PHYSIOLOGY OF THE PASSIONS. 563 



pressions, have the same origin. Thus, the habit of praying with 

 the hands joined palm to palm comes, according to him, from the 

 fact that in past times captives testified their entire submission by- 

 holding up their hands to be bound by the victor. The captive as- 

 sumed the kneeling posture, in order to make this operation easier. 

 Thus, the gesture and the attitude, which are now the instinctive 

 expression of adoration, of devotion, would be merely vestiges of the 

 savage usages of primitive man. When we are angry with a person, 

 we involuntarily close our fists, so that they may be ready for use, 

 even when we have no intention of striking the one who has angered 

 us. If, under the action of similar feelings, the lips contract so as to 

 show the teeth, as though we were preparing to bite, the reason is, 

 says Darwin, that we are descended from animals who used their teeth 

 as weapons of offense. Why do the eyebrows assume an oblique po- 

 sition when a person is suffering pain ? For this reason : when chil- 

 dren cry from hunger or from pain, the act of crying profoundly modi- 

 fies the circulation; the blood flows to the head, and particularly to the 

 eyes, and this produces an unpleasant sensation. The muscles around 

 the eyes then contract so as to protect them, and this action has become, 

 under the influence of selection and heredity, an instinctive habit. 



Most of Mr. Darwin's ingenious explanations thus tend to refer 

 movements of the physiognomy, that are now involuntary and in- 

 stinctive, to movements that once were voluntary and intentional. 

 Many of these explanations seem plausible, but it is nevertheless true 

 that the physiognomy betrays the emotions and passions by means of 

 signs entirely independent of the will. That some of the muscular 

 movements of the face arose in the manner described by Darwin we 

 might admit, but still we cannot see how that accomplished naturalist 

 can reduce under his fundamental hypothesis those complex move- 

 ments which are expressed by laughter, lachrymal secretion, blushing, 

 pallor, turgescence or flaccidity of the flesh, and the flashing and dim- 

 ming of the eyes. All these phenomena are entirely independent of 

 the will, nor can they be explained on the theory put forward by Dar- 

 win to account for the eyebrow contracting under the influence of pain- 

 ful emotions, or for the lips contracting in anger. Therefore, we are 

 forced to the conclusion that the agitation of the cephalic centres, pro- 

 duced by the passions, calls forth, in virtue of the anatomical relations 

 of those centres with the facial nerves and muscles, reflex phenomena 

 that never were under the control of the will. The habit of seeing 

 such and such an expression associated with such and such a passion 

 leads us to judge of the one by the other ; but yet the habit is not the 

 efficient cause of the expression. 



There still remains to be considered one more series of physiologi- 

 cal phenomena which bear the impress of passion, viz., vocal phe- 

 nomena. The inflections of the voice, as related to the passions, are as 

 varied as the expressions of the physiognomy. Each passion has its 



