_THE EXPRESSION OF FEELING_
The primary function of mentality, as we have throughout assumed, is as
stimulant to activities advantageous to the individual under the
conditions of its existence; hence all these activities are in a broad
sense expressions of mental state, they are the outflow of psychoses and
are indicative of them. In particular, feeling is specially and directly
related to motor values, which thus become to the self-observant or to
others observant an index or expression of the feeling. Thus, I see a
deer fleeing from a wolf, and I infer that this is an expression of
fear. Hence we may rightly say that in a large sense all action is
expression, for all such action rises in feeling; in other words, from
one point of view expression equals action. Not only may exterior bodily
phenomena betray the feeling which is their inciting cause, but to a
vivisectionist, for example, interior phenomena, cerebral and other, may
be noted as indicating a feeling origin. Excluding, of course, so-called
reflex action, which is really reflex motion, action and expression are
but different points of view of the same thing: what we term an action
when we dwell upon the motor side, we term an expression when we dwell
on the mental _prius_ and stimulus which is revealed.
Now as the evolution of mind progresses actions no longer serviceable
may survive in connection with given feelings, remain indicative of
them; thus the strong beating of the heart in fear and the scowl in
anger. Such survival actions which occur in connection with all kinds of
feelings, and especially with those which are pre-human in their origin,
are with particular emphasis styled expressions. The scowl in anger is
considered as expression rather than the actual blow struck, which is
equally the result and indication of anger.[F]
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Footnote F:
Wundt says that when in emotion we look “sour” we think we are
actually tasting the sour, and so make the repulsing action, “sour”
look. (_Lectures on Psychology_, p. 283.) I think it more probable
that the “sour” look is the survival expression of such an emotion as
disappointment. It is likely that the genesis of disappointment was in
tasting the sour for the supposedly sweet, _e.g._, lemon for orange,
and the “sour” look has remained as expression of disappointment long
since its utility ceased. The genesis and early growth of most
emotions is in connection with certain sense experiences and their
related actions, and these actions tend to remain as “expressions”
long after their real quality as actions has disappeared. Hence it is
by survival, and not because he thinks himself tasting something sour,
that a man looks “soured” by disappointment when I fail to give him
money as promised. So also black is gloomy because we are diurnal, and
our ancestors were diurnal. If nocturnal, black would seem joyous,
white gloomy. (Cf. Wundt, _ibid._, p. 375.)
-----
Expression is then primarily all action connected with all
consciousness, secondarily, it is useless action continued by force of
habit and transmitted to descendants. But still many expressions are
more than mere actions or their survivals. To be sure, Darwin and many
Darwinists maintain that the expressions do not arise or exist for their
own value as such, but they are entirely incidental. Expression is not
the function of the so-called expressions, but they are entirely
functional survivals. While, however, we must admit that many
expressions have arisen and been preserved in this manner, yet I think
it is altogether hasty to deny the function and value of expression _per
se_. Expression has existed as a function from very early phases of
life, and it underlies all bisexuality and sociality which have been
such important elements in evolution. Organic sound-producing
structures, whose sole utility from the very first is for attracting
attention, early appear, and further voice seems to have its origin in
the demand for love-call and call to young. Gregariousness is made
possible in almost all its forms by purposive expression. There comes
early, then, a will, not merely in performing some definite act at
prompting of a feeling, but also a use in simply expressing it to
others, communicating the fact of having pain or pleasure states to
others. The cry of pain in young animals is a cry for help, and as such
has been favoured in the struggle for existence. The usefulness of this
action is solely as expression, and as expression it has arisen and been
developed. Expression here is not an incidental view of a physiological
action, but exists for its own value to the individual. Such expressions
have their use in their significance, and as the true language of
feeling are to be interpreted by the principle of serviceability. An
expression which is and continues, by reason of its utility, as a
sign-language, visual, auditory, or otherwise, as gesture love-calls,
etc., may be termed pure expression as distinguished from incidental
expression, like blushing, pallor, etc., which exist, not for their
significance, though they are significant. Incidental expression
includes also the sphere of degraded action. Yet what seems mere
degraded action may be true expression, as beckoning, which is an
abridgement of the action of pulling one to oneself and of movement
towards oneself; but this motion of the hands exists, not for this end,
nor as survival, but merely as significant of a desire on the part of
the gesturer. In the higher ranges of life we well know the large place
played by pure expression as distinguished from incidental expression.
It is not necessary to suppose that pure expression consists merely in
“voluntary and consciously” employing “means of communication” (Darwin,
_Expression of the Emotions_, p. 256); thus, the scream of an infant is
equally pure expression, whether the infant employs it knowingly or not
as such, for screaming of the young has doubtless arisen and been
preserved in natural selection because of its utility as significant.
There is then, I think, a group of activities which are not merely
incidentally expressive, but originate and exist for expression as a
useful thing in the battle of life.
But we have not exhausted the principles of expression when we refer to
present or past serviceability as an action in general or to service as
expression. It is plain that in any activity prompted by any feeling
there comes at a certain high intensity a more or less pathologic
over-functioning of the organs concerned, with under-functioning of
others. Emotion as action stimulator in any high degree always enhances
some physiologic function to the depression of others. The blood, for
instance, is forcibly withdrawn from various parts to certain specially
active parts, and this withdrawal gives rise to an appearance which may
be termed a negative expression, as the pallor in fear. Certain other
phenomena connected with fear, as change of colour in the hair, cold
sweat, and trembling of the muscles, which are mentioned by Darwin as
unexplained, are probably due to this negative principle (_Expression of
the Emotions in Man and Animals_, New York, 1886, p. 350; but compare
pp. 81 and 308, where these disturbances are ascribed to direct action
of the nervous system. Darwin does not, however, distinctly state or
treat the principle we here mention as a distinct law). As the body is
an inter-related system of organs, stimulation to one organ means an
effect upon all, excitation of some, depression of others; thus to an
acute observer the whole body is symptomatic of every feeling, and,
indeed, of every consciousness. In the natural and normal course
emotion, to do its work most effectively, implies little or no marked
negative expression, but the nervous energy generated flows freely and
directly to the organs which are to do service, without greatly
impairing general function. Fear thus acts at first simply and
advantageously; but in its later history fear becomes greatly
complicated, and instead of freely issuing in serviceable action with
not excessive heightening or depressing of any function, its outlet
seems as it were choked, and the nervous energy spends itself within the
body in violent disturbances of vital organs. Fear becomes then decadent
and loses its place as evolutionary factor, becoming impediment rather
than aid to progress. Negative expression must then be considered as
especially notable in the later exhibitions of an emotion when
concentration becomes morbid and ineffective, losing its
advantageousness, and the emotion is being supplanted by other psychic
factors. Great injury and death itself may result from the abnormal
action of fear and other primarily useful psychoses.
Besides the particular organs to serviceable activity with the
subsidiary physiological functioning, and the indirect depression, we
must still note other principles which may control expression. Nervous
energy under the incitement of emotion is often in excess of the demand
for the required action, and it will then overflow into correlated
activities along the line of least resistance. Also when the suitable
action is checked for any reason, its motive force backs up and
overflows in new channels. Indefinite and purposeless movements of
various kinds thus result which may be expressive of the emotion of
which they are incidentally the result. Any one who has watched an Irish
setter tracing game must have remarked the wavings of the tail becoming
more rapid when the scent becomes stronger. When the dog is running very
fast, the tail-waggings are less noticeable than when moving slowly,
although the interest may seemingly be the same in both cases. It is
obvious that a fast run uses to a large extent the superfluous energy
which was discharging in tail movements, and when the useful running is
checked the tail motion recommences with greater force, serving as a
safety-valve. The frisking of young animals and children is also largely
due to diffusion of so-called superfluous nerve-force, and is expressive
of general sensations of pleasure. All feeling is motor in its natural
value and tendency, and unless the resulting energy is fully used in
some special serviceable action, it will discharge itself along the
easiest and most habitual lines laid down by inheritance. Thus the
peculiar ancestral experience of animals is always expressed by their
spontaneous diffusive activities. It will be remarked that the principle
of diffusion is the reverse of negative expression, being an overflow of
force as opposed to withdrawal. Excessive generation of energy is
certainly uneconomical, and we must consider that at first emotion
tended rather to less than the required amount, than more.
The phenomena of diffusive expression, in the strict sense, are thus
rather late in appearance. The very lowest forms of life have no infancy
or play period, and from the first are directly active in the struggle
for existence. Yet the play period was certainly evolved through natural
selection as a fully educative and preparatory stage, wherein the
actions most demanded in actual life are unconsciously practised and a
general basis of reserve force is accumulated. Play activity is a living
on inherited energy and in the inherited modes: the kitten pouncing, the
horse prancing, etc. Play is then rather a mode of activity than a mode
of expression; it is expressive only in the way that all action is
expressive. Expression proper is only in those modes of action which are
carried on, whether consciously or unconsciously, by virtue of their
significance value. If everything which is expressive is called an
expression, we must include all the bodily actions and phenomena which
can in any wise be connected with consciousness. I use the term
diffusion in the narrow sense of spontaneous overflow of energy in
excess of that absolutely required for the advantageous action. I do not
refer to the general diffusion of emotional effect throughout the whole
organism, which always occurs by the very nature of organism. Thus the
pain from a pin-prick certainly modifies to some extent every cell in
the body; there is a direct wave of influence from the psychic
experience, and this is propagated throughout the whole organism by
reason of its essential interdependency of parts; it echoes and
re-echoes throughout the whole. The physiological result is then in
simplest cases extremely complicated. However, this mere general fact of
diffusion is a biological truism, and does not explain any expression,
but simply asserts that every feeling, by virtue of its physical basis,
affects the organism as a whole. Emotion issues specially in motor
activities because its origin was as stimulant to necessary action, but
this action involved internal organs, especially the circulatory and
respiratory, and indirectly the whole body in every part. The
explanation of an expression must always be in tracing back to the
original serviceable actions with their demands on special subsidiary
organs, and their depression of certain related organs, and not in
reference to the general law of diffusion, which is but another term for
the essential continuity of the organism. A useful principle of
expression must not merely say that there is by the nature of organism a
general bodily result from every emotion, but it must explain the
particular expressions.
We make them so far four principles or forms of expression, which we
instance in saying that the blow of an angry man is general activity
expression, shaking the fist at one, purposive expression, scowling as
remnant of watching foe intently in the open air is survival expression,
and twitching and trembling of certain muscles is diffusive expression.
Every emotion commonly issues in all four forms, in direct activity with
associated survival tendencies and purposive expression, and a surplus
of energy runs over into certain natural and easy motions, or a
deficiency of energy in certain organs manifests itself, the negative
side of diffusive expression.[G]
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Footnote G:
Since emotion comes in waves, expression is reduplicated. This may
throw some light on such an expression as laughter. Landor says the
Ainu do not in the proper sense laugh, but they roar with delight. It
may be that laughter is reiterated roar as resulting from reiterated
psychic impulses and feelings. As in the growth of an emotion, waves
are multiplied, the expression becomes more reduplicate, and thus
laughter tends to become more rippling and articulate. The
cachinnation and explosiveness has thus a plausible explanation, which
I merely suggest. At least Prof. Dewey’s explanation (_Psychological
Review_, I., 559) that “both crying and laughing fall under the same
principle of action—the termination of a period of effort”—is quite
too general. Tension ceasing, effort stopped, we “breathe freely,”
take deep inspirations. Laughter is far from being the usual outcome
of such a _status_.
-----
Darwin makes antithesis a principle of expression. Thus the expression
of affection in the dog or cat toward its master cannot, says Darwin, be
traced in any wise to serviceability, and we must seek its explanation
merely as unconsciously and instinctively assumed as directly contrary
to the serviceable hostile expressions. A dog’s expression of anger is,
or has been, directly serviceable action, but the expressions of
affectionate pleasure seem never to have had such an origin, but to have
arisen merely as antithetic to the former, and so establishing the
utmost distinctness of impression. To convey most clearly a motion of
its friendliness the dog naturally assumes those attitudes which are
most diverse from its expression of hostility. Their serviceability as
expressions is best attained by being completely antithetical, and the
more antithetical the better under natural selection. However, if this
be the case, antithesis scarcely deserves, it seems to me, the name of a
principle of expression, but it merely denominates the fact that
opposite emotions in the struggle for existence tend to exhibit
themselves in opposite ways as similar emotions in similar ways; but we
need neither antithesis nor similarity as a principle. I believe that
serviceability past or present either as direct action or as expression
is the prime _impetus_ of what we term the expression of the emotions,
and I confess I do not see much force in Darwin’s Chapter on Antithesis.
If, however, opposition has a meaning for life, as Darwin seems to
imply, then does not the expression come under the law of
serviceability? If there is any opposition in expression, I should
explain this in general by utility rather than by antithesis _per se_.
Thus take the gestures instanced by Darwin (_ibid._, p. 65), of pushing
away with the hand when telling one to go away, and of pulling toward
when telling one to come; these gestures are, indeed, antithetic, but
their explanation does not lie in the fact of the antithesis, but in the
fact of the past serviceable habit, by which individuals disliked or
liked were repelled or attracted. In the present instance the person
motioned to may be far beyond the reach of the arms, but still the
gesture may be more than mere useless survival, for it acts as emphasis
of the vocal expression, and has its influence there.
Darwin for some reason constantly ignores the serviceability of
expression as such—not so much as a fact, but as a principle—and hence
its relation to natural selection, whereby he involves himself in
needless difficulties. If an expression is of use, why should it not
arise through natural selection as well as a limb, a wing, or an eye?
Like other functions, expression may be incidental or may adapt
variations attained originally for other ends, but in the case of the
voice, at least, we have an original organ of expression as instrument
of intercommunication.
Nor can I think Darwin’s treatment of the expressions of affection by
the dog as due to antithesis a very happy or satisfactory solution. In
the first place, the expression of friendliness by the dog is not the
complete antithesis of that of hostility. The dog barks both out of
friendly joy and from anger, as Darwin himself states. Some dogs also,
as I have often observed in my dog, show pleasurable affection by
wrinkling up the lips and showing the teeth, an act which is often
mistaken for a hostile demonstration. Dogs also, as is the habit with my
own, will often express affection in the same way as the cat (_ibid._,
fig. 10), by rubbing against one. This is but an instance of a general
law of expression of affectionate emotion, _i.e._, closeness of contact
with the beloved object which is liked as promoting pleasure. This
instinctive expression of love or liking certainly had its origin in
serviceability, the appropriate effort toward the pleasure-giving thing
or animal, but specially in the relation of parent and offspring, and in
that of alliance in danger. Again, the tail of a hostile dog is, as
figured by Darwin, straight and erect, but the opposite of this is the
tail tucked between the legs when fleeing from pursuers in fear, rather
than the position when showing friendliness to its master. My own
opinion of the rise of the friendly expression of dog, cat, and other
animals toward man is that they are in the main, at least, transferred
from the serviceable friendly expressions used among themselves in a
wild or domesticated state. I have repeatedly seen small dogs, who
attach themselves to some large dog as their master, fawn, posture, and
lick this master precisely as this master does his human master. Dogs
and cats also show their affection and care for their offspring in many
expressive acts which are transferred to their human owners. These
expressions were primarily either directly serviceable actions, as the
licking, or serviceable for expression as such, as various sounds made
to give assurance of presence of food, or of safety. In general, it
seems to me that when antithesis has occurred, it has arisen out of
serviceability and not _vice versâ_.
With reference to the wagging of the tail in the dog, this is far from
being an expression of affection alone. I have already mentioned the
case of the setter where the movement of the tail is largely due to
diffusion of superfluous energy, analogous to nervous habits like pacing
the floor or biting the nails in human beings. With some dogs at least,
as I have noticed in my own St. Bernard, the tail is switched slowly
back and forth when approaching another dog with hostile intent. We have
not as yet a sufficient number of facts at hand with reference to the
history of the dog to pronounce the tail wagging as originating by
virtue of its use as expression. And what is the _rationale_ of the
origin of the tail in the dog and cat, and for what reason has it been
perpetuated? Is it a prehensile survival—which has been taken advantage
of in the breeding of the pug—or is it a sexual characteristic, or did
it originate to perform some directly advantageous action, as the tail
of the cow and horse, or did it come into being as an organ of
expression? Is the tail-wagging recognised by animals themselves as an
expression as it is by man? These are questions on which we must have
more data than we now possess in order to make any sufficient answers.
Again, the rise of the barking by dogs under domestication is another
problem on which little can be said with certainty for lack of data.
Darwin’s remark that it may arise by imitation of the loquacity of man
seems to me ludicrously inadequate, and there seems no element of
imitation in the noise produced. Domesticated animals in general tend to
use the vocal organs for louder sounds than when in the wild state, for
with wild animals the value of a loud noise as expression in any way is
largely counterbalanced by its betraying presence to enemies. When
natural enemies of the dog are driven out by man there will be a
tendency toward a larger use of the vocal organs, both with reference to
companion dogs and also to man. The particular sound, the bark, is
determined by the nature of the whole vocal apparatus. The bark was, no
doubt, originally to frighten aggressors, as I have often seen a large
dog frighten a small dog from a piece of meat by a sudden resounding
bark. Gradually attained as a mode of terrifying his competitive
associates and certain game which it follows under domestication, and so
preserved and developed by natural selection, the tendency is also
powerfully strengthened by artificial selection, the best barker, other
things being equal, being chosen for breeding by man. When the bark has
become a common and habitual practice, it becomes a vent for superfluous
energy developed by joy and other emotions. Like snarling or grinning,
it is also a play form, and thus becomes denotative of joy by
association. To impress one’s friendliness or hostility upon others, to
appease or terrify, are the two main ends of expression with both man
and animals, and this function is excited in various ways by different
species, as determined by environment. The danger signal and the safety
signal, the beware or welcome, is amplified and varied according to
particular requirements which must be fully investigated before we can
give any complete _rationale_ of any expression. Conciliatory and
menacing expressions and gestures have been evolved and matured in
strict correlation under the same general law of natural selection, and
neither one nor the other is due to antithesis. It is entirely unlikely
that of such expressions, one, the hostility side, was first developed
by natural selection, the other owing its rise to a distinct principle,
antithesis.
However, I am not ready to deny antithesis all force as principle of
expression, but it seems to me it should be ranged with law of
similarity or analogy as subsidiary, and largely influential only in the
higher types of expression, especially the teleologic human, as in
gesture. Thus, if thumbs up means pity, thumbs down would naturally be
used to denote pitilessness. To nod the head means assent or yes, to
shake the head means dissent or no, though the exact antithesis would be
to throw the head backward—assent signal with some tribes. However,
while it may be asserted that, as a general law, that like emotions
express themselves in like ways, unlike in unlike, this can hardly be
used to throw much light on expression. Given a particular emotion and
its expression, we can by no means deduce immediately the expression of
the opposition emotion. Particular conditions and special organic
limitations will always make this impracticable, and it is the office of
the scientist to study expression in the course of evolution as of
service under a multitude of conflicting interests and distracting
difficulties.
We view expression then as mainly due to the principle of advantageous
variation in the struggle for existence. Expression is the action
required in the battle for life, or accompaniments to assist this
action, or the call for aid to bring it about. Natural selection is the
first and fundamental law of expression, negative expression and
superfluous energy both being secondary and often pathologic in
tendency.
The struggle for existence is itself on the very face of it an
expression of mind, namely, activity significant of certain will and
feeling experience. Whatever shows mind is expression, and thus in a
large sense every movement in the physical universe—and what is the
universe but motion—and every organic activity may be construed as
expression. Whether all force, motion, action, is or must be expression
is, however, a philosophic investigation which we need not now discuss,
though we may suspect that the height and depth of mind and so the range
of expression is enormously beyond the science of to-day. However,
restricting ourselves to the domain of animal life, it is obviously very
difficult to determine just what activities of a given organism betray
mind, and still more just what form of mentality is manifesting itself.
Man, being the measure of all things, interprets himself in all, and
even when he becomes aware of the dangers of anthropomorphism he cannot
wholly disengage himself from the tendency. The subjective analogical
interpretation is a necessary evil. Still man is the keenest sighted of
all beings for expression, and actions in a very wide range which had
not in fact the real function of expression become expressive to him.
The primary value of fear for the deer is to make it run from danger,
and the running becomes expressive of the fear to observers, though the
running is not for the expression. Thus vital activities of many kinds
are expressive, though their primary value is not in the expression.
Activities whose sole or main value is to give expression are
comparatively late, the value of expression in this narrow sense being
in the mental impression thereby made upon other organisms. Thus actions
which serve purely to frighten others, in making one’s self formidable
by loud noises, as roar of lion, bark of dog, by erecting the hair,
displaying claws, teeth, and other such actions are pure expressions.
There is a constant growth in the value of expressiveness as we ascend
the scale of life, expression playing a larger and larger part till with
man certain individuals become specialized as expressionists, artists,
poets, and orators. Further, fine art is expression which has its value,
not in any exterior utility, but in itself alone, the subjective emotion
seeking in a manner perfectly free from the common utilities of life to
find itself a complete and perfect embodiment. Art here does not serve
life, but life, art. The experience has in itself its own vindication
for being, in that it expresses. Expression is no longer bare action nor
yet a function to serve life, but it becomes a life in itself. In this
ideal life of pure expression we recognise the necessity that the
expressionist be emancipated from the struggle for existence, be freed
from the sordid cares of life, and given up wholly to expressing his
individuality with characteristic force; hence the State often pensions
writers and artists. But apart from this ideal life, in the evolution of
intricate sociality and industry and complex culture, expression becomes
a more and more potent factor. Man in society must not only be, he must
reveal himself, he must show what he is in order to achieve the most.
Many fail, not for lack of faculty, but for lack of expressive ability.
Expression, then, in general, is a function which, starting from the
most minute beginnings in the lower animals, culminates in man. In large
part man is man by reason of his superior power of expression,
especially by speech, oral and written. Evolution in man is on the
mental side in particular, but a large part of this mentality has been
given to the improvement of expression in making it more facile, full
and rapid. The complete natural history of expression is yet to be
written, and all that I attempt is to indicate the point of view for
such an investigation.
There are two points further with reference to expression which merit a
few remarks. The first is as to the reaction of expression on emotion.
We have treated to some extent the relation of emotion to its
expression, but we have also to consider the relation of an expression
to its emotion and to emotion in general. We have all along assumed that
the emotion as a factor in the evolution of life is an internal stimulus
to a serviceable activity, which may be viewed as its expression, or may
even have its value as such. That emotion, as stimulus of action,
determines expression is, I think, a primary law. However, Prof. James
maintains (_Mind_, xxxiv., 188) the reverse—that expression determines
the emotion.[H] We do not strike because we are angry, but we are angry
because we strike. Hence, in reality, the emotion is really the
expression, that is, the emotion is the consciousness result of the
so-called expression—it expresses the “expression” in terms of
consciousness. We commonly speak of expressing our emotions, but we
should rather speak of emotions as expressions in consciousness of
certain bodily activities. But if we make emotion but a psychological
incident and off-shoot of certain activities, I take it we run directly
counter to the general function of mind in evolution as internal
stimulant to useful activity. Emotion is, I judge, fundamentally a
motive force and has its function, and so its rise and development as
such. It is more than a by-product, but even if it were, how should we
account for it? After the serviceable activity has actually been brought
about, after a man has really struck down his adversary, what is the
utility of emotion? We take it that the value of emotion lies in
starting and supporting the activity, and it is advantageous economy
that it cease immediately on the accomplishment of its end. While we
must always suppose that emotion has its physical support in central
neutral changes, yet the expression is truly such; that is, it is from a
different impulse as determined by the emotional brain excitement. In
the light merely of a theory of natural selection, mind in general, and
emotion in particular, is more than incidental concomitant of physical
changes, more than echo of corporeality: it has a vital and central
function in the evolution of life. Prof. James points to the fact that
exercising the expressions or imagining the feeling calls up the
feeling, as a proof of his theory. This, however, is merely a matter of
association, and can prove neither a real precedent nor resultant. We
may call up ideation as well as emotion by producing associated
activities. In the interdependence of the conscious life, emotion,
perception and willing call up each other without reference to causative
order. Any one element of consciousness may be regarded either as
resultant or stimulant, according as we look at preceding or following
state of consciousness. In the order of evolution, pain and pleasure
arise from certain actions in order to inhibit or stimulate repetition
of actions. Feeling is then, both resultant and stimulant. The emotions
may arise from the expressions by association, but the original
dependence is that of expression on emotion. The further test, that we
cannot imagine an emotion without bringing in bodily presentation, is
simply a necessity of the imaging faculty as such, an image by its very
nature being concrete.
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Footnote H:
Professor James has of late largely modified his view (see
_Psychological Review_, Sept., 1894).
-----
While, then, I believe that emotion is the spring of expression, I am
far from denying that the expression may not react upon the emotion.
Whenever the will in any wise controls expression we mark modifications
in the feeling. In the later evolution of life the directing of
expression is of great importance, and expression is gradually subjected
to the will. Hence, especially with man, it becomes possible to feel in
certain ways and yet to repress the signs of feeling, to have strong
emotions, and yet not betray them to those who might take advantage of
them. When a strong emotion is forcibly and completely checked in its
expression there is commonly rankling. At least it is not true, as
Darwin states (_Ibid._, p. 360), that “repression, as far as this is
possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions.” Very often, as we
all know by personal experience and by observation, the checking the
free expression of emotion tends to intensify, rather than soften, the
emotion. The school-girl, who, on hearing sad news, rushes away to have
a good cry, weeps away her grief, and experiences a deep sense of
relief; while the man who sternly represses the expression of grief
often suffers acutely and long. Grief, of course, sometimes lies too
deep for tears, and we often long to be able to express the pent-up
emotion which chokes us. This state is the opposite of the free, natural
expression of feeling such as we see in children. Children express
themselves without self-control, for this is beyond them; but here is
the power to will expression, but the effort is always futile.
By promoting or repressing expression we do certainly influence emotion;
but this volition is always for reason, and implies, then, a conflict of
feelings. Thus, a feeling for propriety leads the man to control his
tears, and this feeling in itself must tend to diminish the strength of
the concomitant grief. However, though there is a measure of
interference, we would be wrong in supposing that complex mental life is
always comparatively weak in its component elements. The distraction of
interest due to new feelings checking expression is not always equal to
the relieving power of free or promoted expression. The direct checking
of the expressional act certainly keeps back the current of energy from
its natural channel, and the feeling has increased in duration, if not
in quantity. The evanescent character of emotion with young children and
with demonstrative people is well known.
But besides the changes which may come to the feeling through direct
will-effected changes in the expression, we must also note that the mere
consciousness of expression has often a definite influence. Thus, when
greatly frightened, I may become conscious of the heart leaping into the
throat, the trembling, etc.; and this consciousness of the expression
acts in general as a diversion in the feeling which is expressed.
Sometimes, indeed, it seems to add to the feeling, as when a girl
blushes for her blushes. There is an intensification of
self-consciousness which but heightens and renews the expression with
renewed sense of expression, and then another flood of embarrassing
self-consciousness, and so on in a long series. Here, however, the sense
of expression does not in strictness add to the intensity of the
original feeling, but it develops a new feeling of the same kind; at
each step there is new occasion and a renewed feeling, but a total
quantity is constituted, so that we are right enough in saying that the
consciousness of her own blushing but added to her embarrassment. Yet it
may be stated as a general law that a consciousness of our expressive
acts as such tends to decrease the original feeling from which the
expression arises, inasmuch as the field of consciousness is thereby
divided.
When the will attains control over expression we may not merely repress
the impulse to expression when we feel strongly, but having no feeling
of a given kind we may voluntarily adopt its expression, and this
adoption of the expression very often leads by association to the real
feeling. Again, when experiencing a feeling we may simulate the
expression of another or even opposite feeling. It is often advantageous
in the struggle for existence to throw others off their guard by
deceiving them as to the real emotional state; hence, craft and guile
have from a tolerably early stage in evolution played a part in the
history of life. Animals and men alike soon appreciate the distinction
between appearance and reality, that a kind and pleasant expression is
often but the lure of malice and hostility, that injury is often meant
where there is the show of benefit. Plants, as well as animals, often
are quite other than they appear, both for offence and defence; and
there is the wide field of mimetic protection which cannot, however, at
present be brought under our subject.
Simulation of expression probably arose as an economical makeshift; a
mere show which costs the organism little often attains ends which would
otherwise require a vast deal of mental force. Thus we see children
scared into desired behaviour by assumed anger, grief, etc.; and even
animals, as I have noticed with dogs, likewise frequently affect
expressions which have no support in real emotion. The unsophisticated,
however, learn with great rapidity to distinguish between assumed and
real emotion. Any one who has made a pretence of crying before little
children must have remarked this. Simulation of expression in order to
easily reach desired ends is thus rather limited, but still has a real
value and a considerable place under natural selection.
However, expression may sometimes be simulated in order to attain the
associated emotion. If we act mad, we often get mad, and thus, as we see
in the plays of animals and children, merely assumed expression may lead
to the real emotion. This way of attaining emotion by purposely enacting
its known expression, we may call impression as the reverse of the
expression order. Men may work themselves up into a fury, as well as
vigorously express an anger directly occasioned. Actors and public
speakers often take advantage of this reaction of expression on emotion,
and thereby not merely affect an emotion, but have a certain real
emotion, which cannot ever be naïve. Thus Macready as Shylock used to
prepare himself and get up “the proper state of white heat” by violently
shaking a ladder. Poe in one of his tales makes a detective say, when
wishing to know the thoughts of a wicked man, “I fashion the expression
of my face as accurately as possible in accordance with the expression
of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my
mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.” This
method of acting like another, that we may have and so know his thoughts
and feelings, is a very difficult way of mind-reading.
But expression is often simulated on one or both sides with full
understanding of it as such. This enters into play, and is the essence
of the dramatic art. That the word _play_ denotes both the sportive
imitative actions of animals and men, and also a dramatic representation
is not fortuitous or arbitrary. It is noticeable that among the lower
animals the earliest and commonest play is playing at being angry or
frightened, which corroborates the view of these emotions as probably
the earliest and most fundamental in life. The correlated nature of fear
and anger is shown by the way they are played at; thus you often see one
dog with a show of anger chasing another who simulates fear, and then
the parts are exchanged.
The great relation of pursuer and pursued is constantly mimicked among
animals with interchanging of parts. So also among children the
commonest plays are those of fleeing and chasing, as tag, hare and
hound, hide and seek, etc., the fundamental elements of life being
re-enacted under the superfluous energy which tends to flow most easily
into the oldest and most habitual channels. Thus play has a high
historic psychic importance. To attack and to run away are the most
necessary and essential of life activities, and play has a certain
pedagogic and preparative value, and has thereby been sanctioned by
natural selection, for we see that in the evolution of life the tendency
has constantly been to lengthen the play period. Among the lowest
animals the individual at birth is immediately thrown into the struggle
for existence and must battle for itself; there is no play time for it,
but at once it enters upon direct life struggle; but in higher life
there is a period of spontaneous free dramatic activity.
But not only is anger and fear shammed as a prominent and primitive
play, but it is most common to stimulate to real anger or fear, and then
in glee to show the inadequacy of the occasion to the victim. Every one
has observed how frequently young animals play by teasing and scaring
each other. The tricks of boys and practical jokes of men both point to
the deep inbred power of anger and fear in life, and are at the same
time symptomatic of their decline in power as dominant life factors. All
children delight in scaring one another on pretence, in seeing the real
expression and feeling themselves the moving powers in bringing it
about. This satisfaction, which is aboriginal, which is the reflex of
the original pleasure sanction when power to scare others for one’s own
benefit was being evolved in life, makes a large part of the enjoyment
of such action. A large part of play-pleasure must, indeed, be set down
to reflex of the earliest hard-earned pleasure experience; but a large
part is also due to the thrill of excitement and the delight in activity
_per se_. Later forms of plays are largely due to pure imitative
propensity, though often helped by reversal tendencies.
We note also that this perceived groundlessness of the action becomes a
large element in later forms of play, as wit and humour, but the
pleasure is plainly based on the power and the superiority of
intelligence implied. It amuses the tyrant to throw his companions into
mortal fear by the slightest suggestion, the smaller the occasion the
more amusing the fright. And in general the slighter the real cause in
relation to the effect produced, the more acute the pleasure, by reason
of the supremacy thereby emphasized. It is always more amusing to scare
a child by a slight movement of a finger than by a vigorous act of the
whole body. It seems to me that it is by this association that
disproportion, incongruity, irrelevance, however induced, become in
themselves amusing, ludicrous, laughable. So the incongruous, in which I
have no part whatever, becomes a comic spectacle and the basis of all
comedy, yet also of the tragic and tragedy. In the tragic the
discordance between what is and what ought to be, instead of pleasing,
pains. What is comic to a coarse mind may seem tragic to the refined. A
bird, distressed by the death of its mate, offering it food, might amuse
a savage or a boy, but must be a pathetic sight to a civilized and
cultured man, though both might be amused to see a child presenting food
to its doll.
Not only may the incongruous which is comparatively unrelated to me be
amusing as well as that which I myself bring about, but even when I am
the victim I may be highly delighted by the intrinsic disproportion of
my experience to the exciting cause. With some persons, perhaps rather
few in number, the next best thing to playing a joke is having one
played on them. This amusement at oneself occurs even among savages.
When Stanley was on the Congo, he was at one time greatly annoyed by the
number of native visitors. In vain he tried to repel them, but one
morning when a crowd had assembled at the river side, at some little
distance, waiting an opportunity to board his vessel, some of his men
put on lion skins which were at hand, and acted the part so well that
the intending visitors fled in abject terror. Having retired to a safe
distance they looked back to see the men walking the deck with the lion
skins in their hands and laughing most heartily. Seeing then the
groundlessness of their alarm the whole crowd burst into roars of
laughter and shouted in merriment for a long time. Exhibitions of
fright, we may remark, seem to be especially amusing to savages, as when
an assembly of Africans of the lowest type went into ecstasies of
uproarious delight on seeing a stereopticon picture of a frightened
negro hastily climbing a tree to get out of the way of the gaping jaws
of a crocodile.
Play is then very largely either a mutual shamming of expression, or a
stimulating real expression in one by pretended expression in the other.
The pleasure in deceiving others by simulating expression points to
ancestral experience, for deceit has been one of the greatest factors in
life evolution. That an individual seems to be an entirely different
being from what he really is, has often been most advantageous in the
struggle for existence, and hence a large variety of simulated
expression has been employed. Children then, as repeating in play form
the race history, take great delight in masquerading and so deceiving
their acquaintances as to their identity, making false pleas for
charity, etc. The drama has its roots in this form of play. To make
others take us for quite different than we are gives us a high pleasure
of power, and early man was often moved, in the breathing spells of the
struggle for existence, to play at false personalities simply for the
pleasure in itself of being a successful actor. There is also the
counter pleasure of the spectators in piercing the simulated expression.
It is only in latest phases of dramatic art that simulation comes to be
appreciated for its own sake, that there is on both sides full and
complete feeling of the illusory nature of the whole transaction, and an
enjoyment of the art _per se_. Simulating expression is the actor’s art;
but when the simulation is forgotten by either actor or audience, nature
appears and art disappears.
While it is the province of the actor’s art to simulate expression, it
is in general the office of fine art to imitate and render the
expressive by image, picture, musical notes, etc. The artist is the
expresser and simulator _par excellence_, and complete and perfect
expressiveness is his constant aim, though not for utility or amusement,
but for the sake of awakening the æsthetic emotion. I cannot then agree
with Bosanquet, who, as I understand, makes æsthetic feeling the emotion
of expression, expression for expression’s sake. For expression by its
very nature is such only as _expressive_, that is, as going beyond
itself, as being a means, and not an end in itself, hence expression for
expression’s sake is meaningless phrase. Expression, so far as it
attempts to stand merely for itself, is an empty mannerism and a barren
technique. Expression is only such as it is backed by the emotion
expressed, as significant of some psychosis; and artistic expression or
art is the expression of the artistic or æsthetic emotion, a peculiar
feeling about things, as apple blossoms, a sunset, a child playing. This
emotion is often awakened by cognizance of an expression, as an
expression of joy or horror by a child, and may thus be an emotion of or
at expression, as also in the case where it is roused by the skill in
purposive expression of any kind, æsthetic or other, but expression is
obviously not the only way of exciting the emotion, its object may be a
mere patch of colour, a pure musical note, etc. Æsthetic emotion tends
to manifest or express itself just like all emotions, and in attaining
perfect expression it strengthens itself. Likewise language, as an
instrument of thought, a logical expression, has strengthened thought,
but a purely formal logic is as barren and void as a purely formal
æsthetic. Language as expressive of thought and as expressive of
æsthetic emotion is equally dependent upon what it expresses, and
æsthetics is thus not peculiar in its relation to expression.
The interpretation of expression in nature and art is often a hard
matter and has given rise to much variance. For instance, take the much
discussed Laokoön group; Winckelmann says the father sheds pity from his
eyes like mist upon his sons; Lessing finds grief and noble endurance
expressed; Goethe thinks the father shows pity for his youngest son,
apprehension for the older son, and terror for himself; Lübke finds only
mere pain manifested. Coming to a single feature, the mouth, we find the
most diverse interpretation. Winckelmann says that here is an heroic
soul who disdains to shriek, and gives forth only “an anxious and
suppressed sigh.” Lessing maintains also that here is a shriek softened
into a sigh, but not “because a shriek would have betrayed an ignoble
soul, but because it would have produced a hideous contortion of the
countenance.” Later critics have generally followed Lessing. It is
obvious, I think, that the expression of the mouth is not shrieking, but
is moaning, groaning, or sighing. On this quite a number of competent
witnesses, physicians and psychologists whom I consulted, are
practically agreed. However, it has occurred to me that the sighing or
moaning of Laokoön may not be a softened form at all, but the actual
expression designed by the artists. It is generally supposed that the
artist here desired to show mortal agony, and it is assumed that
shrieking is the expression of mortal agony. This assumption seems to me
correct when extreme pain is suddenly inflicted; but when, as in the
case of Laokoön, the mortal wound is received only after the most
exhausting struggle, the natural expression is moaning. The realistic
sculptor would surely not give any softened form, but, shrinking from
nothing, has expressed Laokoön in this death grasp in the very act of
giving up the ghost. Though the muscles of the limbs and trunk are still
tense, yet the closing eyes, the head falling back, and the arm thrown
toward the base of the brain indicate that the struggle is over, and the
death moment has come, expressed vocally only by a moan. We do not need
to find here then any conflict between realism and the artistic sense,
but the simplest and most obvious interpretation is what the expression
gives, sighing and moaning, which is the true one under the
circumstances, and is so meant by the artist.