the world. This movement apparently results from the retention, chiefly
during youth, of a primordial habit, or from an occasional reversion to
it. Young orangs and chimpanzees protrude their lips to an
extraordinary degree, as described in a former chapter, when they are
discontented, somewhat angry, or sulky; also when they are surprised, a
little frightened, and even when slightly pleased. Their mouths are
protruded apparently for the sake of making the various noises proper
to these several states of mind; and its shape, as I observed with the
chimpanzee, differed slightly when the cry of pleasure and that of
anger were uttered. As soon as these animals become enraged, the shape
of the month wholly changes, and the teeth are exposed. The adult orang
when wounded is said to emit a singular cry, consisting at first of
high notes, which at length deepen into a low roar. While giving out
the high notes he thrusts out his lips into a funnel shape, but in
uttering the low notes he holds his mouth wide open. [911] With the
gorilla, the lower lip is said to be capable of great elongation. If
then our semi-human progenitors protruded their lips when sulky or a
little angered, in the same manner as do the existing anthropoid apes,
it is not an anomalous, though a curious fact, that our children should
exhibit, when similarly affected, a trace of the same expression,
together with some tendency to utter a noise. For it is not at all
unusual for animals to retain, more or less perfectly, during early
youth, and subsequently to lose, characters which were aboriginally
possessed by their adult progenitors, and which are still retained by
distinct species, their near relations.
Nor is it an anomalous fact that the children of savages should exhibit
a stronger tendency to protrude their lips, when sulky, than the
children of civilized Europeans; for the essence of savagery seems to
consist in the retention of a primordial condition, and this
occasionally holds good even with bodily peculiarities.[912] It may be
objected to this view of the origin of pouting, that the anthropoid
apes likewise protrude their lips when astonished and even when a
little pleased; whilst with us this expression is generally confined to
a sulky frame of mind. But we shall see in a future chapter that with
men of various races surprise does sometimes lead to a slight
protrusion of the lips, though great surprise or astonishment is more
commonly shown by the mouth being widely opened. As when we smile or
laugh we draw back the corners of the mouth, we have lost any tendency
to protrude the lips, when pleased, if indeed our early progenitors
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