288 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



ing an enemy, thougli there may be no intention of acting 

 in this manner. Mr. Dyson Lacy has seen this grinning 

 expression with the Australians, when quarreling, and 

 so has Gaika with the Caffres of South Africa. Dickens, 

 in speaking of an atrocious murderer who had just been 

 caught, and was surrounded by a furious mob, describes 

 "the people as jumping up one behind another, snarling 

 with their teeth, and making at him like wild beasts." 

 Every one who has had much to do with young children 

 must have seen how naturally they take to biting, when 

 in a passion. It seems as instinctive in them as in young 

 crocodiles, who snap their little jaws as soon as they 

 emerge from the egg. 



SNEEEIUG. 



Expression The expression here considered, whether 



tions ' t^^t ^^ ^ playful sneer or ferocious snarl, is 

 page 253. one of the most curious which occurs in man. 

 It reveals his animal descent ; for no one, even if rolling 

 on the ground in a deadly grapple with an enemy, and 

 attempting to bite him, would try to use his canine teeth 

 more than his other teeth. We may readily believe from 

 our afiSnity to the anthropomorphous apes that our male 

 semi-human progenitors possessed great canine teeth, and 

 men are now occasionally born having them of unusually 

 large size, with interspaces in the opposite jaw for their 

 reception. We may further suspect, notwithstanding 

 that we have no support from analogy, that our semi-hu- 

 man progenitors uncovered their canine teeth when pre- 

 pared for battle, as we still do when feeling ferocious, or 

 when merely sneering at or defying some one, without 

 any intention of making a real attack with our teeth. 



