_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
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