Laughter primarily the expression of joy—Ludicrous ideas—Movements of
the features during laughter—Nature of the sound produced—The secretion
of tears during loud laughter—Gradation from loud laughter to gentle
smiling—High spirits—The expression of love—Tender feelings—Devotion.
Joy, when intense, leads to various purposeless movements—to dancing
about, clapping the hands, stamping, &c., and to loud laughter.
Laughter seems primarily to be the expression of mere joy or happiness.
We clearly see this in children at play, who are almost incessantly
laughing. With young persons past childhood, when they are in high
spirits, there is always much meaningless laughter. The laughter of the
gods is described by Homer as “the exuberance of their celestial joy
after their daily banquet.” A man smiles—and smiling, as we shall see,
graduates into laughter—at meeting an old friend in the street, as he
does at any trifling pleasure, such as smelling a sweet perfume.[801]
Laura Bridgman, from her blindness and deafness, could not have
acquired any expression through imitation, yet when a letter from a
beloved friend was communicated to her by gesture-language, she
“laughed and clapped her hands, and the colour mounted to her cheeks.”
On other occasions she has been seen to stamp for joy.[802]
Idiots and imbecile persons likewise afford good evidence that laughter
or smiling primarily expresses mere happiness or joy. Dr. Crichton
Browne, to whom, as on so many other occasions, I am indebted for the
results of his wide experience, informs me that with idiots laughter is
the most prevalent and frequent of all the emotional expressions. Many
idiots are morose, passionate, restless, in a painful state of mind, or
utterly stolid, and these never laugh. Others frequently laugh in a
quite senseless manner. Thus an idiot boy, incapable of speech,
complained to Dr. Browne, by the aid of signs, that another boy in the
asylum had given him a black eye; and this was accompanied by
“explosions of laughter and with his face covered with the broadest
smiles.” There is another large class of idiots who are persistently
joyous and benign, and who are constantly laughing or smiling.[803]
Their countenances often exhibit a stereotyped smile; their joyousness
is increased, and they grin, chuckle, or giggle, whenever food is
placed before them, or when they are caressed, are shown bright
colours, or hear music. Some of them laugh more than usual when they
walk about, or attempt any muscular exertion. The joyousness of most of
these idiots cannot possibly be associated, as Dr. Browne remarks, with
any distinct ideas: they simply feel pleasure, and express it by
laughter or smiles. With imbeciles rather higher in the scale, personal
vanity seems to be the commonest cause of laughter, and next to this,
pleasure arising from the approbation of their conduct.
With grown-up persons laughter is excited by causes considerably
different from those which suffice during childhood; but this remark
hardly applies to smiling. Laughter in this respect is analogous with
weeping, which with adults is almost confined to mental distress,
whilst with children it is excited by bodily pain or any suffering, as
well as by fear or rage. Many curious discussions have been written on
the causes of laughter with grown-up persons. The subject is extremely
complex. Something incongruous or unaccountable, exciting surprise and
some sense of superiority in the laugher, who must be in a happy frame
of mind, seems to be the commonest cause.[804] The circumstances must
not be of a momentous nature: no poor man would laugh or smile on
suddenly hearing that a large fortune had been bequeathed to him. If
the mind is strongly excited by pleasurable feelings, and any little
unexpected event or thought occurs, then, as Mr. Herbert Spencer
remarks,[805] “a large amount of nervous energy, instead of being
allowed to expend itself in producing an equivalent amount of the new
thoughts and emotion which were nascent, is suddenly checked in its
flow.”... “The excess must discharge itself in some other direction,
and there results an efflux through the motor nerves to various classes
of the muscles, producing the half-convulsive actions we term
laughter.” An observation, bearing on this point, was made by a
correspondent during the recent siege of Paris, namely, that the German
soldiers, after strong excitement from exposure to extreme danger, were
particularly apt to burst out into loud laughter at the smallest joke.
So again when young children are just beginning to cry, an unexpected
event will sometimes suddenly turn their crying into laughter, which
apparently serves equally well to expend their superfluous nervous
energy.
The imagination is sometimes said to be tickled by a ludicrous idea;
and this so-called tickling of the mind is curiously analogous with
that of the body. Every one knows how immoderately children laugh, and
how their whole bodies are convulsed when they are tickled. The
anthropoid apes, as we have seen, likewise utter a reiterated sound,
corresponding with our laughter, when they are tickled, especially
under the armpits. I touched with a bit of paper the sole of the foot
of one of my infants, when only seven days old, and it was suddenly
jerked away and the toes curled about, as in an older child. Such
movements, as well as laughter from being tickled, are manifestly
reflex actions; and this is likewise shown by the minute unstriped
muscles, which serve to erect the separate hairs on the body,
contracting near a tickled surface.[806] Yet laughter from a ludicrous
idea, though involuntary, cannot be called a strictly reflex action. In
this case, and in that of laughter from being tickled, the mind must be
in a pleasurable condition; a young child, if tickled by a strange man,
would scream from fear. The touch must be light, and an idea or event,
to be ludicrous, must not be of grave import. The parts of the body
which are most easily tickled are those which are not commonly touched,
such as the armpits or between the toes, or parts such as the soles of
the feet, which are habitually touched by a broad surface; but the
surface on which we sit offers a marked exception to this rule.
According to Gratiolet,[807] certain nerves are much more sensitive to
tickling than others. From the fact that a child can hardly tickle
itself, or in a much less degree than when tickled by another person,
it seems that the precise point to be touched must not be known; so
with the mind, something unexpected—a novel or incongruous idea which
breaks through an habitual train of thought—appears to be a strong
element in the ludicrous.
The sound of laughter is produced by a deep inspiration followed by
short, interrupted, spasmodic contractions of the chest, and especially
of the diaphragm.[808] Hence we hear of “laughter holding both his
sides.” From the shaking of the body, the head nods to and fro. The
lower jaw often quivers up and down, as is likewise the case with some
species of baboons, when they are much pleased.
Moderate Laughter and Smiling. Plate III
During laughter the mouth is opened more or less widely, with the
corners drawn much backwards, as well as a little upwards; and the
upper lip is somewhat raised. The drawing back of the corners is best
seen in moderate laughter, and especially in a broad smile—the latter
epithet showing how the mouth is widened. In the accompanying figs.
1-3, Plate III., different degrees of moderate laughter and smiling
have been photographed. The figure of the little girl, with the hat is
by Dr. Wallich, and the expression was a genuine one; the other two are
by Mr. Rejlander. Dr. Duchenne repeatedly insists[809] that, under the
emotion of joy, the mouth is acted on exclusively by the great
zygomatic muscles, which serve to draw the corners backwards and
upwards; but judging from the manner in which the upper teeth are
always exposed during laughter and broad smiling, as well as from my
own sensations, I cannot doubt that some of the muscles running to the
upper lip are likewise brought into moderate action. The upper and
lower orbicular muscles of the eyes are at the same time more or less
contracted; and there is an intimate connection, as explained in the
chapter on weeping, between the orbiculars, especially the lower ones
and some of the muscles running to the upper lip. Henle remarks[810] on
this head, that when a man closely shuts one eye he cannot avoid
retracting the upper lip on the same side; conversely, if any one will
place his finger on his lower eyelid, and then uncover his upper
incisors as much as possible, he will feel, as his upper lip is drawn
strongly upwards, that the muscles of the lower eyelid contract. In
Henle’s drawing, given in woodcut, fig. 2, the _musculus malaris_ (H)
which runs to the upper lip may be seen to form an almost integral part
of the lower orbicular muscle.
Dr. Duchenne has given a large photograph of an old man (reduced on
Plate III. fig 4), in his usual passive condition, and another of the
same man (fig. 5), naturally smiling. The latter was instantly
recognized by every one to whom it was shown as true to nature. He has
also given, as an example of an unnatural or false smile, another
photograph (fig. 6) of the same old man, with the corners of his mouth
strongly retracted by the galvanization of the great zygomatic muscles.
That the expression is not natural is clear, for I showed this
photograph to twenty-four persons, of whom three could not in the least
tell what was meant, whilst the others, though they perceived that the
expression was of the nature of a smile, answered in such words as “a
wicked joke,” “trying to laugh,” “grinning laughter.... half-amazed
laughter,” &c. Dr. Duchenne attributes the falseness of the expression
altogether to the orbicular muscles of the lower eyelids not being
sufficiently contracted; for he justly lays great stress on their
contraction in the expression of joy. No doubt there is much truth in
this view, but not, as it appears to me, the whole truth. The
contraction of the lower orbiculars is always accompanied, as we have
seen, by the drawing up of the upper lip. Had the upper lip, in fig. 6,
been thus acted on to a slight extent, its curvature would have been
less rigid, the naso-labial farrow would have been slightly different,
and the whole expression would, as I believe, have been more natural,
independently of the more conspicuous effect from the stronger
contraction of the lower eyelids. The corrugator muscle, moreover, in
fig. 6, is too much contracted, causing a frown; and this muscle never
acts under the influence of joy except during strongly pronounced or
violent laughter.
By the drawing backwards and upwards of the corners of the mouth,
through the contraction of the great zygomatic muscles, and by the
raising of the upper lip, the cheeks are drawn upwards. Wrinkles are
thus formed under the eyes, and, with old people, at their outer ends;
and these are highly characteristic of laughter or smiling. As a gentle
smile increases into a strong one, or into a laugh, every one may feel
and see, if he will attend to his own sensations and look at himself in
a mirror, that as the upper lip is drawn up and the lower orbiculars
contract, the wrinkles in the lower eyelids and those beneath the eyes
are much strengthened or increased. At the same time, as I have
repeatedly observed, the eyebrows are slightly lowered, which shows
that the upper as well as the lower orbiculars contract at least to
some degree, though this passes unperecived, as far as our sensations
are concerned. If the original photograph of the old man, with his
countenance in its usual placid state (fig. 4), be compared with that
(fig. 5) in which he is naturally smiling, it may be seen that the
eyebrows in the latter are a little lowered. I presume that this is
owing to the upper orbiculars being impelled, through the force of
long-associated habit, to act to a certain extent in concert with the
lower orbiculars, which themselves contract in connection with the
drawing up of the upper lip.
The tendency in the zygomatic muscles to contract under pleasurable
emotions is shown by a curious fact, communicated to me by Dr. Browne,
with respect to patients suffering from GENERAL PARALYSIS OF THE
INSANE.[811] “In this malady there is almost invariably
optimism—delusions as to wealth, rank, grandeur—insane joyousness,
benevolence, and profusion, while its very earliest physical symptom is
trembling at the corners of the mouth and at the outer corners of the
eyes. This is a well-recognized fact. Constant tremulous agitation of
the inferior palpebral and great zygomatic muscles is pathognomic of
the earlier stages of general paralysis. The countenance has a pleased
and benevolent expression. As the disease advances other muscles become
involved, but until complete fatuity is reached, the prevailing
expression is that of feeble benevolence.”
As in laughing and broadly smiling the cheeks and upper lip are much
raised, the nose appears to be shortened, and the skin on the bridge
becomes finely wrinkled in transverse lines, with other oblique
longitudinal lines on the sides. The upper front teeth are commonly
exposed. A well-marked naso-labial fold is formed, which runs from the
wing of each nostril to the corner of the mouth; and this fold is often
double in old persons.
A bright and sparkling eye is as characteristic of a pleased or amused
state of mind, as is the retraction of the corners of the mouth and
upper lip with the wrinkles thus produced. Even the eyes of
microcephalous idiots, who are so degraded that they never learn to
speak, brighten slightly when they are pleased.[812] Under extreme
laughter the eyes are too much suffused with tears to sparkle; but the
moisture squeezed out of the glands during moderate laughter or smiling
may aid in giving them lustre; though this must be of altogether
subordinate importance, as they become dull from grief, though they are
then often moist. Their brightness seems to be chiefly due to their
tenseness,[813] owing to the contraction of the orbicular muscles and
to the pressure of the raised cheeks. But, according to Dr. Piderit,
who has discussed this point more fully than any other writer,[814] the
tenseness may be largely attributed to the eyeballs becoming filled
with blood and other fluids, from the acceleration of the circulation,
consequent on the excitement of pleasure. He remarks on the contrast in
the appearance of the eyes of a hectic patient with a rapid
circulation, and of a man suffering from cholera with almost all the
fluids of his body drained from him. Any cause which lowers the
circulation deadens the eye. I remember seeing a man utterly prostrated
by prolonged and severe exertion during a very hot day, and a bystander
compared his eyes to those of a boiled codfish.
To return to the sounds produced during laughter. We can see in a vague
manner how the utterance of sounds of some kind would naturally become
associated with a pleasurable state of mind; for throughout a large
part of the animal kingdom vocal or instrumental sounds are employed
either as a call or as a charm by one sex for the other. They are also
employed as the means for a joyful meeting between the parents and
their offspring, and between the attached members of the same social
community. But why the sounds which man utters when he is pleased have
the peculiar reiterated character of laughter we do not know.
Nevertheless we can see that they would naturally be as different as
possible from the screams or cries of distress; and as in the
production of the latter, the expirations are prolonged and continuous,
with the inspirations short and interrupted, so it might perhaps have
been expected with the sounds uttered from joy, that the expirations
would have been short and broken with the inspirations prolonged; and
this is the case.
It is an equally obscure point why the corners of the mouth are
retracted and the upper lip raised during ordinary laughter. The mouth
must not be opened to its utmost extent, for when this occurs during a
paroxysm of excessive laughter hardly any sound is emitted; or it
changes its tone and seems to come from deep down in the throat. The
respiratory muscles, and even those of the limbs, are at the same time
thrown into rapid vibratory movements. The lower jaw often partakes of
this movement, and this would tend to prevent the mouth from being
widely opened. But as a full volume of sound has to be poured forth,
the orifice of the mouth must be large; and it is perhaps to gain this
end that the corners are retracted and the upper lip raised. Although
we can hardly account for the shape of the mouth during laughter, which
leads to wrinkles being formed beneath the eyes, nor for the peculiar
reiterated sound of laughter, nor for the quivering of the jaws,
nevertheless we may infer that all these effects are due to some common
cause. For they are all characteristic and expressive of a pleased
state of mind in various kinds of monkeys.
A graduated series can be followed from violent to moderate laughter,
to a broad smile, to a gentle smile, and to the expression of mere
cheerfulness. During excessive laughter the whole body is often thrown
backward and shakes, or is almost convulsed; the respiration is much
disturbed; the head and face become gorged with blood, with the veins
distended; and the orbicular muscles are spasmodically contracted in
order to protect the eyes. Tears are freely shed. Hence, as formerly
remarked, it is scarcely possible to point out any difference between
the tear-stained face of a person after a paroxysm of excessive
laughter and after a bitter crying-fit.[815] It is probably due to the
close similarity of the spasmodic movements caused by these widely
different emotions that hysteric patients alternately cry and laugh
with violence, and that young children sometimes pass suddenly from the
one to the other state. Mr. Swinhoe informs me that he has often seen
the Chinese, when suffering from deep grief, burst out into hysterical
fits of laughter.
I was anxious to know whether tears are freely shed during excessive
laughter by most of the races of men, and I hear from my correspondents
that this is the case. One instance was observed with the Hindoos, and
they themselves said that it often occurred. So it is with the Chinese.
The women of a wild tribe of Malays in the Malacca peninsula, sometimes
shed tears when they laugh heartily, though this seldom occurs. With
the Dyaks of Borneo it must frequently be the case, at least with the
women, for I hear from the Rajah C. Brooke that it is a common
expression with them to say “we nearly made tears from laughter.” The
aborigines of Australia express their emotions freely, and they are
described by my correspondents as jumping about and clapping their
hands for joy, and as often roaring with laughter. No less than four
observers have seen their eyes freely watering on such occasions; and
in one instance the tears rolled down their cheeks. Mr. Bulmer, a
missionary in a remote part of Victoria, remarks, “that they have a
keen sense of the ridiculous; they are excellent mimics, and when one
of them is able to imitate the peculiarities of some absent member of
the tribe, it is very common to hear all in the camp convulsed with
laughter.” With Europeans hardly anything excites laughter so easily as
mimicry; and it is rather curious to find the same fact with the
savages of Australia, who constitute one of the most distinct races in
the world.
In Southern Africa with two tribes of Kafirs, especially with the
women, their eyes often fill with tears during laughter. Gaika, the
brother of the chief Sandilli, answers my query on this head, with the
words, “Yes, that is their common practice.” Sir Andrew Smith has seen
the painted face of a Hottentot woman all furrowed with tears after a
fit of laughter. In Northern Africa, with the Abyssinians, tears are
secreted under the same circumstances. Lastly, in North America, the
same fact has been observed in a remarkably savage and isolated tribe,
but chiefly with the women; in another tribe it was observed only on a
single occasion.
Excessive laughter, as before remarked, graduates into moderate
laughter. In this latter case the muscles round the eyes are much less
contracted, and there is little or no frowning. Between a gentle laugh
and a broad smile there is hardly any difference, excepting that in
smiling no reiterated sound is uttered, though a single rather strong
expiration, or slight noise—a rudiment of a laugh—may often be heard at
the commencement of a smile. On a moderately smiling countenance the
contraction of the upper orbicular muscles can still just be traced by
a slight lowering of the eyebrows. The contraction of the lower
orbicular and palpebral muscles is much plainer, and is shown by the
wrinkling of the lower eyelids and of the skin beneath them, together
with a slight drawing up of the upper lip. From the broadest smile we
pass by the finest steps into the gentlest one. In this latter case the
features are moved in a much less degree, and much more slowly, and the
mouth is kept closed. The curvature of the naso-labial furrow is also
slightly different in the two cases. We thus see that no abrupt line of
demarcation can be drawn between the movement of the features during
the most violent laughter and a very faint smile.[816]
A smile, therefore, may be said to be the first stage in the
development of a laugh. But a different and more probable view may be
suggested; namely, that the habit of uttering load reiterated sounds
from a sense of pleasure, first led to the retraction of the corners of
the mouth and of the upper lip, and to the contraction of the orbicular
muscles; and that now, through association and long-continued habit,
the same muscles are brought into slight play whenever any cause
excites in us a feeling which, if stronger, would have led to laughter;
and the result is a smile.
Whether we look at laughter as the full development of a smile, or, as
is more probable, at a gentle smile as the last trace of a habit,
firmly fixed during many generations, of laughing whenever we are
joyful, we can follow in our infants the gradual passage of the one
into the other. It is well known to those who have the charge of young
infants, that it is difficult to feel sure when certain movements about
their mouths are really expressive; that is, when they really smile.
Hence I carefully watched my own infants. One of them at the age of
forty-five days, and being at the time in a happy frame of mind,
smiled; that is, the corners of the mouth were retracted, and
simultaneously the eyes became decidedly bright. I observed the same
thing on the following day; but on the third day the child was not
quite well and there was no trace of a smile, and this renders it
probable that the previous smiles were real. Eight days subsequently
and during the next succeeding week, it was remarkable how his eyes
brightened whenever he smiled, and his nose became at the same time
transversely wrinkled. This was now accompanied by a little bleating
noise, which perhaps represented a laugh. At the age of 113 days these
little noises, which were always made during expiration, assumed a
slightly different character, and were more broken or interrupted, as
in sobbing; and this was certainly incipient laughter. The change in
tone seemed to me at the time to be connected with the greater lateral
extension of the mouth as the smiles became broader.
In a second infant the first real smile was observed at about the same
age, viz. forty-five days; and in a third, at a somewhat earlier age.
The second infant, when sixty-five days old, smiled much more broadly
and plainly than did the one first mentioned at the same age; and even
at this early age uttered noises very like laughter. In this gradual
acquirement, by infants, of the habit of laughing, we have a case in
some degree analogous to that of weeping. As practice is requisite with
the ordinary movements of the body, such as walking, so it seems to be
with laughing and weeping. The art of screaming, on the other hand,
from being of service to infants, has become finely developed from the
earliest days.
_High spirits, cheerfulness_.—A man in high spirits, though he may not
actually smile, commonly exhibits some tendency to the retraction of
the corners of his mouth. From the excitement of pleasure, the
circulation becomes more rapid; the eyes are bright, and the colour of
the face rises. The brain, being stimulated by the increased flow of
blood, reacts on the mental powers; lively ideas pass still more
rapidly through the mind, and the affections are warmed. I heard a
child, a little under four years old, when asked what was meant by
being in good spirits, answer, “It is laughing, talking, and kissing.”
It would be difficult to give a truer and more practical definition. A
man in this state holds his body erect, his head upright, and his eyes
open. There is no drooping of the features, and no contraction of the
eyebrows. On the contrary, the frontal muscle, as Moreau observes,[817]
tends to contract slightly; and this smooths the brow, removes every
trace of a frown, arches the eyebrows a little, and raises the eyelids.
Hence the Latin phrase, _exporrigere frontem_—to unwrinkle the
brow—means, to be cheerful or merry. The whole expression of a man in
good spirits is exactly the opposite of that of one suffering from
sorrow. According to Sir C. Bell, “In all the exhilarating emotions the
eyebrows, eyelids, the nostrils, and the angles of the mouth are
raised. In the depressing passions it is the reverse.” Under the
influence of the latter the brow is heavy, the eyelids, cheeks, mouth,
and whole head droop; the eyes are dull; the countenance pallid, and
the respiration slow. In joy the face expands, in grief it lengthens.
Whether the principle of antithesis has here come into play in
producing these opposite expressions, in aid of the direct causes which
have been specified and which are sufficiently plain, I will not
pretend to say.
With all the races of man the expression of good spirit appears to be
the same, and is easily recognized. My informants, from various parts
of the Old and New Worlds, answer in the affirmative to my queries on
this head, and they give some particulars with respect to Hindoos,
Malays, and New Zealanders. The brightness of the eyes of the
Australians has struck four observers, and the same fact has been
noticed with Hindoos, New Zealanders, and the Dyaks of Borneo.
Savages sometimes express their satisfaction not only by smiling, but
by gestures derived from the pleasure of eating. Thus Mr. Wedgwood[818]
quotes Petherick that the negroes on the Upper Nile began a general
rubbing of their bellies when he displayed his beads; and Leichhardt
says that the Australians smacked and clacked their mouths at the sight
of his horses and bullocks, and more especially of his kangaroo dogs.
The Greenlanders, “when they affirm anything with pleasure, suck down
air with a certain sound;”[819] and this may be an imitation of the act
of swallowing savoury food.
Laughter is suppressed by the firm contraction of the orbicular muscles
of the mouth, which prevents the great zygomatic and other muscles from
drawing the lips backwards and upwards. The lower lip is also sometimes
held by the teeth, and this gives a roguish expression to the face, as
was observed with the blind and deaf Laura Bridgman.[820] The great
zygomatic muscle is sometimes variable in its course, and I have seen a
young woman in whom the _depressores anguli oris_ were brought into
strong action in suppressing a smile; but this by no means gave to her
countenance a melancholy expression, owing to the brightness of her
eyes.
Laughter is frequently employed in a forced manner to conceal or mask
some other state of mind, even anger. We often see persons laughing in
order to conceal their shame or shyness. When a person purses up his
mouth, as if to prevent the possibility of a smile, though there is
nothing to excite one, or nothing to prevent its free indulgence, an
affected, solemn, or pedantic expression is given; but of such hybrid
expressions nothing more need here be said. In the case of derision, a
real or pretended smile or laugh is often blended with the expression
proper to contempt, and this may pass into angry contempt or scorn. In
such cases the meaning of the laugh or smile is to show the offending
person that he excites only amusement.
_Love, tender feelings, &c_.—Although the emotion of love, for instance
that of a mother for her infant, is one of the strongest of which the
mind is capable, it can hardly be said to have any proper or peculiar
means of expression; and this is intelligible, as it has not habitually
led to any special line of action. No doubt, as affection is a
pleasurable sensation, it generally causes a gentle smile and some
brightening of the eyes. A strong desire to touch the beloved person is
commonly felt; and love is expressed by this means more plainly than by
any other.[821] Hence we long to clasp in our arms those whom we
tenderly love. We probably owe this desire to inherited habit, in
association with the nursing and tending of our children, and with the
mutual caresses of lovers.
With the lower animals we see the same principle of pleasure derived
from contact in association with love. Dogs and cats manifestly take
pleasure in rubbing against their masters and mistresses, and in being
rubbed or patted by them. Many kinds of monkeys, as I am assured by the
keepers in the Zoological Gardens, delight in fondling and being
fondled by each other, and by persons to whom they are attached. Mr.
Bartlett has described to me the behaviour of two chimpanzees, rather
older animals than those generally imported into this country, when
they were first brought together. They sat opposite, touching each
other with their much protruded lips; and the one put his hand on the
shoulder of the other. They then mutually folded each other in their
arms. Afterwards they stood up, each with one arm on the shoulder of
the other, lifted up their heads, opened their mouths, and yelled with
delight.[822]
We Europeans are so accustomed to kissing as a mark of affection, that
it might be thought to be innate in mankind; but this is not the case.
Steele was mistaken when he said “Nature was its author, and it began
with the first courtship.” Jemmy Button, the Fuegian, told me that this
practice was unknown in his land. It is equally unknown with the New
Zealanders, Tahitians, Papuans, Australians, Somals of Africa, and the
Esquimaux. But it is so far innate or natural that it apparently
depends on pleasure from close contact with a beloved person; and it is
replaced in various parts of the world, by the rubbing of noses, as
with the New Zealanders and Laplanders, by the rubbing or patting of
the arms, breasts, or stomachs, or by one man striking his own face
with the hands or feet of another. Perhaps the practice of blowing, as
a mark of affection, on various parts of the body may depend on the
same principle.[823]
The feelings which are called tender are difficult to analyse; they
seem to be compounded of affection, joy, and especially of sympathy.
These feelings are in themselves of a pleasurable nature, excepting
when pity is too deep, or horror is aroused, as in hearing of a
tortured man or animal. They are remarkable under our present point of
view from so readily exciting the secretion of tears. Many a father and
son have wept on meeting after a long separation, especially if the
meeting has been unexpected. No doubt extreme joy by itself tends to
act on the lacrymal glands; but on such occasions as the foregoing
vague thoughts of the grief which would have been felt had the father
and son never met, will probably have passed through their minds; and
grief naturally leads to the secretion of tears. Thus on the return of
Ulysses:—
“Telemachus Rose, and clung weeping round his father’s breast.
There the pent grief rained o’er them, yearning thus.
* * * * * *
Thus piteously they wailed in sore unrest,
And on their weepings had gone down the day,
But that at last Telemachus found words to say.”
_Worsley’s Translation of the Odyssey_, Book xvi. st. 27.
So again when Penelope at last recognized her husband:—
“Then from her eyelids the quick tears did start
And she ran to him from her place, and threw
Her arms about his neck, and a warm dew
Of kisses poured upon him, and thus spake:”
—Book xxiii. st. 27.
The vivid recollection of our former home, or of long-past happy days,
readily causes the eyes to be suffused with tears; but here, again, the
thought naturally occurs that these days will never return. In such
cases we may be said to sympathize with ourselves in our present, in
comparison with our former, state. Sympathy with the distresses of
others, even with the imaginary distresses of a heroine in a pathetic
story, for whom we feel no affection, readily excites tears. So does
sympathy with the happiness of others, as with that of a lover, at last
successful after many hard trials in a well-told tale.
Sympathy appears to constitute a separate or distinct emotion; and it
is especially apt to excite the lacrymal glands. This holds good
whether we give or receive sympathy. Every one must have noticed how
readily children burst out crying if we pity them for some small hurt.
With the melancholic insane, as Dr. Crichton Browne informs me, a kind
word will often plunge them into unrestrained weeping. As soon as we
express our pity for the grief of a friend, tears often come into our
own eyes. The feeling of sympathy is commonly explained by assuming
that, when we see or hear of suffering in another, the idea of
suffering is called up so vividly in our own minds that we ourselves
suffer. But this explanation is hardly sufficient, for it does not
account for the intimate alliance between sympathy and affection. We
undoubtedly sympathize far more deeply with a beloved than with an
indifferent person; and the sympathy of the one gives us far more
relief than that of the other. Yet assuredly we can sympathize with
those for whom we feel no affection.
Why suffering, when actually experienced by ourselves, excites weeping,
has been discussed in a former chapter. With respect to joy, its
natural and universal expression is laughter; and with all the races of
man loud laughter leads to the secretion of tears more freely than does
any other cause excepting distress. The suffusion of the eyes with
tears, which undoubtedly occurs under great joy, though there is no
laughter, can, as it seems to me, be explained through habit and
association on the same principles as the effusion of tears from grief,
although there is no screaming. Nevertheless it is not a little
remarkable that sympathy with the distresses of others should excite
tears more freely than our own distress; and this certainly is the
case. Many a man, from whose eyes no suffering of his own could wring a
tear, has shed tears at the sufferings of a beloved friend. It is still
more remarkable that sympathy with the happiness or good fortune of
those whom we tenderly love should lead to the same result, whilst a
similar happiness felt by ourselves would leave our eyes dry. We
should, however, bear in mind that the long-continued habit of
restraint which is so powerful in checking the free flow of tears from
bodily pain, has not been brought into play in preventing a moderate
effusion of tears in sympathy with the sufferings or happiness of
others.
Music has a wonderful power, as I have elsewhere attempted to
show,[824] of recalling in a vague and indefinite manner, those strong
emotions which were felt during long-past ages, when, as is probable,
our early progenitors courted each other by the aid of vocal tones. And
as several of our strongest emotions—grief, great joy, love, and
sympathy—lead to the free secretion of tears, it is not surprising that
music should be apt to cause our eyes to become suffused with tears,
especially when we are already softened by any of the tenderer
feelings. Music often produces another peculiar effect. We know that
every strong sensation, emotion, or excitement—extreme pain, rage,
terror, joy, or the passion of love—all have a special tendency to
cause the muscles to tremble; and the thrill or slight shiver which
runs down the backbone and limbs of many persons when they are
powerfully affected by music, seems to bear the same relation to the
above trembling of the body, as a slight suffusion of tears from the
power of music does to weeping from any strong and real emotion.
_Devotion_.—As devotion is, in some degree, related to affection,
though mainly consisting of reverence, often combined with fear, the
expression of this state of mind may here be briefly noticed. With some
sects, both past and present, religion and love have been strangely
combined; and it has even been maintained, lamentable as the fact may
be, that the holy kiss of love differs but little from that which a man
bestows on a woman, or a woman on a man.[825] Devotion is chiefly
expressed by the face being directed towards the heavens, with the
eyeballs upturned. Sir C. Bell remarks that, at the approach of sleep,
or of a fainting-fit, or of death, the pupils are drawn upwards and
inwards; and he believes that “when we are wrapt in devotional
feelings, and outward impressions are unheeded, the eyes are raised by
an action neither taught nor acquired.” and that this is due to the
same cause as in the above cases.[826] That the eyes are upturned
during sleep is, as I hear from Professor Donders, certain. With
babies, whilst sucking their mother’s breast, this movement of the
eyeballs often gives to them an absurd appearance of ecstatic delight;
and here it may be clearly perceived that a struggle is going on
against the position naturally assumed during sleep. But Sir C. Bell’s
explanation of the fact, which rests on the assumption that certain
muscles are more under the control of the will than others is, as I
hear from Professor Donders, incorrect. As the eyes are often turned up
in prayer, without the mind being so much absorbed in thought as to
approach to the unconsciousness of sleep, the movement is probably a
conventional one—the result of the common belief that Heaven, the
source of Divine power to which we pray, is seated above us.
A humble kneeling posture, with the hands upturned and palms joined,
appears to us, from long habit, a gesture so appropriate to devotion,
that it might be thought to be innate; but I have not met with any
evidence to this effect with the various extra-European races of
mankind. During the classical period of Roman history it does not
appear, as I hear from an excellent classic, that the hands were thus
joined during prayer. Mr. Rensleigh Wedgwood has apparently given[827]
the true explanation, though this implies that the attitude is one of
slavish subjection. “When the suppliant kneels and holds up his hands
with the palms joined, he represents a captive who proves the
completeness of his submission by offering up his hands to be bound by
the victor. It is the pictorial representation of the Latin _dare
manus_, to signify submission.” Hence it is not probable that either
the uplifting of the eyes or the joining of the open hands, under the
influence of devotional feelings, are innate or truly expressive
actions; and this could hardly have been expected, for it is very
doubtful whether feelings, such as we should now rank as devotional,
affected the hearts of men, whilst they remained during past ages in an
uncivilized condition.