intimate manner in which the muscles are connected, as may be seen in
Henle s anatomical drawings[7] the best I believe ever published it is
difficult to believe in their separate action. Nevertheless, it is
manifest that Dr. Duchenne clearly apprehended this and other sources
of error, and as it is known that he was eminently successful in
elucidating the physiology of the muscles of the hand by the aid of
electricity, it is probable that he is generally in the right about the
muscles of the face. In my opinion, Dr. Duchenne has greatly advanced
the subject by his treatment of it. No one has more carefully studied
the contraction of each separate muscle, and the consequent furrows
produced on the skin. He has also, and this is a very important
service, shown which muscles are least under the separate control of
the will. He enters very little into theoretical considerations, and
seldom attempts to explain why certain muscles and not others contract
under the influence of certain emotions.
A distinguished French anatomist, Pierre Gratiolet, gave a course of
lectures on Expression at the Sorbonne, and his notes were published
(1865) after his death, under the title of De la Physionomie et des
Mouvements d Expression. This is a very interesting work, full of
valuable observations. His theory is rather complex, and, as far as it
can be given in a single sentence (p. 65), is as follows: Il resulte,
de tous les faits que j ai rappeles, que les sens, l imagination et la
pensee elle-meme, si elevee, si abstraite qu on la suppose, ne peuvent
s exercer sans eveiller un sentiment correlatif, et que ce sentiment se
traduit directement, sympathiquement, symboliquement ou
metaphoriquement, dans toutes les spheres des organs exterieurs, qui la
racontent tous, suivant leur mode d action propre, comme si chacun
d eux avait ete directement affecte.
Gratiolet appears to overlook inherited habit, and even to some extent
habit in the individual; and therefore he fails, as it seems to me, to
give the right explanation, or any explanation at all, of many gestures
and expressions. As an illustration of what he calls symbolic
movements, I will quote his remarks (p. 37), taken from M. Chevreul, on
a man playing at billiards. Si une bille devie legerement de la
direction que le joueur pretend lui imprimer, ne l avez-vous pas vu
cent fois la pousser du regard, de la tete et meme des epaules, comme
si ces mouvements, purement symboliques, pouvaient rectifier son
trajet? Des mouvements non moins significatifs se produisent quand la
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