Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/644

628 face reveals something of the superfine genteelness of the flunkey, the other a shifty truculence acquired among the chafferers of Barnet or Ballinasloe. In like manner we may distinguish between the many sections of the great tribe of Jehu. In the expression of the 'bus-driver, still more in that of the driver of a tradesman's or carrier's cart, but most of all in that of the brewer's drayman, the extra coats are so numerous as to obscure the original grounding. In the two former, traffic with humankind, and other circumstances, such as constant exposure to the weather, have entered into competition with the feature-molding power of the horse; in the last, all equine traces have been dissolved clean away by malt liquor. Should a certain popular belief, to the effect that contact with horses has a malign effect upon the character, be borne out by more exact researches in moral pathology, the phenomena observable in the drayman's face might suggest a powerful antidote, and one which would readily be taken by the afflicted—although (as is often the case with new remedial measures) it would, without doubt, be denounced by a considerable section of the public as ten times worse than the disease.

One would have thought that the riders and ringmaster at a circus would exhibit a marked degree of facial horseyness; but, strangely enough, this is not so. The reason seems to be that in a circus the achievement of certain difficult feats to the satisfaction of the audience wholly occupies the minds of the performers, and the horses, large as they loom in the eyes of the public, are regarded by the circus folk as mere "properties."

Now it is plain that, in the cases given, numerous agencies of a widely diverse character are responsible for the total results. Association with horses can only change a man's facial aspect by first influencing his mind, and hence the general common groundwork alluded to is essentially psychic in origin.

On the other hand, certain of the supplementary touches in the cases brought forward seem at first sight to be purely accidental, and to have no mental significance whatever. Hence it might seem that those who study the human face as an index of the mind might safely ignore such physiognomical items as are due, let us say, to exposure, to heat, or cold, or to other purely direct causes. This, however, is only partly true, if it is true at all. Every student of the psychology of expression must be extremely cautious in neglecting any particular trait because it seems due to some accident of environment which has no apparent effect on the central nervous system.

That there is a continual stream of influence passing from the brain to the muscles of expression, which tends to give a permanent cast to the features, has been shown; but it is not so generally recognized that there are also reverse currents from the