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Show 35± CONCLUDING REMARKS CHAP. XIV. tarily performed for a definite object,~namely, to escape some danger, to relieve some distress, or to gratify some desire. For instance, there can hardly be a doubt that the animals which fight with their teeth, have acquired the habit of drawing back their ears closely to their heads, when fee1ing savage, from their progenitors having voluntarily acted in this manner in order to protect their ears from being torn by their ant~gonists; for those animals which do not :fight with their teeth do not thus express a savage state of mind. We may infer as highly probable that we ourselves have acquired the habit of contracting the muscles round the eyes, whilst crying gently, that is, without the utterance of any loud sound, from our progenitors, especially during infancy, having experienced, during the act of screaming, an uncomfortable sensation in their eyeballs. Again, some highly expressive movements result from the endeavour to check or prevent other expressive movements; thus the obliquity of the eyebrows and the drawing down of the corners of the mouth follow from the endeavour to prevent a screaming-fit from coming on, or to check it after it has come on. Here it is obvious that the consciousness and will must at first have come into play; not that we are conscious in these or in other such cases what muscles are brought into action, any more than when we perform the most ordinary voluntary movements. With respect to the expressive movements due to the principle of antithesis, it is clear that the will has intervened, though in a remote and indirect manner. So again with the movements coming under our third principle; these, in as far as they are influenced by nerve-force readily passing along habitual channels, have been determined by former and repeated exer· CHAP. XIV. AND SUMMARY. 355 tions of the will. The effects indirectly due to this latter agency are often combin d in a complex manner through the force of habit and association with thos~ directly resulting from the excitement of the cerebrospinal system. This seems to be the case with the increased actio~ of the heart under the influence of any strong emotion. When an animal erects its hair assumes a threatening attitude, and utters fierce so1.;nds in order to terrify an enemy, we see a curious combi~ n~tion of movements w~ich were originally voluntary with those that are Involuntary. It is, however possible that even strictly involuntary actions, such a~ the erection of the hair, may have been affected by the mysterious power of the will. Some expressive movements may have arisen spontaneously, in association with certain states of the mind like the tricks lately referred to, and afterwards bee~ inherited. But I know of no evidence rendering this view probable. 'The power of communication between the members of the sa1ne tribe by means of language has been of paramount importance in the development of man; a.nd the force of language is much aided by the expresf: n~e movements of the face and body. We perceive this at once when we converse on an important subject with any person whose face is concealed. Nevertheless there are no grounds, as far as I can discover, fen· believing that any muscle has been developed or even modified exclusively for the sake of expression. The vocal and other sound-producing organs, by which various expressive noises are produced, seem to form a partial exception; but I have elsewhere attempted to show that these organs were first developed for sexual purposes, in order that one sex might call or charm the other. Nor can I discover grounds for believing that 2 A 2 |