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Show 176 EXPRESSION OF SUFFERING: CnAP. Vt. better evidence on this head than that of a passing voyager. So again if our infants, during many genera- . tions and each of them during several years, had almost dail; suffered from prolonged choking-fits, during ~hich the vessels of the eye are distended and tears copiously secreted, then it is probable, such is the force of associated habit, that during after life the mere thought of a choke, without any distress of mind, would have sufficed to bring tears into our eyes. To sum up this chapter, weeping is probably the result of some such chain of events as follows. Children, when wanting food or suffering in any way, cry out loudly, like the young of most other animals, partly as a call to their parents for aid, and partly from any great exertion serving as a relief. Prolonged screaming inevitably leads to the gorging of the blood-vessels of the eye; and this will have led, at first consciously and at last habitually, to the contraction of the muscles round the eyes in order to protect them. At tho same ti1ne the spasmodic pressure on the surface of the eye, and the distension of the vessels within the eye, without necessarily entailing any conscious sensation, will have affected, through reflex action, the !aerymal glands. Finally, through the three principles of nerve-force readily passing along accustomed channels -of association, which is so widely extended in its power-and of certain actions, being 1nore under the control of the will than others-it has come to pass that suffering readily causes the secretion of tears, without being necessarily accompanied by any other action. Althouo-h in accordance with this view we must look 0 at weeping as an incidental result, as purposeless as the secretion of tears from ·a blow outside the eye, or as a sneeze from the retina being affected by a CHAP. VI. 'VEEPING. 177 ?right light, yet .this does not present any difficulty In our u~derstand1ng how the secretion of tears serveH as a . reh.e f to su.f fering. And by as much as th e weep1n~ IS more VIolent or hysterical, by so much will th~ r~hef be greater,-on the san1e principle that the Wl'ltlung of the whole body, the grinding of the teeth and the uttering of piercing shrieks, all give reli f under an agony of pain. N |