Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/649

Rh stimuli do not cause any deviation from the type of face which usually characterizes them. If we were to take two individuals, one a trained gymnast and the other a clerk with flabby muscles, and were to make them exercise one arm, so as to develop it to the fullest extent, there can be no doubt that, when this end was attained, the latter would deviate more noticeably from his usual state than the former.

From the fact that women are more governed by their emotions than men, one might be tempted to jump to the conclusion that constant emotional stimulation of the kind we are discussing would tend to produce an effeminate type of face. But, as a matter of fact, this is only true to a very limited extent. It must be remembered (and this is a point upon which I wish to lay special stress) that artificial emotion—such as is evoked by music—has to make use of nervous machinery belonging primarily to the body rather than to the soul, and which remains indissolubly connected with certain organic processes common to man and beast.

Now there can be no question that any deep stirring of the emotional side of our nature tends to throw us back upon the bestial substratum derived from our remote ancestors which we generally keep covered up. In a strong gust of passion the "vital spark," which crowns our material being like a nimbus, is extinguished, and the ancient and half-quenched embers of animality beneath are fanned into fierce life. A man, excited or enraged (in common with other mammals of the combative and covetous sex), becomes emphatically a savage male. Hence habitual stimulation of the emotional side of our nature will tend to enhance, rather than to diminish, certain sexual differences in expression.

It is extremely important that we should bear in mind that passion prints on the face are often quite useless in enabling us to form an opinion as to the moral character (as distinct from the moral tendencies) of any individual. For the inhibitory centers of the mental apparatus, upon which depend our powers of self-restraint, do not exercise their veto beyond the frontier line which separates the rational from the organic side of human nature. And, let us recollect, it is the latter region which is governed by the sympathetic system, with its complex emotional and trophic functions. Thus, although a man may feel illicit passion, or unrighteous rage, without deviating in act from the path of rectitude, yet his heart, his skin, and other parts under the sympathetic régime, will ignore both the moral code and any voluntary decision to obey it.

Not only may the organic part of a man show every sign of guilt when there is no guilt, but only temptation; but it may