| The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals | |
| Author: | Charles Darwin |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | Evolutionary theory, human behaviour |
| Publisher: | John Murray |
| Pub Date: | 1872 |
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is Charles Darwin's third major work of evolutionary theory, following On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). Initially intended as a chapter in Descent of Man, Expression grew in length and was published separately in 1872. Darwin explores the biological aspects of emotional behaviour and the animal origins of human characteristics like smiling and frowning, shrugging shoulders, lifting eyebrows in surprise, and baring teeth in an angry sneer.
A German translation of Expression appeared in 1872, and Dutch and French versions followed in 1873 and 1874. Though Expression has never been out of print since its first publication, it has also been described as Darwin's "forgotten masterpiece".[1] [2] Psychologist Paul Ekman has argued that Expression is the foundational text for modern scientific psychology.
Before Darwin, human emotional life had posed problems to the traditional philosophical categories of mind and body.[3] [4] Darwin's interest in the subject can be traced to his time as an Edinburgh medical student and the 1824 edition of Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression by Charles Bell, which argued for a spiritual dimension to the subject. In contrast, Darwin's biological approach links emotions to their origins in animal behaviour, allowing cultural factors only an auxiliary role in shaping the expression of emotion. This biological emphasis highlights six different emotional states: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. It also appreciates the universal nature of expression, implying a shared evolutionary heritage for the entire human species. Darwin points to the importance of emotional communication with children in their psychological development.
Darwin sought out the opinions of some leading psychiatrists, notably James Crichton-Browne, in preparation for the book, which forms his main contribution to psychology.[5]
The book introduces several innovations: Darwin circulated a questionnaire (which may have been inspired by his cousin, Francis Galton) during his preparatory research; simple psychology experiments on the recognition of emotions with his friends and family;[6] and (borrowing from Duchenne de Boulogne, a physician at the Salpêtrière Hospital) the use of photography in his presentation of scientific information. Darwin's publisher warned him that including the photographs would "make a hole in the profits" of the book.
Expression is considered an important landmark in the history of book illustration.
In the weeks before Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838, Charles Darwin sought medical advice for his mysterious physical symptoms. He traveled to Scotland for rest and a "geologising expedition" but also revisited the old haunts of his undergraduate days. On the day of the coronation, 28 June 1838, Darwin was in Edinburgh. Two weeks later, he opened a private notebook—Notebook M—for philosophical and psychological commentary and, over the next three months, filled it with his thoughts about possible interactions of hereditary influences with the psychological aspects of life.[7] Darwin made his first attempt at autobiography in August 1838.[8]
Darwin fully grasps his conception of natural selection towards the end of September 1838, after encountering the sixth edition of Essay on Population (1826) by Thomas Malthus.[9] [10] Unlike in Notebook D and Notebook N, Malthus and his essay are not mentioned in Notebook M.
In Notebook M, Darwin writes about conversations with his father—a successful doctor with a special interest in psychiatric problems—about recurring patterns of behavior in successive generations of his patients' families. Howard E. Gruber comments that these passages hint about the motor expression of emotions and thought, while the main emphasis is on the continuity between sane and insane.[11]
Darwin was concerned about the materialistic drift in his thinking and the suspicions this might arouse in early Victorian England. At the time, he was mentally preparing for marriage with his cousin Emma Wedgwood, who held firm Christian beliefs. On 21 September 1838, Notebook M discloses a "confusing" dream where Darwin found himself involved in a public execution; the corpse had come to life and joked about Darwin not running away and facing death like a hero.[12]
Darwin assembled the central features of his evolutionary theory while developing an appreciation of human behavior and family life. During this period, Darwin experienced significant emotional turmoil.
A detailed discussion of the significance of Notebook M can be found in Paul H. Barrett's Metaphysics, Materialism and the Evolution of Mind – Early Writings of Charles Darwin (1980).
In its public management, Darwin understood that his evolutionary theory's relevance to human emotional life could draw a hostile response.
While preparing the text of The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication in 1866, Darwin began to explore topics related to human ancestry, sexual selection, and emotional life. After his initial correspondence with the psychiatrist James Crichton-Browne,[13] Darwin set aside his material concerning emotional expression to complete Descent of Man, which covered human ancestry and sexual selection. He finished work on The Descent of Man on 15 January 1871. Two days later, he began work on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals and completed most of the text within four months; progress then slowed because of work required on the sixth (and final) edition of The Origin of Species and criticism from St. George Jackson Mivart. Darwin finished his work on the proofs on 22 August 1872.
Darwin brings his evolutionary theory close to behavioural science in Expression, although several commentators have perceived spectral Lamarckism within its text.[14]
In the book, Darwin notes the universal nature of expressions: "The young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements." This connection of mental states to the neurological organisation of movement, suggested by the shared etymological roots in movement of motive and emotion, is central to Darwin's understanding of emotion.
Darwin displayed several biographical links between his psychological life and locomotion: taking long, solitary walks around Shrewsbury after his mother died in 1817; in his seashore rambles near Edinburgh with the Lamarckian evolutionist Robert Edmond Grant in 1826 and 1827;[15] [16] [17] and in laying out sandwalk, his "thinking path", at Down House in Kent in 1846.[18] These aspects of Darwin's personal life are discussed in the psychoanalytic biography Charles Darwin, A Biography (1990) by John Bowlby.[19]
Darwin contrasts his idea of a shared human and animal ancestry to the ideas of Charles Bell, which are aligned with natural theology. Bell claimed that facial muscles were designed to express uniquely human feelings. In the fifth edition of The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression (1865), Bell stated: "Expression is to passion what language is to thought."[20] In Expression, Darwin reformulates the issues at play: "The force of language is much aided by the expressive movements of the face and body", hinting at a neurological connection between language and psychomotor function.[21]
Darwin attended debates about psychology at the Plinian Society in December 1826 and March 1827 as a medical student at Edinburgh University. These were prompted by the publication of the second edition of Charles Bell's Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression (1824). In his presentations, the phrenologist William A.F. Browne ridiculed Bell's theological explanations, pointing instead to the similarities of human and animal biology. Both meetings ended in uproar. Darwin revisits these debates 45 years later and recruits Duchenne de Boulogne's . He shifts the debate from philosophical to scientific discourse and highlights the social value of facial expression over vocalisations, tears, and posture.
Darwin's response to Bell's natural theology is discussed in Lucy Hartley's Physiognomy and the Meaning of Expression in Nineteenth Century Culture (2001).[22]
In the composition of the book, Darwin drew on worldwide responses to his research and findings:
As a result of his domestic psychology experiments, Darwin reduced the number of commonly observed emotions from Duchenne's calculation of more than sixty facial expressions to six "core" expressions: anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness, and sadness.
Darwin corresponded with James Crichton-Browne, the son of the phrenologist William A. F. Browne and the then medical director of West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. At the time, Crichton-Browne was publishing The West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports. Recognising the significant contributions of Crichton-Browne, Darwin suggested to him that Expression "ought to be called by Darwin and Browne?"[23]
Darwin also drew on his personal experience of the symptoms of bereavement and studied the text of Henry Maudsley's 1870 Gulstonian Lectures on Body And Mind.[24]
Darwin considered other approaches to the study of emotions, such as their depiction in the arts—as discussed by the actor Henry Siddons in his Practical Illustrations of Rhetorical Gesture and Action (1807) and by the anatomist Robert Knox in his Manual of Artistic Anatomy (1852)—but abandoned the approaches as unreliable. Only a few sections in Expression mention deception.[25]
Expression opens with three chapters (1–3) entitled "General Principles of Expression", where Darwin introduces three principles:
In the following chapters (4–6), Darwin presents his findings on modes of emotional expression peculiar to particular species, including humans.
Chapters 7–8 contain Darwin's observations on "low spirits" (anxiety, grief, dejection, and despair) and "high spirits" (joy, love, tender feelings, and devotion). Darwin claims that high spirits, exemplified by joy, find their purest expression in laughter.
Subsequent chapters (9–13) discuss various emotions and their expression. In his discussion of the emotion "disgust", Darwin notes its close links to the sense of smell and conjectures an association with offensive odours. In chapter 13 (which highlights the emotional states of self-attention, shame, shyness, modesty, and blushing), Darwin describes blushing as "the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions".
Darwin closes the book with chapter 14, where he summarises his central argument, demonstrating how human emotions link mental states with bodily movement. He posits that these expressions are genetically determined and derive from purposeful actions observed in animals. He comments on the book's implications, proposing a single origin for the entire human species, with universal human expressions. Darwin emphasises the social value of expression, especially the emotional communication between mother and child.
Because of the limited printing techniques of the 1800s, photographs were usually tipped into the pages of books. This process was expensive and labour-intensive since each photograph had to be printed and tipped in individually. Darwin proposed using heliotype to print the photographs to his publisher—John Murray—believing it would be cheaper.[26] It allowed the illustrations to be bound directly with the pages of text, and the printing plates could be reused, which reduced costs.
The printing company Darwin chose for the photographs proved to be expensive. Robert F. Cooke, John Murray III's cousin and partner in his publishing company, expressed concern about the increasing production costs and warned Darwin that including the photographs "will make a terrible hole in the profits of each edition".[27] [28] Darwin proceeded with the printing process, and most of Expression was illustrated by photographic prints—with seven heliotype plates; figures 19–21 were printed using woodcuts.[29]
The published book contains the work of several artists:
Darwin received dozens of photographs of psychiatric patients from James Crichton-Browne but only included one—photoengraved by James Davis Cooper—titled "Figure 19". It depicts a patient under the care of Dr James Gilchrist at the Southern Counties Asylum.
Darwin concluded work on the book with a sense of relief. The proofs, tackled by his daughter Henrietta ("Ettie") and son Leo, required a major revision, which made Darwin "sick of the subject and myself, and the world".[31]
Expression was published by John Murray on 26 November 1872 as a sequel to The Descent of Man and was expected to reach a broad audience in mid-Victorian England. It quickly sold almost 7,000 copies.[32] [33]
A revised edition was published by Darwin's son in 1890, excluding several revisions suggested by Darwin; these were not published until the 1999 edition, edited by Paul Ekman.
A review in the January 1873 Quarterly Journal of Science concluded that "although some parts are a little tedious, from the amount of minute detail required, there is throughout so much of acute observation and amusing anecdote as to render it perhaps more attractive to general readers than any of Mr. Darwin's previous work".[34]
On 24 January 1895, James Crichton-Browne delivered the lecture "On Emotional Expression" in Dumfries, Scotland, presenting some of his reservations about Darwin's views. He argued for a greater role for the higher cortical centres in regulating emotional responses and discussed gender differences in emotional expression.[35]
In a 1998 review of Expression, edited by Paul Ekman, Eric Korn argues in the London Review of Books that Margaret Mead and her followers had claimed and subverted the book before Ekman reinterpreted it. Korn notes that Ekman collected evidence supporting Darwin's views on the universality of human expression of emotions, indirectly challenging Mead's views. Korn challenges Ekman's calling Expression "Darwin's lost masterpiece", pointing out that the book has never been out of print since 1872.[36]
The editors of the Mead Project website comment that Expression is among the most enduring contributions of 19th-century psychology and argue that although the book lays its foundation on an arguable interpretation of the nature of expression, its ideas continue to influence discussions on emotional experience. The editors cite John Dewey's comments on the book, writing that Darwin's arguments are "wrong but... compelling".[37]
In 2003, the New York Academy of Sciences published Emotions Inside Out: 130 Years after Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, a collection of 37 papers (edited by Paul Ekman) with recent research on the subject.
George Romanes (1848–1894), an advocate of Darwin in comparative psychology, died prematurely, diminishing Darwin's impact on academic psychology. Darwin's impact was further compromised by Wilhelm Wundt's dimensional approach to emotions and the widespread influence of behaviourism during the 20th century.
Sigmund Freud's early publications on the symptoms of hysteria (with his influential concept of unconscious emotional conflict) acknowledged debts to Darwin's work on emotional expression.[38]
In 1905, Arthur Mitchell, a psychiatrist and former deputy to William A.F. Browne in the Scottish Lunacy Commission, published About Dreaming, Laughing and Blushing,[39] linking some of Darwin's concerns with psychoanalysis. Psychiatrist John Bowlby extensively references Darwin's ideas in his presentations on attachment theory.
Darwin's impact on psychoanalysis is discussed in detail by Lucille Ritvo in Darwin's Influence on Freud: A Tale of Two Sciences (1990).[40]
William James followed up Darwin's ideas in his What Is An Emotion? (1884). In the James–Lange theory of emotions, James develops Darwin's emphasis on the physical aspects, like the autonomically mediated components of emotions.
In Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage (1915) by Walter Cannon,[41] Cannon introduces the phrase, formulating emotions in terms of strategies for interpersonal behaviour and how these emotions are amplified in groups or crowds—herd behavior. Psychological theories of emotion have also been set out in the Two-factor theory of emotion, put forth by Schachter and Singer, the Papez–Maclean hypothesis, and the theory of constructed emotion.[42]
Theories on psychosomatic factors in personality were elaborated by psychiatrist Ernst Kretschmer; neurologist Paul Schilder, with his notion of body image in The Image and Appearance of the Human Body: Studies in the Constructive Energies of the Psyche (1950); and in the theory on somatotypology proposed by William Herbert Sheldon in the 1940s—now largely discredited. Zoologist Desmond Morris further explored the biological aspects of human emotions in his illustrated scientific book Manwatching (1978),[43] and recent research has confirmed that while cultural factors are critical to determining gestures, genetic factors are crucial to forming facial expressions.
The detailed approach to illustrating biological subjects[44] continued in contributions through various subjects: photographer Eadweard Muybridge's work on animal locomotion,[45] [46] which influenced the development of cinematography; Scottish naturalist James Bell Pettigrew studies on animal locomotion, documented in his works Animal Locomotion, or, Walking, Swimming and Flying, with a dissertation on Aeronautics (1874) and Design in Nature (1908); the illustrated and controversial works of evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel; and to a lesser extent, in On Growth and Form (1917) by D'Arcy Thompson.[47]
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