_THE EXPRESSION OF THE FACE_
I
The eye examines the human countenance with such rapidity and such
accuracy that no one will ever succeed in giving in words a picture
of the minute details and fugitive traits which we see appear and
disappear on the face during emotion. Even the greatest masters were
not very exact in such-like descriptions, and had recourse to similes,
to flowery and metaphorical language. If, for instance, we write that
someone looked at us in astonishment or fear, we indicate an endless
series of gradations of the same feeling, differing one and all from
each other in intensity and effect, and we leave it to the judgment
of the reader to choose that which seems to him best suited to the
instance, without our having the means to demonstrate it to him. When
we say to a friend, 'I must give you a piece of bad news,’ there
appears a sudden change in his face, his look and his gestures, which
touches us. But there is no art of words capable of describing it,
because we cannot measure the imperceptible changes which take place
in the movement of the eyes, the widening of the pupils, the colouring
of the cheeks, the trembling of the lips, the dilatation of the
nostrils, the acceleration of the breath, the gestures of the hands,
the attitude of the head and trunk.
Certain fine characteristic traits of the face disappear under the
magnifying glass like the diamond burning away in the crucible. The
aspect of the countenance is impalpable; its beauties are covered by a
subtile, delicate veil, which we cannot touch without tearing it and
destroying the charm.
It is on this account that I stretch out my hand hesitatingly to take
hold of the scalpel and lay bare the head of a corpse, in order to cut
through the skin and detach the muscles. When I have separated the
muscles of the face from the bones of the skull, a mask like a funnel
of flesh remains in my hand. Oh, how ugly is the human face seen from
the wrong side! We do not recognise ourselves; we cannot believe that
this fibrous web and muscular network represent the most beautiful and
expressive part of the organism; that this is the face formerly so
graceful in its movements and play of feature, so inexhaustible in its
expressions of benevolence and affection. It is a thorough disillusion,
a sad sight, as when one sees the framework and the burnt-out rockets
of fireworks in broad daylight, or when, at the end of the play, we
examine near-to the daubs and rags of a dazzling theatrical decoration.
We cannot believe that it is this fibrous flesh which lends us the
aspect, the characteristic traits, the expression of our ego; that
it is on this thin leaf of muscle that each writes his life-story;
that it is the chance arrangement of these parts which impels us to
mysterious sympathies, to indifference, antipathy, repugnance; that
it is the unfathomable secret of these organs which unconsciously
draws men together or apart, like atoms that meet, separate, or remain
indissolubly united.
II
Leonardo da Vinci, who was certainly one of the greatest connoisseurs
of the human countenance, had studied its anatomy with such ardour that
the drawings of his preparations still excite the admiration of the
learned by the accuracy of the most minute details.
'_First study Science, and then follow her daughter Art_’, said
Leonardo to his pupils; and these words are worthy of him who was not
only a great artist and mathematician, and an illustrious philosopher,
but who earned the title, far more difficult to acquire, of being an
innovator in science, and one of the founders of the experimental
method.
We must not begin the study of the face with that of the human
anatomy. The web of muscles is so close, the direction of the fibres
so intricate, that we are baffled unless we know the origin of these
muscles in the lower animals, unless we investigate their office
in simpler beings, and the modifications which they undergo on the
zoological ladder.
The most important parts of the face are the apertures of the mouth and
nostrils. These alone never disappear, however the form of the head
may alter in different animals. The lips, nose, and chin may become
unrecognisable, as in birds; the eye may become a mere point, as in
the mole, or may disappear altogether as in certain animals living in
caves; but the mouth always remains, because the alimentary canal is
the most useful organ of the body. It appears even in animals that have
neither heart nor lungs, and is formed like a funnel at its upper end.
It is this end of the alimentary canal which we call the face. However
grotesque such a mode of expression may seem, it is yet the expression
of truth.
The development of the facial muscles is proportioned to the need of
seizing prey and crushing the food. In frogs, fish, reptiles, birds,
that swallow their food whole, one may say that the face is wanting;
they have no expression except in the eye. In birds, the functions of
the facial nerve are restricted to a little filament distributed to
the cutaneous muscles of the neck, which produces that ruffling of
the feathers and erection of the crest which is the characteristic
expression of their feelings. The more complex the movements of seizing
and devouring the prey become, the more complicated becomes the
formation of the mouth. The lips must be mobile in order to suck the
nipple of the breast, in the manner of a cupping-glass. Later, they
serve to bring the fragments which must be masticated between the
jaws, and further, they must be capable of being drawn upwards, as in
the dog when he shows his teeth in preparing to bite.[18]
Then come the movements of the jaws furnished with fangs for tearing,
crushing, breaking, gnawing, and again the very complex movements of
the tongue in drinking, licking, collecting the food in the mouth,
forming it into a bolus, and finally despatching it.
Of all animals, monkeys possess the greatest development of the facial
muscles. This is owing principally to the circumstance that they eat
everything, being half carnivorous, half herbivorous, and make use of
the mouth as an organ for seizing the prey, and assisting the hands in
tearing, skinning, and continually preparing the food.
The countenance of the monkey is of unexampled mobility; in a few
minutes one sees all expressions pass over it, from desire to contempt,
from cunning to innocence, from attention to carelessness, from love to
rage, from aggression to fear, from joy to sadness.
[18] Darwin believed that animals show their teeth in order to let
their weapons be seen, and in this way to be more feared. This
explanation does not seem to me quite exact, as animals are obliged
to raise the lips when they bite, so that the soft parts of the mouth
covering the jaws may not be injured. It suffices to watch a dog in
order to convince oneself that the showing of the teeth must be an act
preparatory to that of biting.
III
One of the reasons why the facial muscles move more easily, is their
diminutive size. It was Spencer who first clearly developed this
idea, and I know of nothing more fundamental in the language of the
emotions. 'Supposing,’ he says, 'a feeble wave of nervous excitement
to be propagated uniformly throughout the nervous system, the part
of it discharged on the muscles will show its effects most where the
amount of inertia to be overcome is least. Muscles which are large, and
which can show states of contraction into which they are thrown only by
moving limbs or other heavy masses, will yield no signs; while small
muscles, and those which can move without overcoming great resistances,
will visibly respond to this feeble wave. Hence must result a certain
general order in the excitation of the muscles, serving to mark the
strength of the nervous discharge and of the feeling accompanying
it.... It is because the muscles of the face are relatively small, and
are attached to easily moved parts, that the face is so good an index
of the amount of feeling.’[19]
[19] _Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii., pp. 542-43.
This law, however, is in my opinion insufficient to explain the
expressions of the face, because we have very fine, small muscles
in the ear, the skin, and elsewhere, that yet take no part in the
expression, although the resistance they offer is very small.
Great importance must, I think, be attached to the continual use of
certain muscles, and to the different excitability of their nerves.
The muscles which we most frequently put into movement are also those
which most easily betray the excitement of the nerve-centres. It is
so with the ear of the horse and dog, which is a faithful mirror of
everything they feel, of all their emotions; while the ears of man,
although possessing the same muscles, remain immovable even during the
strongest emotion, and solely because we never make use of them.
The facial muscles are agitated by every little shock which the nervous
system receives, because they are already perpetually in movement in
respiration, speaking, chewing, and in the defence and use of the
organs of sense situated in the head. We very often meet people who, in
consequence of increased irritability of the nerve-centres, suffer from
nervous contractions of the face, which make them wink rapidly, contort
the mouth and frown, but we never notice similar disturbances in hands
or feet, or in any other part of the body.
The varying resistance which the different nerves of the organism
oppose to the nervous currents is an important factor in expression.
The proximity of the muscles of the face, and especially of the eyes,
to the brain renders the nervous discharges easier. Death always begins
in the parts furthest removed from the centre, the legs grow rigid
sooner than the arms, and the eye is the last to be extinguished.
The subject at present under consideration is a field of study which
physiologists have perhaps too much neglected. Johannes Müller,[20]
the father of modern physiology, in speaking of those 'movements which
depend upon mental conditions,’ expresses himself in the following
manner: 'The extremely varied expression of the lineaments of the face
in different passions, shows that, according to the various states
of the mind, entirely different groups of fibres of the facial nerve
are brought into activity. The reasons of this phenomenon, of these
relations of the facial muscles to special passions, are totally
unknown.’
[20] J. Müller: _Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen_, 1840, ii. 92.
Wishing to make a few experiments on the facial nerve, to see whether
I should succeed in discovering anything in this obscure field of
physiology, I laid bare the facial nerve, at its point of departure
from the skull, in a dog rendered insensible with chloral, and then
fixed two electrodes in such a manner that I was sure of being able
to irritate the whole nerve by means of an electric current. While
using irritants so weak that they were imperceptible on the tongue,
I observed that they could cause a contraction of the muscles of the
forehead and make the ears move, while the whole muzzle remained still
as in an animal in an attentive attitude. When I used a slightly
stronger stimulus, the muscles of the nose and eyelids and the
zygomatic muscle moved; when the irritant was still more intensified,
the muscles of the under-lip contracted and the mouth opened; while
under very strong irritations, the dog assumed the fierce expression
of one about to attack.
There is something fantastic in those experiments on decapitated
animals of which the brain has been destroyed, and the face of which
may be taken up in the hand like a mask of flesh. While applying an
electric current to the motor nerves, one sees the features reanimate
themselves, and a series of expressions pass over them one after
another--attention, joy, rage, as though the electric apparatus applied
to the facial nerve represented the commands of the brain or psychic
impressions which in reality no longer exist.
The mechanical part of expression is, therefore, much simpler than one
thinks. When a psychic operation takes place in the nerve-centres, the
tension propagates itself along the nervous lines of least resistance.
The more sensitive we are, the more graceful, beautiful, expressive,
and fascinating is the curving of the lips produced by a smile.
Peasants and coarse, dull persons cannot smile, with them the stimulus
increases until it bursts out in a noisy, vacant laugh.
The nerve-paths are constructed in such a way that the brain does
not need trouble itself about the muscular movements. It is the
intensity of the excitement which produces the expression; the stronger
it is, the more numerous are the paths through which the nervous
tension forces its way; as it increases, it overcomes all obstacles
and resistance confronting it in other paths impassable till that
movement, and contracts muscles which till then had remained neutral.
The effects of the passions are reflected principally in the muscles of
the face and respiration. No other function has to adapt itself more
continuously than this last to the needs of the organism, standing
as it does in close connection with all changes taking place in the
nerve-centres. The muscles most vividly expressing passion are nearly
all respiratory muscles.
IV
Our nervous system is so constituted that during violent emotion its
activity discharges itself in all directions, and herein must we seek
the reason of the resemblance between such different conditions as
laughter and weeping, pain and pleasure.
_It is the quantity, not the quality, of the stimulus which has weight
on the scale of the expressions._ This statement of mine will appear
clearer if we study the phenomena produced by tickling.
When monkeys are touched in the arm-pit they twist and writhe,
laugh, and emit sounds like human cries. The nerve-centres are very
susceptible to the mechanical excitation of certain nerves, to contacts
which fill us with the most pleasant and delicious sensations, or burst
like a storm upon the organism.
We have heard of persons who let themselves be tickled to death, and
there are many sensitive natures that can scarcely bear the most
ardent enjoyments of life.
Here are prayers for pity, unconscious denials, entreaties in tearful
tones, exclamations of astonishment, humble or clamorous voices, cries
of joy or unsuppressed sighs, lamentations as of those who suffer,
moans with which human nature seems to succumb.
Voluptuous enjoyment causes a vibration of the nerves, and forces from
our lips the same moans as pain, which dulls the fire of life.
The respiratory movements are accelerated and panting, sometimes
arrested, then recommencing irregularly; the breath pours stormily
from the dilated nostrils, there is a singing in the ears, the heart
beats more rapidly, and its pulsations resound with such violence that
we wonder how a slight tickling of the nerves can produce such inward
agitation.
The vital centres are stunned by a mysterious emotion--by a charm
which deadens the senses and slackens the reins of control. With the
cessation of the moderating force of the brain, the harmony of aim is
destroyed, oppression seizes us, and words almost unconsciously spoken
are now interrupted and repeated, anon breathless and drawn out, and
are at last extinguished in the languor of a swoon. The dim eyes look
upwards or hide moodily behind their lids, roll frightened in their
orbits, or fill with tears of joy and close with the uncertain glance
of the dying. The arms move convulsively, wildly, clutching, grasping,
writhing. The teeth gnash and show themselves; there is a moaning and
howling as though in man the animal soul had reawakened.
And at last, when the storm is past, the convulsions and trembling
die away gradually like the flashes of lightning that follow the roar
of retreating thunder. But the languid glance, the flaccid features,
the moisture of the skin, the fatigue of the limbs, the spasmodic
contractions of the muscles, the quivering of the voice, the thirst,
the palpitation, the weakness, the lethargy of the senses, remain like
the traces of a morbid paroxysm, like the depression after a great
misfortune.