Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/455

Rh energy produced by pleasure and enjoyment, passing on by an efflux through the motor nerves to various classes of the muscles, finds a vent in joyous merriment, dancing, clapping the hands, and, above all, in emissions of sound and motions of the zygomatic muscles, which draw the mouth backward and upward. From the manner in which the upper teeth are exposed in laughter and broad smiling, Mr. Darwin 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, while the contractile force exerted upon the vessels or glands of the eye causes the same flow of tears in extreme laughter as in sorrow. Both laughing and weeping are seen in a minor degree in many of the lower animals. In children tears do not flow, Mr. Darwin assures us, at the first, but are induced by the effect of prolonged screaming, in gorging the vessels of the eye. This suffusion, leading at first consciously, and at last habitually, to the contraction of the muscles round the eyes, in order to protect or relieve them, the lachrymal glands become affected through reflex action. Thus, although in the



first instance a merely incidental result, as purposeless as the secretion of tears from a blow outside the eye, or as a sneeze from bright light affecting the retina, we may understand how the shedding of tears serves as a natural relief to suffering."

Mr. Darwin's work is profusely illustrated by woodcuts and photographs of the human face, and of the attitudes and expressions of various animals. We give some of his figures, with his accompanying descriptions, exemplifying the principle of antithesis in the dog and cat.