The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Charles Darwin, 1872
Why do the eyebrows rise into a little peak in grief, and why does the face burn with shame? Charles Darwin watched babies, dogs and people from many nations for years and found an explanation: our facial expressions grew out of movements that once helped us survive. You will learn his three rules, tell a genuine smile from a fake one, and understand why a feeling is so hard to conceal completely.
Who it is for
For people who want to understand where a smile, tears and a blush come from, and why a feeling is so hard to hide.
The movements of the face and body reveal the thoughts and intentions of others more truly than words, which can be feigned.
A snake behind glass
Picture thick glass in the London Zoo. Behind it lies a puff adder, and pressed right up against the glass is the face of Charles Darwin. He was determined not to flinch if the snake struck. It struck, and Darwin jumped back a couple of metres, so fast that he was surprised himself. He later wrote that will and reason had proved powerless against an imagined danger that he had never actually faced.
The body does this all the time. We blush without wanting to, and hear our voice tremble in an important conversation. Darwin asked a question that almost no one had seriously asked before him: why do feelings look the way they do? Why do the inner ends of the eyebrows rise in grief, and why are the teeth bared in fury?
Darwin's most famous predecessor, the anatomist Charles Bell, held that some muscles of the face were created specially for expressing feelings. Darwin objected: the anthropoid apes have the same muscles, and almost every one of them has another, useful job. His answer was bold for his time. Our facial expression grew out of actions that once helped us survive, and it came to us together with the rest of the body.
Ahead of you are three rules with which Darwin explained almost any expression of the face and body. There is also a dog that recognised its master, crying babies, Duchenne's photographs of a fake smile, and a blush that cannot be produced on purpose. We will say plainly where Darwin observed and where he only guessed. Let us begin with the question of why the body makes useless movements.
A dog tramples grass that is not there
Before going to sleep, a dog often turns round and round on the spot and scratches the carpet with its forepaws, as if trampling down grass and digging a hollow. Darwin saw in this a memory of wild ancestors who made their beds in the grass. Jackals at London Zoo treated their straw in exactly the same way. The carpet does not need trampling, but the movement has remained.
This is Darwin's first rule, the rule of useful habits. If an action has often helped in some state, then in the same state the body tends to repeat it, even when it is of no use at all. A person who sharply rejects a proposal almost always closes the eyes or turns away, as if unwilling to look at it. When agreeing, he nods and opens his eyes wide. A billiard player pushes a rolling ball with his eyes, head and shoulders, although that will no longer help the ball.
The habit is more cunning than it seems. Once Darwin bet a dozen young men that they would not sneeze from a pinch of snuff, although each swore that he always sneezed. Each took a pinch and very much wanted to win. Everyone's eyes watered, but nobody sneezed, and all of them had to pay. Conscious desire got in the way of a reflex that usually works on its own.
From the first rule Darwin drew a detail to which he returns more than once. When we hold back a habitual movement, we are given away by the muscles that obey the will worst of all. Hands can be hidden in pockets, but the corners of the mouth, the heart and tears are much harder to conceal.
One part of the explanation has dated. Darwin believed that habits acquired in life are passed on to children, and he built many of his conclusions on this. Modern biology does not accept it. But the observations do not disappear with it: a movement that was once useful can live on as a sign of a feeling.
Here Livria's own practical advice begins, not Darwin's rule. Next time you reject someone else's idea, notice whether your eyes close or your head turns away. In that second the body repeats a very old gesture: I do not want to see this.
About the author
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was an English naturalist, the creator of the theory of evolution by natural selection. He published his book on the expression of emotions in 1872, a year after “The Descent of Man”.
All books by this author: Charles Darwin
Terms from the book
- Scott
- missionary
- Bell
- puff adder: A venomous African snake. When irritated, it draws in air, swells up and hisses loudly.
- Duchenne: Guillaume Duchenne (1806–1875), a French neurologist. In 1862 he published The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression, in which he studied the facial muscles with electricity and photography.
- reflex: An automatic response of the body to a stimulus, such as sneezing or coughing. It happens without the will taking part.
- antithesis: Opposition. In Darwin's account, this is the second rule of expression: an opposite feeling evokes opposite movements. It is the author's scheme, not a law of nature.
- snipe: A small marsh bird with a long bill and a quick, zigzag flight. It is hard to hit in flight.
- nervous energy: A concept of nineteenth-century physiology with which Darwin explained the excitement of the nervous system. Modern science does not use this concept.
- ophthalmologist: A doctor who studies and treats diseases of the eyes.
- Donders: Franciscus Donders (1818–1889), a Dutch physiologist and ophthalmologist from Utrecht. At Darwin's request he studied what happens to the blood vessels of the eye during a strong exhalation.
- pyramidalis: A small muscle at the base of the nose. It pulls down the skin between the eyebrows and leaves short transverse lines on the bridge of the nose.
- muscles of grief: Darwin's name for the muscles of the forehead and around the eyes which, in sadness, raise the inner ends of the eyebrows. It is a conventional name from the book, not an anatomical term.
- Bridgman: Laura Bridgman (1829–1889), an American woman who from early childhood had neither sight nor hearing. She was the first deaf-blind person to receive a systematic education.
- Abyssinians: The old name for the inhabitants of Abyssinia, that is, Ethiopia.
- galvanisation: Stimulation of muscles or nerves by a weak electric current. Named after the Italian scientist Luigi Galvani.
- zygomaticus major: A facial muscle that draws the corners of the mouth back and up. Without it there is no smile.
- nasolabial fold: A fold of skin running from the wings of the nose to the corners of the mouth. It deepens when smiling and crying.
- Burgess: Thomas Burgess, an English physician, author of Physiology, or the Mechanism of Blushing (1839).
All terms
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