432 



ON PATHOGNOMY, OR 



sought for in man, and the nobler ranks of quadrupeds, chiefly in the face, 

 but considerably also in the attitudes and motions of the body, while, in 

 other animals, we are so little acquainted with these signs, as to be incapable 

 of offering any very satisfactory or extensive opinion upon the subject. 



In the ATTRACTIVE AFFECTIONS, thc fcaturcs, limbs, and muscles are uniformly 

 soft and pliant — in the repulsive, as uniformly tense, and for the most part 

 rigid. The characters of the latter, therefore, are necessarily more marked 

 and imposing than those of the former, though both are equally true to their 

 purpose. And in more definitely answering the question, whether the cha- 

 racters in either case be the effect of habit or voluntary exertion to execute 

 the feeling of the mind at the moment, or whether they be the mind's natural 

 and instinctive symbols ; it may be still farther observed, that in all instances 

 they are the latter, and in a few instances both ; for it by no means follows, 

 that they are not instinctive symbols, because they serve at the same time to 

 ward off our danger, or to inflict retaliation on an assailant. In the attractive 

 feelings or passions, they are perhaps, for the most part, instinctive signs 

 alone : for the natural language of dimples, smiles, laughter, a lively, spark- 

 ling eye, or that softened outline, and uniform sweep of the whole figure, 

 which every one knows to be indicative of tranquillity and repose, is so clear 

 to every one, that he who runneth may read it, and be assured of finding a 

 contented and happy companion, if not a propitious season for a suit the heart 

 is set upon. And although in a few of the repulsive passions, as rage, terror, 

 and revenge, I have already given examples of their being mixed modes, in 

 the greater number of ^even this last class they are probably as simple 

 instincts as in the whole of the former. For what other use than that of mere 

 instinctive indications can we possibly assign to tears, sighs, frowns, erec- 

 tion of the hair of the head, or the dead paleness, shivering, and horripila- 

 tion, the creeping cold, that makes the multitude of the bones to tremble, 

 under the influence of severe terror or dismay ] 



In all this, there is one fact peculiarly worthy of attention ; and that is, the 

 admirable simplicity which runs through the whole; so that the same muscles 

 are not unfrequently made use of to produce diff'erent and even opposite 

 effects: and this, too, by variations, and shades of variations, so slight, that 

 it is difficult, and in some cases almost impossible, to seize them with the pencil. 

 When Peter of Cortona was engaged on a picture of the iron age, for the 

 royal palace of Pitti, Ferdinand II., who often visited him, and witnessed the 

 progress of the piece, was particularly struck with the exact representa- 

 tion of a child in the act of crying. " Has your majesty," said the painter, 

 " a mind to see how easy it is to make this very child laugh 1" The king as- 

 sented ; and the artist, by merely depressing the corner of the lips, and inner 

 extremity of the eyebrows, which before were elevated, made the little urchin, 

 which at first seemed breaking its heart with weeping, seem equally in danger 

 of bursting its sides with immoderate laughter. After which, with the same 

 ease, he restored the figure to its proper passion of sorrow. 



The nerves that influence the expression take their rise almost entirely 

 from one common quarter, the medulla oblongata, or that lower portion of the 

 brain from which the spinal marrow immediately issues ;* and as all their 

 chief ramifications associate in the act of respiration, we can readily see why 

 the lungs, the heart, and the chest, in general, should so strikingly participate 

 in all the changes of expression, and work up alternately sighs, crying, 

 laughter, convulsions, and suffocation.f 



* See Series i. Lecture, xv. p. 160. 



■f Tliia subject has been of late perspicuously and admirably pursued by Mr. Bell, in a series of com- 

 munications to the Philosophical Transactions, and especially in the volume for 1822, p. 284, who closes 

 his remarks as follows: — "To those I address, it is unnecessary to go farther than to indicate that the 

 nerves treated of in these papers are the instruments of expression, from the smile upon the infant's 

 cheek to the last agony of life. It is when the strong man is subdued, by this mysterious influence ot soul 

 and body, and when the passions may be truly said to tear the breast, that we have the most afflict- 

 ing picture of human frailty, and the most unequivocal proof that it is the order of functions which we 

 have been considering that is then affected. In the first struggles of the infant to draw breath, in the man 

 recovering from a state of suffocalion,^«»d in the agony of passion, when the breast labours from the in- 

 fluence at the heart, the same system of parts is affected,— the same nerves, the'same muscles; and the 



