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Show CHAP. II. GO 'l' llE l'RINCIPLE OF ANTITHESIS. . d'. tho head drooping his hot-house face. This ~on~Iste 1l~ttle and remaining b d nl ... Ino- a 1 ' Inuch, the wh le o y Sl \. ·1 f· llin()' suddenly down, Inotionl s ; tho ears and tal a a~rred. vVith tho · " no 1neans w bo but the tall was uy . eat chaps, the eyes fallinO' of the ears an d .o f h1s gr. nee and I f,a ncl.e d o l h O'ecl 111 appeara ' l f becan1e Inuc 1 c anb . 1 H's aspect was t lat o thnt they looked less bng lt. d ·~ was as I have said, l)iteous hopeless dejection; an 1 1' rrht Every detail ' 1 use was so s 1o • . • laughable, as t le .ca lete o position to Ius forn1er in his attitude was In co~p J can be explained, as J. oyful yet dignific~ beanng;. an except through the . t In no other way, It appears o me! . Had not the change been so principle of antithesi~ h ttributed it to his lowered instantaneous, I shoul. ave a f nlan the nervous . . ~ t' as 111 the case o ' 1 . spirits auec Ing, d quently the tone of us system and circulation, an dcoh~se y have been in l)art ,; hole nl uscular frame ; au t 1S rna the cause. 1 : · le of antithesis vVe will now consider ho\~thl e ~nlnct ~mals the power in expressi.o n 1l a~ an.·. sen. Wit somtah ea nmi emb"''e rs of the f . t rcommunicatwn between l o In e . d ith other species, between t lO s~:une commun1ty,-an w h un and tho opposite sexes, as well as between t e yo th g This old -is of the highest itnportanceh to . emb.It it is ' . d b s of t e VOICe, l is generally eftecte y mean . . to a, certain certain that gestures and expressions atre l uses in- extent Inutually I.n te1 11' g1' ble . Man no . on Y b t has articulate cr1· es, ges t ur.e s, and .e xpr. essiodn s, theu word. invented articulate language; If, mdee , 1 ted by . t d can be applied to a process, comp e ~nven e . 1 lade A.n y one innumerable steps, ha1f-consc10U~ y n doubt thn,t who has watched monkeys Will not d th~y perfectly understand each o tll er· ' s gestuI\reeus Oa'rnrc r expressi·o n, and to a larrbr e extent, as . bv CHAP. II. TIIE PRINCIPLE OF ANTITHESIS. 61 a~serts, 1 those of man. An animal when aoinO' to b 0 attack anoth r, or when afraid of another, often makes itself appear terrible, by erecting its hair, thus increasing the apparent bulk of its body, by showing its teeth, or brandishing its horns, or by uttei·ing fierce sounds. As the power of intercommunication is certainly of high service to many anitnals, there is no a p1·iori improbability in the supposition, that gestures manifestly of an opposite nature to those by which certain feelings are already expressed, should at first have been voluntarily employed under the influence of an opposite state of feeling. ~rhe fact of the gestures being uow innate, would be no valid objection to the belief that they were at :first intentional; for if practised during many generations, they would probab]y at last be inherited. Nevertheless it is more than doubtful, as we shall iinmediately see, whether any of the cases which con1e under our present head of antithesis, have thus originated. 'Vith conventional signs which are not innate, snch as those used by the deaf and dumb and by savages, the principle of opposition or antithesis has been partially brought into play. ~rhe Cistercian tnonks thought it sinful to speak, and as they could not avoid holding some co1nmnnication, they invented a gesture language, in whic4 the principle of opposition seems to have been mnployed.2 Dr. Scott, of the Exeter Deaf and Dumb Institution, writes to me that "opposites are greatly "used in teaching the deaf and dtunb, who have a lively '' sense of them." Nevertheless I have been surprised how few unequivocal instances can be adduced. X his 1 'Naturgeschichto dcr Saugethiere von Paraguay,' 1830, s. 55. 2 M1·. Tylor givos an account of tho Cistercian gesture-language in his 'Early History of Mankind' (2nd edit. 1870, p. 40), and makes some remarks on the principle of opposition. in gestures . . |
