Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals

6

INTRODUCTION.

gave a course of lectures on Expression at the Sorbonne,
and his notes were published (1865) after his death,
under the title of c De la Physionpmie et des Mouve-
ments d'Expression/ This is a very interesting work,
full of valuable observations. His theory is rather com-
plex, and, as far as it can be given in a single sentence
(p. 65), is as follows:—" II results, de tous les faits que
j'ai rappeles, que les sens, ^imagination et la pensee elle-
meme, si elevee, si abstraite qu'on la suppose, ne peti-
vent s'exercer sans eveiller un sentiment correlatif, et
que ce sentiment se traduit directement, sympathique-
ment, symboliquement ou metaphoriquement, dans
toutes les spheres des organs exterieurs, qui la racontent
tous, suivant leur-mode d'action propre, comme si chacun
d'eux avait ete directement affecte."

Gratiolet appears to overlook inherited habit, and
even to some extent habit in the individual; and there-
fore he fails, as it seems to me, to give the right explana-
tion, or any explanation at all, of many gestures and ex-
pressions. As an illustration of what he calls symbolic
movements, I will quote his remarks (p. 37), taken from
M. Chevreul, on a man playing at billiards. " Si une
bille devie leg£rement de la direction que le joueur pr6-
tend lui imprimer, ne 1'avez-vous pas vu cent fois la pous-
ser du regard, de la t6te et me'me des e*paules, comme si
ces mouvements, purement symboliques, pouvaient recti-
fier son trajet? Des mouvements non rnoins significatifs
se produisent qiiand la bille manque d'une impulsion
suffisante. Et chez les joueurs novices, ils sont quelque-
fois accuses aii point d'6veiller le sourire sur les 16vres
des spectateuis." Such movements, as it appears to me,
may be attributed simply to habit. As often as a man
has wished to move an object to one side, he has always
pushed it to that side; when forwards, he has pushed it