Facial Expression. 75 



mental activity. I must confess that to my own mind some 

 of their theorisings appear a little unpractical, and some of their 

 assumptions a little gratuitous. Yet one must highly value 

 any basis on which even to think, when the mind is projected 

 backward into the mysterious abyss of pre-historic, perchance 

 pre-human, existence. Let us take the instance of the origin of 

 frowning and the knitting of the brows associated with 

 unpleasant mental impressions. Whether, with Spencer, we 

 see in it the shielding of the eyes from the level sun-rays that 

 lit the arena of ancestral conflicts ; or, with Darwin, the pro- 

 tection of a super-imposed covering to the swollen eyeballs of 

 some weeping infantile progenitor of our race, I think we are 

 perhaps taking more for granted of that early pre-human nature 

 than facts will clearly verify. To fight was probably then a 

 pleasure, and anything but an unpleasant employment ; and 

 consequently it should have handed us down the smile rather 

 the frown. But though it is easy to criticise, it is difficult to 

 substitute any better theory ; and, as I said, we owe to these 

 great thinkers our only access to that attenuated region of 

 thought ; which though so high, is yet so attractive and so full 

 of possible discoveries. For is it not possible that when we 

 can more fully interpret the language of expression, we shall be 

 able to write a still older chapter of human experiences, than 

 the delightful chapter the philologists have given us from their 

 study of words ? for facial expression is an older language than 

 speech. 



And is not this another instance in which the conundrum, 

 set of old to man, "Know thyself," presses urgently for a 

 solution ? For in this study, so great in its present interest, so 

 fertile in its interpretation of our nature, we may find traces of 

 of the deep meaning of the past ; perchance even indications 

 for the future, pointing ever towards that 



" Far-off divine event 

 To which the whole creation moves. 



