communication. Even infants, if carefully attended to, find out at a
very early age that their screaming brings relief, and they soon
voluntarily practise it. We may frequently see a person voluntarily
raising his eyebrows to express surprise, or smiling to express
pretended satisfaction and acquiescence. A man often wishes to make
certain gestures conspicuous or demonstrative, and will raise his
extended arms with widely opened fingers above his head, to show
astonishment, or lift his shoulders to his ears, to show that he cannot
or will not do something. The tendency to such movements will be
strengthened or increased by their being thus voluntarily and
repeatedly performed; and the effects may be inherited.
It is perhaps worth consideration whether movements at first used only
by one or a few individuals to express a certain state of mind may not
sometimes have spread to others, and ultimately have become universal,
through the power of conscious and unconscious imitation. That there
exists in man a strong tendency to imitation, independently of the
conscious will, is certain. This is exhibited in the most extraordinary
manner in certain brain diseases, especially at the commencement of
inflammatory softening of the brain, and has been called the echo
sign. Patients thus affected imitate, without understanding every
absurd gesture which is made, and every word which is uttered near
them, even in a foreign language.[1401] In the case of animals, the
jackal and wolf have learnt under confinement to imitate the barking of
the dog. How the barking of the dog, which serves to express various
emotions and desires, and which is so remarkable from having been
acquired since the animal was domesticated, and from being inherited in
different degrees by different breeds, was first learnt we do not know;
but may we not suspect that imitation has had something to do with its
acquisition, owing to dogs having long lived in strict association with
so loquacious an animal as man?
In the course of the foregoing remarks and throughout this volume, I
have often felt much difficulty about the proper application of the
terms, will, consciousness, and intention. Actions, which were at first
voluntary, soon became habitual, and at last hereditary, and may then
be performed even in opposition to the will. Although they often reveal
the state of the mind, this result was not at first either intended or
expected. Even such words as that certain movements serve as a means
of expression, are apt to mislead, as they imply that this was their
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