PHYSIOLOGY OF THE PASSIONS. 559 



monia, they might in like manner give us graphic representations of 

 its motions under the influence of the various passions, such as love, 

 fear, grief, joy, anger, etc. Indeed, each of these states of the soul 

 produces, in the order of the heart's heatings, a modification so pecul- 

 iar and characteristic that we may regard each of the passions as 

 having a curve of its own. M. Cyon, who has recently suggested this 

 ingenious idea of applying graphic apparatus to the physiology of the 

 passions, gives some illustrations of the bearings such experiments 

 might have. Among the heirs gathered round the bed of a dying man 

 there is one whose grief causes his heart to beat slowly but violently. 

 In some of the others, who impatiently await the end, the heart beats 

 quickly but feebly. The graphic apparatus, which describes, with 

 marvelous precision, the rhythm of cardiac contractions, and which is 

 called the cardiography could in this case exhibit the real feelings of 

 the heirs. This is not at all an exaggeration, and we have no doubt 

 that an instrument of great sensibility could be got to note the differ- 

 ences here referred to. Perhaps the case would be different under cir- 

 cumstances of greater complexity. The modifications of the heart's 

 beating intervene in a twofold manner, in the determination of our 

 inclinations and in the acts which proceed from them, either by pro- 

 ducing sudden changes in the quantity of blood diffused through the 

 nerve-centres, or by giving us agreeable or painful sensations through 

 the depressor nerves. Now, a sudden afflux of blood to the brain, and 

 extremely painful sensations, may produce, in a man not suffering from 

 any mental disease, the craziest notions, and may betray him into the 

 commission of the most serious offenses. Suppose a man commits a 

 crime under circumstances but ill understood ; the question arises, 

 Was he moved to the act unconsciously and by physiological causes, 

 or did he do it designedly and after calm reflection ? M. Cyon thinks 

 he can resolve this problem as follows : The soul possesses the faculty 

 of experiencing, on the recollection of a past act, emotions of a like 

 kind with those it experienced at the moment of its commission. The 

 detailed history of a crime must produce in the accused who listens to 

 it — supposing that he had committed the crime knowingly — emotions 

 of this kind, as also the cardiac motions necessarily correlative to them. 

 Hence the judge may, by means of the cardiograph, inform himself as 

 to the presence or absence of these motions, and so decide whether the 

 accused has or has not a recollection of the crime, i. e., has committed 

 the crime whether with or without consciousness. This instance is 

 rather ingenious than plausible, rather theoretic than practical. Of 

 course, an individual who has committed a crime in a state of delirium 

 cannot, on hearing the history of that crime, experience, the same 

 emotions, nor consequently the same modifications of the heart's move- 

 ment, as he would if he had committed it with a full knowledge of 

 what he was doing ; still, it would be as hard for him in the one case 

 as in the other, to maintain an absolute sang-froid. A man who is 



