Чарльз Дарвин
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
As a further illustration of the view here advanced, I may remark that if, during an early period of life, when habits of all kinds are readily established, our infants, when pleased, had been accustomed to utter loud peals of laughter (during which the vessels of their eyes are distended) as often and as continuously as they have yielded when distressed to screaming-fits, then it is probable that in after life tears would have been as copiously and as regularly secreted under the one state of mind as under the other. Gentle laughter, or a smile, or even a pleasing thought, would have sufficed to cause a moderate secretion of tears. There does indeed exist an evident tendency in this direction, as will be seen in a future chapter, when we treat of the tender feelings. With the Sandwich Islanders, according to Freycinet,[624] tears are actually recognized as a sign of happiness; but we should require better evidence on this head than that of a passing voyager. So again if our infants, during many generations, and each of them during several years, had almost daily suffered from prolonged choking-fits, during which 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 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 the same time 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 lacrymal 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 more 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.
Although in accordance with this view we must look 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 bright light, yet this does not present any difficulty in our understanding how the secretion of tears serves as a relief to suffering. And by as much as the weeping is more violent or hysterical, by so much will the relief be greater, – on the same principle that the writhing of the whole body, the grinding of the teeth, and the uttering of piercing shrieks, all give relief under an agony of pain.
CHAPTER VII. – LOW SPIRITS, ANXIETY, GRIEF, DEJECTION, DESPAIR
General effect of grief on the system – Obliquity of the eyebrows under suffering – On the cause of the obliquity of the eyebrows – On the depression of the corners of the mouth.
AFTER the mind has suffered from an acute paroxysm of grief, and the cause still continues, we fall into a state of low spirits; or we may be utterly cast down and dejected. Prolonged bodily pain, if not amounting to an agony, generally leads to the same state of mind. If we expect to suffer, we are anxious; if we have no hope of relief, we despair.
Persons suffering from excessive grief often seek relief by violent and almost frantic movements, as described in a former chapter; but when their suffering is somewhat mitigated, yet prolonged, they no longer wish for action, but remain motionless and passive, or may occasionally rock themselves to and fro. The circulation becomes languid; the face pale; the muscles flaccid; the eyelids droop; the head hangs on the contracted chest; the lips, cheeks, and lower jaw all sink downwards from their own weight. Hence all the features are lengthened; and the face of a person who hears bad news is said to fall. A party of natives in Tierra del Fuego endeavoured to explain to us that their friend, the captain of a sealing vessel, was out of spirits, by pulling down their cheeks with both hands, so as to make their faces as long as possible. Mr. Bunnet informs me that the Australian aborigines when out of spirits have a chop-fallen appearance. After prolonged suffering the eyes become dull and lack expression, and are often slightly suffused with tears. The eyebrows not rarely are rendered oblique, which is due to their inner ends being raised. This produces peculiarly-formed wrinkles on the forehead, which are very different from those of a simple frown; though in some cases a frown alone may be present. The comers of the mouth are drawn downwards, which is so universally recognized as a sign of being out of spirits, that it is almost proverbial.
The breathing becomes slow and feeble, and is often interrupted by deep sighs. As Gratiolet remarks, whenever our attention is long concentrated on any subject, we forget to breathe, and then relieve ourselves by a deep inspiration; but the sighs of a sorrowful person, owing to his slow respiration and languid circulation, are eminently characteristic.[701] As the grief of a person in this state occasionally recurs and increases into a paroxysm, spasms affect the respiratory muscles, and he feels as if something, the so-called globus hystericus, was rising in his throat. These spasmodic movements are clearly allied to the sobbing of children, and are remnants of those severer spasms which occur when a person is said to choke from excessive grief.[702]
Obliquity of the eyebrows. – Two points alone in the above description require further elucidation, and these are very curious ones; namely, the raising of the inner ends of the eyebrows, and the drawing down of the corners of the mouth. With respect to the eyebrows, they may occasionally be seen to assume an oblique position in persons suffering from deep dejection or anxiety; for instance, I have observed this movement in a mother whilst speaking about her sick son; and it is sometimes excited by quite trifling or momentary causes of real or pretended distress. The eyebrows assume this position owing to the contraction of certain muscles (namely, the orbiculars, corrugators, and pyramidals of the nose, which together tend to lower and contract the eyebrows) being partially cheeked by the more powerful action of the central fasciæ of the frontal muscle. These latter fasciæ by their contraction raise the inner ends alone of the eyebrows; and as the corrugators at the same time draw the eyebrows together, their inner ends become puckered into a fold or lump. This fold is a highly characteristic point in the appearance of the eyebrows when rendered oblique, as may be seen in figs. 2 and 5, Plate II. The eyebrows are at the same time somewhat roughened, owing to the hairs being made to project. Dr. J. Crichton Browne has also often noticed in melancholic patients who keep their eyebrows persistently oblique, "a peculiar acute arching of the upper eyelid." A trace of this may be observed by comparing the right and left eyelids of the young man in the photograph (fig. 2, Plate II.); for he was not able to act equally on both eyebrows. This is also shown by the unequal furrows on the two sides of his forehead. The acute arching of the eyelids depends, I believe, on the inner end alone of the eyebrows being raised; for when the whole eyebrow is elevated and arched, the upper eyelid follows in a slight degree the same movement.
But the most conspicuous result of the opposed contraction of the above-named muscles, is exhibited by the peculiar furrows formed on the forehead. These muscles, when thus in conjoint yet opposed action, may be called, for the sake of brevity, the grief-muscles. When a person elevates his eyebrows by the contraction of the whole frontal muscle, transverse wrinkles extend across the whole breadth of the forehead; but in the present case the middle fasciae alone are contracted; consequently, transverse furrows are formed across the middle part alone of the forehead. The skin over the exterior parts of both eyebrows is at the same time drawn downwards and smooth, by the contraction of the outer portions of the orbicular muscles. The eyebrows are likewise brought together through the simultaneous contraction of the corrugators;[703] and this latter action generates vertical furrows, separating the exterior and lowered part of the skin of the forehead from the central and raised part. The union of these vertical furrows with the central and transverse furrows (see figs. 2 and 3) produces a mark on the forehead which has been compared to a horse-shoe; but the furrows more strictly form three sides of a quadrangle. They are often conspicuous on the foreheads of adult or nearly adult persons, when their eyebrows are made oblique; but with young children, owing to their skin not easily wrinkling, they are rarely seen, or mere traces of them can be detected.
These peculiar furrows are best represented in fig. 3, Plate II., on the forehead of a young lady who has the power in an unusual degree of voluntarily acting on the requisite muscles. As she was absorbed in the attempt, whilst being photographed, her expression was not at all one of grief; I have therefore given the forehead alone. Fig. 1 on the same plate, copied from Dr. Du-chenne's work,[704] represents, on a reduced scale, the face, in its natural state, of a young man who was a good actor. In fig. 2 he is shown simulating grief, but the two eyebrows, as before remarked, are not equally acted on. That the expression is true, may be inferred from the fact that out of fifteen persons, to whom the original photograph was shown, without any clue to what was intended being given them, fourteen immediately answered, "despairing sorrow," "suffering endurance," "melancholy," and so forth. The history of fig. 5 is rather curious: I saw the photograph in a shop-window, and took it to Mr. Rejlander for the sake of finding out by whom it had been made; remarking to him how pathetic the expression was. He answered, "I made it, and it was likely to be pathetic, for the boy in a few minutes burst out crying." He then showed me a photograph of the same boy in a placid state, which I have had (fig. 4) reproduced. In fig. 6, a trace of obliquity in the eyebrows may be detected; but this figure, as well as fig. 7, is given to show the depression of the corners of the mouth, to which subject I shall presently refer.
Few persons, without some practice, can voluntarily act on their grief-muscles; but after repeated trials a considerable number succeed, whilst others never can. The degree of obliquity in the eyebrows, whether assumed voluntarily or unconsciously, differs much in different persons. With some who apparently have unusually strong pyramidal muscles, the contraction of the central fasciae of the frontal muscle, although it may be energetic, as shown by the quadrangular furrows on the forehead, does not raise the inner ends of the eyebrows, but only prevents their being so much lowered as they otherwise would have been. As far as I have been able to observe, the grief-muscles are brought into action much more frequently by children and women than by men. They are rarely acted on, at least with grown-up persons, from bodily pain, but almost exclusively from mental distress. Two persons who, after some practice, succeeded in acting on their grief-muscles, found by looking at a mirror that when they made their eyebrows oblique, they unintentionally at the same time depressed the corners of their mouths; and this is often the case when the expression is naturally assumed.
The power to bring the grief-muscles freely into play appears to be hereditary, like almost every other human faculty. A lady belonging to a family famous for having produced an extraordinary number of great actors and actresses, and who can herself give this expression "with singular precision," told Dr. Crichton Browne that all her family had possessed the power in a remarkable degree. The same hereditary tendency is said to have extended, as I likewise hear from Dr. Browne, to the last descendant of the family, which gave rise to Sir Walter Scott's novel of 'Red Gauntlet;' but the hero is described as contracting his forehead into a horseshoe mark from any strong emotion. I have also seen a young woman whose forehead seemed almost habitually thus contracted, independently of any emotion being at the time felt.
The grief-muscles are not very frequently brought into play; and as the action is often momentary, it easily escapes observation. Although the expression, when observed, is universally and instantly recognized as that of grief or anxiety, yet not one person out of a thousand who has never studied the subject, is able to say precisely what change passes over the sufferer's face. Hence probably it is that this expression is not even alluded to, as far as I have noticed, in any work of fiction, with the exception of 'Red Gauntlet' and of one other novel; and the authoress of the latter, as I am informed, belongs to the famous family of actors just alluded to; so that her attention may have been specially called to the subject.
The ancient Greek sculptors were familiar with the expression, as shown in the statues of the Laocoon and Arretino; but, as Duchenne remarks, they carried the transverse furrows across the whole breadth of the forehead, and thus committed a great anatomical mistake: this is likewise the case in some modern statues. It is, however, more probable that these wonderfully accurate observers intentionally sacrificed truth for the sake of beauty, than that they made a mistake; for rectangular furrows on the forehead would not have had a grand appearance on the marble. The expression, in its fully developed condition, is, as far as I can discover, not often represented in pictures by the old masters, no doubt owing to the same cause; but a lady who is perfectly familiar with this expression, informs me that in Fra Angelico's 'Descent from the Cross' in Florence, it is clearly exhibited in one of the figures on the right-hand; and I could add a few other instances.
Dr. Crichton Browne, at my request, closely attended to this expression in the numerous insane patients under his care in the West Biding Asylum; and he is familiar with Duchenne's photographs of the action of the grief-muscles. He informs me that they may constantly be seen in energetic action in cases of melancholia, and especially of hypochondria; and that the persistent lines or furrows, due to their habitual contraction, are characteristic of the physiognomy of the insane belonging to these two classes. Dr. Browne carefully observed for me during a considerable period three cases of hypochondria, in which the grief-muscles were persistently contracted. In one of these, a widow, aged 51, fancied that she had lost all her viscera, and that her whole body was empty. She wore an expression of great distress, and beat her semi-closed hands rhythmically together for hours. The grief-muscles were permanently contracted, and the upper eyelids arched. This condition lasted for months; she then recovered, and her countenance resumed its natural expression. A second case presented nearly the same peculiarities, with the addition that the comers of the mouth were depressed.
Mr. Patrick Nicol has also kindly observed for me several cases in the Sussex Lunatic Asylum, and has communicated to me full details with respect to three of them; but they need not here be given. From his observations on melancholic patients, Mr. Nicol concludes that the inner ends of the eyebrows are almost always more or less raised, with the wrinkles on the forehead more or less plainly marked. In the case of one young woman, these wrinkles were observed to be in constant slight play or movement. In some cases the comers of the mouth are depressed, but often only in a slight degree. Some amount of difference in the expression of the several melancholic patients could almost always be observed. The eyelids generally droop; and the skin near their outer comers and beneath them is wrinkled. The naso-labial fold, which runs from the wings of the nostrils to the comers of the mouth, and which is so conspicuous in blubbering children, is often plainly marked in these patients.
Although with the insane the grief-muscles often act persistently; yet in ordinary cases they are sometimes brought unconsciously into momentary action by ludicrously slight causes. A gentleman rewarded a young lady by an absurdly small present; she pretended to be offended, and as she upbraided him, her eyebrows became extremely oblique, with the forehead properly wrinkled. Another young lady and a youth, both in the highest spirits, were eagerly talking together with extraordinary rapidity; and I noticed that, as often as the young lady was beaten, and could not get out her words fast enough, her eyebrows went obliquely upwards, and rectangular furrows were formed on her forehead. She thus each time hoisted a flag of distress; and this she did half-a-dozen times in the course of a few minutes. I made no remark on the subject, but on a subsequent occasion I asked her to act on her grief-muscles; another girl who was present, and who could do so voluntarily, showing her what was intended. She tried repeatedly, but utterly failed; yet so slight a cause of distress as not being able to talk quickly enough, sufficed to bring these muscles over and over again into energetic action.
The expression of grief, due to the contraction of the grief-muscles, is by no means confined to Europeans, but appears to be common to all the races of mankind. I have, at least, received trustworthy accounts in regard to Hindoos, Dhangars (one of the aboriginal hill-tribes of India, and therefore belonging to a quite distinct race from the Hindoos), Malays, Negroes and Australians. With respect to the latter, two observers answer my query in the affirmative, but enter into no details. Mr. Taplin, however, appends to my descriptive remarks the words "this is exact." With respect to negroes, the lady who told me of Fra Angelico's picture, saw a negro towing a boat on the Nile, and as he encountered an obstruction, she observed his grief-muscles in strong action, with the middle of the forehead well wrinkled. Mr. Geach watched a Malay man in Malacca, with the comers of his mouth much depressed, the eyebrows oblique, with deep short grooves on the forehead. This expression lasted for a very short time; and Mr. Geach remarks it "was a strange one, very much like a person about to cry at some great loss."
In India Mr. H. Erskine found that the natives were familiar with this expression; and Mr. J. Scott, of the Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, has obligingly sent me a full description of two cases. He observed during some time, himself unseen, a very young Dhangar woman from Nag-pore, the wife of one of the gardeners, nursing her baby who was at the point of death; and he distinctly saw the eyebrows raised at the inner comers, the eyelids drooping, the forehead wrinkled in the middle, the mouth slightly open, with the comers much depressed. He then came from behind a screen of plants and spoke to the poor woman, who started, burst into a bitter flood of tears, and besought him to cure her baby. The second case was that of a Hindustani man, who from illness and poverty was compelled to sell his favourite goat. After receiving the money, he repeatedly looked at the money in his hand and then at the goat, as if doubting whether he would not return it. He went to the goat, which was tied up ready to be led away, and the animal reared up and licked his hands. His eyes then wavered from side to side; his "mouth was partially closed, with the corners very decidedly depressed." At last the poor man seemed to make up his mind that he must part with his goat, and then, as Mr. Scott saw, the eyebrows became slightly oblique, with the characteristic puckering or swelling at the inner ends, but the wrinkles on the forehead were not present. The man stood thus for a minute, then heaving a deep sigh, burst into tears, raised up his two hands, blessed the goat, turned round, and without looking again, went away.
On the cause of the obliquity of the eyebrows under suffering. – During several years no expression seemed to me so utterly perplexing as this which we are here considering. Why should grief or anxiety cause the central fasciae alone of the frontal muscle together with those round the eyes, to contract? Here we seem to have a complex movement for the sole purpose of expressing grief; and yet it is a comparatively rare expression, and often overlooked. I believe the explanation is not so difficult as it at first appears. Dr. Duchenne gives a photograph of the young man before referred to, who, when looking upwards at a strongly illuminated surface, involuntarily contracted his grief-muscles in an exaggerated manner. I had entirely forgotten this photograph, when on a very bright day with the sun behind me, I met, whilst on horseback, a girl whose eyebrows, as she looked up at me, became extremely oblique, with the proper furrows on her forehead. I have observed the same movement under similar circumstances on several subsequent occasions. On my return home I made three of my children, without giving them any clue to my object, look as long and as attentively as they could, at the summit of a tall tree standing against an extremely bright sky. With all three, the orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles were energetically contracted, through reflex action, from the excitement of the retina, so that their eyes might be protected from the bright light. But they tried their utmost to look upwards; and now a curious struggle, with spasmodic twitchings, could be observed between the whole or only the central portion of the frontal muscle, and the several muscles which serve to lower the eyebrows and close the eyelids. The involuntary contraction of the pyramidal caused the basal part of their noses to be transversely and deeply wrinkled. In one of the three children, the whole eyebrows were momentarily raised and lowered by the alternate contraction of the whole frontal muscle and of the muscles surrounding the eyes, so that the whole breadth of the forehead was alternately wrinkled and smoothed. In the other two children the forehead became wrinkled in the middle part alone, rectangular furrows being thus produced; and the eyebrows were rendered oblique, with their inner extremities puckered and swollen, – in the one child in a slight degree, in the other in a strongly marked manner. This difference in the obliquity of the eyebrows apparently depended on a difference in their general mobility, and in the strength of the pyramidal muscles. In both these cases the eyebrows and forehead were acted on under the influence of a strong light, in precisely the same manner, in every characteristic detail, as under the influence of grief or anxiety.
Duchenne states that the pyramidal muscle of the nose is less under the control of the will than are the other muscles round the eyes. He remarks that the young man who could so well act on his grief-muscles, as well as on most of his other facial muscles, could not contract the pyramidals.[705] This power, however, no doubt differs in different persons. The pyramidal muscle serves to draw down the skin of the forehead between the eyebrows, together with their inner extremities. The central fasciae of the frontal are the antagonists of the pyramidal; and if the action of the latter is to be specially checked, these central fasciae must be contracted. So that with persons having powerful pyramidal muscles, if there is under the influence of a bright light an unconscious desire to prevent the lowering of the eyebrows, the central fasciae of the frontal muscle must be brought into play; and their contraction, if sufficiently strong to overmaster the pyramidals, together with the contraction of the corrugator and orbicular muscles, will act in the manner just described on the eyebrows and forehead.
When children scream or cry out, they contract, as we know, the orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles, primarily for the sake of compressing their eyes, and thus protecting them from being gorged with blood, and secondarily through habit. I therefore expected to find with children, that when they endeavoured either to prevent a crying-fit from coming on, or to stop crying, they would cheek the contraction of the above-named muscles, in the same manner as when looking upwards at a bright light; and consequently that the central fasciae of the frontal muscle would often be brought into play. Accordingly, I began myself to observe children at such times, and asked others, including some medical men, to do the same. It is necessary to observe carefully, as the peculiar opposed action of these muscles is not nearly so plain in children, owing to their foreheads not easily wrinkling, as in adults. But I soon found that the grief-muscles were very frequently brought into distinct action on these occasions. It would be superfluous to give all the cases which have been observed; and I will specify only a few. A little girl, a year and a half old, was teased by some other children, and before bursting into tears her eyebrows became decidedly oblique. With an older girl the same obliquity was observed, with the inner ends of the eyebrows plainly puckered; and at the same time the corners of the mouth were drawn downwards. As soon as she burst into tears, the features all changed and this peculiar expression vanished. Again, after a little boy had been vaccinated, which made him scream and cry violently, the surgeon gave him an orange brought for the purpose, and this pleased the child much; as he stopped crying all the characteristic movements were observed, including the formation of rectangular wrinkles in the middle of the forehead. Lastly, I met on the road a little girl three or four years old, who had been frightened by a dog, and when I asked her what was the matter, she stopped whimpering, and her eyebrows instantly became oblique to an extraordinary degree.
Here then, as I cannot doubt, we have the key to the problem why the central fasciae of the frontal muscle and the muscles round the eyes contract in opposition to each other under the influence of grief; – whether their contraction be prolonged, as with the melancholic insane, or momentary, from some trifling cause of distress. We have all of us, as infants, repeatedly contracted our orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles, in order to protect our eyes whilst screaming; our progenitors before us have done the same during many generations; and though with advancing years we easily prevent, when feeling distressed, the utterance of screams, we cannot from long habit always prevent a slight contraction of the above-named muscles; nor indeed do we observe their contraction in ourselves, or attempt to stop it, if slight. But the pyramidal muscles seem to be less under the command of the will than the other related muscles; and if they be well developed, their contraction can be checked only by the antagonistic contraction of the central fasciae of the frontal muscle. The result which necessarily follows, if these fasciae contract energetically, is the oblique drawing up of the eyebrows, the puckering of their inner ends, and the formation of rectangular furrows on the middle of the forehead. As children and women cry much more freely than men, and as grown-up persons of both sexes rarely weep except from mental distress, we can understand why the grief-muscles are more frequently seen in action, as I believe to be the case, with children and women than with men; and with adults of both sexes from mental distress alone. In some of the cases before recorded, as in that of the poor Dhangar woman and of the Hindustani man, the action of the grief-muscles was quickly followed by bitter weeping. In all cases of distress, whether great or small, our brains tend through long habit to send an order to certain muscles to contract, as if we were still infants on the point of screaming out; but this order we, by the wondrous power of the will, and through habit, are able partially to counteract; although this is effected unconsciously, as far as the means of counteraction are concerned.
On the depression of the corners of the mouth. – This action is effected by the depressores anguili oris (see letter K in figs. 1 and 2). The fibres of this muscle diverge downwards, with the upper convergent ends attached round the angles of the mouth, and to the lower lip a little way within the angles.[706] Some of the fibres appear to be antagonistic to the great zygomatic muscle, and others to the several muscles running to the outer part of the upper lip. The contraction of this muscle draws downwards and outwards the corners of the mouth, including the outer part of the upper lip, and even in a slight degree the wings of the nostrils. When the mouth is closed and this muscle acts, the commissure or line of junction of the two lips forms a curved line with the concavity downwards,[707] and the lips themselves are generally somewhat protruded, especially the lower one. The mouth in this state is well represented in the two photographs (Plate II., figs. 6 and 7) by Mr. Rejlander. The upper boy (fig. 6) had just stopped crying, after receiving a slap on the face from another boy; and the right moment was seized for photographing him.
