. So, to a great extent, are 

 laughter and smiling. I take it, therefore, that it is a duty 

 which every member of society owes to society at large, at what- 

 ever cost of self-denial, to carry about a benign type of facial 

 expression ; for in it we possess one of the most potent educative 

 agents for the mind ; more potent it may be in promoting that 

 which is good and desirable in human life than all our vaunted 

 machinery of school boards and secondary educational system. 

 Such are some of its imperative uses, and some of the conditions 

 of its present study; but we cannot quit this interesting subject 

 without a short reference to the. probable origin of facial 

 expression in the far past history of our race. Sir Charles Bell 

 was satisfied in seeing in it a special adaptation of structure and 

 function to the social necessities of human life. Not so Darwin 

 and Spencer. In the writings of both are to be found most 

 interesting and ingenious surmises as to how the various ex- 

 pressions now recognised as distinct and opposite in their 

 meaning became associated with the corresponding places of 



