Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals

IX

REFLECTION.

221

is much, truth in these remarks, but hardly the whole
truth.. Dr Diichenne has called the corragator the
*EL~usele of reflection;2 hut this name, without some lim-
itation,, cannot be considered as quite correct.

A rn.an may be absorbed in the deepest thought, and
brow will remain smooth until he encounters some
obstacle In his train of reasoning, or is interrupted by
sortie disturbance, and then a frown passes like a shadow
over his brow. A half-starved man may think intently
liow to obtain food, but he probably will not frown un-
less lie encounters either in thought or action some dif-
ficulty., or finds the food when obtained nauseous. I
•nave noticed that almost everyone instantly frowns if
lie perceives a strange or bad taste in what he is eating.
I asked several persons, without explaining my object,
to listen intently to a very gentle tapping sound, the
natxire and source of which they all perfectly knew, and
not one frowned; but a man who joined us, and who
couild not conceive what we were all doing in profound
silence, when asked to listen, frowned much, though not
ixi an ill-temper, and said he could not in the least under-
stand what we all wanted. Dr. Piderit,3 who has pub-
lislied remarks to the same effect, adds that stammerers
generally frown in speaking; and that a man in doing
even so trifling a thing as pulling on a boot, frowns if

to save tliem from being injured by a blow, the corrugators
contract. With, savages or other men whose heads are
uncovered, the eyebrows are continually lowered and con-
tracted to serve as a shade against a too strong light; and
tills is effected partly by the corrugators. This movement
"wooild liave been more especially serviceable to man, as
soon as liis early progenitors held their heads erect. Last-
ly, 3?ro:£. Donders believes (' Archives of Medicine,' ed. by
Lu IBeale, 1870, vol. v. p. 34), that the corrugators are
"broug-lit into action in causing the eyeball to advance in
accommodation for proximity in vision.

2 * Mecanisme de la Physionomie Humaine,' Album,
g'ende iii.

a * Mimik und Physiognomik,' s. 46.

ft