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 The synthetic philosophy of expression a 
 
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THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY 
 OF EXPRESSION 
 
 AS APPLIED TO 
 
 THE AKTS OF READING, ORATORY, | i 
 
 AND PERSONATION 
 
 MOSES TRUE BEOWN, M.A. 
 
 FBmCIPAL OF THE BOSTON SOHOOL OF ORATORY, AND PROFESSOR OF OBATORT 
 AT IDFTS OOLLEQB 
 
 It is a tiuth perpetually illustrated, that accumulated 
 facts lying in disorder begin to assume some order if an 
 hypothesis is thrown among them 
 
 Herbert Sfenoeb 
 
 SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 l^^^^i^^l 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 ^ 
 
Copyrlglit, 1888, . 
 Bl MOSES TRTJB BEOWN. 
 
 AU rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Fress, CaThbridge, Mass., V, S. A, 
 Electlotjped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 Tecb study of Human Expression has for cen- 
 turies attracted either the curious or critical at- 
 tention of one or more of the great minds of 
 each succeeding age. But it is only within the 
 last half of the present century that this im- 
 portant subject has presented such a unity of 
 classified knowledge as to make good its claim to 
 be ranked among the recognized sciences. 
 
 We may confidently say that to the researches 
 of two great philosophic minds, Darwin and 
 Mantegazza, we owe the substance of that body 
 of truth which forms the present Philosophy of 
 Human Expression, and with equal confidence 
 we may assert that to Francois Delsarte we owe 
 the practical application of philosophic methods 
 to the speech arts, — Reading, Oratory, and Dra- 
 matic Expression. 
 
 Darwin, while making the now world-renowned 
 voyage of the Beagle, incidentally gathered the 
 data upon which he founded the conclusions 
 given the world in his great work, '' The Expres- 
 sion of the Emotions in Man and Animals," — 
 a treasury of exhaustive research and thorough 
 analysis. 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 Taking a comprehensive survey of the mass 
 of material left by the early physiognomists, he 
 correlated the empirical observations of such 
 more modern writers as Lavater, Gratiolet, and 
 Piderit with the exact scientific knowledge of 
 Sir Charles Bell and Duchenne, in their studies 
 of the Anatomy of Expression ; and by a series 
 of broad generalizations founded his philosophy 
 upon three principles which must forever remain 
 as foundations of the Philosophy of Human Ex- 
 pression. 
 
 The three principles by which Darwin ac- 
 counted for most of the expressions of man and 
 animals are : — 
 
 I. The principle of serviceable associated 
 habits. 
 
 II. The principle of antithesis. 
 
 III. The principle of the direct action of 
 the nervous system on the body, independently 
 of the will, and independently, in large part, 
 of habit. 
 
 Darwin's masterly presentation, published in 
 Europe in 1872, and in America in 1875, awak- 
 ened an intense interest in the scientific world. 
 It startled many minds into alarm by its bold*^ 
 theories based upon the modern hypothesis of 
 evolution. But it came as a draught from a 
 living spring to men thirsting for new truth, 
 and tired of teleological explanations of natural 
 phenomena that did not explain. 
 
 To no one did this message of Darwin come 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 with a greater awakening impulse than to Paolo 
 Mantegazza, a Florentine scientist, who has lit- 
 erally made the glohe his quarry in search for 
 human expression. 
 
 Accepting with an enthusiasm born of convic- 
 tion the deductions, based upon evolution, of 
 Darwin, he drew from a vast storehouse of spe- 
 cial observations and experiences among all races 
 of mankind the material for his celebrated work, 
 published in Paris iu 1885, " La Physionomie et 
 I'Expression des Sentiments." 
 
 This work gives in detail what Darwin has 
 given in general. It presents the most critical 
 and exact analysis of the human body and each 
 of its expressive organs, with a wealth of illus- 
 tration suggestive of the widest and most search- 
 ing methods of modern science. 
 
 We turn from these great masters of philo- 
 sophic thought to Delsarte. And we are com- 
 pelled to say that there is to-day no such body 
 of systematized knowledge, left by this great 
 teacher — and open to the world — as, stand- 
 ing alone and without interpretation, merits 
 the title of a philosophy of expression. 
 
 The knowledge left by Delsarte is fragment- 
 ary, and often obscure and incoherent. And yet 
 the extracts from his manuscripts, which have 
 from time to time been given the world by his 
 disciples, show that a strong intellect and a 
 stronger psychological insight were at work, 
 even to the hour of his death, striving to solve 
 the problems of human expression. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 We cannot escape the conviction that with 
 Delsarte insight was greater than reason. He 
 was a greater teacher than thinker, a greater 
 seer than philosopher. We think it will he 
 found that the world owes a deht of gratitude 
 to Delsarte, not for any profound philosophy, 
 but for showing how a philosophy of expression 
 may be practically and successfully taught. 
 
 It now only remains for the authoi* of this 
 treatise to attempt to justify the appearance at 
 this time of the Synthetic Philosophy of Expres- 
 sion. 
 
 For more than twenty years a teacher and 
 student of the Art of Expression, he well re- 
 members the appearance of the great work of 
 Charles Darwin. It may with truth be said that 
 until Mr. Darwin wrote no such thing as a sci- 
 ence of expression existed or was possible. His 
 apphcation of the principles of evolution to ex- 
 pression was the first step of the new advance. 
 His great book widened the horizon for every 
 thoughtful student. To the author of this vol- ' 
 ume it was the sunrise of a new day. 
 
 The work of Mantegazza, issued only last 
 year, acknowledges his indebtedness to Darwin, 
 and emphasizes and enforces his conclusions. 
 
 But neither of these great writers attempted 
 to apply their philosophy to the conscious art 
 technique by which the reader, actor, or orator 
 enforces his thought and passion. They made 
 no claim to be teachers, nor even to suggest 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 how the principles formulated by them might be 
 taught. 
 
 In this treatise the author has attempted to 
 show how the philosophy of these great discov- 
 erers may be applied to the conscious art forms 
 which every expressive speaker must employ. 
 
 He has largely adopted the nomenclature of 
 Delsarte. He has not hesitated, however, to 
 criticise the dicta of the great teacher whenever 
 he has found what he considers error or unsound 
 statement. Thus, he has felt obliged to substi- 
 tute the term Emotive, as signifying a state of 
 the Being, for Moral, and the term Poise, as 
 signifying a mode of motion, for Normal. 
 
 Against the empirical statement, accredited 
 to Delsarte, of Nine Laws of Gesture as ulti- 
 mate in expression, he has felt compelled to enter 
 a decided word of protest. He has attempted 
 to show that a single principle — the Law of 
 Correspondence — underlies these nine laws for- 
 mulated by Delsarte, as well as the numerous 
 categories presented as laws of gesture by his 
 followers. 
 
 The author asks the special attention of the 
 student of Expression to the correspondences il- 
 lustrated by the revelations and implications of 
 the globe, and to his argument that all our ges- 
 tures bear fixed relations to the lines, Spaces, 
 arcs, and forms of the globe (see Chapters X. 
 and XII.). 
 
 So far as he is aware, no serious attempt has 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 been made by the writers upon Delsarte to ap- 
 ply his philosophy to the two great agencies of 
 expression, Voice and Articulate Speech. We 
 think we do no injustice to Delaumosne, or Ar- 
 naud, or Alger, when we pronounce their discus- 
 sions to be incomplete. The author of this trea- 
 tise has attempted to run the same parallels of 
 inference and deduction in his discussion of voice 
 and articulation that he has used in his treat- 
 ment of gesture. He submits his discussion of 
 these great agents of expression (see Chapters 
 XVI. and XVII.) to the critical judgment of 
 thoughtful students. 
 
 In conclusion, he may be permitted, in justice 
 to his intent, to say that he has made an honest 
 and sincere effort to present a consistent and 
 logical body of truth, which he hopes may hold 
 an hmnble place as a philosophy in the litera- 
 ture of human expression. He has thrown " an 
 hypothesis into the mass of accumulated facts 
 lying in disorder " known as the Delsarte Sys- 
 tem of Expression, in hopes that if he has been 
 unable to evolve such an orderly procedure of 
 logical statement as may merit the title of a phi- 
 losophy, his effort may stimulate other and bet- 
 ter thinkers to a broader unfolding of the Sci- 
 ence of Expressive Man. 
 Boston, Jume, 1886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 — •— 
 
 I. Ftest Peinoiples 1 
 
 n. The Thiibe Conditions of Beino. — The Three 
 Special Agents of Expeession. — The Three 
 
 Modes of Motion 15 
 
 m. The Threefold Division of the Body in Ex- 
 peession. — The Laws of Gesthkb. — Del- 
 saetb's Division into Nine. — Their Tr0b Ba- 
 sis 43 
 
 IV. The Nine Laws of Gesture (concluded) . . 68 
 v. The Human Form. — Its Fitness foe Expees- 
 sion 89 
 
 VI. The Human Foem {continued). — Action, as de- 
 termined FROM THE Base 98 
 
 VII. The Human Foem (concluded). — Steuctueb, as 
 deteemining action. — indications of the 
 
 Feet 107 
 
 Vni. The Toeso and its Expeessions . . . 115 
 IX. The Head and its Expeessions .... 129 
 X. The Hand and Aem in Gesture ... 145 
 XI. The Gestuebs of the Hand and Arm, as mani- 
 festing THE States op the Being . . . 162 
 Xn. Further Considerations. — The Realm *p Coii- 
 
 EBSPONDENOB IN GESTURE 184 
 
 XIII. The Human Face as an Agent of Expeession 202 
 XrV. The Human Face, as an Agent of Expeession 
 
 (continued) 219 
 
 XV. The Human Face, as as Agent op Expeession 
 
 (concluded) 239 
 
 XVL The Human Voice and its Expressions . . 259 
 
 KVIL Abiioulate Speech, as an Agent of Expeession 280 
 
THE SYNTHETIC 
 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 FIRST PBINCIPLBS. 
 
 Theee are two subsistences of whose reality 
 man is conscious, and whose recorded phenom- 
 ena, and deductions therefrom, make the sum of 
 that knowledge which he calls science. 
 
 These subsistences are (1) Matter; and (2) 
 Spirit, Mind, or Soul. 
 
 (a.) Nothing exists or can exist, so fax as we know, or 
 can think, that is not one or the other of these actual exist- 
 ences. They are the uniyersal whole. 
 
 There are two words, everywhere spoken, 
 when man would cover with a name his concept 
 of the aggregate of Matter and the aggregate 
 of Mind. 
 
 These words are the Universe, and God. The 
 Universe is matter in form, occupying Space, 
 existing in Time, held by law. 
 
2 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 God is Spirit ; and is sustaining Cause, ani- 
 mating Centre, and pervading Soul of the Uni- 
 verse. 
 
 (6.) Matter is the reality of space. The concept of the 
 Greek mind, adopted by modern science, is that universal 
 space is fiUed with a tenuous and imponderable form of 
 matter — the aether. Matter is composed of atoms. These 
 are innutuerable, infinitely small, indivisible, and indestruc- 
 tible. 
 
 When atoms aggregate, new bodies appear ; when they 
 disaggregate, bodies previously existing disappear. The 
 Universe alone sums up their totality. 
 
 All masses are globes, both the infinitely 
 small and the infinitely great, and are in never- 
 ceasing motion. 
 
 (c.) Both the infinitely small and the infinitely great are 
 alike unthinkable. 
 
 Take the infinitely small: Sir William Thompson con- 
 ceives that a drop of water is made up of units so small, 
 that could we magnify this single drop to the size of the 
 earth, the atoms of which it is composed would not be 
 larger than a cricket-ball ! 
 
 Take the infinitely great : Its spaces are simply incon- 
 ceivable. There is no circumference, the centre is every- 
 where. 
 
 Gigantic masses in globular form are scattered in all di- 
 rections through this immensity of space. They fill remote 
 depths of unfathomable abysses. They revolve around 
 themselves and around each other, in orbits to which they 
 are held by surrounding attractions. 
 
 Our sun with its pellets of cosmic stuff, including the 
 earth, about which we are so much concerned, according to 
 Herschel is moving through space toward some remote and 
 unknown centre, in the direction of the constellation of 
 Hercules. 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES. 3 
 
 The grandest conclusion of modern science is 
 that the Universe is bound together in Time 
 and Space as a single whole. Said Galton : 
 " There is nothing as yet observed in the order 
 of events, to make xis doubt that the Universe 
 is bound together in space and time, as a single 
 Entity." 
 
 So we may afiGirm of these two subsistences. 
 Matter and Spirit, that they are Body and Soul 
 of the Universe. 
 
 And further, that it is unthinkable that Mat- 
 ter can exist and be active without Soul ; or that 
 Soul can manifest its existence without Body. 
 
 (d.) Looking out upon the crowding phenomena which 
 day and night unfold, the greatest philosophic thinker now 
 upon the planet, Herhert Spencer, is forced thus to speak : 
 " Among the mysteries which become the more mysterious 
 the more they are thought about, there will remain the one 
 absolute certainty, that man is ever in the presence of an 
 Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed." 
 
 And Oken, interpreting the problem from the metaphys- 
 ical side, said : " The Universe is an analysis of the self-con- 
 sciousness of Grod; Its appearance is a synthesis of His 
 self -consciousness." 
 
 Now from the broad, the general, the univer- 
 sal, let us descend to the restricted, the particu- 
 lar, the immediate. From concepts of the in- 
 finite of Matter and Soul as revealed in the 
 Universe, let us consider the finite of Matter 
 and Soul as revealed in Man. 
 
 (e.) That man images the Universe — that he includes in 
 hia being aU forms, forces, essences — that he reflects 
 
4 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 through his organism the universal whole, are no longer 
 fancies, dreams, and speculations of poets and transcenden- 
 tal philosophers. The modern law of Evolution binds to- 
 gether the problems of Natural History, as Newton's laws 
 bind together tlie motions of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 When the consciousness of man shall have digested the 
 amazing deductions of such minds as Spencer and Darwin, 
 Huxley and Fiske, as to man's origin and appearance on the 
 earth ; when the materialist shall have put in his evidence 
 to the last word, and all its importance shall have been fully 
 realized and fairly weighed, I foresee tliat the pendulum 
 of human thought and belief will swing back toward the 
 grander conceptions of Oken and Swedenborg and Emer- 
 son, towards which goal all this challenging of Nature inev- 
 itably leads ; that the Spiritual is at the centre both in the 
 Universe and in Man, who xeflects and images the Universe. 
 
 Said Schopenhauer, with immense significance : " The 
 Materialists endeavor to show that all, even mental, phe- 
 nomena are physical ; and rightly : — only they do not see 
 that on the other hand everything physioal is at the same 
 time metaphysical I " 
 
 Man as we find him on this earth is a union 
 of matter and Soul. 
 
 Let us call this mysterious union of matter 
 and Soul in form, The Organism. 
 
 And we may say, Man is a Soul served by 
 organs. 
 
 Now certain necessities result from such an 
 organization as man presents. 
 
 Of necessity man is a creature limited by 
 three unavoidable restrictions. These restric- 
 tions are Space, Time, and Motion. 
 
 And we may say that, standing upon the 
 earth, these three restrictions hold him, inexora. 
 bly, in their grasp. 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES. 5 
 
 And further — a most important conclusion — 
 we shall find that all his expressions, whether of 
 Voice, Gesture, or Articulate Speech, bear defi- 
 nite relations to these three great restrictions. 
 
 And we should be able to formulate a com- 
 ■plete Philosophy of Expression, were we able 
 to state all man's relations to these three re- 
 strictions. 
 
 (/.) Let us try to make plain by a diagram ' our idea of 
 man conditioned by Space, Time, and Motion. 
 
 We project one side of a triangle.^ The word %^ 
 we write over the left side. Space holds aU things, small, 
 great and greatest. It holds man : where can he go out of 
 Space ? ^_ 
 
 The right side of our triangle is struck out. ^^- Time 
 is an unavoidable condition of the Being. Once man was 
 not on earth as apparition. Now he is (it is present). He 
 was yesterday (it has passed). He will be . . . Ah ! how 
 long ! where, whence, under what conditions ? 
 
 The third line is sketched. Motion. Motion is Force 
 
 expending itself. And Force is the source of aU active 
 phenomena occurring in the material world. Motion is the 
 evidence of a Force behind it. Man as mass is matter. So 
 the cosmic forces, gravity, electricity, etc., acting upon this 
 mass, are a most formidable restriction. In the last analysis 
 our sensations are only so many modes of motion. When 
 vibration reaches the conscious self we say, " I feel, I taste, 
 hear, see, smell, which translated mean, I vibrate, I am set 
 in motion ! " See what modern science says of these pulses 
 from the outer, beating in upon the conscious self. 
 
 ^ The blackboard and diagram have come to be essential aids in 
 the presentation of abstract ideas. He is a poor teacher to whom 
 they are not indispensable. 
 
 2 We shall have frequent occasion to nse the triangle in formulat- 
 ing abstract ideas. In using this figure, or when speaking of triads 
 or trinities, we wish it understood that no theological significatiou is 
 intended. 
 
6 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 If the air vibrate oftener than sixteen, but less often than 
 30 thousand times in a second we say, " I hear music ! " 
 
 The transfer of energy oftener than 30 thousand and less 
 often than 458 trillions in a second, " I feel heat ! " At the 
 rate of 458 trillions, " I see red ! " And the sensation of 
 577 trillions of etlier vibrations in a second is translated by 
 our consciousness as green, while vibrations pulsing through 
 the ether at the rate of 727 trillions become violet, in our 
 consciousness. 
 
 We may now venture to put our idea in dia- 
 
 cK/N^' g^^™- ^6* 'IS call it the Triad ^ or 
 
 ^^•\^ Trinity of Restriction. It will dome 
 
 Motion; ^Q jjgg^j. g^jj increasing interest and 
 
 importance as we proceed. 
 
 Thus is man conditioned by an environment 
 from which there is no escape. 
 
 Space, Time, and Force showing itself as Mo- 
 tion, are his greatest earthly restrictions. 
 
 Let us put our idea into three propositions : — 
 
 1. Soul can manifest itself, both in the Uni- 
 verse and in man, only through matter. 
 
 2. All manifestations of Soul — both in the 
 Universe and in man — must declare themselves 
 in relation to, and correspondence with, Space, 
 Time, and Motion. 
 
 3. Whatever successively appears in Time is 
 simultaneously extended in Space. 
 
 Thus self-motion, motion of the exterior, which 
 we can see is sent from the interior, is our only 
 evidence of life, and is the only, but ultimate, 
 distinction between the organic and inorganic. 
 
 1 The idea of triads is older than Aristotle. Far back of Greece, in 
 Chaldea, Persia, Egypt, Assyria, three was the sacred number, and 
 back of these records existed a traditional three ! 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES. 7 
 
 The organic dies so soon as motion disappears 
 in it. The inorganic lives so soon as motion 
 enters it. 
 
 When the priaciple of Life resides in a mass 
 moved from a centre, it is an Organism. Oken's 
 definition reads : " An Organism is a circum- 
 scribed, closed mass which moves itself." 
 
 .We may predicate of any organism these 
 things : — 
 
 1. An organism is mass in form, with control- 
 ling centre and near environment. 
 
 2. While centre and near environment are 
 one, and continue as one, there is Life. 
 
 3. When this relation of controlling centre 
 and controlled environment no longer exists, 
 ■what was near environment becomes remote. 
 Then comes the return of specialized matter to 
 the general mass of the earth. This is the dis- 
 appearance or death of the organism. This is 
 the retreat of the individual into the Universal. 
 
 Said Robin : " To live and to crystallize are 
 two properties never united." 
 
 A diagram will make plain our idea. 
 
 In our diagram the life or psychic element is 
 
8 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 centre. The centre controls its body, mass, or 
 near environment. 
 
 This is true of all animals. As the animal 
 evolves higher psychic elements, it becomes able 
 to control its near environment for higher ex- 
 pressions than those of merely maintaining and 
 perpetuating its life. 
 
 It becomes able to comprehend and control 
 something of its remote environment. Man of 
 this era has a much greater control of remote 
 environment than any other animal. And the 
 perfected man of the future will attain to a 
 knowledge and control of his two environments, 
 inconceivable to the most advanced men of to- 
 day. 
 
 ((/.) Let us examine the relations of body and psychic as 
 they present themselves in the most perfect earthly organ- 
 ism, that of man. 
 
 To " bode " is to portend, to foreshadow. The Anglo- 
 Saxon word " bodian " meant, to announce, to tell. To 
 "body," then, is to produce in form, to cause to appear. 
 So, a body is an appearance, an apparition, a phenomenon. 
 
 Now that which is bodied cannot be the same thing as 
 the body. It must be another thing, another somewhat. 
 Body is exterior, and is seen. This other is interior, and is 
 unseen. The Body is container. This other is contained. 
 We call the Outer, Body. The Inner we call Soul. 
 
 The body holds its form, substance, and continuance 
 from the Soul. It is held out of, and separated from, the 
 great mass of matter by the Soul. When let go by the 
 Soul it disappea,rs as Organism. There is a triumph oi 
 cosmic over organic force.^ 
 
 1 Thia twofold division of the organism, into body and soul, is com- 
 paratively recent in the history of man. Says Herbert Spencer ; "The 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES. 9 
 
 Wg may now venture a definition of the two 
 entities which make the organism that we call 
 Man. 
 
 1. The Body, or Exterior, is a persistent 
 aggregate and continuance of objective phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 2. The Soul, or Interior, is a persistent 
 aggregate and continuance of subjective phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 3. All phenomena of the Body are expres- 
 sible in terms of Matter and Motion. 
 
 All phenomena of the Soul are expressible 
 in terms of Thought and Feeling. 
 
 And it is upon the related phenomena of the 
 Organism that we base the Science of Expression, 
 which is a branch of the broader Science of 
 ^Esthetics. 
 
 So that a Philosophy of Expression is a branch 
 of the Philosophy of -Esthetics, which is the 
 Philosophy of the Fine Arts.^ 
 
 (A.) After all is said of the result of modern investiga^ 
 tion into the material organ of the mind, the brain, the 
 
 hypothesis of a sentient, thinking entity dwelling mthin a corporeal 
 framework is now so deeply woven into onr beliefs and into our lan- 
 guage that we can scarcely imagine it to he one which the primitiTe 
 man did not entertain and conld not entertain." 
 
 ^ It was a bold generalization of Ludwig Noire. that divided ihe 
 empire of Philosophy into two great divisions, Kinetics and j^sthetics. 
 
 By Ejnetics he would consider as a problem of pure mechanics the 
 objective world, from the first motion of the atom to the revolutions 
 of the solar system ; from the formation of the first cell to the life of 
 man. 
 
 By jUsthetics he would solve the subjective world, from the first 
 tremor of an embryo to the most bnlliant achievements of the mind ; 
 from the first reaction of the monera to the highest flights of human 
 genius. 
 
10 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 great secret, " "What is and where is Soul ? " constantly 
 eludes us. Said Serres : " We have been dissecting the 
 brain since the age of Galen, yet there is not an anatomii.-v 
 who has not left his successor something to do." Said 
 Ribot : " In the presence of tlie fibres of the brain we are 
 like hackney-coachmen, who know the streets and the houses, 
 but know nothing of what goes on inside them." 
 
 And the latest writer, M. Luys, who has brought the 
 microscope and the resources of photography to his aid to 
 complement years of observation, study, and experiment in 
 one of the great hospitals of Paris, declares that the secrets 
 of nervous organization escape from our eyes as fast as we 
 press into the regions where they conceal themselves. 
 
 And it is not to be wondered at that men divide them- 
 selves into two schools of thought, — the Materialistic and 
 the Spiritualistic, — when brought to confront this mystery. 
 The vice has been that neither school is disposed to treat 
 dispassionately the thought of the other. 
 
 Says the Materialist, with scalpel in hand, and a brain 
 fresh from the body before him : " I cannot find, in all this 
 mass of white and gray matter, the thing which you call 
 Soul. The microscope discloses a marvelous structurie, 
 not open to unaided vision. I find, as the unit of structure, 
 the cell, with nucleus as centre, and nucleolus as centre of 
 centre ; and no vision pierces further ! The Brain seems to 
 be an admirable instrument for receiving and registering 
 impressions from the outer world. I can conceive, too, that 
 the stored energy laid up in its centres manifests itself as 
 thought, will, and feeling, under the law of the correlation 
 of forces ; but I nowhere find the something you seem 
 pleased to call the Soul ! " 
 
 Says the Spiritualist, with a fine affectation of scorn, with 
 no scalpel, microscope, or brain before him ; evolving his 
 answer from his inner consciousness : " Do you hope to find, 
 in dull, dead matter. Spirit, Mind, Soul ? Why waste your 
 time in a fruitless search for what you can never apprehend 
 through the senses? Besides, it is a dead house you are 
 searching through for its late occupant! Did you evei 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES. 11 
 
 search through a living, pulsating, inhabited brain? Higher 
 than all your seai-ch is the evidence of the rational deduc- 
 tions founded in the eternal justness and fitness of things ; 
 that deep, central current of belief in Immortality which 
 sweeps through human thought as the Gulf Stream through 
 the ocean, baukless and shoreless." ^ 
 
 At the present halt of Science, the Soul, to a Materialist, 
 if he should give it a name, is the function of a highly 
 specialized form of matter, the nervous mass. Said Le- 
 fevre : '' Soul is the function of the cerebral mass, concen- | ' 
 trating itself in memory, thought, and personality." ' 
 
 To the Spiritualist, Soul is another thing than matter : it is 
 an entity, living and imperishable ! The nervous organiza- 
 tion, as all material parts of the organism, is admittedly 
 perishable as structure ; but the conscious self that controls 
 the body, the inner force, must persist. In fact, advanced 
 spiritualism declares that matter is the shadow of which 
 Spirit is the substance. 
 
 It seems certain that the present hostility — largely ap- 
 parent — of Science to the immanence of Soul, both in the 
 Universe and in man, is to lead to a broader philosophy, a 
 philosophy which shall reconcile all the varied phenomena 
 which Nature presents to the human mind. 
 
 And this new and better philosophy will assuredly have 
 for its basis the deepest, widest, and most certain of all 
 truths ; that the Power that is behind this apparent veil, the 
 Universe, and the power that is behind this veil of flesh, 
 the human body, can only be made known by stirrings be- 
 hind the tapestry of matter. 
 
 ' The thoi^ht of James Freeman Clarke, spoken at Concord, Mass., 
 at the funeral services of Emerson, the Plato of cor era. Mr. Clarke 
 said of this great sonl : " Like the greatest thinkers, he did not rely 
 on It^cal proof, bnt on the higher evidence of nniversal instincts; 
 the vast streams of belief, which flow through human thonght like 
 cnrrents in the ocean, — those shoreless rivers which forever roll along 
 their paths in the Atlantic and Pacific, not restrained bv hanks, hnt 
 g^ded by the revolutions of the globe and the attractions of tlie 
 
12 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 We have made this general survey of the re- 
 lations of the Soul to its environment — both 
 near and remote — that the student may be bet- 
 ter prepared to comprehend something of the 
 breadth and significance of what I think I may 
 claim to be A New Philosophy of Expression. 
 It will be seen that in its broadest appUcation 
 such a Philosophy must embrace all the phehom- 
 ena resulting from the mysterious union of soul 
 and body. 
 
 It must recognize the action of the environ- 
 ment — near and remote — upon the soul, as also 
 the modes of reaction of the soul upon its envi- 
 ronment. 
 
 It should trace — if It were pushed to ulti- 
 mate grounds — the manifestations of the sim- 
 plest life upon the earth, up to imperial man, 
 whose expressions would epitomize and reveal the 
 Kosmos. 
 
 It must embrace, also, aU the complex phe- 
 nomena ■ which arise from the necessity man 
 feels, while in the presence of Nature, to em- 
 body, and thereby attempt to reahze, his worship 
 .of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. 
 Hence a complete Philosophy of Expression 
 would embrace the philosophy of the Pine Arts, 
 plastic, graphic, and dramatic — the Arts of the 
 eye and ear.' 
 
 1 Oken has made a twofold division of Ait; the Plaatio and tho 
 Sonant, or that of Fonn and that of Motion. Sculpture is mass in 
 Form. Sculpture repeated in light is Painting. Music is the Art of 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES. 13 
 
 In the present treatise upon Human Expres- 
 sion, we shall discuss, mainly, the immediate ex- 
 pressions of the soul through the body. We 
 shall attempt to show that the soul manifests it- 
 self as a threefold essence; through three divi- 
 sions of the body ; and by three modes of motion. 
 
 One great principle wiU be stated as founda- 
 tion for much the greater number of our expres- 
 sions. 
 
 This principle is the Law of Correspondence. 
 It wiU be fuUy stated when we come to consider 
 the Nine Laws of Gesture. 
 
 Two diagrams wiU have greater and greater 
 significance as our work unfolds. Indeed, they 
 may be said to centre our Philosophy. The stu- 
 dent will come to regard them as keys to unlock 
 many a difficult door. 
 
 We present here "the two diagrams, and urge 
 the student to turn back and to refer to them 
 again and again as he proceeds. 
 
 (1) (2) 
 
 MotioOi . utility. 
 
 KXPBESSION. EXPRESSION. 
 
 (i.) The stadent will refer to page 6 for an explanation 
 of Diagram (1). This diagram represents the broadest re- 
 striction man encounters upon the earth. It will be shown, 
 as we proceed, that aU our exjwessions are related to these 
 three great restrictions of Space, Time, and Motion. 
 
 Motion. The dance of Tones is Mnsic. The Sonant Arts, rooted in 
 Mnsic, are Poetry, Oratory, Reading. Dramatio Art is living Scnlp- 
 ture, with an enTironment of all the Fine Arts. 
 
14 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Diagram (2) is explained at the commencement of Chap- 
 ter VI., in which, and the chapters following, we have stated 
 the grounds of our belief tliat the evolution of man as an ex- 
 pressive being has been a progressive development along the 
 three parallels of Structure, Function, and Utility. 
 
 In our discussion of the great subject of Hu- 
 man Expression, we shall hope to present to the 
 reason and judgment of earnest students proof 
 and confirmation that man is indeed an abstract 
 and epitome of the forms and forces of the Uni- 
 verse, and that the poet sang only prosaic truth 
 in her sublime utterance : — 
 
 ..." Qodi collected and reaiuned in man 
 
 The firmaments, tlie strata, and the lights, 
 
 Fish, fowl, and beast, and insect, — all their traina 
 
 Of various life caught back upon his arm, 
 
 Reorganized and constituted man, 
 
 The Microcosm, the adding-up of works ! " 
 
 DuzALEXu Babbett BBawniHa. 
 
CHAPTEE n. 
 
 THE THREE CONDITIONS OF BEING. THE THREE 
 SPECIAIi AGENTS OF EXPRESSION. THE THREE 
 MODES OF MOTION. 
 
 Man as Psychic^ manifests himself as three 
 conditions of Being, or, we may say, he mani- 
 fests three Natures. 
 
 These conditions of Being, or three Natures, 
 are : I. The Vital. II. The Mental, m. The 
 Emotive. 
 
 (a.) It should be borne constantly in mind that in deal- 
 ing with the Psychic we are considering an organic whole. 
 Nature makes no division of the psychic element, and any 
 process by which we break it up into parts is an operation 
 purely of our own making, and is used simply as a conven- 
 ience. In the somewhat abstract discussion which follows, 
 the reader will save himself from confusion by keeping this 
 idea in mind. 
 
 I. Man as a psychic Being is Vital, Sensi- 
 tive, Instinctive. 
 
 ITirough this part of his Being he exhibits 
 the phenomena of Life. 
 
 ^ As we shall frequently nse the term Paycliic, as a nonn, in our trea- 
 tise, let US de£ne it as an energy centred in the oiganism and controlling 
 its action. The term is used as generic, and coveis the three specific 
 terms, Life, Mind, and Soul. 
 
16 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 (b.) Wo nowhere find sentient life, save in connection with 
 a highly organized kind of matter which we call nerve sub- 
 stance. A dot of this substance not so large as a pin's head 
 organizes an insect kingdom. Said Darwin : " The brain of 
 an ant is one of the most marvellous atoms of matter in the 
 world, — perhaps more so than the brain of a man." 
 
 Stated in terms of matter. Life is an energy centred in 
 nerve substance, and nowhere exists save in connection with 
 such substance. 
 
 This is true alike of the structureless protozoa ' inhabiting 
 a stagnant pool, and of man who is at the summit of neural 
 development. 
 
 II. Man as a psychic Being is Mental, In- 
 tellectual, Mejlective. Through this part of his 
 Being he exhibits the phenomena of Mind. 
 
 He thinks, and compares his thoughts with 
 things. He perceives, recalls what he has per- 
 ceived, and projects pictures of what he has seen. 
 He reasons, and links his reasonings in proposi- 
 tions. He is the only being on earth who uses 
 the syllogism. 
 
 (c.) We may diagram the pentarchy of the intellectual 
 faculties. 
 
 Generalization, 6. 
 
 _,. Reason. 4. 
 
 MlNDflf;-:;-'.- Jmaglnation. 8. 
 
 Memory. 2. 
 
 Feioeption. 1. 
 
 These are the faculties by the aid of which man attains to 
 all knowledge. They are the instruments with which he 
 
 ' Since the passing from a struohireleas state to a structural state 
 is itself a vital process, it follows that vital activity must have existed 
 while there was yet no structure. — Hjcbbeet Spenobr. 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 17 
 
 constructs his science, art, and literature. And in the last 
 analysis we shall find that our sciences are but human 
 knowledge, partly unified, based upon the power of detect- 
 ing identity and difference in the phenomena which Nature 
 presents to the knowing faculties. 
 
 m. 3IaH as a psychic Being is Emotive, 
 Passional, Ethical, Spiritual. 
 
 Through this part of his being he exhibits the 
 phenomena of the Emotions. He loves and hates, 
 is affectionate, or bears enmity. He is benevo- 
 lent, or malignant. He is loyal to his concepts of 
 truth and duty. He worships ; and, contempla- 
 tive of the Spiritual, is reverent even to mysti- 
 cism. 
 
 These are three states or conditions of one 
 Being. Neither state exists without the others, 
 nor independently of the others, any more than 
 a triangle can exist without three sides. 
 
 Separate the terms by which you state a three- 
 fold essence, — you cannot separate the essence ; 
 nor can you know of the existence of the Being 
 except through its manifestations. 
 
 We repeat, then, the idea which we shall at- 
 tempt to unfold in the pages of this tieatise. 
 
 The Philosophy of the manifestations of the 
 Psychic through the Body is the Philosophy of 
 Human Expression. 
 
 (d.) The question has occurred, doubtless, to the student. 
 Does scientific Psychology justify this division of the Psy- 
 chic in man into Vital, Emotive, and Mental states or con- 
 ditions ? 
 
 We think so. The division of the psychic element, made 
 2 
 
18 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 by the old psychologists, into Intellect, Feeling, and Will, is 
 held substantially to-day. 
 
 Says Sully : ' " Mind is the sum of our processes of know- 
 ing, of our feelings of pleasure and pain, and of our vol- 
 untary doings. It is non-material, the inner world as 
 distinguished from the external." Says Hermann Lotze : '' 
 " Sensations, ideas, feelings, and acts of will constitute the 
 well-known facts, the whole of which we are accustomed 
 to designate as the life of a peculiar entity called ' The 
 Soul.' " 
 
 We diagram the two divisions of the Psychic. 
 
 (1) (2) 
 
 The usuol divialon : — The division adopted in this treatise : — 
 
 Will. Mental. 
 
 Thb Thb 
 
 #:;■: Thought. *v' Emotive. 
 
 FSYCHIO. ' PSYOHIO. 
 
 Feeling. Vital. 
 
 It will be seen that the Will is not found in our division 
 of the Psychic. True, but it is not left out of our scheme. 
 
 This determining power of the Psychic — this power by 
 whose aid our Mental, Emotive, or Vital states declare them- 
 selves — we make the direct agent of the Psychic. 
 
 So we accept the empirical definition, accredited to Del- 
 sarte as that which best explains the phenomena of the Be- 
 ing in action. 
 
 The Will is the direct agent of the Soul, and lends itself 
 to which side of the Being desires to manifest. 
 
 We are aware that Delsarte is accredited with making a 
 threefold division differing from that which we have pre- 
 sented. 
 
 It becomes necessary, therefore, that we shall state the 
 grounds of difference and the reasons for our dissent. 
 
 We present the division accredited to Delsarte by two of 
 his disciples. 
 
 1 See Solly's Psychology, pp. 2, 20. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 * See Lotze'8 Outlines of Psychology, p. 1. Ginn & Co., Boston. 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 19 
 
 Mr. Machaye^s division. M. DelauTnosne^s division. 
 
 ....-Mental. H. .... Mind. II. 
 
 Thb ••"'" Tbb ■■ 
 
 «■.:- Moral. III. *=.-;■.;-. Soul. III. 
 
 PSTOHIO. PsYOBaC. 
 
 ""'""■-■■Vital. I. ""'"•-■Life. I. 
 
 Now we consider the use of the term " Moral " to repre- 
 sent a generic division of the Psychic as in the highest de- 
 gree unfortunate. We have found it confusing. No one of 
 the followers of Delsarte, so far as we know, has yet given 
 it a comprehensihle definition. It manifestly cannot bear its 
 ordinary English meaning, of reference to our sense of right 
 and wrong, for that so restricts its signification that it is im- 
 possible to cover what, by numerous examples, Delsarte evi- 
 dently intended to cover with the term. 
 
 Thus what confusion this statement, "accredited to Mr. 
 Steele Mackaye,^ makes in any scheme of psychology ! 
 
 " In man we find a Vital nature which feels, a Mental 
 nature which thinks, and a Moral nature which ' loves.' " 
 But suppose we write " hates " in the place of loves ? Does" 
 the action cease to be " moral," according to the definition ? 
 But has the term " Moral " no place in our scheme ? Yes ; 
 with us " Moral " is a specific term, included in the generic 
 term Emotive. 
 
 We think no one can read the definition of Feeling as 
 given by Herbert Spencer without recognizing the probabil- 
 ity that by the term " Moral " Delsarte intended to cover 
 the entire class of Feelings which Mr. Spencer classes as 
 Emotions. 
 
 He divides all Feelings into two classes, — Sensations and 
 Emotions. 
 
 Sensations are Feelings arising in the bodily framework. 
 
 Emotions are Feelings arising in the mental framework. 
 
 In this treatise we have adopted in place of the term 
 " Moral," accredited to Delsarte, the more consistent term 
 
 1 It -mD. be borne in mind by tbe reader iJiat authoritative state- 
 ments do not exist of the ideas either of Delsarte or Mr. Maekaye. 
 We therefore use the compliant term "accredited" when referring to 
 statements afloat in their names. 
 
20 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Emotive. By so doing the terms Vital and Emotivo can be 
 
 held in entire consistency with modern Psychology.' 
 
 Let us diagram our idea of the Emotive nature. It will 
 
 be seen that we make the Ethical (moral) a division of the 
 
 Emotive nature. 
 
 „ Uyatloal. 6. 
 
 ff 
 
 " I SpWhial. 4, 
 
 The Bmotivb .---:''' 1. 
 
 #::• ■ &EtMoal. 3. 
 
 ELEumiT. ■■■•■■•'■'.■.■.■." §■ 
 
 '" aPosBional. 2. 
 
 "■■ I 
 
 -^ InstlnctiTe. L 
 
 Our contention is, that the Being of man, 
 though invisible, manifests itself through the 
 body in three modes or phases. These modes of 
 manifestation are well defined. Thus, Vital ex- 
 pressions, as we shall attempt to show, bear a 
 distinct character that separates them from Emo- 
 tive expressions. So, too, expressions from the 
 Mental nature have certain distinct character- 
 istics which separate them from either Vital or 
 Emotive expressions. 
 
 And more than this ; we contend that each of 
 the three natures chooses the ground of its dis- 
 play, and that the body has its weU-defined tracts, 
 through which, by a seeming preference, the Unity 
 
 1 To show that a mind nsed to psychological methods would gather a 
 Bimilar impression of the term "Moral" to that presented b'y us, we 
 quote a definition given before the Summer Session of 1885 of the Bos- 
 ton School of Oratory, by Professor BuUdey, of the Howard Univer- 
 sity, Washington, D. C. He thus presents what he concludes to bo 
 Delsarte's idea in the use of the term " Moral : " — 
 
 The combined intellective and motive forces, leading to the conviction 
 under which, by will power, the orator speaks and acts. 
 
 This definition includes the three fundamental factors of the Being, 
 namely : The Intellectual, The Emotional, The Volitional, 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 21 
 
 we call the Human Soul manifests itseK in one of 
 its three phases of Being. 
 
 Thus, expressions amount to proofs, and so we 
 are enabled to trace backward from the outer ex- 
 pression to find the inner condition that prompted 
 the expression. Thus the outer sign reveals the 
 inner mood. 
 
 (e.) Let us illustrate. Both Darwin and Mantegazza, 
 from a wide survey of Human Expression, embracing all 
 races now upon the earth, agree that menace or threatening 
 to attack shows itseU the world over by two expressions sent 
 out from the Vital nature : (1.) By making fists. (2.) By 
 a firm closure of the mouth, and by drawing up the lips from 
 the teeth, usually on the left side. 
 
 We shall give proof upon proof that, back of these open 
 manifestations, lurks the phase of the Being that prompts 
 the expression. 
 
 We ask the student to study carefully the fol- 
 lowing diagram of the classification of the Three 
 States of the Being: — 
 
 .•GeneraUzation. 
 
 Z*^ Reason. 
 
 ,-n. Mental. :^^!r ___Imagmation. 
 
 y' '*•.._ "■■■-. .Memory. 
 
 '"vPerceptioii. 
 
 ,/ Mystical, 
 
 AS #.;.'..J^.???S?^?^.in. Emotitb. *•-■■•-■" Spiritual 
 TJurre. ■•.. tioBs. -v-"-"-. 
 
 ■■••., """---.Etliical. 
 
 ll; Affectional. Passional. 
 
 '■••L Vital. #;:■;[■;' .Vitid liaatinets. 
 
 '"- Simple manijfeBtatioQsot 
 lila. 
 
22 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 (f.) Our diagram is intended to represent all sentient 
 life upon the earth, from the simplest protozoa to man. Sur- 
 veying psychic appearance in animals along the chain of 
 sentient existence, it seems apparent that it is the added 
 psychic element that marks higher and higher degrees of in- 
 telligence and feeling, from the simplest manifestations of 
 Life, up to the complexity of Thought, Feeling, and Will, 
 which we call the human Soul. 
 
 We formulate, in a single j^^oposition, the 
 mode of the existence of the human Soul upon 
 the earth. 
 
 The human Psychic is one in Consciousness. 
 
 It is three in Manifestation. 
 
 {g.) Can this formula be justified ? Let us see. Close 
 your eyes, kind reader, and ask yourself the question, " How 
 many am I ? " 
 
 You will never get other answer than the declaration of 
 the oneness of the Ego, " I am I." Nor has Philosophy on 
 this side of the question advanced a single step since the 
 days of Aristotle. If you should interrogate the Ego at in- 
 tervals of ten, twenty, sixty years, the same answer would 
 come back out of the deeps of your consciousness, " One Be- 
 ing in the midst of many changes ! " 
 
 We thus arrive at the most central fact in human experi- 
 ence, that the Soul is one in consciousness. 
 
 Let us examine the second part of our proposition. " It 
 is three in Manifestation." 
 
 One day you are sick, and are tossing uneasily upon your 
 pillow. The nurse brings to your bedside a bouquet of flow- 
 ers. You turn your head and open your eyes. " They are 
 beautiful ! " you say, with the intoned voice almost of song. 
 Their perfume reaches you. " Exquisite ! " you exclaim. 
 "Let me hold them in my hands!" And you comment 
 upon their arrangement, form, and color. And now you say, 
 " Who could have sent them, and arranged with so much 
 taste, too ? " 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 23 
 
 " Ah ! here is a letter ! " You open it and glance at the 
 writing ; tears fill your eyes, there is a choking at the 
 throat. " How kind and thoughtful ! " you exclaim. 
 
 Now, note the significant order of your action. You first 
 heard the nurse's step and voice. You turned your head 
 and saw the flowers. Then their perfume greeted you. 
 Then you spoke with an intoned voice. Such were your 
 sensations. Such, too, your emotions, stimulated by your 
 sensations. 
 
 At the same time that these feelings were aroused, you 
 took note of the various objects surrounding you. When 
 you spoke of the arrangement, form, and color of the com- 
 posite whole presented you in the bouquet, you used dis- 
 criminating words. If you had gone on to note accurately 
 resemblances or differences of structure, the mental nature 
 would have prompted you to use words of scientific im- 
 port. 
 
 And what a complex of Vital, Emotive, and Mental strug- 
 gled for supremacy, when you read the letter. Memory ran 
 on a swift errand to hunt for the sender of the flowers. 
 Imagination drew a heightened picture of the form, face, 
 and voice of the sender. You were reading on, when the 
 unexpected happened. A single phrase of the letter caught 
 your eye, and a torrent of feeling — how different from 
 thought ! — flooded out from your psychic centre. Such 
 were the manifestations of that marvelous entity, dwelling 
 within its tabernacle of flesh ! 
 
 Now, ask yourseM, was it the same Being that gave forth 
 these diverse phenomena ? 
 
 The illustration we have just given, if thought upon, will 
 convince the student that these three phases or states of the 
 Being seldom appear in any expression as single, separate, 
 and distinct, so that we may find no trace of the others. 
 
 Mantegazza has well stated this point : " It rarely hap- 
 pens that an emotion is expressed as a simple state. It is 
 more often a binary, or even a threefold combination." ^ 
 
 1 La Physionomie et I'Expression des Sentiments. Par P. Mante- 
 gazza. Paris. 
 
24 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 We confidently state, as a practical conclusion 
 which any one may verify, either by reflecting 
 upon his own states, or by observing others' 
 moods, that in the expression of any given pas-S 
 sion, one of the three states of the Being leads,\ 
 * while the other two assist. In most of our ex- 
 pressions it is quite easy to detect blends or com- 
 posites of the three Primary States. 
 
 These considerations, doubtless, led Delsarte 
 to a constant and critical observation of all the 
 phenomena of the Psychic as exhibited in the 
 every-day gestures, tones, and speech of people 
 about him. 
 
 Delsarte is reported to have formulated, in 
 synthetic tables, the expressions of each agent. 
 Thus the gestures of the head, torso, hand, 
 face, eye, were put into synthetic tables, and 
 these tables were called " the nine squares." 
 
 (g.) There can be little doubt that Delsarte held a form 
 of transcendental philosophy which had hardly crystallized, 
 at the time of his death, into logical statement. We have 
 direct evidence that he thought it somehow possible to re- 
 duce all the phenomena of Expression to the rule of Law ; 
 and that the hidden laws of Expression had a definite 
 agreement with the idea of the Trinity. Hence the syn- 
 thetic tables of threes and multiples of three. In support 
 of our hypothesis we quote the words of two of his intimate 
 students. 
 
 Angelique Arnaud > says : " The principle of the Delsarte 
 system lies in the statement that there is in the world a uni- 
 versal formula which may he applied to all sciences, to all 
 things possible. This formula is The Trinity." 
 
 ' See The Art of Oratory, System of Delsarte. By Edgar S.Werner. 
 Albany, N. Y. 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 25 
 
 And Delaumosne : " All phenomena, spiritual as well as 
 material, must be considered under three or nine aspects, or 
 not be understood." 
 
 We reproduce one of " the Nine Squares " as 
 given by Delaumosne. 
 
 CltrrBBION OF THE STATES OF THE BEING. 
 
 Belaumosnb.i 
 
 state of the 
 Being as Pri- 
 mary, or 
 Genua. 
 
 Derivatives, Species, or Blends. 
 
 1. 
 
 3. 
 
 2. 
 
 n. 
 
 Mental. 
 
 1-n. 
 
 Vito-Mental. 
 
 3-ri. 
 
 Emoto-Mental. 
 
 2-n. 
 
 Kento-Mental. 
 
 m. 
 
 Emotive. 
 
 i-m. 
 
 Vito-Emotive. 
 
 3-ra. 
 
 Emoto-Emotive. 
 
 2-in. 
 
 Mento-Emotive. 
 
 I. 
 
 Vital. 
 
 l-I. 
 Vito-Vital. 
 
 S-I. 
 Emoto-Vital. 
 
 2-1. 
 Mento-Vital. 
 
 The vertical columns are for species, deriva- 
 tives, or blends. 
 
 The horizontal planes are for the genus, or 
 primary. 
 
 The name that marks the species comes first. 
 It is the adjective. 
 
 The name that marks the genus comes last. 
 It is the noun. It may have before it one or two 
 adjectives expressing " blends." 
 
 In the middle horizontal plane, we place the 
 
 1 This table agrees with Delaumosne, except that the author has 
 used the term " Emotive " in place of " Moral," for reasons already- 
 stated. 
 
26 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Emotive genus. In the middle vertical column 
 the Emotive species. 
 
 (h.) The student will note that in the left vertical column 
 are found the three Primary states of the Being, — The 
 Mental, Emotive, and Vital, — marked with the Roman 
 numerals II., III., I. 
 
 At the right of this column are the Nine Squares, each 
 square presenting a "blend," or "composite," consisting of 
 two elements : a primary state as the noun, and a secondary, 
 or assisting state, as the adjective. 
 
 These secondary states are marked with the Arabic 
 figures 1, 3, 2, and are read as 1, Vito ; 3, Emoto ; 2, 
 Mento. 
 
 It will be readily seen that triple blends can be put into 
 each of these squares. Such blends would represent com- 
 plex psychic states, such as every human being has again 
 and again experienced. 
 
 We diagram three triads of composite states; each of 
 the three states, in turn, being primary. Let the student 
 remember that these diagrams are only convenient forms for 
 representing the indivisible Unity, the Soul. 
 
 Mento — 2. 
 
 The PsvoHio i ««»,.,i™ 
 
 Uhitt. or blond, 
 
 Vital — I. 
 
 Vito — 1. 
 
 (2) '%::::;;;::::;::::Z A.??;^Pl«...Mento-2. 
 
 Fbyohio. or blend. 
 
 Emotive — III. 
 
 Emoto — 3. 
 
 (3) '^*y^::::::::::"Z. Aompiox .p,j^_j 
 
 PsYomo. or blend. 
 
 Mental — n.^ 
 
 "We again quote Mantegazza : " An emotion is seldom ex- 
 pressed as a simple state. It is more often a binary, or 
 even a threefold combination." 
 
'Sensations. Feelings ariamg 
 
 in the bodily framework. 
 
 EmoHons. Feelings arising 
 
 in the mental framework. 
 
 TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 27 
 
 That the student may more fully realize that 
 our division of the Psychic iu man does not 
 differ in any essential point from the conclusions 
 of modern psychology, we present a diagram, to 
 which we ask serious attention : — 
 
 It Thinks i Intellect^ from Perception to 
 ..-■"■' -inmKS. J Keason. 
 
 The Psychic. ...--*'' 
 
 An energy oen- ..--•*'* 
 
 tred in the „..•.-.".".' It] 
 
 Body and con-*'-- 
 
 trolling its ao- --,,, 
 
 tion. 
 
 (WHL The determininff pow- 
 
 ' It Wills. J er. The direct Agent of the 
 
 ( Psychic. 
 
 One other statement seems necessary to a clear 
 comprehension of the meaning of certain forms 
 of Gesture, which will be presented further on 
 in our treatise.- 
 
 The Psychic in man exists in two conditions 
 in relation to its environment. 
 
 1. As Active. 2. As Passive. 
 
 This difference is incorporated in the nervous 
 system. 
 
 Connected with the Passive side of our na- 
 ture are the organs and faculties of sight, 
 hearing, taste, smeU, touch, and organic sensi- 
 bility generally. This side of our nature is 
 receptive. 
 
 Connected with the Active side are the muscu- 
 lar system and the nerves which govern it. Thus 
 with the sense organs and sldn is allied our Pas- 
 sive, or Receptive nature. And with the muscles 
 is allied our Active nature. 
 
 It will be found that these two conditions of 
 
28 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the Psychic, incorporated in the physical struc- 
 ture, determine the form and direction of all 
 our gestures. 
 
 Having stated our psychological grounds with 
 what clearness we have found possible, we come 
 to the practical question, How does the Psychic 
 manifest itself ? We ask the student's thought- 
 ful attention to our answer. 
 
 3Ian manifests the three states of the Being 
 through : 
 
 1. The body as a whole. 
 
 2. Through its divisions, tracts, or zones. 
 
 3. Through three special organs, tbhich are 
 the three special agents of the three states of 
 the Psychic. 
 
 These special organs are : — 
 I. The Pho7ietic. III. The Muscular. And 
 II. The Articulatory. 
 
 I. The Phonetic manifests more completely 
 the Vital state of the Being. 
 
 III. The Muscular manifests more completely 
 the Emotive state of the Being. 
 
 II. The Articulatory manifests more com- 
 pletely the Mental state of the Being. 
 
 Yet each of these special organs manifests in 
 greater or less degree the other states. Each is 
 special. Each is also general. 
 
 Let us consider these agents in detail : — 
 ^ The Phonetic organ is that instrument which 
 gives forth sound, voice, and modulations of 
 voice. 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 29 
 
 It is Nature^ s instrument for Tnanifesting to 
 the ear the Life element of the Being. 
 
 It is a tone instrument, and spontaneously 
 gives forth the fundamental tones of the musical 
 scale. 
 
 Music grew into Art as this instriunent became 
 more and more differentiated from the breathing- 
 tube of the mammals. And the ear kept pace 
 with the differentiated trachea. 
 
 So, no hearing, no speech. No discriminating 
 ear, no artist in song or speech. The con- 
 genite deaf are also dumb. The bird is Nature's 
 symbol of tone. It is materialized hearing and 
 song. 
 
 Man, through his physical structure, is of the 
 class Mammalia. All mammals give voice to 
 the life •within them, and thus disclose their 
 natures. 
 
 The flesh-eating mammals, the Hon, the tiger, 
 the wolf, give forth an aggressive, forceful, and 
 vital voice, in the major key, which corresponds 
 with actions of seizing, holding, and tearing 
 prey. 
 
 The herbivora utter plaintive and unaggres- 
 sive tones, mainly in the minor key, which cor- 
 respond with their peaceful intent, and which 
 carry an appeal to our sympathies. 
 
 The voice of man, with its varying sounds, 
 is a synthesis of the voices of all the animals. 
 
 His larynx is the last step of differentiation in 
 
30 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 an animal breathing-tube. So the Vital nature 
 of man finds its primary agent for its expres- 
 sion in the Phonetic organ. 
 
 (i.) The babe is an epitome of the human race. His 
 unfolding symbolizes its advance. 
 
 The babe reflects the passive Vital nature, with latent 
 Emotive and Mental. 
 
 As baby lies in the cradle, it is only a step in advance of 
 a lump of protoplasm. 
 
 It is merely an organized possibility. 
 
 It lives. It is the race symbol of the Vital, and the help- 
 less Vital. It neither thinks, nor loves, nor hates. Its 
 Emotive and Mental natures are embryonic. It is sensitive, 
 because it is an animal organism. 
 
 So it can best illustrate the first law of Life, imposed 
 upon it at birth, which is Want. 
 
 The cry it uttered when it entered the world was the cry 
 of organic Want, which was satisfied when the air filled its 
 lungs. 
 
 Bom a subject into the kingdom of Want, it will from 
 this time forth begin to group all its sensations into two 
 classes. Those of Pleasure, when Want is satisfied ; and of 
 Pain, when Want is answered by denial. These sensations 
 centre its Vital nature. It puts them into cries, wails, and 
 reflex motions. The great poet of insight and rhythm voices 
 the cry of the helpless Vital of the new-bom babe : — 
 
 " What am I ? 
 An infant crying in the night : 
 
 An infant crying for a light : 
 And with no language hut a cry.'" 
 
 TENyrsOH. 
 
 The second special organ of manifestation is 
 the Muscular apparatus. 
 
 Through muscles aU movements of the human 
 body are made. 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 31 
 
 Without muscle in motion, no expression is 
 possible. 
 
 In the last analysis, all expression is muscle 
 in motion. 
 
 The problem in gesture is how to present 
 form and to move muscle in accordance with 
 aesthetic law. 
 
 We shall find that the muscles, more especially 
 of the face, as civilization has advanced, have 
 differentiated in a marked manner from the Vital 
 type to serve the Emotive nature of man. So 
 the muscular play that served the coarse animal 
 sensations of primitive man has, to-day, become 
 the facile agent of the Emotive nature. 
 
 (j.) We found that the babe gave expression to its organic 
 sensations of pleasure and pain by the cry, the wail, and 
 spontaneous motions. 
 
 This was the first stage of its Being. When there beg^n 
 to stir within it a psychic movement of blend d Sensation 
 and Emotion, by which it dimly and obscurely recognized 
 its mother's caress, it smiled. 
 
 The child has now advanced to the second stage of its 
 Being. It adds now the smile and frown to the cry and wail. 
 It does not think yet. Its psychic state may be described as 
 nebulous and chaotic. Its open stare into the face of exist- 
 ence, the spontaneous play of its fingers and toes, show plainly 
 that it has not yet been able to separate itself from objects 
 surrounding it, nor its body from itself. 
 
 But baby feels ; and it is a higher kind of feeling than 
 that which prompted the cry and the wail. From this time 
 forward, feelings arising in the mental framework will more 
 and more struggle to express themselves. 
 
 As the affectional nature is aroused by its mother's smile 
 and voice, it springs, and caresses with its little hands, crows 
 
32 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 its content, and jubilates with the first rudiments of the in- 
 toned voice. 
 
 Now, too, it makes tentative efforts to combine the two 
 languages, that of the voice and that of the gesture. 
 
 With a serious impartiality it smiles at, and reaches for, 
 the moon, seen through the window ; or babbles its content 
 at the red flames in the grate ; or beats the cradle with 
 papa's watch or the tin soldier ; and rejoices its whole being 
 with the incipient rhythm of immense musical promise, in 
 the dance of sound which it pulses out from the discordant 
 rattle. 
 
 The third special organ of maiiifestation is 
 the Articulatory Ajoparatus. 
 
 The action of the articulatory apparatus gives, 
 as its product, speech. 
 
 As by the differentiation of the breathing- 
 tube, common to all mammals, man attained to 
 a superior organ of voice, so the differentiation 
 of the mouth cavity and its contained organs 
 gave him the instrument of articulate lan- 
 guage. 
 
 This is the special organ of the Mental Being ; 
 the last structural differentiation, both in the 
 individual and in the race. 
 
 Through the action of this agent, man can 
 put a sound in the place of a thing and so not 
 need to present the thing. By recording these 
 sounds, he can make all the past become pres- 
 ent and now. It is greatly significant that the 
 Greek language has but one word for language 
 and reason ; for what is a man's word but his 
 reason coming forth to behold itself ? 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 33 
 
 (k.) The child has now reached the third and last stage of 
 its development. To manifestations of the Vital and Emo- 
 tive natures he now adds those of the Mental. He now 
 thinks, feels, and lives. What he cannot say by cries and 
 gestures, he begins to say by jointed sounds, as signs of 
 things. The flame that was to him an unnamed sensation 
 of sight is now " red." 
 
 The planet is " moon ; " the aggregate of form, fur, and 
 " meaw " is now " cat." 
 
 And before long, when he wants to say five or seven things 
 about the fire, moon, or cat, or about mother, book, or 
 school, he puts two or more of the things into words. 
 
 Soon he will prefigure in sentences what he thinks, with 
 much that he wills and feels. 
 
 Take away the faculty of language, and he will inevitably 
 revert to the Vital. He will go back to animal cries and 
 gestures. 
 
 Said Noire : " When there was no language there was 
 no reason." 
 
 And now occurs tlie question : By what means 
 does the body, with its separate divisions and its 
 specialized organs, manifest this threefold Being, 
 speak this threefold language ? 
 
 The answer to this question discloses the 
 centre and core of the Synthetic Philosophy of 
 Expression. 
 
 What Inflections are in the system of Walker, 
 what Stress in the system of Rush, is Delsarte's 
 formula in the New Philosophy of Expression. 
 
 This formula is central, in all human expres- 
 sion, and bears the force of law. 
 
 Law : The three States of the Psychic 
 manifest through the body and its zones by 
 three Modes of Motion. 
 
34 PHILOSOPEY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 These three modes of motion are : I. Eccen- 
 tric, or Centrifugal. II. Concentric, or Centrip- 
 etal. And III. Poise ; or Centred motion. 
 
 Eccentric motion is motion from a centre out- 
 wards ; Concentric, towards a centre, inwards ; 
 and Poise is centred, or balanced, motion. 
 
 That the human Psychic and its body come 
 under the sway and rule of the cosmic laws that 
 govern all the masses of matter of the universe ; 
 and that it also centres in and controls its own 
 mass, and moves outwards from, or inwards to- 
 wards, or poises at, its own centre, is Delsarte's 
 great discovery. 
 
 (I.) We can credit a saying of Delsarte, reported by a 
 student of the great teacher : — 
 
 " In this world there are two centres, towards which and 
 from which everything tends. These are : — 
 
 " 1. The centre of gravity, immediately of the earth ; 
 remotely of the universe. 
 
 " 2. The human centre found within ourselves, the centre 
 of the Being or Ego." 
 
 To which we add : 3. The spiritual centre, out from 
 which and into which flow all existences. Of which centre 
 the material universe is the body ; itself is sustaining cause 
 and continuance. 
 
 Thus it is through motion, and only through 
 motion, that the Psychic makes itself known. 
 Through motion the unseen is seen. Broadly 
 speaking, our Vital states express themselves as 
 Eccentric motion; our Mental states as Con- 
 centric motion ; our Emotive states as Eccen- 
 tric or Concentric, according to the nature of 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 35 
 
 the emotion. And the Poise of the Beinsr 
 (namely, the equilibrium or balance of Vital, 
 Emotive, and Mental) tends to express itself by 
 motion held at rest; that is to say, by a centred 
 or poised external. 
 
 Let us put our conclusions into a proposition 
 which carries the force of law. 
 
 In all organisms, simplest or most complex, 
 motion is manifestation ; at the base Life, at 
 the swhfim^it Soul. 
 
 (m.) See how true this is ! We all use the phrase, 
 " Where there is motion there is Life." This is our simple 
 test, and every one applies the logic of common sense, and 
 abides by the result. 
 
 Thus, for example, we are waiting along the seashore ; 
 we find on the beach a crab. Is it alive ? one asks. Poke 
 it with your cane and see ! Yes ; it reacts. It is alive. 
 
 So we can construct the chain of Being from the monera 
 to man. 
 
 In all sentient organisms motion is manifestation. In 
 the lowest animals, motion is evidence of the simplest con- 
 dition of Life. In the higher animals, motion is evidence of 
 a complex condition, in the highest animals, nearest man, 
 as the dog and horse, motion is evidence of a still further 
 complex condition of the Psychic. In man, motion is evi- 
 dence of the highest complexity attained by any animal upon 
 the earth. 
 
 Now we find that through the entire chain of sentient 
 life, until we reach man, the only mode of motion which 
 any animal can consciously use is the eccentric, which mani- 
 fests the Vital nature. Man alone — a fact of vast sig- 
 nificance — consciously commands the three modes, the 
 Eccentric, Concentric, and Poise.* 
 
 The Emotive nature, variously described by 
 
 ' It \7ill be noted that the terms descriptiTe of Motion, Eccentric, 
 
36 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the disciples of Delsarte as "Moral," "Affective," 
 "Spiritual," "Mystic," and like terms, exists in 
 man in two conditions : 1. As Active Emotive. 
 2. As Receptive Emotive. This difference is 
 incorporated in the nervous system, and it is be- 
 cause of this difference that the Emotive nature 
 sometimes expresses itself through either of the 
 three forms of motion. 
 
 We may say, broadly, that active emotions, 
 which ally themselves with the Vital nature, de- 
 clare themselves by eccentric motions, while the 
 reflective emotions, which ally themselves with 
 the Mental nature, declare themselves by concen- 
 tric motions. 
 
 The structure and function of the nervous sys- 
 tem bear out our statement. 
 
 The nervous system reaches out with its white 
 threads towards its environment. It receives im- 
 pressions from the outer world. These impres- 
 sions travel inwards along the nerve lines. At 
 the great neural centre, the brain, they are re- 
 ceived, correlated, and coordinated. Now if the 
 impressions received lead to reflection, to turning 
 over and over in the mind what is received, the 
 
 Concentric, and Poise, are identical with Centrifugal, Centripetal, and 
 Centred or Motion held in halance. 
 
 As these last terms have already been adopted as scientific usage, it 
 is an open question whether it would not he better to use them in 
 the nomenclature of Expression. Another consideration favors the 
 use of well-known and recognized terms, namely, the absolute neces- 
 sity we are under, in these days of research, when all theories are sifted 
 as never before, to present a logical and consistent body of truth, if 
 we would claim a place among the recognized sciences for this latest 
 child of the Soul — the Science of Human Expression. 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 37 
 
 gestures accompanying these psychic states would 
 be mainly concentric. 
 
 Thus, emotions of Grief, if dwelt upon, en- 
 dured, suffered, would lead to gestures with con- 
 centric motion. But suppose Grief to be accom- 
 panied with the idea of wrong or injustice ; the 
 gestures, expressive of the active state, would 
 take on Vital forms and become eccentric. 
 
 But suppose the events causing the emotion 
 are thought upon, passed through the various 
 mental processes, and, moreover, that this think- 
 ing is submitted to conscience and to the higher 
 reason ; the gestures indicating this complexity 
 of thought and emotion would take on bal- 
 anced or poised forms, — the most expressive 
 forms that the body or its agents can present. 
 
 What a wonderful complexity of psychic states 
 is revealed by these lines from Shakespeare's 
 King John, giving us mainly Mental and Emo- 
 tive composites of Grief : — 
 
 "Grief fiUs the room up of my absent child, 
 Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, 
 Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words. 
 Remembers me of aE his gracious parts, 
 StufEs out his vacant garments with his form," 
 
 Here the reflective states suggest concentric 
 gestures. 
 
 Let us formulate the Law of Motion as reveal- 
 ing inner states of the Being. 
 
 Law : I. The Vital nature tends to express 
 itself through eccentric motion. 
 
 II. The Mental nature stills or renders qui- 
 
38 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 escent the body, and tends to express itself 
 through concentric motion. 
 
 III. The Emotive nature reflects both the 
 Vital and Ilental natures; hence, uses both 
 their forms of motion. Thus, our highest 
 Emotive states manifest themselves through 
 poise. 
 
 When the Being is at its best, and the three 
 natures act in accord to further some great idea, 
 practical, ethical, or spiritual, it always tends to 
 express itself through poise or balance of mo- 
 tion. 
 
 (n.) Feeling and Thought are the opposite poles of our 
 psychic states. In such broad contrast are they that they 
 mutually exclude each other in extreme manifestations. 
 
 As every one knows who has experienced these states at 
 their strongest, intense feeling excludes thinking; intense 
 thinking excludes feeling. 
 
 Hence, the normal condition for clear thinking is the qui- 
 escence of feeling ; and it is well known that interest in an- 
 other's welfare, partisanship, affection, are each and all the 
 enemies of a judicial frame of mind. 
 
 Let us epitomize the Law of Motion of the three natures. 
 The Vital moves the body, the Mental arrests and stills it, 
 the Emotive poises it. 
 
 Take an illustration : It is related of Socrates that he was 
 observed by his friends in the early morning facing the east 
 and looking intently into the blue ether. He was let alone. 
 At noon he was still there. Not a muscle was in motion. 
 Men said, " Will he never come in ? " At night he was 
 there, motionless as a statue of Phidias. Then his friends 
 took their stations and watched. Through the long night 
 he stood, still peering into the east, and startling the stars. 
 As the sun arose he dropped his eyes. His body took on its 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 39 
 
 life again. Drawing up the figure into enlarged form, and 
 looking around, "The problem is solved!" he said, and 
 strode away. 
 
 We present Delaumosne's Criterion of the 
 Three Modes of Motion. 
 
 Critbrion of the Thbke Modes op Monoir. 
 Dblaumosnb.^ 
 
 Mode of Mo- 
 tion, as Primary 
 orOsnua. 
 
 DerlvatiyeB, Species, or Blends. 
 
 1. 
 
 S. 
 
 2. 
 
 n. 
 
 Conoeutrlc. 
 
 1-U. 
 
 Eccentro-Conoen- 
 tiio. 
 
 3-n. 
 
 Poise-Concentric. 
 
 2-n. 
 
 Concentro-Concen- 
 trio. 
 
 m. 
 
 Poise. 
 
 1-m. 
 
 Eccentro-Poise. 
 
 3-m. 
 
 Poise-Poise. 
 
 2-in. 
 
 Conoentro-Poise. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ecoenbio.. 
 
 Eccentro-Eccentrio. 
 
 S-I. 
 PoisesEccentrio. 
 
 2-1. 
 
 Conoentro-Eccen- 
 tric. 
 
 The vertical cohimns are for species, deriva- 
 tives, or blends. 
 
 The horizontal planes are for the genus or pri- 
 mary. 
 
 The name that marks the species comes first; 
 it is the adjective. The name that marks the 
 genus comes last ; it is the noun. 
 
 In the middle horizontal plane we place the 
 Emotive genus; in the middle vertical column, 
 the Emotive species. 
 
 1 This synthetio table agrees with Delaumosne, except that the an- 
 thor has used the term " Poise " instead of " Normal." 
 
40 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 (o.) Delaumosne's table presents double blends of motion. 
 The student will note that in the left vertical column are 
 f oimd the three primary modes of motion, — the Eccentric, 
 Poise, and Concentric, — marked with the Boman numerals 
 
 L, in., II. 
 
 At the right of this column are the Nine Squares, each 
 square presenting a " blend " or " composite," consisting of 
 two elements, — a primary as the noun, and a secondary or 
 assisting mode of motion as the adjective. 
 
 These assisting modes of motion are marked with the 
 Arabic figures, — 1. Eccentric. 3. Poise. 2. Concentric. 
 
 We diagram three triads of composite modes of motion, 
 each of the three modes in turn being Primary. 
 
 Couoeutro — 2. 
 
 The PsYomo "l" ,. ^ ■ 
 
 (1) AS #;■;-::.•::.■::. i»?.?.'»^e?*?.-...Poibe-3. 
 
 Uniti. tionB 08 Motion. 
 
 Eccentric — I. 
 
 Eccentro — 1. 
 
 Thb ....——- .. 
 
 (2) *;S::: <,*••"■ Concentro-2. 
 
 PaTomo. Motion. 
 
 ' Poise— m. 
 
 Poise — S. 
 
 Thb „„ „. 
 
 (3) *•■?.•.•:•.•.• ii-i: Eccentro- 1. 
 
 PsYOHio. Motion. 
 
 Concentric — n. 
 
 We have thus far attempted to establish the 
 truth of the following propositions : — 
 
 I. The source of all manifestation, hoth in 
 the Universe and in its epitome, Man, is Us- 
 sence, Spirit, or Soul. 
 
 There is and can he no manifestation that has 
 not for its cause Essence, Spirit, or Psychic. 
 
 II. That through or hy which the Psychic, 
 whether Infinite or finite, manifests itself is 
 body, apparition, or phenomenon. 
 
TRIADS OF EXPRESSION. 41 
 
 m. The mode of manifestation of the 
 Psychic, whether in the Universe or in man, 
 is through Motion. 
 
 There are three modes of Motion hy which 
 all manifestation is made apparent. These 
 three modes are Eccentric, Concentric, and 
 Poise. And the mode of Motion [Outer) dis- 
 closes the state of Being [Inner). 
 
 (l.) Whatever may be the real, substantial truth or verity, 
 as apprehended by any higher intelligence than man, of the 
 problem presented by the Universe, the simple fact remains 
 that it is impossible to conceive a Kosmos where blind, un- 
 conscious matter evolves out of itself, by its own potency, 
 the phenomena of mind. ^ 
 
 Human logic as irresistibly leaps to the conclusion that 
 Grod is centre and soul of the Universe, as that man is centre 
 and soul of his own organism. 
 
 And this is the conclusion of the greatest English phUo- 
 sophio thinker. Mr. Herbert Spencer says : " The laws of 
 Nature are the modes of action of the Unknowable." And 
 Goethe put the same thought into poetic phrase when he 
 said : " Nature is the garment thou seest Him by ! " 
 
 How this comes about is quite another matter. That no 
 man has seen Grod is not so very strange ; for no man has 
 seen man. 
 
 Show me a soul outside the body, and we may hope to 
 see with mortal eyes the Soul outside the Kosmos ! 
 
 No matter, let me again urge, no matter what the real 
 nature of the phenomena of the Universe, as known to 
 higher intelligences — our limitations inexorably shut us in 
 to the conclusion that a spiritual essence is behind all phe- 
 nomena, both of the Universe and of man. 
 
 The Philosophy of Expression, then, is the 
 Philosophy of Manifestation. 
 
42 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 In its broadest sense it is the Philosophy of 
 the Infinite, as revealed in the Universe. 
 
 In its restricted sense it is the Philosophy of 
 Man, as revealed through the Organism. 
 
CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE BODY IN 
 
 EXPRESSION. THE LAWS OF GESTURE. 
 
 DELSARTE's division INTO NINE. THEIR 
 
 TRUE BASIS. ^_ 
 
 Delsarte is reported to have made a fhree^ 
 fold division of the body to correspond with the 
 threefold division of the Psychic. He divided 
 the exterior into : (1.) the Head ; (2.) the 
 Torso; (3.) the Limbs. These segments he 
 called " Agents of the Soul." And not only is 
 the body, as a whole, expressive of the Psychic ; 
 but to each division of the body is delegated 
 the office of special manifestation. Thus we 
 may indicate broadly the office in expression of 
 the segments. 
 
 I. The Vital nahire predominates in the 
 Limhs, and is 7nanifested through their activi- 
 ties. 
 
 " No grass grows under his feet," we say of 
 the active, Vital man. 
 
 -The Romans put wings on the feet of Mer- 
 cury, the swift messenger of the gods. 
 
 HI. TJie Emotive nature is manifested 
 through gesture and form of the Torso. 
 
44 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 This segment of the body contains the heart 
 and lungs, the central organs of the blood and 
 breath. Our most acute pains come from any 
 disturbance of their action. 
 
 So in our subjective states, in great accesses of 
 passion, the torso writhes and rocks. 
 
 II. The Mental nature manifests itself 
 through gesture and form of the Head. 
 
 {a.) It is not without reason, as we shall hope abundantly 
 to show, that we commonly speak of the heart as the seat of 
 the Emotions, and the head as the seat of the Intellect. 
 
 When it shall be found that all races of men make sub- 
 stantially the same gestures to express i-uling psychic states, 
 > these gestures must have a deeper reason than imitation or 
 convention. 
 
 Again, the limbs are levers and sustain mo- 
 tion. The head gui^des; the torso impels. The 
 legs show Vital health and strength, or the re- 
 verse ; the arms. Mental health and strength. 
 Into the fingers we put Mental sensitiveness and 
 finesse. We bite our nails in reverie* or vexation, 
 and we use the tips of our fingers when we would 
 illustrate fine Mental distinctions, or urge nice 
 critical points. 
 
 Thus the whole body and each of its divisions 
 become revelations to him who can read their 
 language. 
 
 (b.) Not only did Delsarte make this threefold division 
 of the exterior to express the three states of the Being, 
 but each of these divisions was subdivided. Thus the head, 
 torso, and limbs each have zones or tracts where the Psychi* 
 seems, by preference, to manifest itself as Vital, Mental, or 
 Emotive. / 
 
THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE BODY. 45 
 
 We shall attempt to show that the existence of such zones 
 or tracts of the expressive regions of the head, face, torso, 
 and hand is proven by the significance of the gestures of 
 these several agents. 
 
 And we think it will be seen that a material body is an ab- 
 solute necessity under the conditions imposed by its environ- 
 ment upon the Soul. Were the roadways between souls open 
 avenues, there would be no protection for the personality. 
 Through the body, the individual soul holds itself apart from 
 other souls, and so maintains its independence and integrity. 
 Through the body, it both declares its sympathy and masks 
 its antipathies. 
 
 In a body, every human soul dates its appearance upon 
 the earth. It will limit its stay upon the earth to the con- 
 tinuance of its body. It seeks new conditions when the body 
 no longer serves its ends. It as naturally falls off the mor- 
 tal bough as the fully ripened fruit falls to the ground. 
 
 Again, we must strenuously dissent from an opinion held 
 in some minds, that the soul is degraded by its union with 
 the body. On the contrary, there is increasing evidence that 
 it delights in its temporary abode. It delights to appear, 
 express, and dramatize itself, through its body. It feels no 
 sense of degradation in this alliance, for it shows its pride in 
 its recognition of an ancestry of lower material forms, by 
 many a remnant of serviceable organs which it still retains, 
 and by many a gesture which it delights to use, and which 
 has come down the same material path with the cerebral 
 folds and the added chambers of the heart. 
 
 Take a single illustration, in three stages, of 
 how the body translates the Vital nature. 
 
 1st stage. The lowest form of the Vital put to 
 toil : the plantation slave, or the Mexican peon, 
 where almost no intelligence is used. He digs, 
 lifts, hews, draws as an animal. Of such an one 
 Delaumosne expressively says : " His body is all of 
 
46 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 one piece." There is little mobility or play of 
 the joints ; head and torso stifE ; arm and hand 
 an instrument for shoveling, digging, heaving, 
 and drawing. Hand attached to arm, arm to 
 torso, face wooden ; movement of the lower limbs 
 strong but automatic. It is a human machine, 
 moved by the Vital Being. 
 
 2d stage. A higher form of the Vital. The 
 slave or serf emancipated. A growing sense of 
 personal ownership and responsibiUty. There 
 now comes an increased freedom of movement, a 
 crude blending of directive and Vital power. 
 
 The torso moves, by play of the shoulders, 
 without much movement of the head. There is 
 increased freedom of the arm and hand. The 
 face is less wooden, the movement less animal- 
 Uke. 
 
 3d stage. The weU-defined Vital, with high 
 directive powers, put to selfish and aggressive 
 ends. The higher Emotive does not rule the 
 conduct. It is the type of the military spirit. It 
 is he who believes in physical force. Such an 
 one says : " God is on the side of the strongest 
 battalions." He believes in the right to conquer, 
 hold, and rule, — 
 
 " The good old plan 
 That he should take who has the power, 
 And he should keep who can." 
 
 In a lower form, under the influence of civiliza- 
 tion, it is the buUy, or with training, the prize- 
 fighter. 
 
THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE BODY. 47 
 
 Now head, torso, and shoulders play freely, 
 for there is high directive power. 
 
 And now note, the elbows are emancipated, 
 and the lower Emotive nature let loose. The 
 hand becomes the knotted end of a bludgeon, 
 ^he Vital in the face makes the firm-set and pro- 
 truding under jaw. 
 
 It is a human correspondence of the bulldog. 
 Now the passion grasps the larynx, and the voice 
 takes on the throaty qualities of the carnivora. 
 
 These are three illustrations from the lowest 
 human zone, — the Vital. 
 
 We might sketch characters all along the 
 ascent through the Mental and into the realm 
 where the higher Emotive nature impels man 
 towards ethical and spiritual ends and purposes, 
 giving us expressions where the three natures 
 blend in poise or equihbrium. 
 
 Now there is balance and accord of aU the out- 
 ward agents. Head, torso, and limbs move from 
 liberated centres of motion. The wrist is free. 
 It communicates its freedom to the hand and 
 fingers, and at the same moment hath faces, the 
 countenance and the palm, are expressive. 
 
 It is three natures moving to the front as 
 one. The Will lends itself to the central Being 
 Conscience allies itself with the ruling motive. 
 It is man at his best ! 
 
 The Vital is there to sustain, as Life. The 
 Mental is there to guide and direct, as Mind. 
 The Emotive, moving along its highest plane of 
 
48 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the ethical and spiritual, is there to impel, as 
 Soul. 
 
 And these three psychic forces attain to 
 their highest form of external expression 
 through that mode of motion which we have 
 characterized " Poise," or equilibrium of 
 forces. 
 
 Let the student ponder deeply these proposi- 
 tions. They will he illustrated, again and 
 again, as we proceed. 
 
 1. The motions of the human body are cor- 
 respondences of the great law of modern phys- 
 ics, formulated by Herbert Spencer, as " The 
 concentration of matter, and the dispersion of 
 motion." 
 
 2. "Poise" of the body is the external form 
 of the conservation of Energy. Eccentricity 
 is the external form of its dissipation. 
 
 3. So Poise of the body is the external 
 symbol of the highest moods of the human 
 Sold : the highest activity without disper- 
 sion. 
 
 If it shall be found that the manifestations 
 of the Soul through the body come under the 
 rule of Law, and that the mode of operation of 
 the law can be ascertained and formulated, it 
 would seem that the statement of the laws, ar- 
 rived at through modern scientific and psycho- 
 logic method, would form a sm-e foundation for 
 a Philosophy of Expression. 
 
 (c.) It is this attempt to deduce the underlying law from 
 
TEE NINE LAWS OF GESTURE. 49 
 
 the complex phenomena presented of a given psychic state, 
 by hundreds of examples, that gives value to the observar 
 tions of DelsartQ. He seemed to realize the truth that any 
 system of laws governing human expression, to have valid- 
 ity, must be founded upon what is now recognized as " the 
 scientific method," whose weapons of discovery are observa- 
 tion, experiment, and test. The observation must be exact, 
 the experiment sufBcient, and the tests satisfactory. 
 
 Whether Delsarte did more than to sketch the outlines 
 of a Philosophy of Expression, we have no evidence from 
 autlioritative sources. The material presented thus far, 
 since his death, is empirical rather than philosophic in 
 form. 
 
 Delsajte is reported to have formulated Nine 
 Laws of Gesture.^ 
 
 These Laws are : Motion ; Velocity ; Direc- 
 tion and Extension; Reaction; Form; Per- 
 sonality; Opposition of Agents; Priority or 
 Sequence; Rhythm. 
 
 {dJ) The statement of these laws as nine ; their limita- 
 tion to that number ; the fact that Delaumosne represents 
 Delsarte as giving but six, namely : Priority, Retroaction, 
 Opposition of Agents, Unify, Stability, aiid Rhythm ; and 
 that Arnand makes no mention of them ; the differences in 
 the statement of their number and order, both in Europe 
 and America ; and, more than all, Darwin's statement of 
 but three principles ' " to cover most of the expressions of 
 man and animals," — led me to doubt whether these laws 
 were authoritatively stated, and whether Delsarte restricted 
 the number to nine, and if so why the restriction ? And 
 
 1 In makingr this statement we do not claim to represent Delsarte. 
 We hope not to misrepresent his teaeliings. 
 
 ^ These tliree pnncipies are discussed in a masterly manner in 
 The Expressions of Han and Animals. They are: (I.) Serviceable 
 Associated Habit. (2.) Antithesis. (3.) Direct Action of the Nery- 
 oos System. 
 
 4 
 
50 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 lastly the author was led into grave doubts whether Del- 
 sarte clearly apprehended the principle upon wluQh all such 
 categories, if presented as laws governing Expression, must 
 rest. 
 
 The principle by which Delsarte's Nine Laws, 
 and many other such statements of categories as 
 laws, can alone be justified is none other than 
 the great Law of Correspondence, recognized as 
 the basis of their systems by Plato, Lamarck, 
 and Oken as Philosophy, Swedenborg as Reli- 
 gion, Emerson as Ethics, and Goethe and Words- 
 worth as Poetry. 
 
 Oken states this Law so broadly that it may 
 apply to the two subsistences that make the 
 Universe. We give the formula of this great 
 philosophic thinker. 
 
 Law : All the phenomena of matter, appar- 
 ent, real, material, are correspondences of the 
 Non-apparent, Ideal, Spiritual. 
 
 Swedenborg gives a more restricted formula, 
 that applies to the two subsistences that by their 
 union make Man. 
 
 Law : The human body, with all its parts 
 and functions, is elaborated from the Soul, its 
 faculties and powers; and therefore corre- 
 s]oonds to it in every particular of structure, 
 form, and use. 
 
 We present a third formula, which lies at the 
 centre of the Synthetic Philosophy of Expres- 
 sion, and which, with the two already stated, 
 we urge the student deeply to ponder. It is 
 
THE NINE LAWS OF GESTURE. 61 
 
 the formula of a teacher of the Art of Expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Law : Man expresses his psychic states in 
 terms of his environment. These terms are re- 
 lated to, and correspond with, Space, Time, 
 and Motion. 
 
 These formulae cut the Gordian knot, and 
 solve the Sphinx-riddle of Delsarte. 
 
 His nine ^^ laws are laws of Expression only 
 through their dependence upon the great cen- 
 tral Law of Correspondence. 
 
 They are corollaries of our main proposition. 
 A little thought will make this plain. Every 
 psychic mood finds its correspondence in some 
 appearance of Nature and is interpreted by it. 
 And we can only describe our psychic mood by 
 that natural appearance as its picture. 
 
 What profound significance in the saying of 
 Emerson : " The use of Natural History is to 
 give us aid in Supernatural History ! " and in 
 Hugo's : " Animals are but our vices ! " Such 
 analogies are constant and fixed in the nature 
 of things. 
 
 Bead what Science has to say. Said John 
 Fiske — our American Herbert Spencer : 
 
 " The earth is suited to its inhabitants because 
 it produced them, and only such as suit it live. 
 
 " It is not that the environment is suited to the 
 organism, but that the organism is suited to the 
 environment. Throughout all time, therefore, 
 since intelligence appeared upon the earth, the 
 
62 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 world of conceptions has been maintained in 
 more or less complete correspondence with the 
 world of phenomena. And thus the contem- 
 plating mind and the world contemplated have 
 become tuned in mysterious unison." 
 
 (e.) Do we need illustrations of these correspondences of 
 Outer and Inner ? Our discussion of these nine laws will 
 be crowded with them. 
 
 Take a single illustration, of gesture in correspondence 
 with Space as expressive of psychic states. 
 
 The psychic states which we would illustrate are Haugh- 
 tiness, Conceit, and Command. The agent is the whole 
 body. The eye leads in effecting these correspondences. 
 
 All three of these passions draw the body upward in 
 space. (They seem to say : " See how high I am above 
 you ! ") but the direction of the eye must determine further 
 relations with space ; and the eye will make different cor- 
 respondences for each of the three passions. Thus Haugh- 
 tiness draws upward the body, throws backward the head, 
 and at the same time glances downward with the eyes (" The 
 highest is ' self,' the object below, ' you ' "). 
 
 In Conceit, the eyes stray over the person ("How fine 
 I am "). They glance about (" I wonder if they see 
 me ? "). 
 
 In Command, head and torso are drawn upward, and the 
 glance is open and direct (" I ask you to note that ' I ' am 
 higher in space than ' you ' are "). 
 
 So in our highest psychic moods the head and torso are 
 drawn upwards ; head and face lifted upwards ; glance di- 
 rected upwards in space. 
 
 Thus as the basis of Delsarte's Nine Laws of 
 Gesture we find the Law of Correspondence. 
 We will now consider these laws more in detail 
 
THE LAW OF MOTION. 
 
 THE LAW OP MOTION. 
 
 Definition. Motion is Force expending itself. 
 Our definition is also a definition of Gesture. 
 
 Gesture is the outer (muscular) movement by 
 which the inner {psychic) force expends itself. 
 
 (/".) The student will make careful note that our defini- 
 tion of a gesture indicates that a conscious centre moves its 
 mass of matter. 
 
 This is the distinguishing characteristic of an organism. 
 Matter is inert. It is capable of receiving and containing 
 any amount of mechanical force communicated to it from 
 the outer, but it cannot originate the smallest increment of 
 new force. 
 
 But wherever we find matter as mass, moved from a 
 centre, we find the phenomena of Life. 
 
 As a problem of pure physios, gesture is an escape of 
 Energy ^ in form of Motion. 
 
 Let us attempt tp justify our statement. The nerve 
 centres — the great centre, the brain, and the smaller cen- 
 tres, the ganglia — are the reservoirs of Psychic Energy. 
 Now let us suppose a given quantity of this energy has ac- 
 cumulated at these centres. 
 
 By psychic act this energy is transformed into Emotion. 
 Some part of this energy now discharges itself upon the 
 muscles, where it appears as Motion, in the form of cries, 
 gestures, and articulations. 
 
 A diagram will make this plain. The Emotion that is to 
 appear in form of Motion is, we will suppose. Hate. 
 
 ' Euei^ is the term used in modern physios for all the efforts of 
 Nature, — Heat, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Chemism, — forming, 
 to use Tyndall's apt expression, " So many modes of motion." 
 
 Bnt the Psychio Foree residing at the centre of an organism is none 
 of these forms of energy. Its rule over its mass of matter is ahso- 
 Inte. It is a unique centre, and commands its periphery. Through 
 motion of its mass it manifests. 
 
54 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Let c represent the centre of psychic force, the brain. 
 
 Let s s represent sensations of sight and sound, aroused by 
 the presence of the object of hate O. The sensations of 
 sight and sound are received at the centre, c, over the nerve 
 line, s 0. 
 
 Arrived at the brain the sensations of sight and sound 
 are transformed into Emotive Energy. Now a part of this 
 energy escapes along the line C 0, toward the object o'f hate, 
 and a part goes out along the line C G, where it appears as 
 gesture. 
 
 o 
 
 This diagram justifies Mantegazza's definition of gesture 
 as " One of those centrifugal energies that surge forth from 
 the great transformers of Force, the N,erve Centres." 
 
 According to Mantegazza, gesture is useful 
 both in the economy of Life and in the economy 
 of Ai-t.1 
 
 Thus in the economy of Life : — 
 
 I. It may defend the nerve centres and other 
 parts of the body against numberless perils and 
 enemies. 
 
 In the economy of Art: — 
 
 II. It may take the place of spoken language, 
 or it may add to its completeness. 
 
 (g'.) The student will readily call to mind the great 
 number of gestures of defence made by animals. 
 
 ' See La Physiommie et V Expression des Sentiments. Paris, 1885. 
 P(!lix Alcan, publisher. 
 
THE LAW OF MOTION. 65 
 
 The instinct of self-preservation, we may be allowed to 
 say, has taught even insects to throw out their Umbs in 
 threatening attitudes. Among birds gestures of attack and 
 of threatening are frequently made by enlarging their ap- 
 pearance by spreading their wings, and by screams. The 
 defensive gestures of the carnivora are full of force and 
 terror. 
 
 We shall find abundant reasons to agree with Mantegazza, 
 that " Gesture is scarcely inferior to Voice, or Speech, in the 
 Arts which employ these three agents of Expression." 
 
 We apply to gesture the three forms of Mo- 
 tion as correspondences of the three states of the 
 Being. 
 
 We present the formula of Motion as related 
 to centres : — 
 
 I. Motion from, a centre outioards is eccentric 
 (or centrifugal) Motion. It corresponds with 
 our Vital states. 
 
 n. Motion towards a centre inwards is con- 
 centric {or centripetal) Motion. It corresponds 
 with our Mental states. 
 
 in. Motion centred, namely, held in bal- 
 ance, is " at Poise." It corresponds with our 
 highest Emotive states. 
 
 (h.) We believe Delsarte to have been the first to apply 
 the three modes of Motion to the three states of the Be- 
 ing. This is his great discovery, and is at the centre of the 
 Delsarte System. 
 
 Tet we fancy that a philosophic mind reading Sir Isaac 
 Newton's " Three Mechanical Axioms " will be strongly im- 
 pressed with the idea that the great French teacher found 
 the data for his laws of Motion, as applied to Expression, in 
 the masterly formulae of the great English thinker. 
 
 We present the three familiar axioms laid down by 
 
56 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Newton, and ask the student to note how often they appear 
 — and that of necessity — as bases of Delsarte's laws gov- 
 erning Human Expression, as related to the restrictions of 
 Space and Time : — 
 
 (1.) Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uni- 
 form motion in a straight line, except in so far as it may 
 be compelled by impressed forces to change that state. 
 
 (2.) All motion or change of motion must he proportioned 
 to the force impressed in quantity, and must be in the direc- 
 tion of that straight line in which the force is impressed. 
 
 (3.) To every action there is always an equal and con- 
 trary reaction. 
 
 We may formulate our conclusions thus far 
 arrived at — 
 
 I. Man is one in consciousness, three in 
 manifestation. 
 
 II. All manifestation is through Motion. 
 Matter in Form is arrested Motion. 
 
 III. The three states of the Being, the 
 Vital, Emotive, and Mental, manifest them- 
 selves through three modes of Motion : Eccen- 
 tric, Concentric, and Poise. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE LAW OP VELOCITY. 
 
 Velocity may be defined as the relation of 
 Motion to Space and Time. 
 
 The linits of measurement of velocity adopted 
 by scientists are a second of time and a foot of 
 space. 
 
 Delsarte's Law : Velocity is in proportion 
 to the mass moved and the Force moving. 
 
THE LAW OF VELOCITY. 57 
 
 (e.) This law is founded upon the principle of the pendu- 
 lum. The oscillation or swing of a pendulum is the result 
 of the action of two forces, — momentum and gravity. 
 
 Hence it is a necessity of physical conditions that a pendu- 
 lum with a long radius sweeps through more space,, and 
 hence gives slower movement than a pendulum with a shorter 
 radius. 
 
 Now the human body is moved in exact ac- 
 cordance with the law of the pendulum. 
 
 A centrifugal flow of Vital force is the mo- 
 mentum or energy imparted. Gravity is the 
 second force. 
 
 So we have the body moving along by the 
 pendulum swing of the legs, and maintaining its 
 equilibrium by the added and opposite swing of 
 the arms. 
 
 We find the following pendulums as acting 
 agents in Expression : The Head^ the Torso, 
 the Legs, the Arms, the Hands, the Fingers. 
 
 (/.) Let the student note three things which he will ap- 
 ply in his technical training of the agents of Expression. 
 
 1. The point of suspension or centre of motion of the 
 agent. 
 
 2. The momentum or force given the agent. 
 
 3. The arc described by the agent under these condi- 
 tions. 
 
 In the play of these human pendulums, those 
 with short radii move faster and describe smaller 
 arcs than those with longer radii. 
 
 Thus the movement of torso and head as mass, 
 from the centre of motion at the hips, presents 
 the longest radius and describes the largest arc. 
 
58 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Hence, of course, it presents the slowest move- 
 ment. The head is an agent with a shorter ra- 
 dius, and the hand shorter than either. 
 
 Let us now restate the Law of Velocity, and 
 see i£ we can find its reason to be in its applica- 
 tion to gesture. 
 
 The Velocity of any agent is in proportion 
 to the mass moved and the Force moving. 
 
 The mass to be moved may be any agent, — 
 torso, hand, eyelid, voice. 
 
 The force that moves the mass is that constant 
 energy, the psychic element. 
 
 So we may say that the amount of Motion 
 shown by an agent of Expression, in Space and 
 Time, will be the measure of the amount of 
 Emotion. 
 
 The following propositions will show the rule 
 of the law of correspondence between the body 
 and the Psychic. 
 
 Prop. I. In proportion to the depth and' 
 majesty of the Emotion will he the deliberafe- 
 ness and slowness of the motion. 
 
 (g.) By a law of our Being, — '■ a law from which there is 
 no escape, — we are compelled to state our feelings in terms 
 of matter. 
 
 This is so, because matter and its forces are types or 
 correspondences of mind and its forces. 
 
 So we borrow the restrictions of space and time to say, as 
 our best way of saying of feelings that stir the soul to its 
 depths, that they are grand, lofty, deep, weighty, grave, 
 massive. 
 
 And we borrow from that immense reservoir of corre- 
 spondences, " the nature of things," the fact that bodies with 
 
THE LAW OF VELOCITY. 59 
 
 large mass move slowly, and so state our feelings in the most 
 exact correspondences of matter -wliich we are able to find. 
 
 We do not need to be told how Webster, in this pas- 
 sage from his greatest oration, made correspondences of 
 body and Soul. Let the student note the rhythmical tread 
 of these sentences : — 
 
 " When my eyes | shall be turned | to behold | for the 
 last time | the sun in heaven, | may I not see bim | shin- 
 ing I on the broken and dishonored fragments | of a once 
 glorious Union ; | on States dissevered, | discordant, | bellig- 
 erent ; I on a land | rent with civil feuds, | or drenched, | it 
 may be, | with fraternal blood." 
 
 It is as though the Mount Washington that Daniel Web- 
 ster as a farmer's boy looked upon had moved from its base, 
 and was treading across the continent. 
 
 Our next proposition will carry its own com- 
 ment. 
 
 Prop. n. In proportion to the superficiality 
 and explosiveness of the Amotion will be the 
 velocity of the motion. 
 
 Thus, sharp, superficial emotions translate 
 themselves by quick, sudden motions. 
 
 Our vexations, wliich are to the mind what pin- 
 thrusts are to the flesh, declare themselves by 
 such gestures as snapping and tapping with the 
 fingers, and by other quick, nervous, and incon- 
 sequent motions. 
 
 Prop. III. The l&nger an agent of Expression 
 is held at rest, the greater will he its motion 
 when released. 
 
 (h.) It is well known that the suppression of external signs 
 of feeling makes the feeling more intense. And this is true 
 of nations as well as individuals. The longer a people is 
 held in chains the more terrible the outburst. 
 
60 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 What better example than the French Revolution ? What 
 warning more significant than the present attitude of Russia 
 toward Poland and her own middle classes ? 
 
 What more ominous than the deep murmurs of discontent 
 of Ireland ? 
 
 A single illustration. A widowed mother has lost her 
 only son. The physician is told that she has shed no tears 
 since death entered the door. 
 
 She sits silent, with impassive face and eyes fixed, in mo- 
 tionless despair. 
 
 The physician shakes his head. He fears insanity. 
 Twenty-four hours have elapsed. He calls again. He is 
 told that she is weeping. A smile comes into his face. He 
 turns away, saying, " I am not needed now." 
 
 Prop. IV. When the Being contemplates, or 
 is filled with, the majesty and power of a great , 
 cause, as a love of liberty, or of loyalty to 
 conscience and duty, or of obedience to God,- 
 all the agents of Expression stand in Poise or 
 equilibrium. 
 
 (i.) Let us quote a single short Une from history : " While 
 their flesh crackled, and hissed, and shriveled in the red 
 flames, tlieir faces glowed with a strange calm, as if their 
 eyes beheld with open vision the Christ ! " 
 
 III. 
 THE LAW OF DIRECTION AND EXTENSION. 
 
 These words present to the mind two ideas of 
 Space. Where a man stands is to him the cen- 
 tre of the Universe. 
 
 It is a primary idea, that Space is illimitahle. 
 We think limits only to find that outside our 
 last boundaries there is more Space. , 
 
TRE LAW OF DIRECTION. 61 
 
 A line projected from where we stand would 
 never reach the periphery of the infinite circle 
 of Space. 
 
 It holds aU things so far as we know or can 
 imagine, with room for more. 
 
 Our idea of Extension doubtless comes from 
 our seeing matter filling some portion of Space. 
 Were there no masses of matter, there would be, 
 to our consciousness, no Space. 
 
 Hence matter is the reality of Space. And 
 our idea of Direction is the place of an object 
 relative to ourself . Thus to a man standing on 
 the shore, the ocean has Extension, and a ship 
 in view has Direction. 
 
 We formulate two laws of Gesture founded 
 upon our ideas of Direction and Extension. 
 
 THE LAW OF DIRECTION. 
 
 The lengths are Vital. 
 The depths and heights are Mental. 
 The breadths are Emotive. 
 
 (J.) Need we refer here to our formula of the Law of 
 Correspondence ? We restate it : Man expresses his psy- 
 chic states in terms of his environment. 
 
 All our lives, from childhood till now, have the relations 
 and conditions of space impressed us. 
 
 What wonder that our expressions continually reproduce 
 our impressions ! 
 
 So our Vital nature goes out in lengths, both in idea and 
 in fact, and through structure. 
 
 We strike a vital blow from the shoulder. True as fact, 
 true as metaphor, picture of the fact. 
 
 We push through obstacles in a straight line. Some men 
 
62 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 we say are direct and straightforward. " He never swerved 
 a hair's breadth from the line of his duty." And for mani- 
 festations of our Mental states, heights and depths correspond 
 equally well. We fathom the depths of Philosophy. We 
 go deep into Science. We climb heights of Knowledge. 
 The earliest picture the author remembers was on the title- 
 .page of his first spelling-book. It was of a youth of most 
 determined bearing climbing a particularly steep hill, and 
 upon the summit of the hUl stood the Temple of Knowl- 
 edge, shaped for all the world like the ornamental pepper- 
 box that graced his good mother's table ! 
 
 Politics is a ladder by which to climb into power. Men 
 swim with the current of affairs, and drift along in the 
 stream of events. We 
 
 — " dive into the bottom of the deep 
 
 Where fathom line could never touch the ground. 
 
 And pluck up drowned Honor by the looks." 
 
 And the breadths are no less happy in expressions of our 
 ethical or moral states. 
 
 We spread abroad good tidings. We are wide in our 
 benefactions. The death of a great and good man spreads 
 gloom over half the world. 
 
 Law of Extension : Delsarte is reported to 
 have formulated this idea thus : — 
 
 JExtension in Gesture is in proportion to our 
 self-surrender. It will be noted that this for- 
 mula corresponds a subjective state — that of self- 
 surrender — with the objective idea of the going 
 out of the body, or some of its agents, into 
 Space. 
 
 Note the strength of this Scripture through 
 correspondence : — 
 
 " But when he was yet a great way off, his 
 father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, 
 and fell on his neck, and kissed him." 
 
TEE LAW OF REACTION. 63 
 
 Thus we find that Extension, or going out of 
 matter into Space, is the physical correspondence 
 of the going out of ourselves, in surrender to 
 our highest concepts, to friends, to country, to 
 the right, to God. 
 
 The student "wiU take note that these are ex- 
 pressions from the higher Emotive nature, and 
 become true through correspondence with Space. 
 
 And we may say, hroadly, that the phenom- 
 ena of the dispersion of matter correspond 
 with our altruistic states ; and the phenomena 
 of the concentration of matter correspond with 
 our selfish and egotistic states. 
 
 rv. 
 
 THE LAW OP REACTION. 
 
 We define Reaction as the return of Force. 
 "Action and reaction ai"e equal," is Newton's 
 third law of Motion. 
 
 In organisms this law might be called the 
 law of Life. Where there is no retiu-n of mo- 
 tion there is no life. Sentient organisms from 
 highest to simplest die when they cannot an- 
 swer solicitations from without. 
 
 The Law of Reaction, as applied to our psy- 
 chic states, has been formulated thus, by Her- 
 bert Spencer: 
 
 "Amotion always tends to produce motion, 
 and when it becomes extreme always does pro- 
 duce it." We may add as corollaries : — 
 
 1. Every extreme of Emotion tends to react 
 
64 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 to its opposite. Concentric states tend to ex- 
 plosion, and explosion tends to prostration. 
 
 2. The only passion that does not tend to 
 its own destruction is that which is poised, or 
 is in equilibrium. 
 
 3. The Soul in its highest moods translates 
 itself by poising its agents. 
 
 Poise the Soul and the whole muscular sys- 
 tem is in action to poise the body. 
 Here we state the Law of Climax : — 
 Law : There should be but one strong climax 
 in a perfect work of Art. The artist should 
 work steadily toward that climax. 
 
 (k.) This is a most important law for the reader, actor, 
 musician, or orator. Anti-climax is fatal in Art. 
 
 All should be arranged in reference to the point of high- 
 est interest, as in painting all is arranged in reference to 
 the point of highest light. Dramatic Art, in America, 
 shows an utter defiance of this principle. Our audiences 
 are so used to the crude exhibitions of the theatre, and 
 the actors at the theatre so used to their immature au- 
 diences, that all is overdone, loud, pronounced, startling, 
 objective, — all is climax. 
 
 Emotion always tends to move towards a 
 climax, which it holds for a brief time, and 
 then subsides. 
 
 Q,.') This correspondence of our psychic states with the 
 wave motion of fluids, as made visible in the waves of the 
 ocean, is a profound one. All the great movements of 
 Nature illustrate it : the tides vdth their ebb and flow, 
 storms rushing on to their highest point of violence and 
 calm succeeding, fierce heats and cold. 
 
 Mountains — valleys. The day — night. War, with its 
 
THE LAW OF REACTION. 65 
 
 terrible climax of passion — peace. Life — death. And 
 finally, the latest deductions of modern science lead to the 
 conclusion that aU the great forces of Nature, heat, elec- 
 tricity, light, magnetism, are but series of climaxes, or wave 
 motions. 
 
 Delsarte is credited by Mr. Mackaye ^ with a character- 
 istic illustration of the Law of Climax. It is called 
 
 The Battle of Eeason and Passion. ■ 
 
 The thermometers of passion in the face, — the corrugators 
 (muscles of the Will), the nostrils, and the close-shut canine 
 teeth (on the left side of the mouth), — indicate passion. 
 The hand contracts, as in less degree does the whole body. 
 
 These manifestations, showing the inner struggle, go on 
 -with increasing intensity until the force of Passion exceeds 
 the force of Season. 
 
 TAen comes the explosion of Passion in the sudden 
 vehement expansion of gesture. 
 
 ^ A student of Delsarte, who fiist introduced the ideas of his dis- 
 tdngoished teacher into America. 
 
 5 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NINE LAWS OF GESTURE (CONCLUDED). 
 
 V. 
 THE LAW OF FORM. 
 
 Our ideas of Form come primarily from mat- 
 ter. And we may define Form as the figure or 
 shape of extended Matter. 
 
 At first the child separates actual objects by 
 touch, and later on notes the fact that such and 
 such objects fill such and such spaces. 
 
 After light, form is Nature's first stimulus of 
 sight. So Astronomy and Geometry are the old- 
 est of our sciences. 
 
 The motion of a point in Space generates a 
 line. The motion of a line, a surface. Of a 
 surface, a solid. So a solid is the absolutely 
 extensive. 
 
 Again : take a point of matter, let it expand in 
 Space on equal radial lines, in all directions, and 
 we have the globe. 
 
 Do you remember, kind reader, the story of 
 the fisherman, in tlje world's wonderbook for 
 children, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments? 
 How, hauling his nets, he drew from the sea 
 a casket, rusty, and covered with weeds ? 
 
THE LAW OF FORM. 67 
 
 Led by curiosity, he pries it open. A Kglit 
 vaporous cloud issues. It expands, takes on first 
 irregular shape, and as he looks changes into a 
 terrible genius with uplifted scimitar ! 
 
 The Spirit of Form with the Greek was Pro- 
 teus. Now this, now that, before your eyes ! 
 
 Delsarte is credited with these statements of 
 the Laws of Form : — 
 
 L Forms bounded by straight lines are Vital, 
 embryonic, plebeian in expression. 
 
 n. Forms bounded by curved lines are Men- 
 tal and Meflective in expression. 
 
 in. Sjiiral forms are Moral, Spiritual, 
 Ifystic, in exjjression. 
 
 A flame is spiral. It is the symbol and corre- 
 spondence of the mystic in nearly all the ancient 
 religions of the world. 
 
 (a.) Let us examine these three statements of Delsarte. 
 We think the first can be justified, that " Forms bounded 
 by straight lines are Vital, embryonic, plebeian." 
 
 In the inorganic world Nature eveiywhere constructs 
 with straight lines. She builds her inorganic masses out 
 of crystals, in straight lines and at fixed angles. 
 
 So in the primitive age of the world all was crystallization. 
 
 And a mass of crystals bounded by straight lines gives 
 little suggestion of advance into the realm of organic life, 
 but suggests through correspondence ideas of inflexibility, 
 strength, and insensibility, and may be said to be void of 
 higher mental or emotive expression. 
 
 Let us examine the second statement : " Forms bounded 
 by curved lines are Mental in expi'ession." "We think Del- 
 sarte could not have made this assertion. The Law of 
 Clorrespondence would certainly deny it. And besides, he 
 everywhere allies grace and harmony of gesture with curves. 
 
68 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 We think we may say that forms composed of arranged 
 lines are Mental. That is, they show that man's, not Nar 
 ture's, mind arranged them. Arranged lines are unknown 
 in Nature's disposition of scenic efEects. 
 
 So, if we were in what we supposed to be an uninhab- 
 ited country, and should suddenly come to a straight row of 
 trees, or of plants growing in straight lines, we would know 
 that the mind of man had ordered the arrangement. 
 
 Nature never sent a straight stream of water babbling 
 down the hillside and through the meadow, with no eddies 
 or covers for trout. 
 
 There is always an intelleeUtal value in the straight line, 
 and an emotive value in the curved line. Forms bounded 
 by straight lines tire the eyes. It is well known that curves 
 rest them. 
 
 Thus it happens that the forms of masses of 
 matter, and the lines which bound them, con- 
 tinually received by us as sight sensations, and 
 these sensations heightened by color, are repro- 
 duced as expressions of our psychic states. 
 
 And so our gestures outline forms, describe 
 lines, trace segments of circles, and apply all the 
 elements of geometry to the spaces about us. 
 
 Indeed, as will be illustrated in our talk upon 
 the hand and arm, so bound are we to Form 
 that all our gestures bear relation to the lines, 
 spaces, and forms of a projected globe. 
 
 (6.) Thus it is seen that we seek, in the outer, correspond- 
 ences for our inner psychic states. 
 
 We find it a continual experience that objects bounded 
 by straight lines are solid, firm, strong. 
 
 So primitive man, in strict correspondence with the Vital 
 age of the world, built the Pyramids, or threw up huge 
 cubes of stones. 
 
/ 
 
 THE LAW OF FORM. 69 
 
 And so, too, we find it a continual experience that ob- 
 jects bounded by curved lines give us a sense of lightness, 
 beauty, and gracefulness. 
 
 But what terrible vitality the zigzag of the lightning dis- 
 closes, " when in blind rage the crooked red blade springs 
 from the black sheath and stabs the earth right and left " ! 
 
 So the arch types both strength and lightness. The strug- 
 gle in architecture is always between the strong, the solid, 
 the firm, of straight lines, appealing to our Vital nature, 
 and the light, the graceful, the tasteful, of curves, appealing 
 to the aesthetic sense, rooted in the Emotive and Mental. 
 
 Note the straight Vital lines of the great Assyrian and 
 Egyptian temples, in many instances hewn of sohd rock. 
 What a calm solidity and almost conscious strength they 
 exhibit ! 
 
 And, in contrast, note the pagodas of the Chinese and 
 the tearhouses of the Japanese, with their outlines of fan- 
 ciful curves and grotesque figures. What lightness, gayety, 
 and insecurity they present ! 
 
 But the sloping roofs of the huts of the Esquimaux are 
 symbols of a continuous vital struggle with a terrible en- 
 vironment of ice, cold, and hunger. 
 
 And now, for a closing lesson in the significance of Form, 
 turn to that marvel of beauty of outline and harmony of 
 proportion, that even in its ruins charms the world — the 
 Parthenon. 
 
 It is a modern discovery that all the lines of this won- 
 derful structure are sections of the circle, but the curves 
 are so delicate as to have escaped notice for centuries. 
 
 Conscious of the beautiful, without knowing why or how 
 beautiful, what a tribute to the perfection of Greek archi- 
 tecture ! 
 
 Thus form, color, and motion of objects in 
 Space, received thousands and thousands of times 
 as sight sensations, have wrought into the very 
 fibre of our Being their numberless correspond- 
 ences. 
 
70 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 So, form of substance corresponds with form 
 of essence, and the exterior is the visible corre- 
 spondence of the interior. 
 
 There is a wonderful verity in the song of our 
 poet Lowell, that even the gross earth crystals 
 climb to a soul, in the form and perfume of the 
 flower. And, in the last analysis, outer and in- 
 ner proclaim their unity. The whole and the 
 part are one. 
 
 The mysticism of Goethe becomes the plain- 
 est of plain truths, and his poetry prosaic, read 
 in the light of the new science of Darwin and 
 Haeckel, Spencer and Fiske. 
 
 " We must, in contemplating Nature, 
 Part as whole give equal heed to ; 
 Naught is inward, naught is outward. 
 For the Inner is the Outer." 
 
 VI. 
 THE LAW OF THE PERSONALITY. 
 
 The Personality is man in his completeness or 
 wholeness. In other words, it is the Ego, or in- 
 dividual Soul and its body, with tendencies, char- 
 acteristics, and energies pecuHar to the indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 So the Personality is the element of differ- 
 ence in a nature common to all men. It is that 
 which distinguishes the man from men. 
 
 Delsarte makes the "Will the agent of the Per- 
 sonality. He says: "Whichever of the three 
 states of the Being is in action, the Will is its 
 agent." 
 
THE LAW OF THE PERSONALITY. 71 
 
 Bosmini, the great Italian metaphysician, says, 
 " The essence of the personality is the Will." 
 
 And this agrees with modern definition : " Our 
 faculty to make effort." "The Will is that by 
 which the Mind does everything that it does." 
 
 Law of the Personality : The conscious ac- 
 tivities of the Soul express themselves through 
 motion. These gestures are Attitudes and In- 
 flections. 
 
 The unconscious, constitutional, and heredi- 
 tary tendencies and activities express themselves 
 through fixed and permanent form and motion. 
 
 These forms and gestures are Bearings. 
 
 All gestures belong to one of three classes, — 
 Bearings, Attitudes, or Inflections. 
 
 These terms refer to fixed, permanent, and 
 habitual; or present, instant, and fieeting, forms 
 of gesture. 
 
 Let us consider each class more in detail. 
 
 1. " Bearings," from the Anglo-Saxon word 
 " beran," I carry, refers to the habitual carriage 
 of the body. 
 
 Bearings are characteristic of the whole man. 
 They often sum up the activities of a Hfetime in 
 a single gesture. 
 
 Thus Lavater referred to Bearings when he 
 said : " Every man has his favorite gesture ; and 
 were it possible to surprise him, and to delineate 
 him while using this gesture, it would furnish the 
 key to his whole character." 
 
 gearings are mgrained, constitutional, hered- 
 
72 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 itary, repetitious. They come down the long line 
 of our ancestry. 
 
 They are the marks of heredity, — evidences 
 that the dead still keep their hold upon the liv- 
 ing, transmitting from generation to generation 
 some trick of manner, or peculiarity of gesture ; 
 some open mark upon the face; some hidden 
 fold upon the brain, — a smile, a lifting of 
 the eyebrow, a curl of the lip, a wrinkle upon 
 the forehead. 
 
 Attentively study the past of your ancestors if 
 you would forecast your own future. 
 
 (a.) These transmitted inheritances make or mar us. It 
 is as though all our ancestors were represented in a huge 
 kaleidoscope ; each ancestor by a bit of colored glass. One 
 turn of the instrument, — the bits of glass rearrange them- 
 selves, and there is a birth ! 
 
 And the new-born babe is a blend, mosaic, or, to use a 
 happy phrase of Francis Galton, " a composite portraiture " 
 of his ancestors. 
 
 So a man's Bearings disclose his past. They 
 show what manner of race he sprang from ; what 
 he has taken from the old stock; what he has 
 added to his inheritance by culture and experi- 
 ence ; how habit, good or bad, has made or 
 marred him. 
 
 (J.) The student of Expression must keep in mind the 
 fact that the central expressions are Bearings, and should be 
 made the starting-point for critical study. 
 
 " Ah ! the face is that of your mother, but when you speak 
 your voice is your father's. 
 
 " Just the way he knit his brow, too ; and you use the 
 
THE LAW OF THE PERSONALITY. 73 
 
 same by-word, with just the suspicion of a stammer ! A chip 
 of the old block ! " 
 
 It was the Beai-ing from the Vital root that struck Ben- 
 jamin West, our great American painter, when he exclaimed 
 at first sight of the Greek Apollo, " By Hercules ! A young 
 Mohawk ! " And it was the Bearing, the inherited instinct 
 of rulership, traces of the old habit of commanding, that in 
 King Lear survived the terrible seizures of insanity, and at 
 intervals proclaimed him " every inch — a king." 
 
 2. Attitudes are arrests of motion. 
 
 A gesture held in place is an attitude. 
 
 Attitudes are comparatively passive, and show 
 that some particular mood is dominating con- 
 sciousness for the time being. An attitude should 
 not be held too long ; only while the mood dom- 
 inates. And by the law of climax it should 
 mark the highest point of the domination of the 
 passion. 
 
 (o.) There is a wonderful power in Attitude. It presents 
 and holds before the eye for the instant a synthesis of the 
 mood or passion, as a projected picture. It is painting and 
 living sculpture as one ! This unity makes it superior to 
 speech, which only tells what you see — only names the pic- 
 ture. So Mental men never reach the climax of attitude. 
 They rarely project a gesture witli the long arc of the free 
 arm. 
 
 Their gestures mark relations between ideas ; they num- 
 ber, and tell how high, how deep, how often, how many, and 
 how much. 
 
 They free the Mental agent, the forefinger, and, closing 
 tlieir eyes, shut out the external world and commune with 
 themselves. 
 
 3. Infections are fugitive, instant, and pi'es- 
 ent forvis of gesture. 
 
74 PHILOSOPHY- OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 They translate the immediate and transient 
 moods of consciousness. 
 
 They are instant, and disappear. 
 
 The face is the special ground of their dis- 
 play, and next, as an expressive agent, comes the 
 hand, which is a second face. 
 
 So an arrested inflection becomes an attitude. 
 A fixed attitude (when held too long), a pos- 
 ture. An attitude made permanent, a bearing. 
 An inflection put on is a grimace, and has no 
 art significance. 
 
 (d.) An illustration of the grimace is the familiar one 
 where one person declaims and a second stands concealed 
 by a cloak behind him and makes the gestures. It is the ut- 
 ter incongruity between the words of the one and the ges- 
 tures of the other that makes the situation so ludicrous. 
 
 Note, too, the smirk of the danseuse, and the play of 
 head and arms when she retires "amid great applause." 
 Her illustration of the Vito- Vital in Art won the noisy plai^- 
 dits. Her grimace was an entirely fit acknowledgment. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE LAW OF OPPOSITION. 
 
 Opposition is the placing over against one 
 another of objects or forces. 
 
 This law in its broadest application is a state- 
 ment of the Law of Life. Opposition of forces 
 distinguishes the living body from the dead. 
 When the Soul can no longer maintain the bal- 
 ance and play of forces, its body dies, falls in 
 
THE LAW OF OPPOSITION. 75 
 
 pieces, disintegrates, ceases to be organic, be- 
 comes dust. Its fluids dissipate, its solids crys- 
 tallize. 
 
 Herbert Spencer defines the process of Life as 
 " the continuous adjustment of internal relations 
 to external relations," and Delsarte declares " the 
 opposition of forces to be an instinct of the 
 Soul." As though the Soul instinctively feels 
 that it can maintain its hold upon its body only 
 by strenuously opposing its forces to the forces 
 of Nature, always in arms against organized mat- 
 ter, and perpetually threatening its destruction. 
 Hence, Nature's almost brut^ unconcern for the 
 life of the individual. 
 
 "Let the race survive," she says; "I have 
 little heed for the individual." 
 
 So with an impartial hand she throws a whole 
 brood of callow robins out of their nest to per- 
 ish in the rain, and in the plenitude of gen- 
 erosity sows the rocky bed of the ocean with 
 myriad eggs — the living spawn of a single cod- 
 fish ! 
 
 Law of Opposition : In the opposition of 
 the agents of Expression rests the harmony 
 of Gesture. Therefore oppose the agents in 
 action, that equilibrium may result. 
 
 (a.) The student will note that this law finds its objec- 
 tive correspondence in the action of the force of gravity 
 upon bodies. It is Nature's assertion that all the parts of 
 a mass of matter shall relate themselves to the centre of 
 that mass. 
 
76 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 When this relation exists — when the parts thus balance 
 — we feel a sense of security. Objects out of balance at 
 once proclaim insecurity. 
 
 Thus, though you know the Leaning Tower of Pisa has 
 kept its balance for some centuries, if you stand at its base 
 and look up along its inclined shaft, no amount of reason- 
 ing can remove the sense of danger that comes over you. 
 
 This statement of law, credited to Delsarte, 
 is but an application to the human body of the 
 universal Law of Statics, governing mass. 
 
 The body must obey this law — must hold it- 
 self in equilibrium — or nature will perform the 
 office, and proceed to relate the separated mass 
 to the greater mass, of the earth. 
 
 But Expression rests in motion. And nature 
 is not quite satisfied when she has, through her 
 static law, balanced the human body. Her 
 query is, evidently : " How shall I make this 
 mass, now in equilibrium, move?" Her answer 
 to her own questioning was an organism (i. e., 
 a psychic centre controlling its own mass). 
 
 So, we have the human organism, presented 
 as both static and dynamic. 
 
 That is, it has its standing side and its mov- 
 ing side. It thus makes two presentations. 
 
 Its standing presentation is comparatively in- 
 expressive. 
 
 Its dynamic presentation is its expressive side. 
 Dividing it into back and front, the back is as 
 a dead wall, against which stands and acts the 
 expressive front. 
 
 We may call the static side passive, and the 
 dynamic side active. 
 
THE LAW OF OPPOSITION. 77 
 
 Or we may say that the static presentation is 
 negative, and the dynamic presentation positive. 
 Again : we may say the static presentation gives 
 Form, the dynamic Motion. 
 
 And in Form and Motion rests the whole 
 of Hitman Expression. 
 
 So we may add a proposition to Delsarte's 
 Law, deduced from our considerations. 
 
 Prop. : Hie greater the number of agents 
 that unite in balanced and harmonious oppo- 
 sition, the higher the form of Expression. 
 
 (b.) Let the student contrast the few, simple, and inex- 
 pressive gestures of children, when .." speaking a piece," with 
 the wealth of expressive play of the trained actor. The Law 
 of Evolution is as constant in art as it is in nature. The pro- 
 cedure is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. The 
 whole play of the agents with the child is simple ; with the 
 actor, complex. Our delight is in the surprises which the 
 actor constantly occasions through complexity. As Emer- 
 son has somewhere stated it : — 
 
 Thioug'h the stairway of snrprise 
 Mount we into Paradise. 
 
 The works of all great artists confirm the Law of Opposi- 
 tion of Agents, by whose aid gestures attain to complexity, 
 and so delight us by presenting variety in place of uni- 
 formity. 
 
 Take an example. One day, looking through Gustave 
 Dora's wonderful art conceptions in Milton's " Paradise 
 Lost," these lines and their illustration caught my attention: 
 
 So parted they : the angel up to heaven 
 From the thick shade, and Adam to his hower. 
 
 Adam is the principal figure. The angel is represented in 
 the distance as nearing the zenith. I noted the following 
 oppositions : (1.) The right side of the body is static, the 
 
78 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 left dynamic. (2.) The static side presents the right leg 
 firm but not stiff ; the dynamic side presents the left 
 leg as free and bent at the knee. (3.) The right arm is 
 thrown upwards, with the forearm thrown over the head, so 
 that the hand grasps the left side ; the left arm is thrown 
 outwards from the body, with the palm of the hand turned 
 towards the ascending form of the angel. (4.) The head 
 is raised and turned toward the right. Broadly speaking, 
 Delsarte's statement is justified that in presentations of the 
 agents of Expression : — 
 
 1. In parallelisms of the agents there is a want of grace- 
 fidness and harmony. 
 
 2. In oppositions of the agents there is grace, the highest 
 form and evidence of harmony. 
 
 Delsarte is reported to have thus formulated 
 the Laws of Opposition in dramatic action : — 
 
 I. Oppositions should he simultaneous in 
 Tragedy and Comedy ; they should be succes- 
 sive in Farce. 
 
 (c.) Take a single illustration of this law, in two scenes. 
 
 Scene first. Banishing, from a sense of justice, one whom 
 we have trusted. 
 
 Here the agents in opposition we will suppose to be the 
 head and right hand. These agents move by the same im- 
 pulse and together. The decision is determined upon ; the 
 psychic mood is single. 
 
 The gesture precedes the spoken words. The hand 
 moves toward the object, with palm open and facing object. 
 The head moves away from object. " Go, and never more 
 be officer of mine." 
 
 Scene second. Same words addressed to same person. 
 The mood is now complex. Justice is opposed by mercy. 
 So, two sets of agents are called into action. (1.) Head 
 and right hand. (2.) Head, torso, and left hand. These 
 agents move simultaneously. The action is : first, eccentric, 
 head and right hand, and toward the object ; second, con- 
 
THE LAW OF OPPOSITION. 79 
 
 centric, head and left hand, away from the object. At the 
 same time the words are spoken the left hand seeks the 
 torso. 
 
 II. Parallel movements should he successive 
 in Tragedy and Comedy ; they should he si- 
 multaneous in Farce. 
 
 (d.) Let us illustrate. Suppose the approach and greet- 
 ing of an esteemed friend. Note that the parallel move- 
 ments of the agents are successive. This may be the order 
 of the gesture : (1.) The eye notes the approach. (2.) The 
 head is raised. (3.) The torso is eccentric. (4.) The fea- 
 tures of the face expand. (5.) Now, if surprise enters the 
 mind the brows are raised. (6.) Now the hand is extended. 
 And (7.) articulate speech follows. 
 
 It will be seen that if these gestures should be precipi- 
 tate and simultaneous, rather than parallel, we should have 
 the essence of Farce, or Burlesque. 
 
 III. It is through the Law of Opposition 
 that the expression of a passion gains force hy 
 using its contrary sign. 
 
 (e.) The smile overspreads the face in moral sadness. We 
 shed tears of joy. There is a terrible laugh in moments of 
 helplessness. The mother shakes her head, but at the same 
 time smiles, when, in words, she denies the request of her 
 child. The child translates, and, finding that two lan- 
 guages say " Yes," ravages the sugar-bowl. 
 
 Said a friend to me : "I never felt that laughter could be 
 more pathetic than tears, until I saw Edwin Booth's as- 
 sumption of Brutus, where the actor plays the idiot, and 
 covers his terrible passion of grief with the mask of 
 laughter." 
 
 In spoken and written language, antithesis, 
 the placing over or against one another of ideas, 
 by opposing the words of sentences, has from 
 
80 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the earliest times given life to expression through 
 its sharp contrasts. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE LAW OF SEQUENCE, OB PRIORITY. 
 
 The word sequence indicates an order of suc- 
 cession. This thing, event, or action, first ; that, 
 second ; and so on to the end. 
 
 (a.) It was a delightful sequence that filled eye and ear 
 when, as youths, we set on end a number of bricks, and rev- 
 elled in the regular click of their impact and fall. 
 
 And who can forget the solid satisfaction he found in the 
 sequence of sound that followed him as he ran along, strik- 
 ing with a lath the spaced boards of the picket-fence ? 
 
 This law is of vital importance to the orator. 
 He is a poor speaker who cannot suggest what he 
 is about to say before he says it. 
 
 Great orators know that they must project the 
 ruUng mood before they speak a word. Not un- 
 til the picture is seen does the orator name what 
 it is that is seen. 
 
 (5.) It will be noted that the Law of Sequence is founded 
 in the relation of the nervous system to its environment. 
 Nothing external is perceived until it first makes an impres- 
 sion upon an organ of sense. 
 
 Law : Impression always precedes Expres- 
 sion. We must have before we can give, and 
 give in the order of having. 
 
 Gesture precedes speech, and gestures of the 
 face precede all others. 
 
THE LAW OF SEQUENCE. 81 
 
 (c.) In the genesis of gesture, priority in the action of 
 the agents of expression depends upon priority in ideas. So 
 we shall have a sequence of the Outer as the correspondence 
 of a sequence of the Inner. Take the hand and arm as 
 agent, and we have this sequence. 
 
 (1.) Preparation. (2.) Direction. (3.) Stroke of the 
 agent. 
 
 In the face, the sequence is : (1.) The eye. (2.) The 
 brow. (3.) The lips and nostrils, which usually act to- 
 gether. 
 
 So we may say that our Vital and Emotive natures are 
 first put into gesture, then the Mental makes its comment, 
 — that is, put into speech. 
 
 In point of time, we put expressions of our 
 Vital nature into gestures quicker than those of 
 our Emotive nature ; and those of our Emotive 
 quicker than those of our Mental nature. 
 
 (d.) Take a single illustration : A man in a moment of 
 passion, under the impression that an insult is intended, 
 puts the Vital impulse into a blow, and knocks down his 
 opponent. Hardly is he down before the higher Emotive 
 nature asserts itself, and the strilcer bends to lift the pros- 
 trate man. And now the Mental nature has time to make 
 its comment, which it puts into profuse apologies. Let the 
 student carefully note the rationale of Sequence, or order of 
 action of the three states of the Being. 
 
 Our Vital nature is animal, physical, and instinctive. 
 It springs first into motion with all the lower animals and 
 with man. 
 
 Our Mental nature is rational, reflective, knowing. It 
 takes time to note relations ; it tliinks before it acts. If it 
 thinks twice, and then thinks again, we say it will act 
 wisely. 
 
 Our Emotive nature is closely allied to both the Vital 
 and the Mental. Its roots are in the soil of sensation, its 
 branches in the air of thought. So with most persons, " I 
 
82 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 feel it is right " goes into act quicker than " I ought to do 
 right." 
 
 Whichever condition of Being dominates con- 
 sciousness, that side will lead the sequence in 
 gesture ; or, to use Delsarte's empirical but con- 
 venient phrase, " the Will lends itself to which- 
 ever side of the Being is in action." 
 
 (e.) Take an illustration, founded in fact, of the order or 
 sequence of expression. 
 
 An artist, having taken offence at his aged and wealthy- 
 patron, painted a satirical portrait of him, and invited him 
 to his studio. 
 
 The painter had adroitly introduced into the noble fear 
 tures the Darwinian idea of man's descent. The patron ar- 
 rives. The picture is uncovered. The patron (1.) glances 
 at the portrait. (2.) He now looks at it critically. (3.) He 
 steps backward and partly closes his eyes. (4.) He now 
 steps toward the portrait, and at the same moment there is 
 a spasmodic closing of both the hands and a firmly set 
 mouth. (5.) Instantly, now, his face flushes ; he glances 
 rapidly, first at the picture, then at the artist. Now (6.) he 
 rocks the torso to and fro. A moment only elapses. (7.) He 
 draws upward the body along the vertical line. He becomes 
 calm, poises the body, and, turning slowly, (8.) looks at the 
 portrait with open and level eyes, — they are judicial eyes, 
 — then looks intently for a moment into the eyes of the 
 painter, and (9.) without a word leaves the studio. 
 
 In this case, it is clear that in the first moments the Men- 
 tal dominated consciousness. Next, the Emotive and the 
 Vital struggled for supremacy. At last the higher Emotive 
 (a blend of the Ethical and Reflective elements) dominated, 
 and we had the calm of conscious control, which we have 
 called " Poise." 
 
 Now it so happens that the son, a young man just fresh 
 from coUege, hears of the insult put upon his father. He 
 strides to the studio ; he does not walk. He forgets cere. 
 
THE LAW OF RHYTHM. 83 
 
 mony ; does not stir the knocker at the outer door ; speaks 
 no " by your leave " at the inner. He seeks out the por- 
 trait. A glance sets him on fire. He cuts the canvas into 
 shreds with his knife. He intones, and explodes "radicals" 
 like bombshells, as outer correspondences of his inner states. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE LAW OF BHYTHM. 
 
 Rhythm is the measure of Time or Motion 
 hy regularly recurring impulses. 
 
 (a.) Modern science has shown that our satisfaction in 
 rhythmical motion has a physical basis. John Fiske thus 
 sums up the conclusions of a convincing argument : " In all 
 cases, whether in masses or molecules, rhythm of motion is 
 necessitated by the fact that in a multiform universe no 
 portion of matter can move uninfluenced by some other 
 portion. Hence, periodicity, rise and fall, recurrence of 
 maxima and minima, is the law of all motion, whether in 
 the star rushing through space, the leaf that trembles in 
 the breeze, or the blood that courses through the arteries." 
 
 It seems beyond dispute that our satisfaction 
 in dancing and in music, in song and in the 
 cadences of oratory, has for its basis a physical 
 support. It is through this correspondence that 
 the Plastic Arts, Architecture, Modelling, and 
 Sculpture gratify our aesthetic nature by pre- 
 senting, through proportion and symmetry, the 
 rhythm of Form. It was this basis, in fact, that 
 gave immediate currency to the phrase, "archi- 
 tecture is frozen music." 
 
 (6.) It was this subtle force in Nature, seen in the vibra- 
 
84 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 tion of matter, — this dance and song, — that the Greek 
 poets celebrated in the sun god, Orpheus, at whose golden 
 touch the mountains danced and the trees nodded their 
 plumes. 
 
 " For Orpheus' lute " (the symbol of rhythm in nature) 
 
 — " was strung with poets' sinews; 
 Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones, 
 Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans 
 Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands." 
 
 Thus we find that the rhythmos of the Greek 
 philosophers has for its correspondence the wave 
 motion of modern Physics. 
 
 The Law of Rhythm is the Law of Har- 
 mony, and Harmony is the pervading Law of 
 the Universe. 
 
 (c.) Through the Rev. "Wm. R. Alger, Delsarte is cred- 
 ited with this sublime concept of the Universe : — 
 
 " The mysteries of God are revealed in Space and Time, 
 through Form and Motion ; they are concentrated in 
 Rhythm, which is vibration or swing of matter through 
 equal spaces and in equal times." 
 
 And Mr. Steele Mackaye, one of the earliest students of 
 Delsarte, thus reports the great teacher : — 
 
 " In the universe God's purpose is shown through the 
 lapses of Time. 
 
 " His design, through the realms of Space. 
 
 " His power, through all the forms of Energy that per- 
 vade the universe." 
 
 Do these utterances of Delsarte seem vague, obscure, 
 mystical ? Yet we must admit they find their parallels in 
 the utterances of Aristotle and Plato, Pythagoras and 
 Heraclitus, and are again and again reflected in the writ- 
 ings of Oken and Carus, Goethe and Lamarck, and by 
 metaphysical thinkers of modern times. 
 
 Let it be borne in mind that the Greek philosophers had 
 no such evidence as modern science presents upon which to 
 
THE LAW OF RHYTHM. 85 
 
 base their conclusions. Their deductions were purely subjec- 
 tive, and were founded in felt correspondences between the 
 visible and the invisible, the physical and the metaphysical. 
 And so the saying of Heraclitus that ceaseless change, 
 iravTo. pet, is the law of all things, and that in nature there 
 is an endless flux and flow of phenomena, becomes estab- 
 lished fact in the science of to-day. 
 
 The deduction of Pythagoras that the Law of 
 Harmony rests in numbers, and that everything 
 resolves itself into numerical relations, reads like 
 prophecy, when science, after the most exhaust- 
 ive experiments, declares heat, Kght, and elec- 
 tricity to be so many modes of motion, and 
 that the direction of modern physical science 
 is toward a generalization which shall express 
 the fundamental law of all motion by one simple 
 numerical ratio. 
 
 With reason then we may say that our sense 
 of and dehght in Rhythm rest in correspondence 
 between physical and psychic conditions; and 
 that our gestures, that gratify the aesthetic 
 sense, reproduce symmetry and proportion, in 
 Space and Time, through Motion. 
 
 Law : The Vital nature expresses itself 
 through forms of objective rhythm. 
 
 The Mental and Emotive natter es find their 
 correspondences in, and express themselves 
 through, forms of subjective rhythm. 
 
 (d.) Children, savages, and the inferior races everywhere 
 delight in objective rhythm. The sharper the accent the 
 higher the enjoyment. 
 
 The babe cries to have its cradle rocked accompanied by 
 
86 PUILOSOPBY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the sway of the nurse's body and the accented song. Sav« 
 ages beat time furiously in their war dances, and the speech 
 of primitive man was doubtless filled with alternately re- 
 curring impulses of Vital sounds. 
 
 In all forms of art, as man progresses, undue accent and 
 emphasis give way to proportioned and harmonious forms. 
 Subjective forms of rhythm characterize his musical, dra- 
 matic, and poetic compositions. 
 
 His architecture and sculpture become composites and 
 blends of material, form, and color, rhythmical in their pro- 
 portions and relations. 
 
 Let US see how all this bears upon the expres- 
 sions of the human organism. 
 
 WeU, place the finger upon the pulse, at the 
 wrist, and note the rhythmus of the heart as 
 it beats. If the body conform itself to this 
 rhythm, you have the sway and movement of 
 the dance. 
 
 Again, close the mouth and note the inflow 
 and outflow of the breath through the nostrils. 
 Here a physiological necessity comes in, and you 
 must conform your speech to this play of the 
 lungs. 
 
 Thus in speech and song physiological neces- 
 sity is the basis of rhythm. 
 
 (e.) Let it be noted that no great poet ever sang the 
 songs of the people who did not sing them to the rhythm 
 of the blood and breath. 
 
 This is why Longfellow used the eight-syllable trochaic 
 verse in "Hiawatha," and Scott the eightHsyllable iambic 
 verse in " The Lady of the Lake." They literally floated 
 their songs down the stream of their age and time upon 
 the blood and breath of the people. 
 
 In this physiological necessity rests the secret of the de- 
 
THE LAW OF RHYTHM. 87 
 
 light which sailors, soldiers, and peasants take in the rude 
 ballads which are recited and sung to fiU up the hours of 
 the enforced leisure of ship or barrack life. 
 
 The normal rate of breathing is eighteen or twenty 
 breaths in a minute, and one or more lines of the ballad or 
 song will use up the air of one natural expiration. 
 
 So Nature in the play of her cosmic forces, 
 and in these organic pulsations of blood and 
 breath, leads the way, and man, catching the im- 
 pulse, marches with measured and rhythmical 
 swing, and adds color and tone to heighten his 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Or he liberates the imprisoned air from an 
 hundred mechanical iastruments, and lifts his 
 soul upon the wings of music into untold har- 
 monies of sound. 
 
 But for his highest form of expression. Nature 
 has concentrated the powers of an hundred me- 
 chanical instruments in one Vital instrument, that 
 she may voice the very soul of rhythm. So in 
 moments of concentrated passion he sings in 
 speech and speaks in song, in correspondence 
 with the subtle and all-pervading Law of the 
 Universe, — Rhythm. 
 
 (_/.) This concludes what the author feels to be an in- 
 adequate, but he hopes, nevertheless, a suggestive attempt 
 to establish a true basis " in the very nature and analogy 
 of things " for Delsarte's empirical statement of " The Nine 
 Laws of Gesture " that govern human expression. 
 
 It will be seen that we have based the whole class of 
 ideal gestures upon the analogies and correspondences ex- 
 isting between the subjective and objective relations which 
 began with our dawning consciousness, and which gather 
 
88 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 strength and impressiveness as the Ego more and more 
 sees itself symbolized in external nature, and reads the les- 
 sons, and listens to the voices that, through existing corre- 
 spondences, proclaim its kinship and its destiny ! 
 
 That other and better unfolding of these laws may be 
 made is quite certain. 
 
 That more than nine Laws will suggest themselves to 
 the thoughtful student is probable, but the logic upon which 
 these laws stand cannot be shaken so long as the present 
 order and arrangement of things exist : that the forms and 
 forces of external Nature type, symbolize, and correspond 
 with the spiritual. 
 
 Here we conclude our discussion of general 
 principles. Of the Universe ; its outer forms. 
 Of the controlling Energy which is behind all 
 phenomena. Of man conditioned as a Soul in 
 body, restricted by Space, Time, and Motion, 
 and manifesting his psychic states in terms of 
 his environment. From the general we descend 
 to the particular. We shall consider in succeed- 
 ing chapters the human form and its fitness for 
 expression ; the expressions of the agents of the 
 Being, the Head, Torso, and Limbs ; and lastly, 
 the expressions of the separate divisions or zones 
 of these agents. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HUMAN FORM. — ITS FITNESS FOB 
 EXPRESSION. » 
 
 Man epitomizes two worlds, — the world of 
 matter and the world of mind? 
 
 He is the apex of organized matter through 
 his body, and the summit of all earthly manifes- 
 tation through his soul. 
 
 In a word, he is a soul in organic form. He 
 is the organized unity of Nature. 
 
 His body is the extreme upward limit of phys- 
 ical progress upon the earth. 
 
 His soul wUl yet mark the extreme limit of 
 psychic progress upon the earth. 
 
 The excellence of form now possessed by man 
 was in the scheme of animal existence long be- 
 fore he made his appearance upon earth. He is 
 prefigured through the whole chain of Being. 
 All organized forms below him predicted him. 
 
 The prediction was yet far from its fulfilment 
 when, in the course of her creative acts. Nature ^ 
 
 1 The author wishes it understood that he personifies Nature as act- 
 ing force, as a convenient term with which to coyer all secondary 
 causes of phenomena. 
 
 He adopts Argyll's definition, as given in his recent work, The 
 Unity of Nature: "A word for the whole sum and system of intelli- 
 
90 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 evolved a line of nerve substance, enclosed it 
 within a bony case, and fitted an organism to its 
 environment of water. 
 
 Prediction grew into prophecy in the reptiles 
 and reptihan birds. Prophecy became assurance 
 in the beasts of the forest, and in the anthropoid 
 apes. Assurance became fulfilment in man. 
 
 The line of nerve substance which Nature 
 had traced in her simplest vertebrate structure, 
 through the slow progress of adaptation in great 
 reaches of time, had now organized itself into a 
 central mass, with smaller masses at points of the 
 human territory ; and, marvel of creation, the 
 nerve pulp took hemispheric form, and became 
 the throne of Reason and the special seat of the 
 Intellect. 
 
 (a.) Do these words read like unsupported prophecy with 
 poetic coloring ? When we wrote these sentences the latest 
 conclusions of John Fiske had not been given to the world. 
 
 We quote from his recent volume, " The Destiny of Man." 
 Touching man's evolution, Mr. Fiske says : •' At length there 
 came that wonderful moment at which psychical changes be- 
 gan to be of more use than physical changes to the brute an- 
 cestor of man. Henceforth the life of the nascent soul came 
 to be first in importance, and the bodily life became subordi- 
 nate to it. According to Darwin, it is impossible that any 
 other creature, zoologically distinct from man and superior 
 to him, should ever, at any future time, appear upon the 
 earth. According to Darwin, the creation of man is still 
 the goal toward which Nature tended from the beginning." 
 
 And this is the great scientist's conclusion : " Not the pro. 
 
 gible things. The emhodiment of all order, the expression of aU 
 truth." 
 
THE HUMAN FORM. 91 
 
 duction of any higher creation, but the perfecting of hu- 
 manity, is to be the glorious consummation of Nature's long 
 and tedious work." 
 
 Thus man stands upon the earth, — a mind en- 
 cased in matter, a spirit in substance, a soul in 
 body. This form, an apparition (that which ap- 
 pears), manifesting (showing its hand), as three 
 conditions of one Being. 
 
 Let us examine this form and its fitness for 
 Expression. 
 
 And first. The human form holds itself against 
 the downward force of gravity with less expendi- 
 ture of muscular energy than that of any other 
 land mammal. 
 
 In the human structure all arranges itself Avith 
 reference to static equilibrium. 
 
 For, note. The whole weight of the mass 
 stands vertically above the organs of support. 
 This releases the muscles of the head, torso, and 
 arms from the downward drag of gravity. 
 
 The head, which in all the large four-footed 
 mammals, as the ox and horse, needs large mus- 
 cles to hold it against gravity, presses, in man, 
 directly downwards upon the common centre. 
 
 And further, note the disposition of the great 
 central organs, the lungs, heart, and viscera, in 
 the cavities of the thorax and pelvis. The whole 
 mass is balanced along the Une of gravity. 
 
 The body may be regarded as presenting well- 
 defined halves, each half jealously guarding the 
 equilibrium of the whole. 
 
92 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 (5.) The student may easily trace the septum, or dividing 
 line of these halves, from the double organ, the brain, evenly 
 balanced in its dome-shaped case, through the cleft of the 
 hard palate. 
 
 Then the lungs and heart keep the poise, and the viscera 
 maintain it. The arms and legs help the equipoise and be- 
 come radii, adding new supports in cases of emergency. 
 Then the more than five hundred muscles, equally disposed 
 on either side, actively guard the balance of the mass. 
 
 The human body fulfils what we may conceive 
 to be Nature's design : — 
 
 To place upon earth a being who should hold 
 its mass along a vertical hue against the levelling 
 force of gravity. Should, in its escape from the 
 degradation of gravity, avoid friction in move- 
 ment. Should thus reduce weight and friction 
 — the opposing elements of its freedom — to 
 the lowest point consistent with size and strength. 
 
 So, as among vertebrates, the reptiles repre- 
 sent the hne of greatest inthralment to gravity 
 and friction, man represents the line of greatest 
 enfranchisement. 
 
 We may formxilate our conclusions regarding 
 the evolution of animal structure in a law. 
 
 The Law of Animal Structure : — 
 
 In animal proportions the predominating 
 mass is disposed along the horizontal line. 
 
 In human proportions the predominating 
 mass is disposed along the vertical line. 
 
 (c.) Thus all animal life may be represented as included 
 •within the two lines forming a right angle. The horizontal 
 line is the line of greatest inthralment ; as the animal rises 
 
THE HUMAN FORM. 93 
 
 in the scale of being, it approaches the vertical in struc- 
 ture. 
 
 And man, by the law of structure, may be pronounced 
 the highest earthly organism, and justifies the ancient defini- 
 tion of him : — 
 
 " Man is he of the upturned face." 
 
 We are indebted to that marvellous race, the 
 ancient Greeks, for our ideas of proportion and 
 symmetry of the human form. For nearly three 
 thousand years the antiques, Apollo and Venus, 
 have been accepted in the world of art as the 
 highest ideals of the human form. Esthetic 
 taste is satisfied when one looks upon these in- 
 comparable ideals of strength, beauty, and pro- 
 portioned harmony. Even if one does not rea- 
 son about it, the feeling is that herje is perfection 
 of form. 
 
 If one stops to analyze his feeUng, he discov- 
 ers that a large part of his satisfaction rests in a 
 gratified sense of equilibriiim or poise ; and in the 
 inference that if the statue could step down from 
 its pedestal it would move with ease, safety, and 
 strength. 
 
 Delsarte is reported to have used the term 
 " Grace " to cover a trinity of elements that 
 must be presented, in a statue or in the human 
 form, to make a unity or highest form of Expres- 
 sion. 
 
 This is the reported formula : — 
 
 Law : The human form has Grace in ex- 
 pression when it combines, in unity, the three 
 elements of Ease, Precision, and Harmony. 
 
94 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 In this analysis he made ease to express the 
 Vital nature, precision the Mental, and harmony 
 the Emotive. 
 
 If either of these three elements is too prom- 
 inent, the unity of the expression is destroyed. 
 Thus i£ (1.) Ease in human gesture he too 
 prominent, the expression becomes first as- 
 surance, then familiarity, and at last vul- 
 garity. 
 
 So intoxication is ease let loose. 
 
 (2.) If precision be too prominent, there is 
 pedantry. 
 
 Pedantry is precision running in grooves. Ease, 
 speaking from the Vital Being, would ask with 
 ahruptness, "Who is the young cross-eyed?" 
 Precision, with definiteness, "Who is the young 
 person with the slight obliquity of vision ? " 
 
 (3.) If harmony be too prominent, there is 
 affectation. 
 
 Harmony is too close an addiction to curved 
 lines. Emotive sestheticism seeks too many lines 
 of beauty. 
 
 When the three elements, ease, precision, and 
 harmony, exist in poise, we have the highest 
 form of expression, — Grace. 
 
 (d.) It would be strange if the Exterior did not conform 
 to the Interior. So we find that the body confirms the above 
 psychological analysis. 
 
 Two sets of muscles control all our movements, — exten- 
 sors and flexors. Acting in sympathy, they poise the body, 
 or place it in stable equilibrium. 
 
 Now an excess of either of the three natures, Vital, Emo. 
 
THE HUMAN FORM. 95 
 
 five, or Mental, will inevitably manifest itseK in the manner 
 we have indicated. 
 
 The student is asked to ponder deeply the significance of 
 these manifestations of the Being. We have proceeding 
 from a single undivided essence three forms of expression, 
 each having its distinctive characteristics, and, as wiU be 
 found, each choosing the ground of its display in some tract 
 or division of the body. 
 
 Take an Ulustration from the pages of the great English 
 painter of the moods, morals, and manners of his age and 
 time. Let the student construct the action from the graphic 
 picture of the Vital nature let loose : — 
 
 " A big, loud man with a stare and a metallic laugh. A 
 man made out of coarse material, which seemed to be 
 stretched, to make so much of him. 
 
 " A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a 
 self-made man. Always proclaiming through that brassy 
 speaking-trumpet of a voice his old ignorance and his old 
 poverty. 
 
 " ' I had n't a shoe to my foot, sir ; as to a stocking, I 
 did n't know such a thing by name. I passed the day in a 
 ditch, and the night in a pigsty. 
 
 " ' That 's the way I spent my tenth birthday ! Not that 
 a ditch was new to me, for I was born in a ditch ! ' " 
 
 Take a second illustration. It may be said that aU great 
 orators move out from the psychic centre into the audience 
 over three divergent Unes. 
 
 Like generals who hold the reins of three armies, they 
 have learned that three natures can move along the lines of 
 attack. The question becomes, then, a matter of forces to be 
 brought into action. Whether will the general more surely 
 conquer with one army or with three ? 
 
 Both the greatest American preacher, Beecher, and the 
 greatest English preacher, Spurgeon, are powerful before 
 the people, because they have control of three well-propor- 
 tioned and generously large natures, with the Emotive lead- 
 ing, a strong Vital to sustain, and from the Mental side of 
 
96 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the Being, more especially in Beecher, a wonderfully vivid 
 imagination and conceptive power of the highest order. 
 
 Most preachers have but one army to bring into action. 
 It is an army of syllogisms. The attack is along the frigid 
 line of the Mental. Two armies are meanwhile idle in their 
 tents. The attack lacks blood and breath. 
 
 Said the great Welsh preacher of the last century, Christ- 
 mas Evans : " Never raise the voice wliile the heart is 
 dry!" 
 
 The architecture and sculpture of different 
 peoples verify these deductions. 
 
 Primitive man made the rudest possible resem- 
 blances of objects, and his forms of architecture 
 were masses of rocks of irregular shapes, show- 
 ing that Vital instincts rather than premeditated 
 design prompted the manifestation. 
 
 In Assyrian and Egyptian architecture preci- 
 sion and strength ruled, and gigantic figures 
 with Vital calm in the faces, and great temples 
 hewn out of solid rock, testify to the Mento- Vital 
 elements which rule these manifestations. 
 
 Greek architecture and sculpture present the 
 highest forms of expression that have yet ap- 
 peared upon the earth. Greek forms must be 
 for ages the inspiration of art, for they present 
 blends of the three elements, ease, precision, 
 and harmony, in perfect poise of proportion and 
 symmetry. 
 
 (e.) It is a little curious that the drawings of the man 
 of the quaternary period, of the present races of savages, 
 and of all civilized children present the same character- 
 istics of crudeness and want of precision. They are all in 
 the Vital stage of human progress, and they each would 
 
THE HUMAN FORM. 97 
 
 represent, say, the picture of a man in the same crude way, 
 namely, a circular form for the head, a triangle for the 
 torso, and straight lines for the arms and legs. 
 
 So, in the Vital age of the world, the Assyrians and 
 Egyptians flUed their colossal figures with an intense and 
 impressive Vital force. 
 
 In conclusion, Delsarte affirms an added ele- 
 ment. He is reporteH to have said: Perfect 
 gesture requires Reason, in addition to Grace. 
 
 The elements of Reason are Power, Wis- 
 dom, and Love, and they dioell in perfection 
 only in the Spiritual. 
 
 (/.) This conclusion of Delsarte calls to mind an utter- 
 ance made to the author by "Wendell Phillips. Said this 
 poised orator from the Greek age appearing in our nine- 
 teenth century in America : " He only is a great orator 
 who can utter Reason without Fassion." 
 
CHAPTEE VL 
 
 THE BVMAS FORM: ACTION AS DETERMINED 
 FROM THE BASE. 
 
 In the Arts of Speech — Reading, Recitation, 
 Personation, and Oratory — the human form, 
 whether in poise or in action, has a single office, 
 namely, to show forth the interplay of soul and 
 body. 
 
 So Delsarte's definition of gesture is essen- 
 tially an art definition : — 
 
 The manifestation of the Being through the 
 activity of the body. 
 
 And this manifestation is always made through 
 motion ; or through form, which is an arrest of 
 motion. 
 
 (a.) The expression which form presents is doubtless due 
 to the subjective process by which we endow the form with 
 the attributes of life. 
 
 We infer that some mood has just given motion to the 
 form, and we seem to see the mood through the arrested 
 form. 
 
 It is doubtful whether any other animal than man recogJ 
 nizes life in any other way than through motion. 
 
 Thus from Utility — service of the body or 
 any of its organs in the animal economy — Art 
 
ACTION FROM THE BASE. 99 
 
 looks to Expression, the significance of body, or 
 organ, in the aesthetic economy. 
 
 Important as are the sense organs, grouped in 
 the small space of the face, in the economy of 
 Life, they become the most expressive agents in 
 the economy of Art. 
 
 A thousand uses has the hand ! A coarse 
 animal tool in the savage, in the civilized man, 
 tools proceed and arts radiate from the ten sep- 
 arated fingers.^ Garth Wilkinson concludes that 
 the highest use of the body on this earth is to 
 enable the Soul to personate itself in a world of 
 dead matter. 
 
 And it would ^c^m that Nature has reached 
 her ultimate goal, spoken her last organic word, 
 in her presentation upon earth of Expressive 
 Man. 
 
 And we may confidently conclude that the 
 evolution of man as an expressive being has been 
 a constant and progressive development along 
 the three parallels of Structure, Function, and 
 Utihty. 
 
 (6.) A diagram may assist the student to gain our idea 
 of how, in the course of human development, structure, 
 function, and utility have steadily moved on towards their 
 cuhniuation in Expression. 
 
 utility. 
 EXFBESSION. 
 
 1 All human art is but an increment of the power of the hand. 
 Vision and manipulation in their oonntless and indirect forms are the 
 two cooperative factors in all intelleetnal progress. — John Fiske, 
 The Destiny of Man. 
 
100 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 So far as we know, no life has appeared upon the earth 
 outside a material form. A structure is essential to the 
 appearance of life, and always accompanies such appear- 
 ance. 
 
 But appearance is not maintenance. When life has ap- 
 peared, in order to survive, it must be able to maintain itself 
 against the forces that would destroy it. Hence the pro- 
 vision Nature has made of organs. And it is the action of 
 the organ to maintain life against opposing forces that we 
 call its function. It is the function of the heart to beat, 
 the lungs to heave, the stomach to digest, the eye to see. 
 
 Both structure and function, in every animal upon earth 
 save one, completely answer their ends when they give out- 
 ward expression to life, work in its service, protect it, and 
 perpetuate it through other similar lives. 
 
 This is the perpetual round of structure and function in 
 all the lower animals. All this adaptation to environment 
 ends with Utility. 
 
 And man is man because in him all the organs of the 
 animal are lifted into the highest significance. In him 
 structure, function, and utility serve a Soul. 
 
 And so human expression evolves from structure, func- 
 tion, and utility, as naturally as the flower from root and 
 branch, stem and bud. 
 
 Emerson has somewhere said : " What Nature at one 
 time provides for use she afterwards turns to ornament ; " 
 and Spencer, after quoting these lines of the great idealist, 
 says : " It has often occurred to me that the same might be 
 said of the progress of humanity." 
 
 Structure, Function, Utility, Expression. In 
 these terms we quote all the words of Life. 
 
 The possibilities of each animal are predicated 
 along these lines of development; and we may 
 read the history of man's progress toward the 
 spiritual in the syntheses presented through the 
 whole chain of animal existence. 
 
ACTION FROM THE BASE. 101 
 
 Hence, Oken has called man the pansesthetic 
 animal. And we may say without violence that 
 the animal kingdom is only a dismemberment of 
 the highest animal, man ; and that animals be- 
 come nobler in rank, the greater the number of 
 organs that ai-e collectively liberated, or severed, 
 from the grand animal, man. 
 
 (c.) In the vertebrate kingdom there is no change from 
 the structural type. AH changes ai-e made through con- 
 stant difEerentiation. 
 
 And we may confidently state three things in three prop- 
 ositions as true of each and every animal upon earth : — 
 
 I. Structure determines the kittd and amount of motion 
 possible to the anim/il. 
 
 II. Function is determined by the hind of organs pos- 
 sessed by the animal. 
 
 III. Expression is an atxtgrmoth from structure andl 
 function, and appears in no other animal except man as a 
 conscious act of the Being, and Tience is determined by the^ 
 Mild and amount of the Psychic element. 
 
 We ti'ust that the student will be led to ex- 
 amine the base upon which the himian form 
 stands with a new interest, as we consider its re- 
 lations through structiu'e, function, and utility, 
 to expression. 
 
 Agassiz defines the foot of a primate, to which 
 order of the class mammalia man belongs, as a 
 limb terminated by digits, all on the same level, 
 and all having the same direction. 
 
 But Broca, the French anthropologist, with 
 more breadth, thus defines the human base : — 
 . A foot is an extremity which serves chiefly 
 
102 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 for standing or walking, and a hand is an ex- 
 tremity which serves chiefly for prehension and 
 touch. 
 
 The foot is perfect when it answers the ends 
 of standing and walking. 
 
 And the hand is perfect when it answers the 
 ends of prehension and touch. 
 
 But to fully discover the functions of either 
 hand or foot it is necessary to examine the 
 structures as wholes of which they are parts. 
 
 Three conditions of structure fit all land mam- 
 mals for locomotion. 
 
 (1.) A shaft-like bone must be received into 
 a deep hemispherical cavity looking downwards 
 and outwards. 
 
 This structure allows the Hmb to move freely 
 in two directions, — from before, backwards, and 
 from behind, forwards, — thus giving the to-and- 
 fro movement of locomotion. 
 
 The legs of animals are vital pendulums ; they 
 mark distances on the dial face of time. At 
 this point all other movements except the pen- 
 dulum are very limited. 
 
 (2.) Two bones more or less united are jointed 
 with the shaft-Kke bone. They act as a single 
 bone, in order to better sustain the weight of the 
 body and keep the foot from turning. 
 
 (3.) The jointings above the part touching the 
 ground allow two movements, — flexion and ex- 
 tension, — and should form with the foot a neai 
 approach to a right angle, so as to present a flat 
 surface to the earth. 
 
ACTION FROM THE BASE. 103' 
 
 We have thus presented Nature's general plan 
 of structure to serve locomotion for aU land 
 mammals. 
 
 AU land mammals, save man, touch the earth 
 with four shafts, or levers. 
 
 In man, two of these shafts are set free. This 
 fact will be found to have an immense signifi- 
 cance. It correlates with all the other facts that 
 mark man's supremacy upon the earth. 
 
 It makes possible a new definition of man : 
 The animal that has hath feet and hands. 
 
 Through the two only does he attain free- 
 dom. 
 
 (d.) It Is not, as has been imagined, the hands, as hands, 
 that confer nobility upon man. For physically they cause 
 the loss of half the power of standing and moving. 
 
 But in man there are hands and feet, that the two func- 
 tions of touching and standing may each approach a possible 
 perfection. 
 
 Should both hands and feet exercise the sense of touch, 
 the motion is impaired. Should both move the body, tlie 
 sense suffers. 
 
 So the feet support the body, and stand in its service. The 
 hands are supported by the body, and stand in the service 
 of the soul. 
 
 The four hands of the anthropoids are therefore an 
 imperfection and a limitation, which we need not envy 
 them. 
 
 If we would represent the ruling proportions 
 of the animals next man, the quadrupeds, we 
 
 project an horizontal line , and imagine 
 
 mass disposed along that line. 
 
104 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 If we would represent the ruling propor- 
 tions of man, we project a vertical line, and im- 
 agine mass disposed along that line. 
 
 And we can represent all animal hfe along 
 the angles made by lifting the horizon- 
 tal toward the vertical. It is upon the 
 implications and revelations of devel- 
 opment along these lines that we find the ration- 
 ale of Delsarte's 
 
 liAW OF EADIATIONS. 
 
 Law: Animal Radiations are downwards. 
 Human Radiations are upwards and out- 
 wards. 
 
 (e.) It is difficult to comprehend the full significance of 
 this release of the tyro levers, — the arms and hands. 
 
 But it seems apparent that he who was to epitomize the 
 universe, group all its material forms and forces in his body, 
 reflect and type the spiritual through his soul, must be able 
 to assume the vertical, and to project radial lines in all di- 
 rections into the spaces around him. 
 
 If, as Oken has somewhere finely said, God thought the 
 whole thought of creation once more, and that thought was 
 man, surely this bearer of all dignities must lift his face 
 from the earth, stand in conscious equilibrium, and realize 
 all the conditions of movement and balance in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 Let us see how man realizes these condition^ 
 of poise and motion. 
 
 We have already considered Nature's general 
 plan of structure for poise and locomotion in all 
 mammals. Let us note the significance of the 
 
ACTION FROM THE BASE. 105 
 
 differentiation in man from this general struc- 
 tural plan. 
 
 (1.) In the human structure, the thigh bone is 
 a shaft fitted to play easily in its cup-like cavity, 
 giving considerable freedom of movement at the 
 hips. 
 
 It easily executes the pendulum movement in 
 •walking, and (a high consideration in art) it per- 
 mits the right and left leg each to describe 180° 
 of a cii'cle, — a performance impossible to any 
 other mammal. 
 
 (2.) Two bones are jointed at the knee with 
 the long shaft of the thigh. 
 
 These two bones act as one, and form a shorter 
 second shaft, capable of a quicker pendulum 
 movement. 
 
 (3.) These two bones fall vertically upon the 
 crown of an elastic arch of wonderful strength 
 and lightness, forming a loose hinge at the joint- 
 ings of the ankle, which allows considerable free- 
 dom of movement. 
 
 The arch forming the foot rests upon two 
 points of support, — the strong, knob-like bone 
 of the heel, and upon the bones which form the 
 ball of the foot. 
 
 (/.) Thus, together with all the mammals, we find man 
 bound to the earth. With all other mammals the four shafts 
 radiate downward, and are Vital in significance. With man, 
 the two shafts that touch the earth have the same signifi- 
 cance. They are Vital. Their primary office is locomotion. 
 But psychic faculty and instrument of faculty keep pace 
 in development, and the lower limbs are now supports to lift 
 the expressive body into the vertical. 
 
106 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 We shall find sure and certain evidence that the released 
 levers, radiating outwards and upwards, become the special 
 and significant agents of the Mental and Emotive Being. 
 
 It was rare insight in Delsarte that put into f ormulse these 
 deductions, based in Uie revelations of the human structure, 
 as 
 
 THE THEEE GBAVITATIONS. 
 
 Man griwitatea to the Earth through his fed. 
 To Humanity through the torso. 
 To the Umverse through the eye. 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 THE HXTMAN FORM CONTINUED. — STRUCTrRE AS 
 
 DETERMINING ACTION. INDICATIONS OF THE 
 
 FEET. 
 
 We examiaed in our last chapter the hase 
 upon which stands the only animal capable of 
 sustaining the mass of its body along the ver- 
 tical hne. 
 
 To hold this mass against the force of gravity 
 in equilibrium, and in its action to combine the 
 elements of stability, strength, and freedom, three 
 difficulties arising from structure must be sur- 
 mounted. 
 
 These difficulties are : — 
 
 (1.) The narrowness of the hase upon which 
 the structure stands. 
 
 (2.) A formidable difficulty: the height of 
 the centre of gravity above the hase. 
 
 (3.) The projection of the parts, above and 
 away from the line vertical to the centre. 
 
 How the genius of a race, through its repre- 
 sentative artists, overcame these difficulties in 
 presentations of the human form, the Greek 
 sculptors have shown the world in their incom- 
 parable statues, which present to the eye that 
 
108 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 exquisite harmony of form, which we term grace- 
 ful; that combination of the elements of phys- 
 ical power and mental strength in poise, which 
 we call commanding or heroic, and which arises 
 from a perfection of proportion and symmetry 
 which takes away all fear of sufficient firmness 
 of support. 
 
 (a.) We present here the technical rule formulated by 
 Da Vinci for posing statues. The student will note that 
 this rule applies to the liiong static form as well as to its 
 representations in statues. 
 
 "The foot which at any instant sustains the principal 
 weight of the mass must be so placed that a vertical line 
 let fall from the middle point between the shoulders, known 
 as the little well of the neck, shall pass through the heel 
 of the foot. The other foot acts as a lever to keep the 
 mass balanced and prevent it from tottering." 
 
 The Kving, moving human form overcomes the 
 three difficulties mentioned above by a marvel- 
 lous adaptation and play of vital mechanics ; of 
 levers, blocks, hammers, wedges, of ropes and pul- 
 leys, of arcs, pillars, cushions, shafts, of the most 
 ingenious complexity and entire adaptability. 
 
 (6.) We may well uncover our heads and stand in awe, 
 as with the vision of inference we count the steps by which 
 the spiritual perfected itseU in this last appearance upon 
 earth, — Man. 
 
 From the simplest vertebrate structure, — a prone line of 
 bones with an enclosed thread of nerve matter, all parts of 
 which were bound to earth by equal pressure, — through fish, 
 reptile, bird, and beast, this vertebral column had lifted 
 itself towards the vertical through long lapses of time and 
 by constant differentiations. 
 
STRUCTURE AS DETERMINING ACTION. 109 
 
 We may imagine that — in the dim twilight that pre- 
 saged the appearance of man — Nature paused for a mo- 
 ment from her creative work to consider ; when, one day, an 
 antliropoid, type and promise of the hair-clad speechless man, 
 who was to make way for the speaking and knowing man, 
 threw upwards and backwards his arms, swept with a dazed 
 look for an instant the circle of the horizon, approached for 
 a moment the vertical, then fell back on all fours ! 
 
 Our good earth mother pondered. Then she said : " Let 
 us stand this column of bones upright. Let us throw out 
 from this central axis a series of arcs facing backwards and 
 forming a channel, and let us fill this channel with life or 
 nerve matter. 
 
 " Now, we will throw out from our axis a second series of 
 expanded arcs facing forwards, making a strong bony box, 
 in which we will place heart and lungs, the organs of blood 
 and breath. 
 
 " And yet a third cavity, let us fashion, at the lower ter- 
 minus of the column, where we will place the organs for 
 the sustaining and perpetuating of life, that this being may 
 not perish from the earth. 
 
 " Now, we will surmount this structure with some closed 
 arcs, taking the form, of a sphere, that we may symbolize 
 the round earth which is to be the theatre of this being's 
 activities, and which shall teach him many a lesson of cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 " Let us fill the dome of this sphere with white and gray 
 nerve matter curiously folded, and below let us build seven 
 gateways, opening outwards, but leading inwards. At the 
 portals of the gates let us place seven trusty servitors, that 
 all the appearances of the outer world may become the ex- 
 periences of the soul, that this, my greatest work on earth, 
 shall live, know, love, and worship." 
 
 Then Lrfinite Wisdom, Love, and Power breathed upon 
 this form, and it became Man, the image of the Spiritual : 
 to rule the world of matter, to organize science, to perfect 
 art, to extend commerce, to evolve literature, to found com- 
 munities, to establish morality, to further the humanities, to 
 worship the Infinite One. 
 
110 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Let us summarize our deductions drawn from 
 structure and function, as presented by the land 
 mammals. 
 
 I. In the land mammals, nearest man, the 
 four lengths, shafts, or lim,bs have hut a single 
 function, namely, to further the activities of 
 the anim,al in the struggle for existence. 
 
 Their expression is wholly Vital. Their use 
 is for locomotion, defence, and occasional pre- 
 hension. 
 
 n. In man, while the two lower limbs retain 
 their vital function, the two upper limbs are 
 released. Unlike any other mammal, with man 
 the two shafts perform the office of locomotion 
 and hold the mass against the attach of grav- 
 ity. 
 
 in. The two shafts thus released (the hand 
 and arm) are with man structurally united 
 with the head, while with all other mammals 
 they are structurally united with the body. 
 
 And — most important conclusion — this 
 freedom of the expressive agents, the hand and 
 arm, unlocks the human face, and makes it the 
 highest bodily correspondence of the Emotive 
 nature. 
 
 (c.) It is important here that the student shall recall onr 
 statement of the central law of the Being : — 
 
 Man is one in consciousness ; three in manifestation. 
 
 The dominations of the three natures are made visible 
 through the body by motion and form. Hence the posi- 
 tions and movements of the feet disclose the ruling states 
 of the Being. 
 
STRUCTURE AS DETERMINING ACTION. Ill 
 
 Delsarte divides the foot into three divisions : 
 front, middle, back. 
 
 I. When the Vital nature dominates conscious- 
 ness, form and motion are eccentric, and the 
 weight of the mass is thrown upon the front 
 foot. 
 
 II. When the Mental nature dominates con- 
 sciousness, the motion is concentric, and the 
 weight of the mass is thrown upon or towards 
 the back foot. 
 
 III. When the higher moods of the Emotive 
 nature dominate consciousness, there is equilib- 
 rium or poise of motion, and the mass is dis- 
 posed along the line of gravity, and is thrown 
 upon the middle foot. 
 
 {d.) It was said of the great naturalist Owens that by 
 the aid of the fossil bone of an extinct animal he could 
 construct the entire form as in those dim ages it walked the 
 earth. 
 
 And it was through a like power of inference that Lava- 
 ter said : " Hide the man all but his feet, and I will dis- 
 close him to you." 
 
 Said Bruyere: "The way a man takes his hat from a 
 peg shall make him known." 
 
 We give a series of nine indications of the 
 feet as showing ruling conditions of the Being. 
 
 I. Feet placed a little apart and pointing 
 directly forwards indicate rusticity, boorish- 
 ness, clownishness. 
 
 (e.) Let the student take these positions and construct 
 the figures * that the positions imply. He will find little 
 difficulty in giving some color of reality to his concepts. 
 
 ' Art is constractiye. She suits her forms to her premeditated 
 
112 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Snch is the unity of the organism that inference builds a 
 whole from a part. 
 
 Thus in the figure constructed above the feet as placed 
 in our first example; awkwardness and self-consciousness 
 arising from the Vital nature must impose awkward fonn 
 and awkward gestures ; even the voice will reflect awkward- 
 ness by its coarse quality and clomsy articnlationB. 
 
 And why not, if the body be the visible and actual corre- 
 spondence of the Soul? 
 
 n. Turn one or both feet inwards, and the 
 awkwardness disappears. 
 
 (y.) This position will be instantly recognized as " out 
 Qf nature." So the immediate comment is, " Here is phys 
 ical deformity." And our sympathy robs the indication of 
 awkwardness. 
 
 Besides, Nature delights in her " Law of Compensation." 
 And she almost always gives brilliant Mental qualities — 
 though not so uniformly Emotive qualities — to her club- 
 footed and hunch-backed children. 
 
 In the old Lyceum days no one thought Henry Giles 
 awkward, when with his club-foot he stumped about the 
 platform, with his soul aglow as he discoursed of the char- 
 acters of Shakespeare's plays. 
 
 III. Feet close together, knees slightly bent, 
 indicate want of assertion, fear of giving of- 
 fence, self-distrust, timidity. 
 
 (ff.) The different phases of passion shown by this indi- 
 cation have been in all ages a fruitful mine of wealth for 
 dramatic situations. 
 
 and selected environment. This is especially true of Dramatic Art. 
 Thus the impossible (in nature) stage Yankee, or Englishman, or 
 Irishman, is suited to his environment of canvas, gas light, and em- 
 phasized scenic effects. So the highest aim and effort of the drama- 
 tist is to construct, out of a thousand examples of natural display, an 
 art display in which a vivid sense of reality may pervade the crea- 
 tion. 
 
STRUCTURE AS DETERMINING ACTION. 113 
 
 The amount of " business " that an ingenious actor will 
 introduce in personating the timid, distrustful lover is some- 
 thing wonderful. 
 
 The novelist delights in such representations as Mr. 
 Toots, in Dombey and Son, going to propose to Miss Dom- 
 bey ; where the bashful lover's timidity and utter self-dis- 
 trust is sketched under the figure of continually falling into 
 and floundering about in a well. 
 
 IV. Feet wide apart, weight thrown equally 
 upon both, or change of weight from one to the 
 other, indicate pomposity, bluster, bragging, 
 bravado without bravery. 
 
 Add motion, and we have strides, swagger of 
 head and torso. 
 
 Add voice, and we have loud and blustering 
 tones, with wide slides but without real force. 
 
 (A.) "We need only refer the student to Shakespeare's 
 great creation of Falstaff. It is impossible to read the 
 lines, so perfect is the dramatic unity, without constructing 
 form, action, and characteristics. 
 
 V. Feet considerably separated, weight 
 thrown on advanced foot, indicate courage, 
 earnestness, eager attention, listening, desire. 
 
 VI. Feet considerably separated, weight 
 thrown on retired foot, indicate fear, retreat, 
 defence, preparation for flight, disgust, horror. 
 
 VII. Frequent changes of feet indicate psy- 
 chic disturbance. Light, purposeless, and in- 
 consequent movements indicate light, purpose- 
 less, and inconsequent moods. 
 
 VIII. Short, tiptoe steps indicate secrecy, 
 caution. Starting from the base indicates sud- 
 
114 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 den fright. Stamping indicates harsh author- 
 ity. 
 
 IX. Feet placed in accordance with Da Vin- 
 ci's technical rule for posing statues (see page 
 108), hody drawn upward along the vertical 
 line, torso advanced and slightly expanded, 
 indicate that some grand mood is dominat- 
 ing consciousness, such as a love of justice, 
 truth, or duty. It is the poise of the outer in- 
 dicating the highest domination of the Emotive 
 nature. 
 
 (i.) This disposition of the agents gives the grandest ex- 
 pression possible to man. It indicates the triumph of the 
 Soul over aU opposing forces. 
 
 "We wiU add a tenth indication as the antithesis of equi- 
 librium or poise of the agents. 
 
 X. The negation of expression, the language of vacuity. 
 A human house without a resident, a human form vdth- 
 
 ont rectitude. Less than the animal, which is guided by 
 that inflexible reason which we call instinct. Sad text, 
 comment, and illustration of our theory, that the exterior 
 is type and symbol of the inner. Here all the agents ex- 
 press — nothing ! for there is no thing to express. 
 
 What Being is this whose indications are negation, va- 
 cuity, aberration, semblance merely ? 
 
 It is the idiot. The vacant gaze of matter toward the 
 Spiritual ! 
 
CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 THE TOESO AND ITS EXPEESSIONS. 
 
 The term Torso had its origin in the fertile 
 soU of Greek art, and received emphasis from the 
 early Itahan sculptors, who made their studies of 
 the human form after the analyses of proportion 
 and symmetry left by the Greek philosophers and 
 sculptors. 
 
 The root word from which we derive the word 
 torso signifies " twisted," and the idea doubtless 
 arose from seeing a tree stripped of its limbs, and 
 standing, gnarled and twisted, a headless trunk. 
 
 (a.) In theoretic art the torso is composed of the body 
 without head or limbs ; but in art representations a part of 
 one or both arms (not forearms) usually graces the other- 
 wise inexpressive trunk, and suggests the play of the 
 shoulders. 
 
 The Expression of the torso as a division of 
 the body is Emotive; as that of the head is 
 Mental, and that of the lirnbs is Vital} 
 
 (6.) It is curious that a similar division of Outer and In- 
 ner is reflected in Greek art. 
 
 The Greek philosophers, Aristotle and Plato, taught a four- 
 fold nature of man. 
 
 * This is Delsarte's division, as reported by nearly all his represen- 
 tatives in America. Here, as elsewhere in our treatise, we use the 
 term Emotive, instead of the confusing and unphilosophic term Moral. 
 
116 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 1. There was the Inner Essence, or Soul, which was in- 
 destructible. 
 
 2. The Animal Soul (also essence), but grosser spirit, — 
 the instincts and passions, as in the brutes. 
 
 3. The Physical Nature embodied. An inner form of 
 matter, not seen by the eyes ; sublimated matter. This was 
 the direct agent between the soiil and body. 
 
 4. The Outer, Visible, and Sensible Body, or Phenome- 
 non, composed of gross matter. 
 
 The Greek philosophers made the head the 
 residence of the pure essence or Soul. The torso 
 was the seat of the grosser spirit, or animal 
 Soul. The upper part of the torso — the tho- 
 rax — was the seat of the nobler passions, with 
 the heart as its centre. 
 
 The lower part of the thorax was the seat of 
 the baser passions, while the abdomen was the 
 residence of the gross appetites and sensual pas- 
 sions. 
 
 And this philosophy dominated their art 
 forms. 
 
 The gods of the Greek were idealized types of 
 the human form. 
 
 The brow of Great Jove was high, broad, and 
 with the facial angle brought forward. The fea- 
 tures were in poise, impassive but full of con- 
 scious power. The head was an outline of mas- 
 sive strength. Thus the Greek concept of a god 
 was an apotheosis of the Vital and Mental natures 
 of man. 
 
 On the other hand, the face and brow of Apollo 
 are characteristically human. The elements that 
 
THE TORSO AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 117 
 
 marked the head and face of Jove as the features 
 of a god are modified and hiunanized. The facial 
 angle is not brought so far forward, the features 
 have lost their massiveness, and the impassive 
 poise has given way to suggestions of motion. 
 It is the Greek concept of man. StiU the Vital 
 and Mental predominate, with almost no trace of 
 the higher Emotive. 
 
 Note, in the form of the gladiator, the embod- 
 ied Vital and Mental natures. The thorax, full, 
 deep, and well set; the muscles like bands of 
 steel. 
 
 Mark, too, the animal significance of the 
 bloated abdomen and bulging thighs of Bacchus, 
 and the half -human, half -goat forms of the 
 Satyrs. 
 
 (c.) The Greeks were constantly solicited to the study of 
 art, especially of form and motion, by the most suggestive and 
 picturesque aspects of Nature, and by the most perfect tjrpes 
 of the human form, always present to them, and moving 
 with a freedom and grace unknown to modern times. So 
 the Greek analyses of proportion and form, more especially 
 as illustrated in architecture and sculpture, must long con- 
 tinue to rule in the realm of Art. It would seem the part 
 of wisdom to accept the keen insight and prophecy of the 
 most advanced race — certainly the most advanced in art — 
 that has yet appeared upon the earth. 
 
 So, if we discover in the physiognomists Lavater, Alex. 
 Walker, Eedfield, Huatt, or with the art writers Winckel- 
 mann, Ltibke, Ruskin, or such illustrators as Hogarth and 
 Dor^, or such teachers of Expression as Rimmer and Del- 
 sarte,' an intimate sympathy with Greek ideas, when con- 
 
 1 A fragment left by Delsarte, and entitled Episodes in the Life of 
 
118 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 fronted with the problem of human expression as a result of 
 the mysterious union of spirit and matter, we may recall with 
 a definite satisfaction the utterance of Paul, the great apostle 
 of Christianity, that 
 
 There is a natural body, 
 And there is a spiritual body. 
 
 The torso is centre of the body, and its centre, 
 the heart, is popularly considered the centre of 
 the Affections and deeper Emotions. 
 
 (i.) It is not without reason that we speak of the heart 
 as centre of our deepest Emotions. While as a physical or- 
 gan it is insensible to the touch, it is so connected with the 
 nervous system that all our intense physical pains or pleasr 
 ures increase its action. 
 
 Intense psychic states find immediate response in the vio- 
 lent beating of the heart, and seem to our consciousness to 
 locate themselves in the organ itself. 
 
 We cannot set aside this popular verdict. Such phrases 
 as "it will break my heart," "my heart leaped into my 
 mouth," or Shakespeare's reference to Csesar, "then hurst 
 his mighty heart," show the strength of the popular belief 
 that the heart is the centre of the Emotive Being. 
 
 a Bevdator, is a most eonvineiiig evidence of his methods of study. 
 The persistency with which he observed, and the power of analysis 
 which he brought to bear npon all psychic phenomena show concln- 
 aively that he adopted what is now known as ** the scientific method." 
 His laws were deductions from observed phenomena. In this rests their 
 valxte. How it is expressed always preceded the why with him. 
 
 So his statements seem empirical and often fanciful. Thns, in stat- 
 ing how two persons look at a picture, he says (p. 82, Delsarte System, 
 Werner, Albany, N. Y. ) : — 
 
 "When a painter examines his work he moves away from it per- 
 ceptibly. 
 
 " The picture dealer examines it closely, and with a magnifying, 
 glass in hand ; but this direct vision is a short and limited vision. 
 
 "The painter, by moving away, seizes, by synthetic vision, the har- 
 monious proportions of his work." 
 
THE TORSO AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 119 
 
 In Expression, we divide the torso into three 
 zones, — the Upper, Middle, and Lower. 
 
 These zones indicate through form and mo- 
 tion the state of Being ruling in consciousness. 
 They are also points of arrival or departure for 
 gestures of the hand and arm. Let us consider 
 the language of each zone. 
 
 II. The upper torso contains the lungs, the 
 organ of our breath, as the heart is of our 
 blood. 
 
 Gestures directed towards, or from, this cen- 
 tre disclose the Mental nature as ruling. 
 
 (e.) It will be noticed, as bearing upon Expression, that 
 while the action of the heart is not in the least degree con- 
 trolled by the will, our breathing can be instantly controlled. 
 But the acute physical distress that follows too long a reten- 
 tion of the breath — the sensation of stifling — is one of the 
 most terrible of our experiences. 
 
 It will be readily seen that this control df the act of breath/- 
 ing allies in-breathing and out-breathing with the Mental 
 nature, as the loss of all control over the action of the heart 
 allies its motions with the Emotive nature. So the objective 
 fact that we can control the action of the lungs corresponds 
 with the subjective fact that our controlled states show them- 
 selves through form and motion of the upper torso. 
 
 So our breathing becomes a representative phenomenon. 
 It is to our action what words are to our thought. If we 
 hear the breathing we know the character of the act. 
 
 These considerations make credible the affirmations of 
 Garth Wilkinson, " that our Mental nature walks up and 
 down through the arches of our respiration," and that 
 " every man requires to educate his breath for his busi- 
 ness." 
 
 m. The middle torso is the zone of the 
 
120 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Emotive nature. It is the seat of the affections 
 and higher emotions. 
 
 Gestures towards or from this centre disclose 
 the Emotive nature as ruling. 
 
 (/■) ^® have already stated, in paragraph (d), onr rea- 
 sons for making the middle zone of the torso the seat of 
 the Emotive nature. So fixed is the correspondence in 
 hnman nature that any other conclusion wonld he nega^ 
 tired by the gestures of aU races of men upon the earth. 
 
 I. The lower torso is the zone of the Vital 
 nature. It is the seat of the appetites and 
 lower passions. 
 
 Gestures towards or from this centre disclose 
 the Vital nature as ruling. 
 
 (ff.) We have the same popular conviction that the ab- 
 domen is the seat of the grosser appetites and baser pas- 
 sions that sustains the idea that the heart is the seat of the 
 affections and higher emotions. 
 
 Here are the stomach and other organs of digestion. And 
 the same reasoning upon the objective facts of structure and 
 function that brought us to conclude that the middle torso 
 is the zone of the Emotive nature drives us to the conclu- 
 sion that the lower torso is the zone of the Vital nature. 
 Said Bronssais : " The passions are the triumph of the vis- 
 cera over the brain." 
 
 It is not necessary to locate a residence for a 
 state of Being in any place or in any organ of 
 the body. But we can with confidence assert 
 — and ordinary observation will convince any 
 one who may doubt — that certain states of the 
 Being manifest themselves, and seem to do so 
 by preference, through certain divisions or zones 
 of the human territory. 
 
THE TORSO AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 121 
 
 (A.) This idea accredited to Delsarte will be found to 
 form the basis of the system of physiognomy of Lavater. 
 We quote that profound observer : — 
 
 " These three states of the Soul do not lodge in separate 
 apartments of the body, but coexist in every point, and 
 form by their combination one whole. Yet it is true that 
 each of these principles has its peculiar place of residence 
 in the body, where it in preference manifests and exerts 
 itself." 
 
 In view of the fact of a general uniformity 
 of Expression through these zones, common to 
 all races and to all individuals of any race, as 
 well as the fact that, through correspondence, 
 these zones are made points of arrival and de- 
 parture for a great number of gestures of the 
 hand and arm, the author feels justified in the 
 conclusions arrived at, which we will put into 
 three propositions. 
 
 I. We may say, speaking broadly, that the 
 torso as a whole manifests the Emotive state 
 of the Being. 
 
 II. Each of the three states of the Being 
 manifests itself, as if by preference, through a 
 special division or zone of the torso. 
 
 III. Each zone speaks its own language, and 
 not the language of another. 
 
 (i.) To the student who accepts the formidable array of 
 facts, marshaled in such logical order by Darwin in his 
 great work upon " The Expression of the Emotions in Man 
 and Animals ; " or who has weighed the convincing testi- 
 mony of Mantegazza, an eye-witness, who has made the 
 globe his quarry for data of human expression, — to such a 
 student it will seem entirely probaole that the great body 
 
122 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 of gestures now used by us to express psycMc states were 
 once of use to our remote ancestors, in the struggle of th.e 
 survival of the fittest. 
 
 Another great source of our expressions, undoubtedly, is 
 to be found in the reasonings upon natural phenomena pre- 
 sented to the undeveloped minds of primitive men. Thus, 
 primitive man saw that when the breath was out the man 
 died. So the breath was thought to be the Soul. He saw 
 the thorax heave in the last efforts of life to maintain its 
 hold upon the body, and when motion ceased, and all 
 was still, the alarming thought came to him that the man 
 within the body had gone out from his residence. And this 
 was fair reasoning from the data presented to his undevel- 
 oped mind. He pushed inference one step further. " He 
 will return," he said, " and be hungry ; " so he put food 
 upon the hearth-stone, and waited with a weary and par 
 thetic patience. 
 
 So, too, it was quite in the line of fair inference that the 
 heart, with its warmth of red blood and stir of life in its 
 rhythmical pulsations, should be considered the residence of 
 the warm feelings and generous passions. The affections 
 — judging from outward manifestations — seemed to dwell 
 in the heart. 
 
 The grosser offices and functions of the stomach and vis- 
 ceral organs connected with digestion suggested that the 
 vulgar appetites and coarse feelings made this zone the seat 
 of their activities. They were often personified, and dwelt 
 like real beings in this lower zone of the torso. 
 
 And with ourselves of this age and time, these crude and 
 objective ideas have become subjectively refined and won- 
 derfully expressive ; and through correspondence and anal- 
 ogy> through heredity and life experience, we emphasize 
 and repeat our states of feeling by gestures directed to or 
 from these zones. 
 
 What wonder that language, getting its greatest strength 
 and vigor from objective sources, and never so strong and 
 vigorous as when it can hold before the mind's eye the 
 
THE TORSO AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 123 
 
 form and motion of the actual object, delights to perpetuate 
 these correspondences ? 
 
 The student may well ask, with all sorts of confident sup- 
 port " in the nature of things," " Does all Expression rest 
 in Correspondence ? " And can we not confidently say that 
 the sensations of the heart, lungs, and viscera, which are 
 the seat of our greatest physical pains and pleasures, are 
 reflected subjectively in voice, gesture, and speech ? 
 
 We find space for two illustrations of the ex- 
 pression of the three states of the Being through 
 the three zones of the torso. In our first illus- 
 tration the gestures are directed towards or from 
 the Mental and Emotive zones. 
 
 Our first illustration is from Shakespeare's 
 Henry V., Act II. Scene 2. 
 
 The King has discovered the conspiracy of 
 Camhridge, Scroop and Grey. 
 
 Let the student recall the order of action of 
 the threefold Being. In psychic action the Men- 
 tal guides, the Emotive impels, the Vital sus- 
 tains. 
 
 Now, let us apply this order of action to the 
 lines which we quote on the next page. 
 
 The Mental takes note of existing relations, 
 as of king and people, notes consequences to 
 the state, duty of king as judicial head, dignity 
 of king as representative head, the enormity of 
 the crime, the punishment due, etc. 
 
 The Emotive gathers its strength from the 
 instinctive and animal roots of the Vital na- 
 ture. It becomes impulse to the severity of jus- 
 tice. As affection it will temper justice with 
 
124 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 mercy. This outflow of feeling invading the 
 Mental nature will give rise to that sense of 
 right and wrong which in man has become or- 
 ganized as conscience. 
 
 The Vital sustains all and urges action. The 
 simplest organism, as the monera or other pro- 
 tozoan, is always composed of centre, in which re- 
 sides life, and near environment or body, which 
 is controlled by its centre. This life element in 
 man is at the foundation of the psychic struc- 
 ture. 
 
 " K. Hen. God qnit yon in his mercy ! Hear yonr sentence. 
 Yon have conspired against our royal person, 
 Join'd with an enemy proclaim' d, and from his coffers 
 Iteceiy'd the golden earnest of our death." 
 
 Gesture of hand and arm towards the upper 
 torso upon the words " our royal person." 
 
 Gesture of hand and arm towards the middle 
 torso upon the words " golden earnest of our 
 death." 
 
 Here the state of Being is the higher Emotive 
 as ruling. The mode of motion is poise for the 
 whole body, concentric for hand and arm, eccen- 
 tric for torso. 
 
 Take a second illustration. The comment of 
 the three natures upon a glass of wine. 
 
 The Emoto-Mental would hold up the glass ; 
 look at the color and transparency; note the 
 stir ; move the glass to and fro under the nose ; 
 make placid the features ; close gently the eyes ; 
 smack the Hps with scarcely audible sound ; talk 
 
THE TORSO AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 125 
 
 and taste, taste and talk about vintage, age, an- 
 cestry ; call it " rare old Burgundy or royal 
 Tokay ; " sip, taste, and talk, and talk again in 
 endless disquisition. 
 
 The Vital is entirely straightforward in its 
 manifestations. It takes a tankard in place of 
 the glass, and the malt delight of Gambrinus 
 ' in place of wine. Round and round, with half- 
 closed eyes, it stirs the foaming beverage. 
 There is little time wasted in sesthetic observa- 
 tion of color or motion or bouquet ; tasting loses 
 its finesse in hearty deglutition. So the Vital 
 drinks for the stomach instead of the palate ; 
 stirs the tankard in Falstaffian rhythm; drinks 
 " with windy suspiration ; " smacks the lips ; 
 strikes with both hands the abdomen ; shows 
 satisfaction in inarticulate and sometimes porcine 
 sounds. 
 
 In noting the expressions of the torso through 
 form and motion, let us recall the three divisions 
 which include all gestures, and which the student 
 will find discussed at length under the Law of 
 the Personality : — 
 
 1. Bearings refer to carriage or mien. They 
 are the result of heredity, or long-continued 
 habit. They are permanent, and indicate char- 
 acter. 
 
 We grow insensibly into hearings. 
 
 2. Attitudes are arrests of motion. They are 
 comparatively passive, and show that some par* 
 ticular mood is dominating consciousness. 
 
126 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 We put ourselves into attitudes. 
 
 3. Inflections are fugitive, instant, or present 
 forms of gesture. It is the mood now ruling that 
 they express. 
 
 We are only semi-conscious of our inflec- 
 tions. 
 
 So it wiU appear that an ioflection may show 
 at any moment through the exterior. One can ' 
 throw himself into an attitude. He can fix him- 
 self in a posture. His bearing, or mien, comes 
 through repetition of action, — his own or that 
 of his ancestors. The form and motion of the 
 torso, then, will disclose the state of the Being 
 dominating consciousness. 
 
 We give a series of three attitudes of the torso, 
 and ask the student to carefully consider their 
 language : — 
 
 (1.) Expansion : Here both the form and mo- 
 tion indicate different degrees of vitality, power, 
 courage, vehemence. The Will active. 
 
 (2.) Contraction : Both form and motion in- 
 dicate different degrees of struggle, effort, pain, 
 convulsion. The WiU spasmodic. 
 
 (3.) Relaxation : Both form and motion indi- 
 cate different degrees of want of vitality, indo- 
 lence, prostration. The Will inactive. 
 
 We give a series of three Inflections of tho 
 Torso : — 
 
 (1.) Movement up and doion in a vertical 
 line indicates : Despair of the weak, distracted 
 grief, loss of courage and hope. 
 
THE TORSO AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 127 
 
 If the voice is used it takes the minor key, — 
 through all animal life the symbol of pain. 
 
 (2.) Side to side movement indicates : Happy 
 innocence, joyousness, carelessness, thoughtless- 
 ness of childhood. 
 
 If the voice is used it takes the major key, — 
 through all animal life the symbol of pleasure. 
 
 (3.) Twisting movements indicate: ChUdish 
 impatience of all degrees. 
 
 If the voice is used it takes the form of the 
 vanishing stress. 
 
 (c.) It will be noticed that these gestures are correspond- 
 encies of bodies in unstable equUibrium. Thus, physically, 
 rocking up and down is a giving up of poise, and regaining 
 it oidy to give it up again. What could better type despair 
 than this loss of bodily control ? 
 
 In rocking from side to side all the large muscles assist to 
 balance the body. 
 
 In the side to side movement of joyousness there is the 
 element of control and an example of rhythm ; the body we 
 know is in no danger of falling. It is dancing with rhythm. 
 How admirably it types the free joyousness of the child's 
 nature ! 
 
 The " twisting movement " adds abruptness to slight in- 
 stability, and shows that the disturbance of equilibrium is 
 slight. This gesture visibly types irritability. And the van- 
 ishing stress of the voice in complaint gives an audible sym- 
 bol of instability. 
 
 We give a series of six attitudes of the torso, 
 showing the relation of subject and object : — 
 
 (1.) Leaning directly towards the object of 
 desire indicates : Vital attraction. 
 
 (2.) Leaning obliquely towards the object of 
 
128 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 desire indicates : Attraction based on a recogni- 
 tion of the higher Mental and Emotive quali- 
 ties. 
 
 (3.) Leaning directly from the object indi- 
 cates : Vital aversion or repulsion. 
 
 (4.) Leaning obliquely from the object indi- 
 cates : Emotive aversion or repulsion. 
 
 (5.) Bowing directly before the object indi- 
 cates : Superstitious reverence and worship. 
 
 (6.) Bowing obliquely before the object indi- 
 cates : Katioual reverence and worship. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE HEAD AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 
 
 The naturalist Oken, walking one day in a 
 forest, came suddenly upon the bleached skull 
 of a deer. 
 
 Holding the skull in his hand, he was exam- 
 ining, in a meditative mood, its anatomical fea- 
 tures, when there flashed into his mind an iden- 
 tity of structure that had never before struck 
 him. 
 
 " This skull," he said, " is the four upper ver- 
 tebrae of the back-bone, arrested, distorted, fash- 
 ioned into plates, and put into spherical form, 
 diiferentiated for a purpose." ^ 
 
 Now, what seemed fanciful in Oken and 
 Goethe agrees with modern research; that of 
 Owen, and later of Broca, the most eminent of 
 French anthropologists. 
 
 The eight bones that form the human skuU, 
 and the fourteen bones that make the structure 
 of the face, are the four upper vertebrae of the 
 spinal column, differentiated from the structural 
 
 1 It is a little curious that Goethe discovered this identity at about 
 the same time. Eras of discovery are atmospheric. When aU the 
 occult conditions are fulfilled the discovery is made. 
 
 9 
 
130 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 type common to all land mammals, to serve most 
 important ends in man's slow advance from sav- 
 age to civilized conditions. 
 
 Indeed, to fit man, — not alone to rule aU other 
 forms of life upon the earth, — but to make any 
 advance possible, the nerve substance must be 
 concentrated, localized, expanded, and protected. 
 
 The intent of Nature was made apparent in 
 structure, when the four upper vertebrae were 
 differentiated into four enlargements or seg- 
 ments to localize, hold, and protect the brain 
 substance. 
 
 These segments of bone, thus expanded as 
 arcs and united to form the skull, are known as 
 the occipital, parietal, frontal, and nasal seg- 
 ments. 
 
 The fourteen bones of the face form cavities 
 in which rest the sense organs, or they project 
 rough points for the attachment of muscles. 
 
 (a.) In this spheroidal form of the skull there is to the 
 philosophic mind abundant promise and prophecy arising 
 from analogy and correspondence. 
 
 A wider vision than ours would be able to plainly see the 
 unity of the material and spiritual. 
 
 So we may without violence imagine a being from an- 
 other sphere, — an older world than ours, — with higher rar 
 tional and intuitive powers, examining a human skuU. 
 
 He would say : " This being who bore upon an upright 
 column this globe form was easily enough the ruler of the 
 earth, and bridged the chasm between the animal and the 
 rational soul." 
 
 Let us examine the human structure and mark 
 its points of superiority : — 
 
THE HEAD AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 131 
 
 All vertebrates, from lowest to highest, 
 through the whole chain of fish, reptile, bird, 
 and beast, are built upon the same general plan. 
 The structural type is permanent. 
 
 This is the general plan of a vertebrate struc- 
 ture: — 
 
 (1.) A column of jointed segments or bones. 
 
 (2.) A line or thread of nerve substance en- 
 closed within this column. 
 
 (3.) Certain arcs thrown out from the central 
 axis of the column to hold the life organs. 
 
 (4.) Certain lines, levers or shafts, four in 
 nmnber, disposed in pairs, and projected from 
 the axis of the column to form organs of loco- 
 motion or prehension. 
 
 (5.) And finally, a nervous system, separated 
 from the body cavity, with its centie located in 
 the head. 
 
 This is Nature's general plan of vertebrate 
 structure. It is in points of differentiation from 
 the structural type that we find the key to man's 
 supremacy. 
 
 Let us state the points of structural differen- 
 tiation : — 
 
 (1.) Man stands vertically poised upon two 
 shafts. He thus escapes the undue thraldom 
 imposed by gravity upon the other land mam- 
 mals who are tied to earth by four shafts. ^ 
 
 This is the key to his superiority and the visi- 
 ble sign of his liberation. 
 
 Two limbs are now free, and the face is ver 
 tical to the line of the horizon. 
 
132 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 The sense organs are grouped in close connec- 
 tion with the great central organ of conscious- 
 ness — the brain. 
 
 (2.) Man has, in proportion to size and weight, 
 three or four times more brain, three or four times 
 more thinking matter, than any other of the large 
 land mammals. 
 
 (3.) This thinking matter is convoluted. Like 
 leaves or plates, the white and gray matter lies 
 in the brain-case in folds or furrows, the gray 
 cortex covering the white and dipping down into 
 the folds. 
 
 A brain of few folds is dull and unintelligent. 
 There seems to be an unexplained correspond- 
 ence between the number, form, and disposition 
 of the convolutions and the amount of intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 (6.) Modem research abundantly fortifies these conclu- 
 sions. Said Broca : " Simple convolutions, developed unin- 
 terruptedly, and alike in both hemispheres, are character- 
 istic, in both man and other mammals, of inferiority." 
 
 And John Fiske : " The amount of intelligence is corre- 
 lated with the number, depth, and irregularity of the fur- 
 rows. In the brain of a great scholar the furrows are very 
 deep and crooked, and hundreds of creases appear which 
 are not found at all in the brain of ordinary men." 
 
 (4.) And finally, to mark man's preeminence 
 among his congeners, there is in his brain a lo- 
 calized seat for the faculty of language. 
 
 This faculty, according to Broca, has its resi- 
 dence in a very small division of the cerebral 
 hemispheres, particularly of the left hemisphere. 
 
THE HEAD AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 133 
 
 Its location is upon the superior portion of the 
 fissure of Sylvius, and it occupies the posterior 
 half or third of the third frontal convolution. 
 
 If this part of the brain is seriously injured, 
 the man can understand but cannot articulate. 
 
 (c.) It would seem evident that the being having these 
 advantages of structure would outstrip the other mammalia 
 through the evolution of the knowing faculties. 
 
 He alone of all the beings upon earth would seek to com- 
 prehend the relations of things about him. He alone would 
 question the why, whence, or where of his existence or des- 
 tiny, or form any conception of the vastness of such sub- 
 sistences as Time, Space, Force, Spirit, God. 
 
 The anthropoids nearest him in structure have never 
 known even how to use a staff, or build a fence, or plant a 
 kernel of corn, or kindle a fire, or make a dwelling that can 
 be dignified by any higher name than " a nest " — the name 
 given by Livingstone to the tree shelters of the Soko of 
 Central Africa. 
 
 All the evidences of structure, function, and adaptability 
 show that man's future advance lies along the lines of Men- 
 tal and Spiritual progress ; the emphasized Vital has al- 
 ready dropped out of the American and English Saxon. 
 The type of our ancestry has greatly changed. Ten or 
 twelve centuries ago, rooted near the earth in the Vital, our 
 ancestors fought like tigers, tooth and nail, — got their name 
 " Saxon " from the sword with which at a short arm's length 
 they hacked and hewed their foes. They boasted that their 
 ancestors drank blood out of human skulls. They were 
 frightful gluttons and drunkards. 
 
 So the type of men who followed "Wallace and Bruce, or 
 fought with main strength at Marston Moor, would be of 
 little service in modern warfare, where the profound strategy 
 of military science is complemented by the terrible enginery 
 of ironclads on the sea and Gatling guns on land. 
 
 At the commencement of the struggle for life man is the 
 
134 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 most helpless and defenceless of animals. "Naked and 
 ■without weapons " is Linnaeus' description of him. 
 
 As the babe of the nineteenth century lies in the cradle, it 
 holds in its little hands the ancestral threads of the race. 
 And it is soon made evident that the differentiation is to- 
 ward physical weakness, and toward mental and moral 
 strength. 
 
 The savage Vital has almost died out of modern man. 
 The keen edge of the senses that serve the animal nature is 
 blunted. , His limbs have lost their greatest activity. The 
 horse and deer easily outrun him. The dog develops a keener 
 scent. The eagle's vision is further reaching. 
 
 Ah ! with feeble limbs to pursue, feeble hands to seize, 
 feeble teeth to tear, it is evident that the Vital nature must 
 be complemented by other appliances. So he fits new lenses 
 to the eye, and counts a miUion of stars in the golden belt 
 of the Milky Way where the Greek saw only the glittering 
 pathway of the gods. He hears with the new ear of Bell or 
 Dolbear. He binds the wings of Mercury to the locomotive, 
 and adds to his speed. And, finally, he annihilates space, 
 and beats Old Chronos himself by sending a message from 
 London at noon to be read in Boston or New York while 
 it is yet morning. 
 
 We may study the head and its expressions 
 from two points of view : — 
 
 (1.) Through that which is fixed and perma- 
 nent, and which presents outline and form. 
 
 (2.) Through the play of the muscles under 
 nervous stimulus. 
 
 The fixed and permanent expressions of the 
 head are the result of structure. 
 
 So cranioscopy is an open comment upon race, 
 heredity, and habit. 
 
 And no object presents more subtle and perti- 
 nent correspondences than those prefigured by 
 
THE HEAD AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 135 
 
 this aggregation of lime crystals fashioned into 
 spherical form. 
 
 (d.) What a text for the moralist is this hideous colloca- 
 tion of hones — an unclothed skull ! 
 
 The marvelous organs of sense, the complex network of 
 muscles, veins, nerves, tissues, and skin have fallen o£E, and 
 long ago resolved themselves into dust. The color, the mov- 
 ing lights and shadows have vanished. Fortunate if this 
 hollow void and emptiness can revive memories of the illu- 
 minated face, pulsing with Ufe and aglow with passion ! 
 
 " First Clo. This same skull, sir, was Toriok's skull, the King's 
 jester. 
 
 "Ham. This? 
 
 "First Clo. E'en that. 
 
 "Ham. Let me see. Alas, poor Yoriokl I knew him, Horatio: 
 a fellow of infinit e jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on 
 his hack a thousand times ; and now, how abhorred my imagination 
 is ! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss'd I 
 know not how oft. Where be your gibes now ? your gambols ? your 
 songs ? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on 
 a roar ? l^ot one now, to mock your own grinning ? quite chap-fallen ? 
 Now get yon to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch 
 thick, to this favour she must come ; make her laugh at that." 
 
 In considering the fixed and permanent ex- 
 pressions of the head, we may say that there is a 
 pretty general agreement among those who have 
 given much thought to the subject, that certain 
 points of structure are indications of the predom- 
 inance of one or another of the three states of 
 the Being. 
 
 Without any attempt to exhaust the subject, 
 let us generalize a few principles based upon 
 structure : — 
 
 (1.) Among all mammals, the advance of the 
 lines of the head toward the vertical is the meas- 
 ure of psychic advance. 
 
136 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 The student can test this law by sketching hu- 
 man heads, where the forehead, nose, and chin, 
 each in turn, are made to depart from the ver- 
 tical. 
 
 He win find all forms of animal expression to 
 rest in the proportions thus sketched. An exam- 
 ination of classic heads in an art museum, or of 
 engravings of Greek sculpture, will verify our 
 proposition. 
 
 (e.) Camper's facial angle has long ruled in the world of 
 art as a measure of the amount of intelligence shown through 
 the structure of the skull. His method of determining the 
 angle was to trace a skull, draw a horizontal line, which 
 should pass through the ball of the ear and the sockets of 
 the front teeth. Upon this horizontal line raise a vertical 
 line, touching the teeth and the most prominent point of the 
 frontal bone. 
 
 This idea, it is said, was suggested to Camper while exam- 
 ining some antique gems. 
 
 He observed that there was a great gain in intellectual 
 expression when the line that touched the forehead and 
 teeth was nearly vertical. This he conceived to be the key 
 to the antique head. As the line fell from the vertical, the 
 head and face lost majesty and dignity of expression. An 
 angle of 70° gave the head of a negro ; of 60°, an orang- 
 outang ; and so on downwards. 
 
 A broader generalization will be accepted by 
 the student of evolution. 
 
 (2.) Brain development in man has been con- 
 stantly progressive, while with the other mam- 
 malia it has remained comparatively station- 
 ary. 
 
 All the mammals have the cerebellum and spi- 
 
THE HEAD AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 137 
 
 nal cord well developed. This disposition of 
 nerve substance serves a predominant Vital 
 nature. In man there has been a steady growth 
 of the cerebrum or fore-brain. And it is this fact 
 of the evolution of upper and fore-brain that 
 marks his supremacy. Both common and scien- 
 tific observation agree that we look for intellec- 
 tual expression in the approach to the vertical of 
 the forehead. 
 
 But we believe Alexander Walker, the Scotch 
 physiognomist, to have been the first to formulate 
 the law that, through form, indicates the inten- 
 sity and permanency of intellectual force. 
 
 (3.) Walker's Law : On the length of the cer- 
 ebral organs depends their intensity. 
 
 On their breadth depends their permanency. 
 
 (/.) We believe this law to be central in fixed expressions 
 of Form. The student in his study of heads will find abun- 
 dant proofs of its validity. Thus, the heads of nearly all 
 the noted poets, artists, actors, orators — the emotive men ; 
 men of quick sensibilities ; the men of sentiment — conform 
 to this law. If the head be measured with tape and line, its 
 form will verify this observation ; — that is, the cerebral re- 
 gion will show more height than breadth. 
 
 The' heads of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, 
 and Burns present notable examples of the rule of this prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 So, too, the heads of great lawyers, shrewd statesmen, 
 generals, architects, builders of railways — men of judg- 
 ment ; men of practical sense, " of hard common sense " — 
 vdU measure more In breadth than in height. 
 
 The heads of Stephenson and Watt among great archi- 
 tects 5 of Cromwell, Napoleon, and Grant among generals ; 
 of Girard, Vanderbilt, and Gould among organizers of great 
 business operations illustrate this law. 
 
138 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Another statement of Law will include both 
 forms of Expression, — the permanent as Form, 
 and the transient as Motion. 
 
 Law : The hereditary, habitual, and uncon- 
 scious activities of the Being disclose them- 
 selves through fixed and permanent forms. 
 
 The transient, immediate, and conscious ac- 
 tivities through motion. 
 
 This Law holds good in the eapressions of 
 the body as a whole, or of any of its agents. 
 
 (g.) Take as an illustration one who has made money- 
 getting the supreme end of his existence. Now, at the age 
 of sixty, this habitual and ceaseless psychic activity has made 
 fixed and rigid the muscles of the face ; and the lines and 
 forms presented declare him a miser. 
 
 And all the years of his ignoble pursuit he was chiseling, 
 day by day, a statue of flesh of repulsive aspect, adding to 
 the expressive lines of head and face by every miserly 
 thought and act. 
 
 We may now state, broadly, the expressions of 
 the head, presented by the cranium (the fixed 
 and permanent skull) through outline and form. 
 
 II. The expression of form and outline of the 
 forehead is Mental. 
 
 III. Of the arch of the crown of the head, as 
 far as the roots of the hair, is Emotive. 
 
 I. Of the back of the head is Vital. 
 
 We think this analysis of the expressions of 
 the fixed and permanent form of the cranium 
 will be found to agree with the scientific deduc- 
 tions of modern anthropology. 
 
 It is essentially the analysis of Lavater, and it 
 
THE HEAD AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 139 
 
 agrees with the broad deductions of phrenology 
 made by Gall and Spurzheim. Whatever differ- 
 ences of opinion may exist in regard to the empir- 
 ical conclusions of cranioscopy, which maps out 
 certain tracts of the skull as the domain of cer- 
 tain mental faculties, we believe scientific thought 
 to agree in the main with our conclusions. 
 
 (h.) Delsarte is credited by Delaumosne ^ with the divi- 
 sion of the head, including the face, into five zones. 
 
 We present a diagram of his scheme of the cranium and 
 face. 
 
 Each zone speaks its language through external form. In 
 this scheme I represents Vital, II Mental, III Emotive. 
 The exact statement of Delaumosne is : " The Life is in the 
 occiput, the Soul in the parietal, the Mind in the frontal." 
 
 These divisions of the head and face, accredited to Del- 
 sarte, are manifestly taken from Lavater. We think that 
 they will bear the test of critical observers of human ex- 
 pression, as well as of scientific deduction. 
 
 Let us now consider the gestures of the head 
 
 as an agent of expression. 
 
 Let us recall three propositions : — 
 
 1. JEacK zone of the head speaks its language 
 
 of expression through Form. 
 
 ^ See Delsarte System, p. 169, Edgar S. Werner, New York. 
 
140 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 2. £Jach zone speaks an expressive language 
 through Motion. 
 
 3. Both Form and Motion may be expres- 
 sive, as Eccentric, Poise, and Concentric. 
 
 When Form is presented, we infer ; when Mo- 
 tion, we know. Thus, given a retreating fore- 
 head, large cheek bones, and heavy jaws, and we 
 infer the amount, kind, and quality of intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 Motion, on the other hand, immediately trans- 
 lates the ruling mood. Thus, when we see the 
 fist clenched, the brow corrugated, and the jaws 
 firmly set we know the man to be angry. 
 
 We may study the gestures of the head from 
 two points of view : — 
 
 1. As an agent of expression through its un- 
 assisted movements. 
 
 2. As a centre of arrival and departure for the 
 gestures of the hand and arm. 
 
 (h.) In our discussion of the gestures of the hand and 
 arm, it will appear that our strictly Mental gestures tend to 
 arrive at, or depart from, the great Mental centre, the head, 
 and to coordinate the elements of Time and Space with the 
 motion of the gesture. 
 
 The head has three primary modes of mo- 
 tion to translate the three primary states of the 
 Being. 
 
 The modes of Motion and the states of Being 
 which correspond in gestures are : — 
 
 I. Eccentric Motion : which corresponds 
 with the Vital nature, and translates its ac. 
 tivities. 
 
THE HEAD AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 141 
 
 II. Concentric Motion: which corresponds 
 with the Mental nature, and translates its activ- 
 ities. * 
 
 III. Poise of Motion : which corresponds 
 with the higher Emotive nature, and translates 
 its activities. 
 
 We give the three primary attitudes of the 
 head, and the three states of the Being expressed 
 by these attitudes : — 
 
 I. The Eccentric Attitude elevates the head, 
 carries it high, and a little hacTcwards. 
 
 This attitude discloses the Vital state. 
 
 {{.) It will be noted that men of fine physique and high 
 health carry the head high. Also, that undersized men — 
 little men, who are ambitious — thus strive to initiate a vis- 
 ible correspondence of Outer and Inner. 
 
 Soldiers, hunters, and frontiersmen illustrate this attitude. 
 In such men Life, pure and simple, is strong. The Vital 
 stream is at its flood. 
 
 II. The Concentric Attitude lowers or bows 
 the head. 
 
 This attitude discloses the Mental or Reflec- 
 tive state. 
 
 (j.) Not alone the head but aU the agents illustrate reflec- 
 tion, meditation, absorbed thought through this mode of 
 motion. 
 
 The student may test this by earnestly assuming the mood 
 of deep reflection. The body will play its part in exact cor- 
 respondence with the intensity of the mood. 
 
 III. The Poised Attitude holds the head, 
 easily erect, in balance or equilibrium. 
 
 This attitude discloses the higher Emotive 
 Being. 
 
142 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 (k.) The student will note that this state of the Being 
 finds its correspondence in the balance or equilibrium of the 
 body. , 
 
 AH elevated moods of the Soul tend to equilibrium. The 
 body is poised with conscious strength in the highest mo- 
 ments of the Soul. 
 
 We present a series of nine inflections of the 
 head : — 
 
 1. A forward movement of the body, ending in 
 thromng the head backwards, indicates interro- 
 gation, surprise. With the chin forward, admi- 
 ration, expectation. With the torso forward, 
 sympathy. 
 
 2. The same movement with the chin lowered 
 indicates doubt, resignation, humility. With the 
 chin falling towards the chest, confusion, shame, 
 self-condemnation. 
 
 3. A forward, vertical nod of the head is the 
 sign of affirmation. 
 
 The side to side horizontal movement, the sign 
 of negation. 
 
 4. A sudden, oblique, forward movement of 
 the head indicates the menace of an angry man. 
 A slow, shghtly oblique, forward movement, 
 Starting from poise, is the menace of a resolute 
 man. 
 
 But if the gesture be a sudden oblique move- 
 ment backwards, it is the threat of a weak man. 
 
 5. An inquiry made with slight oblique move- 
 ment of the head, while slowly folding the arms, 
 is a menace. 
 
 6. The head lifted slowly, along the vertical 
 
THE HEAD AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 143 
 
 line, and thrown slightly backward, indicates ex- 
 altation. Thrown back with lateral to-and-fro 
 movemen't, self-esteem, boastfulness, self-suffi- 
 ciency. Tossed obliquely backward, dissent, de- 
 preciation. 
 
 7. Head thrown obliquely backwards, chin 
 raised, upper-lip raised — sometimes uncovering 
 the canine tooth, on the left side — indicates 
 hatred, disdain, contempt. 
 
 8. Head erect, then thrown backward with 
 violence, indicates horror. Thrown back with 
 slow movement, with eyes turned upwards, ven- 
 eration, reverence. In melancholy the head in- 
 clines downward towards the left side. In 
 malevolence the head moves horizontally to and 
 fro, the eyes partly closed following the line of 
 the horizon. 
 
 9. Head giving quick rotative movements, 
 with sudden oblique gestures, indicates impa- 
 tience, annoyance about little things. 
 
 The head and torso move at the same time 
 when the Mental and Emotive natures desire to 
 make one expression, and for the same purpose. 
 If now we suppose the Vital to invade the Mental 
 and Emotive zones, three gestures seem to act 
 in unison, and this with all races of men more 
 often than any others, and thus disclose the com- 
 plex psychic state. The Vital shows the high- 
 est activity through these forms. (1.) The 
 clenched fist. (2.) The closed teeth. (3.) The 
 corrugated brow. 
 
144 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 The hand and arm may emphasize all gestures 
 of the head and torso. 
 
 So, a purely Mental comment woidd be given 
 with a gesture of the head, the hand adding its 
 emphasis, the torso making no movement. But 
 an Emotive or passional comment would be ini- 
 tiated from the torso, the hand assisting, and 
 the gesture from the head coming last. 
 
 So, broadly speaking, the science of semiotics * 
 founded upon the analysis of Delsarte seems to 
 be well founded, that the gestures of the head 
 are Mental, those of the torso Emotive, those of 
 the hmbs Vital. 
 
 (?M.) The student should bear in mind that in expres- 
 sions of passion, under the impulse of Nature, no agent is 
 uninterested in the drama that is being enacted. Each has 
 its role. Each is master of its own effects. Each knows, 
 too, how to subordinate its egotism. To the principals the 
 chief role, to the subordinates inferior roles. AU must aid 
 to make the play a sustained, proportioned, and coordinated 
 whole. 
 
 Art forms its mimic display out of the ample and every- 
 where present material of natural display, and so it hap- 
 pens that Art, the most art-fuU, always affects us as Nature, 
 the most nature-full. 
 
 ^ Semiotics is the science of signs. The term is an excellent one in 
 the technique of expression. It signifies the appropriation of the sign 
 to the idea. Give the sign and you suggest the mood. This fitting 
 the gesture to the idea is Delsarte's discovery. Every mood has its 
 natural sign. To know the sign, to direct the agents to give the sign, 
 to coordinate nature and art through the sign is to master the science 
 and art of semiotics. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE HAND AND AKM IN GESTURE. 
 
 One day — more years now than the author 
 cares to be accurate about — his revered teacher, 
 William RusseU (who that came under the in- 
 fluence of this great teacher can ever forget the 
 charjn of his manner !) opened, before his class 
 of enthusiastic students, a rare old volume dis- 
 closing a full-page picture of an orator, stand- 
 ing, to all appearance, inside a globe and point- 
 ing with extended arm toward some letters (r. 
 oblq. u.) right, oblique, upwards, inscribed upon 
 the inner periphery of the projected sphere. 
 The teacher said to the class : " This is Austin's 
 Chironomia, and here you wiU find the best 
 treatment extant of the subject of gesture." 
 
 We attached little meaning to the picture 
 then, and have since had a suspicion that neither 
 the eminent teacher nor the author of the rare 
 volume found any deeper significance in that 
 pictured globe, inside which stood the orator, as 
 in a cage, than a convenient way of enforcing 
 the technique of the hand and arm in gesture. 
 
 Some years later we were reading, in an idle 
 mood, Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea," when 
 
 10 
 
146 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 a significant sentence of the great French writer 
 flashed a correspondence into our mind that had 
 never occurred to us. The sentence read : — 
 
 Man stands on one glohe and hears another 
 on his shoulders. 
 
 " Are all gestures," we asked ourself, " rooted 
 in correspondences between this material appear- 
 ance, our objective world, and our subjective re- 
 lations to these outer appearances ? " 
 
 We ask the student to ponder thoughtfully 
 our query. And as a stimulus to his thought, 
 let him reflect upon a few propositions. 
 
 1. There are three planes of vision. The 
 plane of EquaHty, of the Superior, and of the 
 Inferior. 
 
 Two of these planes form divisions or zones 
 of the visible hemisphere that is arched above 
 us. 
 
 Man alone surveys the three zones of the 
 sphere. Animals, bound by instinct and with no 
 conscious centre, see only what is. They survey 
 only the zone of Equality. Led by their sensa- 
 tions they Hve in the kingdom of here and now. 
 
 2. If an idea leads you, the eye moves up- 
 wards in space in pursuit. When you gain the 
 idea the eye moves downwards. 
 
 3. AU the phenomena of the imaginatibn are 
 in the spaces of the imagination. 
 
 4. In expression the line of the horizon is the 
 boundary of the positive and negative zones. 
 The zone of the positive extends from this line 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 147 
 
 through 90° to the zenith. The zone of the 
 negative through 90° to the nadir. 
 
 5. The hemisphere from zenith to nadir which 
 we face is positive in significance. The hemis- 
 phere at our back is negative in significance. 
 
 6. It is upon the revelations and implications 
 of the sphere that the different angles made by 
 the hand and arm come to have absolute signif- 
 icance in gesture. 
 
 So ascending angles must in the nature of 
 things express degrees of certainty and affirma- 
 tion. Descending angles must express degrees of 
 doubt and negation. 
 
 (a.) The diagram will illustrate : — 
 
 Zone of the Superior. 
 
 \ if 
 
 •■'^'?^t 
 
 Zone of Equality. 
 
 It iaso. 
 
 
 li *:.. 
 
 Zone of the Inferior. ^i ^\ 
 
 Let us reason upon the significance of this fact 
 that our gestures seem to bear a relation to the 
 figure of the sphere. 
 
 The globe upon which we stand, and its envi* 
 
148 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 ronment, is the world our senses have built for 
 us. 
 
 It is the physical and sensible apparition of the 
 mental philosopher. A world of matter made 
 known to us through impressions, received by 
 special organs of sense, which impressions are co- 
 ordinated by the central mass of organic nerve 
 substance, the brain. 
 
 Now the testimony, continual and persistent, 
 of these sense organs, led by the eye, is that we 
 stand at the centre of a limited and fixed plane, 
 with a dome of sky above, and shutting down 
 upon us like a huge inverted bowl. 
 
 In vain we argue that these are sense relations 
 which modern science has dissipated. They re- 
 main reaUties to the savage and to the civilized 
 child. • 
 
 Reason as we may, our every-day talk and ges- 
 ture betray us. We are in vernacular and at root 
 disciples of Ptolemy. Every day the sun rises 
 and sets, and the willing testimony of our sense 
 of sight is that the moon is larger than the day 
 star. 
 
 There is a constant tendency in us, which po- 
 etry and art foster, to revert to that early morn 
 of the race when appearances were realities and 
 the testimony of the senses final ; when the earth 
 was the centre, the sun and moon the greater and 
 lesser lights ; when the heavens were the " up- 
 heaved," and Hades the " cast down." 
 
 Thus are we inexorably chained to the rela- 
 tions of our environment. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 149 
 
 (&.) The crude conceptions of the most advanced writers 
 of the middle ages hardly parallel the concepts of the pres- 
 ent races of savages and of our children. For two hundred 
 years, including the sixth and seventh centuries of the Chris- 
 tian era, the ecclesiastic writers taught that the earth was a 
 squajpe plain, at whose outer edges rose mountain walls, sup- 
 porting the dome of heaven. 
 
 This dome was a solid crystal roof, wherein the fixed stars 
 were set, and over which the sun and moon were pulled to 
 and fro in' grooves by the angels. 
 
 Above this firmament, which separated the waters above 
 from the waters below, was the celestial cistern, through 
 whose windows the rain fell. 
 
 Above this was heaven, constructed with seven stories. In 
 the highest story dwelt Jehovah himself, seated on a dazzling 
 throne, surrounded by angels and saints. 
 
 Thus were the cahn and majestic appearances of the o'er- 
 hanging sky, which everywhere fills the natural man with 
 awe and wonder, tortured from their sedate and reverent 
 meaning to light the obscurity of a Hebrew text. 
 
 Thus it is a necessity that each man stands 
 upon the globe, and at the centre of . the Uni- 
 verse, and projects radial lines into the spaces 
 above and around him, and refers to aU objects 
 as here or there, near or remote, from where he 
 stands. 
 
 But the globe he bears upon his shoulders, 
 what of that ? 
 
 It is a world inexorably bound to matter, and 
 yet the farthest possible remove from it. A 
 world of concepts, — images of the actual, pic- 
 tures of the real, — projected in some way that 
 baffles science to explain, form the convoluted 
 cortex of the brain, every picture being some ka- 
 
150 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 leidoscope re-presentation of the forms, forces, 
 changes, and interactions of an environment of 
 matter. 
 
 And this is the world that man bears upon his 
 shoulders. 
 
 Let us summarize our conclusions arrived at in 
 two propositions : — 
 
 Prop. I. For each human being there always 
 and ever exists a visible, material, or objective 
 sphere. He is at its centre, and refers to all ob- 
 jects as filling its spaces, or as outlined against 
 its periphery. 
 
 Prop. II. Through the operation of psychic 
 law, and by a subtle process which we may 
 never fathom, the great knot of nerve matter 
 that fills the skull projects just such another 
 sphere ; its subjective image, picture, and corre- 
 spondence, with like periphery, spaces, and ob- 
 jects. 
 
 Now, bearing in mind the interdependences 
 and correspondences of these two worlds, which 
 are realities in every one's consciousness, let us 
 formulate three propositions bearing upon hu- 
 man expression : — 
 
 Prop. I. Man as a sentient being is both Im- 
 pressive and Expressive. 
 
 II. JETe must have the inward impression be- 
 fore he can give the outward expression. 
 
 m. Impressions always tend to manifest 
 themselves through some outward form, and, 
 when strong enough, always do so manifest 
 themselves. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 151 
 
 And, as a corollary from the above proposi- 
 tions, we add : — 
 
 Those races, or individuals, have most ex- 
 pressive power in whom sensations are most 
 frequent and active. 
 
 (c.) This tendency of the Being to reproduce through 
 form and motion what has been received through the sense 
 organs is central in expression. 
 
 We may say that the Psychic in man seeks expression. 
 As we have shown, its three forms are voice, gesture, and 
 articulate speech. Through these forms it seeks to make 
 itself objective. 
 
 But in the last analysis all is gesture. Voice is the ges- 
 ture of the larynx. Articulation, gesture of the mouth or- 
 gans. The face, a moving mirror of gesture. 
 
 We may divide all gestures into two classes : — 
 
 1. Gestures which m,ake reference to objects. 
 
 2. Gestures which express the states or con- 
 ditions of the Being. 
 
 In the first class we shall include the two kinds 
 of objects presented to consciousness : 1. Objects 
 of matter. 2. Objects of the mind. Or, objects 
 in real, and objects in ideal. The thing itself ; 
 its picture. 
 
 Let us consider the first class of gestures, and 
 the special instrument by which these gestures 
 are made. 
 
 There are two faces with which we look out- 
 ward upon the material world and inward upon 
 the immaterial world. 
 
 These faces are our faces and our hands, — ■ 
 the human face with its mental centre, the eye ; 
 
152 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the human hand with its revealing centre, the 
 palm. 
 
 These two faces are the most active of all the 
 agents of expression. 
 
 (d.) The face leads in expression, and the eye leads the 
 face. The face more completely manifests the ruling con- 
 ditions of the Being. 
 
 The hand manifests more completely man's comment upon 
 existing objects. It is an assistant to the expressions the 
 face has already given. 
 
 It does what the face cannot do : it can handle the object, 
 sketch it, and project it in form into space. 
 
 There is a wonderful comity existing between the three 
 great agents, — the Face, Hand, and Voice. 
 
 What the face cannot put into gesture is given to the 
 hand. What the hand cannot express is given to the voice. 
 
 These three agents, let it be noted, culminate their forms 
 of expression in the great songs of Liberty. Said Klopstock : 
 " The Marseillaise has cost Germany the lives of fifty thou- 
 sand of the best of her children." 
 
 The hand and arm, then, is the bodily agent 
 by which man makes real and present the objects 
 filling the spaces of two worlds. 
 
 Let us consider its fitness through structure, 
 function, and utility for its highest use, — that of 
 Expression. 
 
 Comparative anatomy has conclusively demon- 
 strated that the human hand and arm is the dif- 
 ferentiated fore-limb of a vertebrate animal. 
 
 The great naturalists, Owen, Agassiz, Huxley, 
 Broca, have demonstrated that essentially the 
 same structure of the fore-limbs is found in aU 
 vertebrates. 
 
TEE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 153 
 
 That the same bones which form the hand and 
 arm of man find their analogues in the fin of the 
 fish, the paddle of the turtle, the wing of the 
 bird, the hoof of the horse, the paw of the bear, 
 and the almost human extremity of the anthro- 
 poid ape. 
 
 In a word, these are, one and aU, prophecies 
 of the human hand and arm. 
 
 The perfect differentiation of the fore-limbs 
 into hand and arm came with the acquisition of 
 articulate speech, and both kept pace with the 
 differentiation of the brain. 
 
 (e.) Emancipation must have been Nature's purpose long 
 before it became realization. 
 
 And when at last man could assume T;he vertical and lift 
 his face above the line of the horizon, and could sweep with 
 his eyes all the spaces of the visible hemisphere, — when he 
 began to utter consonant sounds in addition to inarticulate 
 cries, — the fore-Umbs of an essentially anthropoid structure 
 kept pace with his emancipation, and released themselves 
 from taking any part in the lower office of the Vital nature, 
 locomotion, and slowly differentiated a human hand with 
 five sensitive lengths. 
 
 This differentiation of structure to fit a cor- 
 responding differentiation of brain substance, 
 and also of the trachea and mouth to fit them 
 for articulate speech, has kept wide open the 
 chasm between man and beast — a chasm which 
 it would seem impossible ever to bridge. 
 
 Huxley admits that he finds no germ of an 
 art faculty in brutes. Darwin says that he dis- 
 covers no sense of humor in the beasts. 
 
154 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 But the Abb6 Bourgois finds that the man of 
 the quaternary period, perhaps even earlier than 
 that dim era, sketched the hair-clad cave bear 
 and elephant upon ivory with flint points. 
 
 And modern science confirms the saying of 
 Democritus that all the senses grew out from 
 the finger-lengths, and were modifications of 
 touch. 
 
 Wonderful prophecy of art attainment written 
 in structure : — 
 
 The human arm is a thigh turned round/ 
 
 Technically, in gesture, the arm consists of 
 three lengths : arm, fore-arm, and hand. It is 
 a flexible lever, or rather a combination of lev- 
 ers, each with 'its own centre of motion, and 
 each capable of moving from another centre 
 than its own. 
 
 This arrangement of three radii and three 
 centres makes all forms of motion possible. 
 
 (/.) Professor Benjamin Peirce of Harvard University 
 has proved, by rigid mathematical process, that if a lever 
 be made to revolve on a centre, and its free extremity be 
 made the centre of motion of another lever while the first 
 is revolving, and if a third lever be attached to the second 
 in the same way ; not only the cycles and epicycles, by which 
 the old astronomers indicated the wanderings of the planets, 
 but all curves may be traced. 
 
 And if there is added a fourth, fifth, and sixth lever, the 
 tracing of all forms becomes possible. 
 
 Now, this is identically the system of levers and centres 
 found in the human arm and hand. 
 
 The fingers add the fourth, fifth, and sixth levers. 
 
 To man, assuming the vertical, with eyes surveyings the 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 155 
 
 three zones of Equality, Superior, and Inferior, with the two 
 fore-limbs differentiated, so that they may project radial 
 lines in all directions toward the periphery of the sphere, 
 what measure of progress is not possible ? 
 
 Let us indicate these three centres of mo- 
 tion : — 
 
 (1.) The centre at the shoulder. Here is the 
 centre of motion for the whole instrument. 
 
 The joint helping to form the shoulder is a 
 ball and socket joint. This arrangement gives 
 freedom and sweep of movement from this cen- 
 tre. 
 
 (2.) The centre at the elbow. Here is the 
 centre of motion for the fore-arm and hand. 
 Here we have the two bones of the fore-arm so 
 jointed with the bone of the arm as to allow 
 both a free, revolving motion and an outward 
 and inward motion. 
 
 This arrangement gives the important move- 
 ments of the hand known as pronation and su- 
 pination. 
 
 (3.) Centre at the wrist. Here we find the 
 centre of motion for the hand. Here eight 
 small bones are arranged in two rows, and are 
 so jointed as to allow two movements, a hinge 
 movement and a movement from side to side. 
 The centre of the revolving movement of the 
 hand is at the elbow. 
 
 Thus this instrument of levers and centres 
 combines all the necessary elements for strength, 
 ease, and gracefulness of motion. 
 
156 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 In directing a gesture outwards the arm ini- 
 tiates the movement. Then the fore-arm turns 
 on its centre, the elbow ; and last the hand, mov- 
 ing from its centre, the wrist, concentrates all 
 this accumulated motion into executive and sig- 
 nificant gesture. And so the hand climaxes ex- 
 pression. 
 
 {g.) The student will note that in man the evolution of 
 hand and arm is complete. 
 
 The bones increase in length and the muscles in size 
 from the fingers upwards. The shoulder projects beyond 
 the side of the body, the muscles of the chest and back aid 
 the motion. 
 
 There is the greatest freedom at the shoulder, the great- 
 est firmness at the elbow, the greatest strength at the 
 wrist. The whole instrument is at once a pliant chain and 
 a bar of steel. 
 
 What shall prevent the being with such formidable eman- 
 cipations from rulership upon the earth ? We may well 
 claim for him the significant term of modem anthropology, 
 and call him Aechont, the RtrLBB. 
 
 In considering the Knes of gesture, traced by 
 the hand and arm, we shall find the instrument 
 to be limited by two conditions : — 
 
 (1.) The condition imposed by its structure as 
 a part of the organism. 
 
 (2.) The condition of the restriction imposed 
 through our ideas of Space, Time, and Motion. 
 
 The instrument restricted by structure has its 
 vertical and horizontal limits. 
 
 Let us trace these limitations : — 
 
 The vertical sweep of the arm is from zenith 
 to nadir through 180° of a circle. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 157 
 
 The horizontal sweep of the arm is through 
 180° of a circle parallel with the line of the 
 horizon. 
 
 The diagram wiU illustrate the sweep of the 
 instrument through 180° of the circle. 
 
 (A.) We beg the student to pause here and consider the 
 significance of these lines projected by the vertical and 
 horizontal sweep of the hand and arm. 
 
 Let him note : 1. They are veritable arcs of a circle. 
 2. Their projection in all directions by the sweep of the 
 instrument constructs the figure of the globe. 3. Recall 
 Hugo's lines : " Man stands on one globe and bears another 
 on Ms sJumlders." 
 
 Now you are prepared to assist at a new creation. Stand 
 erect, point to the zenith with the fore-finger of the right 
 arm. Now give an easy sweep through 180° to the nadir. 
 Tou have traced an arc of longitude as upon a globe. Now 
 sweep the left arm in the same way as you have the right. 
 You have now traced two arcs and formed the grand circle 
 of your globe with its 360°. Now carry the right arm 
 across the chest and sweep through 180°. Face exactly in 
 the opposite direction and sweep through 180°. You have 
 traced a second great circle — the equator of your globe. 
 
 Now trace the lines of latitude and longitude, and you 
 
158 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 face a hemisphere. It is the hemisphere of the Positive 
 Zone. 
 
 We will suppose these lines of latitude and longitude to 
 have been traced with electric light, so that your hemisphere 
 remains visible. Turn right about, face directly opposite, 
 produce your arcs, both vertical and horizontal. You find 
 yourself inside a globe. Now, perhaps, you recall the fact 
 that many great philosophic minds — notably Aristotle and 
 Plato, Oken and Swedenborg, Goethe and Bohme — have 
 , made the globe the symbol of wholeness and entirety. 
 
 Let us play, for the nonce, the magician ! Expand near 
 lines into remote, near spaces into distant reaches, and you 
 find yourself at the centre. The visible hemisphere is above 
 and around you ; you even possess the stars of your new 
 creation ! All objects are filling spaces or are outlined 
 against the distant periphery. 
 
 Is there no prophecy lurking anywhere within the newly 
 created world you have thus swung out into space ? 
 
 The second limitation of the hand and arm 
 is the condition imposed by our ideas of Space, 
 Time, and Motion. 
 
 The whole class of ideal gestures are rooted 
 in the correspondences of these three great re- 
 strictions. 
 
 We have shown that Delsarte's Nine Laws of 
 Gesture can be justified only by reference to this 
 law. We shall discuss the subject at greater 
 length in a future chapter upon " The Realm of 
 Correspondence in Gesture." 
 
 We may draw the following conclusions from 
 our discussion of the relations existing between 
 the two worlds : — 
 
 1. That all objects, both of matter and of 
 mind, fill the spaces or are outlined upon the 
 inner periphery of a projected sphere. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 159 
 
 2. That all gestures referring to these ob- 
 jects will be identical; for the lines and spaces 
 of the one will be the lines and spaces of the 
 other. 
 
 3. That each line of gesture will have refer- 
 ence to a radial line projected from a centre 
 where stands the speaker. 
 
 4. ^ach gesture, referring to objects, will 
 have the three technical elements of Direction, 
 Place, and Extension. 
 
 (i.) It is not the author's intention to give, in this trea- 
 tise, the technique of gesture. 
 
 He would refer the student to Austin's Chironomia for 
 an exhaustive treatment of technical gesture. All recent 
 manuals of gesture are founded upon this admirable trea- 
 tise. 
 
 A definition and illustration of the three technical terms 
 that indicate the relations of objects to the speaker and his 
 audience will come within the scope of a philosophic treat- 
 ment of the subject. 
 
 1. Direction refers to some point upon a line traced by 
 the vertical sweep of the hand and arm through 180° of a 
 circle. 
 
 We name five points of Direction : 1. Horizontal. 2. As- 
 cending. 3. Zenith. 4. Descending. 5. Nadir (see p. 157 
 for illustrative diagrams). 
 
 2. Place refers to some point upon the line traced by the 
 horizontal sweep of the hand and arm through 180°. 
 
 We name five points of Place : 1. Front. 2. Oblique. 
 3. Lateral. 4. ObUque backwards. 5. Backwards. 
 
 Technically, then, points of Direction are points upwards 
 or downwards. Points upon lines of longitude. And points 
 of Place are points in front, at side, or backwards. Points 
 upon lines of latitude. 
 
 3. And the term Extension refers to the outlining, de- 
 
160 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 scribing, or emphasizing movement of the hand, by which 
 the speaker indicates the form, action, or some other prop- 
 erty of the object. 
 
 It will be readily seen that this technique establishes re- 
 lations of Time, Space, and Motion between the speaker, 
 his audience, and the objects filling the spaces, or outlined 
 against the periphery of a projected sphere, from, whose 
 relations and implications there is no escape. 
 
 When the orator standing before his audience has given 
 the object or concept Direction at some point upon a ver- 
 tical, and Place at some point upon a horizontal line, he fre- 
 quently adds an outlining or describing gesture of the hand. 
 And this gesture is usually the climax or most expressive 
 moment in the Time of the action. 
 
 Let the student apply this technique of Direction, Place, 
 and Extension to the following selection according to our 
 scheme : — 
 
 1. Project the svhjective sphere. 2. Locate objects in its 
 spaces, corresponding with like spaces in the objective 
 sphere. Note carefully the five points of Direction and 
 Place and the climax of the outlining or expressive action 
 which we have called Extension. 
 
 Scaling yonder peak, 
 I saw an eagle, wheeling near its brow 
 Over the abyss ; his broad expanded wings 
 Lay calm and motionless upon the air. 
 As if he floated there, without their aid. 
 By the sole act of his unlorded will 
 That buoyed him proudly up. 
 
 The student should mark that in all our ob- 
 jective gestures of the hand the palm rules. It 
 is the face of the hand. The palm leads the 
 wrist. 
 
 Whatever gesture traces an object, the pahn, 
 at the most expressive moment, faces or loots at 
 the object. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM {N GESTURE. 161 
 
 This is a courteous law in the etiquette of 
 gesture. Would you turn your back upon so 
 august a personage as a cloud-capped mountain ? 
 
 In technique, the fingers group themselves in 
 accordance with the analyses of the Greek sculp- 
 tors and orators, forever models of strength and 
 gracefulness. 
 
 The two middle fingers are held together and 
 are slightly bent inwards. The index and the 
 little finger are separated slightly from the two 
 middle fingers, the index nearly straight, the 
 little finger slightly curved. The thumb is held 
 backwards nearly on a line with the index finger. 
 
 (j.) A single caution should be whispered in the ear of 
 the earnest student of technical gesture. 
 
 "We put our suggestion into two apothegms : — 
 
 1. Conscious technique kills expression. It is the uncon- 
 scious that gives life. 
 
 2. A gesture put on is a grimace. It has no art express 
 
 n 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE GESTURES OF THE HAND AOT) ARM AS MANI- 
 FESTING THE STATES OF THE BEING. - 
 
 In our last chapter we included all gestures 
 through which man manifests himself in two 
 classes : — 
 
 1. Those which refer to objects, whether of 
 matter or of mind. 
 
 2. Those which more directly and intimately 
 translate or express the states of the Being. 
 
 Before we proceed to discuss the gestures of 
 the second class, let us review in a few proposi- 
 tions our conclusions of the last chapter : — 
 
 1. By " the nature of things " man is a being 
 limited by three great restrictions, Space, Time, 
 and Motion. 
 
 These restrictions are unavoidable, always op- 
 erative, unchangeably the same. 
 
 They are the expression and summary of the 
 inevitable. 
 
 2. Man, as we find him on this earth, is so 
 conditioned, so bound by what seems to be, that 
 he, as a necessity of this seeming, projects the 
 spheres of two worlds and is inexorably bound 
 to their centres. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 163 
 
 These two worlds are : The sense world, the 
 world of matter. 
 
 The picture or ideal world, the world of mind. 
 
 3. We know of the reality of the world of 
 matter through the conclusive evidence of our 
 senses. 
 
 And we know of the reahty of the world of 
 mind through the conclusive testimony of our 
 selves — our souls. 
 
 Of these two worlds the world of mind is the 
 most real, constant, and abiding. 
 
 (a.) Reflection will convince the thoughtful mind that it 
 is only the young to whom the world of matter is most real. 
 " Old age is our first lesson in living above the air," said 
 Garth Wilkinson. 
 
 Huxley quotes Descartes in justification of this idea. 
 He says : " The most elementary study of sensation justi- 
 fies Descartes' position that we know more of mind than we 
 do of body — that the immaterial world is a firmer reality 
 than the material. So long as a sensation persists, it is a 
 part of what we call our thinking selves, and its existence 
 lies beyond the possibility of a doubt. Our sensations and 
 their relations make up the sum total of the elements of 
 positive, unquestionable knowledge." 
 
 4. The lines of gesture, whether referring to 
 the objects of matter or of mind, are identical. 
 These lines have reference to the spaces and lines 
 of a projected sphere. 
 
 With this brief rcA^iew, we proceed to the con- 
 sideration of the hand and arm as an agent 
 through which the Being manifests its three 
 states or conditions. 
 
164 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 At a recent banquet in New York, complimen- 
 tary to Salvini, Dr. Oliver WendeU Hohnes thus 
 recorded the impression made upon him by the 
 great actor : " You might almost say his body 
 thought ! " 
 
 A paraphrase of the genial poet's fit eulogy — 
 removing the element of implied doubt — gives 
 us the central thought of our Synthetic Philoso- 
 phy of Expression. 
 
 "You may confidently affirm that the body 
 thinks," in the sense of ready assent and compli- 
 ance. In this ready response of the whole Outer 
 to Inner conditions, we find that in pantomimic 
 action the psychic approach is first shown in the 
 face, the eye leading the features. The hand be- 
 comes the agent for bringing aU objects into the 
 field of consciousness that are at such a distance 
 from speaker and audience as to require pointing 
 out, or bringing into the field of vision. This 
 law follows, whether the objects exist in the ma- 
 terial or the immaterial sphere. 
 
 We assert this to be the primary office of the 
 hand in the Art of Expression. 
 
 In the slow process of development, if we con- 
 sult the facts presented by the theory of evolu- 
 tion, we find the hand and arm, as an agent, 
 lending itself to the Vital uses of the animal. So 
 we shall find this agent, as a structure, has in 
 long reaches of time adapted itseU to its environ- 
 ment, and has shown (see page 99) a constant 
 and progressive development along the parol- 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 165 
 
 lels of Structure, Function, and Utility ; un- 
 til now, in the highest forms of Speech Art, it 
 becomes, next the face, the most expressive agent 
 the Soul has at its command. 
 
 Primarily, then, the hand and arm is the agent 
 of the Vital nature. It discloses the activity of 
 the Vital Being. 
 
 The fore-limbs of all the other land mammals 
 never release themselves from service to the Vital. 
 Their use is locomotion and occasional prehen- 
 sion, and their release in man came slowly and 
 painfuUy, and in exact correspondence with the 
 difBerentiation of the brain. 
 
 The story is told with significant force, when 
 we find that with the other mammals the fore- 
 limbs are united to the trunk and serve the body, 
 while with man the fore-limbs are structurally 
 united with the head and serve the Being. 
 
 So we may confidently conclude that the three 
 natures of man — the Vital, Emotive, and Men- 
 tal — will disclose themselves, not alone through 
 the body as a whole, through its separate agents 
 as parts, but also through zones of the separate 
 agents. 
 
 As we have shown in our last chapter, the arm 
 and hand, through structure, has three centres of 
 motion, — the centres of the shoulder, elbow, and 
 wrist. 
 
 Gestures from these centres translate the states 
 of the Being. 
 
 (fi.) It is reported from various sources that Delsarte 
 
166 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 taught the shoulders to be Vital in significance ; the elbow, 
 Emotive ; and the wrist, Mental. 
 
 The student should bear constantly in mind that such 
 broad statements, if they were given by Delsarte as a part 
 of a system of philosophy, must have been founded upon 
 data carefully observed, duly considered, and at length for- 
 mulated into conclusions that bear the force of law. Broadly 
 speaking, it seems true that in the gestures of the shoulders 
 the Vital nature predominates ; in those of the elbow, the 
 Emotive ; in those of the wrist, the Mental.^ 
 
 Let the student suspend judgment until he shall have 
 thought through a great number of analogies and correspon- 
 dences that lie near the surface of our subject ; he will thus 
 refresh himself for the study of some years that must pre- 
 cede his enlightenment. 
 
 Let US consider each tract or division of this 
 agent, and see what grounds founded on struc- 
 ture, function and utility there may be for the 
 higher use of the instrument in Expression. 
 
 OF THE SHOULDERS. 
 
 The gestures of the shoulders are Vital in sig- 
 nificance. It is true that our strongest emotions 
 also move the shoulders ; but the logic of struc- 
 ture seems here apparent, and if forced to classify 
 we must decide them to be Vital. The torso and 
 shoulders are knit together by strong bands of 
 
 ' While this treatise is going through the press, Miss Genevieve 
 Stebbins' Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression (Edgar S. Werner, 
 New York) is before the author. The lady is supposed to reflect^ 
 mainly, the theories of Delsarte, as held by Mr. Steele Mackaye. 
 
 We quote Miss Stebbins (p. 107) : — 
 
 1. The shoulder is the thermometer of sensibility and passion. 
 
 2. The elbovr is the thermometer of the affections and self-wiU. 
 
 3. The wrist is the thermometer of Vital energy. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 167 
 
 muscles, and act together in all Vital move- 
 ments. 
 
 When the torso is dUated and pushed forward, 
 the shoulders accommodate themselves to the 
 movement and are thrown backward. 
 
 The square shoulders, with chest eccentric, are 
 Vitally aggressive. This is the military attitude. 
 
 The shoulders brought forward, with chest con- 
 centric, are everywhere signs of physical and 
 psychic weakness and suffering. 
 
 With three agents in concentric action, viz., 
 the head, torso, and shoulders, we have the lan- 
 guage of despair. 
 
 (c.) The Mental and Emotive blends, or composite ges- 
 tures, springing from the Vital genus, are full of expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Both Delaumosne and Arnaud have called the shoulders 
 the thermometer of the passional life. 
 
 This seems a happy term. For the shoulders seem to be 
 a veritable register of the intensity of passion. In the heat 
 of passion this Vital thermometer marks degrees. Thus, 
 slight sensibility is indicated by slight shoulder movements. 
 In great passions the shoulders disclose a wonderful freedom 
 of gesture ; sometimes the shoulders are thrown upwards to 
 the ears. 
 
 Sulky and obstinate children often raise high the shoulders. 
 This means passionate resistance. 
 
 It is a blend of the Emotive and Vital states. In ver- 
 nacular there is truth. The street gamin's description of 
 his fight is full of literal and exact truth : " I got my back 
 up, humped myself, and pitched in ! " In Sir Charles Bell's 
 * Anatomy of Expression," the student will note a life-like 
 figure of a man shrinking back in abject terror from some 
 fearful danger. His shoulders are lifted to his ears, and the 
 expression of intensity strikes the observer. 
 
168 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 And Darwin somewhere quotes from that close observer of 
 human moods, the authoress of " The Brownlows," this de- 
 scription of a youth who determines not to obey : — 
 
 " He thrust his hands deep down into his pockets, and set 
 up his shoulders to his ears, as much as to say, ' Come right, 
 come wrong, this rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as 
 Jack would.' " But as soon as the child " got his own 
 way," he put his shoulders into their natural position. 
 
 A blend or composite gesture of the shoulders, 
 the shrug, has great significance. 
 
 Vital at root, it shows an invasion of the Men- 
 tal nature. The Mental rules in this expression. 
 It is rarely used in high Emotive states. It al- 
 most always is used in connection with turning 
 outwards the hands to show the pahns, as much 
 as to say, " You see I am wholly helpless ! " So 
 this gesture expresses with great force helpless- 
 ness, inability, impotence. 
 
 It presents strongly another Mental phase. It 
 is, universally among the Latin races, the sym- 
 bol of patience. Hence the artist's term, "pa- 
 tience muscles," apphed to the muscles which 
 raise the shoulders. 
 
 Shakespeare makes Shylock say : — 
 
 " Signior Antonio, many a time and oft, 
 In the Bialto you hare rated me 
 About my moneys and my usances ; 
 Still have I borne it toith a patient shrug; 
 For sufferance is the badge of aU our tribe." 
 
 Reasoning from structure, function, and util- 
 ity, the primary and natural language of this 
 agent would seem to be Vital, the Mental and 
 Emotive natures disclosing themselves through 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 169 
 
 this agent as blends or composites. So we may 
 have from the shoulders gestures from the Vital 
 nature as their natural and primary expression, 
 and blends or composite gestures showing inva- 
 sions from the Mental and Emotive into the Vital 
 Being. 
 
 And these gestures, like those of all the agents, 
 are translated through three primary forms of 
 motion, — eccentric, concentric, and poise, — and 
 through the blends or composites of these pri- 
 mary forms. 
 
 OP THE ELBOW. 
 
 The gestures of this agent are Emotive in their 
 significance. 
 
 The language of gestures from this second 
 centre of motion of the fore-limb is, with aU 
 mammals save man. Vital in significance. In all 
 land mammals it is one remove from the centre 
 of motion nearest the body, and in most it is the 
 first free centre, — the centre nearest the body 
 being bound closely to the side. 
 
 In man the assumption of the vertical and the 
 liberation of the fore-limbs has given three free 
 centres. 
 
 We may formulate this freedom of expressive 
 man thus : — 
 
 THE FREEDOM OF THE THREE CENTRES. 
 
 I. The Vital moves all parts of the armff^om 
 the centre at the shoulder. 
 
170 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 rn. The Emotixie from the centre at the eh 
 how. 
 
 II. The Mental from the centre at the wrist. 
 
 So, the Vital nature moves the greatest mass, 
 and the Mental nature the least mass. 
 
 A curious relation of intelligence to mass in 
 a mammal is seen in the gestures of the ear of 
 the horse. 
 
 (d.) These three centres translate the three states of the 
 Being. The Emotive is the middle term in the applied 
 logic of expression. So we repeat our statement that the 
 shoulder manifests the Vital nature, the wrist the Mental, 
 and the elbow (the middle centre of motion) the Emotive. 
 
 And this agent, as all the other agents, has three primary- 
 motions — the eccentric, poise, and concentric — and the 
 blends or composites of these primaries. 
 
 We give the language of the three primary 
 gestures of this agent : — 
 
 1. The elbow in poise indicates ease, self- 
 possession, calmness, an equable temper, mod- 
 esty. 
 
 2. The elbow eccentric (turned outwards) in- 
 dicates strength, audacity, arrogance, abrupt- 
 ness. 
 
 3. 77ie elbow concentric (turned inwards) 
 indicates impotence, constraint, subordination, 
 weakness, humility. 
 
 (e.) The student will note that these inflections are im- 
 mediate correspondences and reveal the state of the Being 
 that dominates consciousness at the instant. 
 
 Nor should these gestures be taken alone, for it is 
 through the aid of assisting agents that the gestures of any 
 single agent get their highest significance. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. Ill 
 
 Thus, in the instance of a man preparing to fight, the 
 torso, head, shoulders, fists, as well as the elbows, are ec- 
 centric in form and motion. 
 
 The nature of the fight he is about to enter will inevita- 
 bly show itself through the comment of assisting agents. 
 The finest comment from the Mental and higher Emotive 
 will declare itself through the face, and the comment of the 
 Vital will be shown through the clenched fist (never absent 
 in Vital action) and the firm set teeth on the left side of the 
 rrumth. 
 
 Bulwer, in " Kenelm Chillingly," has finely made this dis- 
 tinction between Vital and higher forms of aggressive ac- 
 tion. He says : " The natural desire of man in his attri- 
 bute as fighting animal is to heat his adversary. But the 
 natural desire of that culmination of man which we call 
 gentleman is to beat his adversary /airZy." 
 
 We may then decide that the gestures of the 
 elbow are at root Emotive in significance, and 
 that the Vital and Mental natures show them- 
 selves as blends or composites. 
 
 OF THE WEIST. 
 
 The wrist is the centre of motion for the 
 hand. As we have indicated in another part of 
 this work, its structure conclusively shows that 
 it is guide and directing agent for the hand. 
 
 It accumulates the motion of the two upper 
 centres and reproduces both the freedom of the 
 shoulder and the firmness of the elbow. In con- 
 nection with the rotary motion it makes possi- 
 ble aU forms of presentation of the hand. We 
 have the implied authority of Mantegazza, that 
 the language of the wrist ?s Mental in signifi- 
 
172 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 cance. Indeed, its pliability, its suppleness, its 
 directive power, its wonderful strength, its rela- 
 tive position to the elbow and shoulder, all tend 
 to confirm the conclusion of this profound ob- 
 server. 
 
 (/.) The student hardly needs to be told that the orator 
 must have great suppleness and freedom at the wrist. An 
 awkward wrist will spoil a graceful hand. Kemember, the 
 grace of presentation is in the wrist. 
 
 OF THE HASI>. 
 
 Next the face the hand is the most expressive 
 agent at man's command. It is interpreter of 
 all languages. It is translator of all tongues. 
 With the aid of the face it can disclose all 
 moods of the soul. 
 
 And its structure predicts its importance in 
 the economy of art, as well as its more evident 
 importance in the economy of life. 
 
 Let us formulate these points of structure : — 
 
 1. The hand is a structure forming the end 
 of a pliant chain with Jive sensitive lengths, 
 and capable of the widest and freest range of 
 motion. 
 
 2. The hones of the arm and hand decrease 
 in length and size from, the shoulder down- 
 wards. This structure gives an instrument 
 capable of projecting radial lines ; each seg- 
 ment, from the shoulder downwards to the tips 
 of the fingers, form,ing an independent radius. 
 
 3. As the bones of the structure decrease, 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 173 
 
 in length, size, and strength, the muscles and 
 nerves increase in complexity and distribution. 
 
 Now, given such an instrument — capable of 
 executing all forms of motion — and endowed by 
 its nervous structure with a fine sensibility; and 
 further, set this instrument out and away from 
 the great centres, the torso and the head, what 
 would a philosopher from another sphere infer 
 as to its place among the expressive g,gents? 
 
 "Ah!" he would exclaim, "such a formidable 
 instrument could only be of service to a being 
 of high endowments. Such a being would make 
 a ready acquaintance with its environment, and 
 would soon outstrip in intelligence all other be- 
 ings bearing the same general structure." 
 
 We may trace man's advance from brute con- 
 ditions in these successive differentiations of 
 wrist, palm, thumb, and four sensitive lengths. 
 No correspondence is plainer than that existing 
 between the intelligence and the hand. The 
 kind, quality and amount of intelligence in the 
 lower animals is plainly indicated by the struc- 
 ture of the part answering to the human hand. 
 Anaxagorus said, with wonderful prevision : 
 " Animals would have been men had they had 
 hands." 
 
 (g.) That the sense of touch should be the measure of 
 intelligence in the animal is a necessity of a nervous struc- 
 ture acted upon by an environment of matter and force. 
 
 Herbert Spencer has shown, by a wonderful chain of in- 
 ductive reasoning from natural facts, that in the sense of 
 touch commenced the evolution of the other senses. 
 
174 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 In touch, we still find our strongest verification for our 
 other sense impressions. 
 
 Take a few examples from the great scientist's Ulustrar 
 tions. It wiU be admitted that, among birds, parrots show 
 the greatest amount of intelligence. This difference rests 
 in the greater development of the tactual organs. Few 
 birds can grasp and lift an object with one foot while stand- 
 ing upon the other. The parrot does this with ease. The 
 tongue, too, of the parrot is large, free, and constantly in 
 use. But, more than all, what it can grasp it can raise 
 freely to its beak, so it easily touches with beak and tongue 
 what its hand already grasps. 
 
 So among mammals, as a general rule, those whose limbs 
 terminate in digits are more intelligent than those with 
 hoofs. Thus the cat, the dog, the fox, show a higher intel- 
 ligence than the ox, the sheep, the deer. 
 
 Five sensitive toes are better than one or two masses of 
 horn to receive complex impressions. But most conclusive 
 of all is the hand of the half-reasoning elephant. The 
 trunk of this animal proclaims its superior sagacity. It 
 has entire freedom of pliant movement. It can project its 
 single arm into space, and with its hand touch all parts of 
 its body. With its hand it acquires a knowledge of form 
 and weight. It tests the strength of the bridge it must 
 cross. It gets an idea of motion by fanning itself with 
 branches of trees it breaks off ; of hydrostatics and aero- 
 statics by raising and throwing water over its back and by 
 trumpeting forth blasts of air. 
 
 In the anthropoids points of structure proclaim the ani- 
 mal's limitations. In the acts of prehension and locomo- 
 tion the anthropoid is greatly superior to man. All the 
 limbs end in Vital hands. And there is no doubt that the 
 ape has perceptions of size, form, hardness, weight, flexi- 
 bility, and tenacity. Bound to the Vital zone, its expressions 
 are Vito- Vital in significance. 
 
 We may conclude, then, from our considera- 
 tion of the structure of the instrument, that the 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 175 
 
 human hand will disclose a vast number o£ cor- 
 respondences existing between the soul, the body, 
 and the remote environment. Hence Delsarte 
 said of the hand that it is the intermediate agent 
 of the Soul. 
 
 In disclosing inner states we have called the 
 language of the shoulder Vital, of the elbow 
 Emotive, of the wrist Mental. 
 
 Which of the three states of the Being does 
 the hand disclose? We answer. Each and the 
 three. Like the will it lends itself to the state 
 of the Being while in action. And we may say 
 that the hand is the intermediate agent in bodily 
 movements, as the will is the intermediate agent 
 of the three states of the Being. 
 
 The hand epitomizes the body. Like the body 
 it has its zones or divisions through which the 
 states of the Being seem to manifest themselves 
 by preference. 
 
 We may call this preference of the Psychic 
 for a certain tract of the hand, or of any other 
 zone of the body, the natural language of that 
 division. So we may say without violence tha-t* 
 the natural language of the head is Mental, of 
 the torso Emotive, of the limbs Vital. And we 
 shall find ample grounds for like conclusions in 
 regard to the language of the hand. 
 
 We make a threefold division. The palm is 
 Emotive, the thumb is Vital, the forefinger is 
 Mental ; the second and third (the ring finger), 
 taken together, are Emotive, and the little finger 
 is sensitively Mental 
 
176 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Let us consider these tracts of the hand sepa- 
 rately. We will make our observations from 
 three points of view: (1.) Through points of 
 structure and function. (2.) Through suggested 
 correspondences. (3.) Through modes of mo- 
 tion. 
 
 OF THE PALM. 
 
 We have declared the natural language of the 
 palm Emotive. Let us see if we can find good 
 reason for giving this large tract of the hand to 
 the Emotive Being. 
 
 (1.) Structure. The microscope is said to dis- 
 close the fact that the pores of the skin are more 
 numerous in the palm than in any other region 
 of the hand. 
 
 Function. Through the pores of the skin a 
 large amount of waste matter is thrown off. 
 
 (2.) Correspondence. These facts of structure 
 and function would seem to give a physical and 
 structural basis for the widely entertained idea 
 that emanations from our affectional or spirit- 
 ual natures go forth from the palms of the 
 •hands more copiously than from any other part 
 of the body. 
 
 (Ji.) The student will note how general and wide-spread 
 are these correspondences, founded in structure and func- 
 tion. Thus the laying on of hands, to signify the giving of 
 spiritual force, has been a leading ceremony in all the great 
 religions of the world. The placing of the palms upon the 
 head, in blessing, has been the strongest token of affection 
 with the leading races of mankind. Jacob and Christ 
 blessed with the hands. The closing exercise in our 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 177 
 
 churches is not an unmeanuig one ; the willing of good with 
 extended arms and open palms upon the whole people is 
 heneficent giving. Add the outgoing breath to the palm 
 turned outward, and you have the spiritual blessing the hu- 
 man.^ 
 
 (3.) Motion. The presentation of the pahn is 
 full of significance. Through structure and mo- 
 tion the palm is enabled to make three presenta- 
 tions : 1. The palm prone. 2. Supine. 3. Ver- 
 tical. Each of these presentations speaks its own 
 language. Each is a revelation of the Psychic. 
 
 The natural language of the prone palm is re- 
 pression ; of the supine, releasing or giving ; of 
 the vertical, repelling. 
 
 The supine permits. It says : " Yes, take, I 
 give." The prone prohibits. It says : " No, I 
 forbid." The vertical repels. It says : " Go, 
 I push you away." Again : the supine is impul- 
 sive, the prone compulsive, the vertical repel- 
 ling- 
 
 The right hand uplifted, palm vertical, epito- 
 mizes both body and Being. It represents both 
 the exterior and the. interior as one. It says : 
 " I take this oath. I solemnly swear. I call 
 God to witness and so manifest, or show my hand 
 
 ^ We find in the most recent treatise upon the Delsarte system, 
 Miss Genevieve Stebhins' hook (see p. 89), that the natural language 
 of the palm is given as Vital. This is supposed, also, to be Mr. Steele 
 Mackaye's idea. We quote Miss Stebbins : " The palm is Vital in 
 nature, revelatory in expression.'* 
 
 From the first part of this statement we feel obliged to dissent for 
 reasons just stated. With the second part of the proposition we can 
 agree ; if the word ' ' revelatory ' ' (newly introduced into the English 
 lan^age by the authoress) he a synonym for "revealing." 
 12 
 
178 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 openly, to signify that my whole Being is in the 
 act." 
 
 Thus we conclude the language of the pahn to 
 be Emotive in its significance. 
 
 OF THE THUMB. 
 
 Structure. A glance at the structure of the 
 thumb discloses its natural language. It is Vi- 
 tal. It possesses the strength of aU the fingers. 
 Its bones are larger than those of the other 
 lengths. It has greater compactness, in that it 
 has but two lengths and two joints instead of 
 three. It is bound firmly to the side of the hand, 
 and receives and communicates the rotary motion 
 of the elbow. It easily opposes and touches the 
 extremes of each finger, and can describe two 
 hal£ circles, — one by a movement from its own 
 centre, the other by a movement in connection 
 with the motion from the centre at the elbow. 
 
 Its fleshy ball is the distinguishing character- 
 istic of the human thumb. Indeed, this muscle 
 may be said to make the extremity human. The 
 chimpanzee, whose hand is nearest human, is 
 bound to the Vital by the fatal limitation of a 
 dwarfed thumb and ball. 
 
 FiuaUy, structure indicates that, through posi- 
 tion, size, free lateral movement, perfect mobility, 
 power to oppose itself to the more sensitive 
 lengths, the thumb may be classed as Vital in 
 significance. 
 
 Correspondences. The correspondences that 
 have crept into language are significant. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 179 
 
 We say o£ a human tool that he was completely 
 " under the thumb " of the man who used him. 
 The Roman nobles, sitting in state at the glad- 
 iatorial shows, showed mercy by turning the 
 thumb. 
 
 If they decreed the death of the prostrate glad- 
 iator, they held up their thumbs in the air. The 
 thumb turned down was the signal to save him. 
 
 (i.) Shakespeare makes the witches in Macbeth scent evil 
 through the thumbs : — 
 
 "By the pricking of my thumbs 
 Soiuething wicked this way comes." 
 
 And SO the servants of the two rival houses of Montague 
 and Capulet showed their vital hatred : — 
 
 " ' Do you hite your thiraib at us ? ' 
 ' We bite our thumbs ! ' " 
 
 The thumb is the Vital agent of the will. 
 When the two other agents of the will act with 
 it, it is well to retire from the contest ! For the 
 corrugators that mark vertical wrinkles upon the 
 forehead between the eyes is will manifesting 
 from the Emoto-Mental Being. And now, if the 
 canine teeth meet with Ups tense, we have will 
 born of the carnivora, — the most animal of our 
 expressions of will. This last expression we may 
 call Vito-Vital. 
 
 OF THE FINGERS. 
 
 Structure. We have already indicated, per- 
 haps at sufficient length, the points of structure 
 of the fingers. From the shoulder downwards 
 
180 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the bones have decreased in length, and the mas' 
 cles and nerves have increased in fineness and 
 complexity. We have now reached in these five 
 sensitive lengths, the fingers, a great physical 
 complexity of bones, muscles, and nerves. 
 
 To add to its sensitiveness and delicacy of 
 discrimination, each finger has a little knot of 
 nerves upon its inner extremity, fibres of which 
 intertwine with the fibres of the muscles. 
 
 This uniting of the Psychic with matter is not 
 without significance. 
 
 So we unhesitatingly say that while the thumb 
 is Vital these sensitive lengths will disclose the 
 Mental and Emotive states of the Being. And 
 this truth is illustrated by their manifestations. 
 In gesture, the thumb adds its Vital language to 
 the Mental and Emotive language of the fingers. 
 This accounts for the fact that everywhere the 
 language of the fist means the same thing. It 
 signifies conflict the world over. For, note, the 
 thumb, which is Vital, binds the first and second 
 fingers, which are Mental and Emotive. The 
 gesture is a reflection from that " early morning 
 of the race," when disputes sought the ready ar- 
 bitration of brute and naked force. 
 
 (y.) The author of this treatise fancies that Delsarte be- 
 gan his observations upon human expression by noticing two 
 gestures so universal in all races of men, more especially 
 advanced races, as to compel the inference of a determinate 
 cause underlying the phenomena. 
 
 These gestures are : 1. The closing of the lids of the eyes. 
 2. The use of the forefinger in argumentative states. The 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 181 
 
 gestures of the forefinger are Mental in significance. Mark 
 the disposition of the fingers in this gesture : The thumb 
 (Vital) bends inwards, and places its sensitive ball upon the 
 nail of the second finger (Emotive), partly covering it. The 
 third and fourth fingers bend slightly inwards. But note, 
 the little finger (Sensitive-Mental) slightly separates itself 
 from the third finger, and presents itself nearly straight and 
 parallel with the forefinger. 
 
 Thus the Being has manifested its three states, 
 and in this order : Vital, Mental, Emotive, Sen- 
 sitive-Mental. 
 
 The gesture of the forefinger is the gesture of 
 the Mental man. The Intellect is in full force 
 and action. It is analyzing, separating, selecting, 
 noting resemblances and differences. What the 
 man feels is held in abeyance. In his gestures 
 he only frees the forearm ; when he feels deeply 
 he will free the whole arm. When he wills 
 strongly, and against formidable opposition, he 
 will knot the thumb and fingers to make the end 
 of a club with which to strike. 
 
 Mental sensitiveness and finesse rest in the 
 finger-tips. Take an illustiation : A great met- 
 aphysician is arguing and enforcing some nice 
 point in the philosophy of Kant or Hegel. " Pure 
 reason," or " The essence of the Being," is his 
 theme. Note him carefully. See ! he uses now 
 both hands. He applies the sensitive ball of one 
 finger to the sensitive nerve knot of another, or 
 he taps the palm of his left hand with the fore- 
 finger of his right. Note him now ! He is sum- 
 ming up in close logical terms. You observe that 
 
182 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 he links together his fingers in chaias. He uses 
 both hands to make these chains. Now it is fore- 
 finger and thumb that are Hnked, now little finger 
 and thumb. And now, in the refinement of Men- 
 tal conclusion, he holds up in full view the left 
 hand, and opposes the tips of the little fingers. 
 Nothing can be more conclusive than this meet- 
 ing of correspondences at the finger tips. He 
 warms to the subject, and, taking the pahn as 
 a tablet, he strikes Uttle blows upon it with the 
 forefinger in his more forcible moods, and with 
 his little finger when he would express nice and 
 critical distinctions. But now he strikes the palm 
 with his fist, freeing the full arm, and you know 
 that a blend of the Vital and Emotive natures 
 has leaped into the saddle and seized, for the in- 
 stant, the reins of consciousness. 
 
 And so this great agent of human expression, 
 the hand, epitomizes the three natures of man. 
 Thus the Outer discloses the Inner. 
 
 (A.) We cannot leave this great agent of the Soul, the 
 hand, without some reference to its significance as an art 
 form ; epitomizing the elements of the highest beauty in its 
 symmetry and proportion, and the harmony of the highest 
 gracefulness in its motion. 
 
 Artists agree that no part of the human body is so diflB- 
 cult to represent as the hand. Said Grimm: "Nothing 
 makes us so certain, at the first glance, where an artist stands 
 as his manner of forming the hands." 
 
 The human hand is in form an harmonious whole ; for it 
 presents the two elements of beauty according to the dictum 
 of Aristotle. It gives (1) Uniformity through its straight 
 lines, and (2) Diversity through its curves. 
 
THE HAND AND ARM IN GESTURE. 183 
 
 The fingers are straight lines, but how easily they glide 
 into curves I Note a few of the curves : (1.) The curved 
 line leading from the inner wrist to the first joint of the little 
 finger. (2.) The curves of the large muscle of the thumb. 
 (3.) The curves of the hemispheres at the ends of the fingers. 
 (4.) The curves of the shields, — the finger-nails. 
 
 Note the element of variety introduced by the- difference 
 in tlie length of the fingers. These lengths are made sensi- 
 tive to the highest degree by the knots of nerve matter which 
 lie underneath the skin of the ball of each finger. 
 
 In effect, this little knot of nerves puts the Psychic at the 
 finger-tips whenever art forms are to be produced. For 
 there is a systematic arrangement and a sympathetic agree- 
 ment of parts from the shoulder to the tips of the fingers. 
 Intensity in the shoulders ; firmness in the elbows ; strength 
 in the wrist ; finesse in the fingers. 
 
 So the hand, with Keason to guide it, makes all mechanics 
 possible. 
 
 We have called attention to its structure of bones, joints, 
 muscles, and nerves. Strength and solidity characterize the 
 lower limbs ; but twenty-nine bones, arranged in segments, 
 covered with pliant muscles vitalized by roadways of nerves, 
 make the most formidable instrument at man's command. 
 
 How this wonderful instrument has helped enforce corre- 
 spondences with the globe we shall attempt to unfold in our 
 next chapter, to which we ask the student's most serious 
 attention. 
 
CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 FtJRTHER CONSIDERATIONS. THE REALM OF 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE IN GESTURE. 
 
 The great masters of primary instruction 
 founded their methods upon the science of Space, 
 — Geometry. 
 
 In this they took the plain road that the nature 
 of the child pointed out. They taught, first, les- 
 sons of Form, by letting the child see, handle, 
 and trace the surfaces of objects. 
 
 Froebel used the cube and the baU; Pesta- 
 lozzi, the square and the circle ; Herbart, the 
 triangle. 
 
 And this old method is now again the new 
 method. It was always Nature's method. Said 
 these great teachers of children : " Let these lit- 
 tle ones touch, see, handle, give motion to, test 
 resistance of, count with, add to, subtract from, 
 material objects." They placed the ladder on 
 the earth, and put the child's foot upon the first 
 rung, and turned his face towards the horizon. 
 
 They knew that as surely as the plant grows 
 toward the light, so surely the Being of the child 
 would climb towards the spiritual. So Froebel 
 epitomized his philosophy of education when he 
 
TEE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 185 
 
 said : " I use these objects, and let the children 
 have them, that they may become to them, at the 
 last, forms of life, truth, and beauty." And this 
 is the most essential service that physical science 
 can render humanity ; to show that, everywhere 
 and always, the material types the spiritual, and 
 that no manifestation can be unless a somewhat 
 manifests. For these forms and forces of matter 
 lead not to a blank wall ! They are the outer 
 phenomena of the inner life. And could we push 
 inference — that faculty of the mind which cor- 
 responds with physical seeing — far enough, we 
 should see with this wider vision that all Expres- 
 sion rests in the great Law of Correspondence, 
 recognized as the foundations of their respective 
 systems of philosophy by Plato, Oken, Goethe, 
 Swedenborg, Wordsworth, and Emerson, and 
 practically appHed by such great teachers as 
 Froebel, Pestalozzi, and Prancke. 
 
 (a.) We may restate the Law of Correspondence, which 
 the student will find considered more at length upon p. 50 
 of this treatise : — 
 
 Law : Man expresses his psychic states in the terms of his 
 environment. These terms are related to, and correspond 
 with, Space, Time, and Motion. 
 
 Or we may make another statement of the Law : — 
 
 The Outer (matter), with its forms and forces, is type 
 and symbol of the Inner (Psychic), and is its correspond- 
 ence. 
 
 The broadest interpretation of this law is that all forms 
 of matter, whether organic or inorganic, disclose the Psychic 
 directly or remotely. 
 
 See how far-reaching is our conclusion. The Universe of 
 
186 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 matter, presented as phenomena, is Outer ; Grod is Inner. 
 Behold the Macrocosm ! 
 
 And by parity of reasoning, justified by deductions from 
 the most advanced science of to-day, the human body is 
 Outer, the Psychic is Inner. Behold the Microcosm ! 
 
 Let US consider, with what degree of definite- 
 ness we may be able to command, certain corre- 
 spondences, founded " in the nature of things," 
 that go to make the gestures of the hand and 
 arm so expressive. Let us reiterate what we 
 have before said, that the Soul finds its direct 
 and open correspondence in the body ; hence, we 
 have called the body its near environment. It 
 finds its indirect and more subtle correspondence 
 in all things else. AU things else, then, we have 
 called its remote environment. 
 
 It was a happy phrase of Delsarte, that the 
 hand is the intermediate agent of the Soul. The 
 expressions of all the other agents are intensified 
 through its action. It reinforces their language. 
 With truth we may say that only as the hand 
 became human did it begin to be used to inter- 
 pret remote correspondences. Only nebulous 
 ideas of what filled the upper and nether voids 
 crept into the mind of the half-human represen- 
 tative of the quaternary period. 
 
 And the savage of to-day peers into the spaces 
 above him, and, pointing with his hand, says : 
 " Up there are the goods and the gods ! " And 
 pointing towards the earth's centre, he says : 
 " Down there are the evils and the devils ! " 
 
THE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 187 
 
 Then sweeping the line of the horizon with 
 eyes and hands, and looking outward from his 
 body, he says : " Here and roundabout are the 
 things that are, — trees, mountains, plains, rivers, 
 horses, buffaloes, enemies, and myself ! " Admi- 
 rable savage ! Admirable philosophy, and most 
 competent, based as it is upon the universal tes- 
 timony of the senses ! The civilized child agrees 
 with you ; and as we aU came along the road of 
 childhood we aU agree with you ! For have you 
 not fixed, inexorably, relations, analogies, and cor- 
 respondences, so that for all time to come men 
 shall speak out their Vital survey of things in 
 your language, — the language of what seems 
 to be? 
 
 In the preceding two chapters we have at- 
 tempted to give the rationale of this our first 
 and most persistent correspondence, always and 
 ever present to us. Let us enforce our argument 
 by the use of the figure of the globe. 
 
 (6.) At the risk of repeating ideas that we have g^ven in 
 another form, and in another part of our treatise, but to 
 make plain a central point in our discussion, we ask the stu- 
 dent's close attention to the following statements : — 
 
 (1.) It is impossible to give free play in all directions to 
 the hand and arm without producing a series of curved 
 
 (2.) The widest and freest sweep of the instrument de- 
 scribes arcs of circles ; and these arcs descrihed by both arms 
 project the figure of a globe. 
 
 (3.) Through the limitations, fixed in structure, the hand 
 and arm, projects the globe, and thus becomes the fit instru- 
 Tnent of the correspondences of two worlds. 
 
 Through the action of the nervous system it becomes in- 
 
188 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 evitable that what we receive as impressions we give forth as 
 expressions. 
 
 The visible hemisphere has most constantly impressed 
 man's senses. He will therefore state his Vital, Mental, 
 and Emotive correspondences in terms of the globe. 
 
 Head, torso, hand, face, voice, speech, every agent of ex- 
 pression, must conform to this central law. 
 
 It is not without reason that the old metaphysicians made 
 the globe the symbol of wholeness and entirety. We ask 
 the student to most carefully ponder the correspondences 
 existing between the objective and subjective worlds, as illus- 
 trated by the figure of the globe. 
 
 THE LAW OF CORRESPONDENCE ILLUSTRATED BY 
 THE REVELATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE 
 GLOBE. 
 
 Light and Love. 
 
 (6.) Zone of the 
 Superior. 
 
 (c.) Zone 
 
 the lufe^or. 
 
 Darkness and Hate. 
 
THE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 189 
 
 EXPLANATORY NOTES. 
 
 (a.) The Zone of Equality. — Of the three zones of 
 the subjective world,' man alone inhabits and corresponds 
 with each. Animals — even those nearest him in physical 
 structure — bound by instinct inhabit only the Zone of 
 Equality. This zone we might call the zone of the Vital. 
 
 Here the body, as organized matter in form, maintains 
 its equDibrium with its environment. It lives. This zone 
 is the zone of the objective real, and of its subjective coun- 
 terpart, the ideal. This is true only with man. To no 
 other animal is there a subjective correspondence definite 
 enough to be called ideal. 
 
 Here are the objects that we may know by handling and 
 by the reports of our other senses. 
 
 This is the zone of man's greatest activities connected 
 with matter. 
 
 (b.) The Zone of the Supekiok. — The spaces above 
 the Zone of Equality, above the tops of the mountains 
 whither primitive man could cUmb, are the Zone of the 
 Superior. 
 
 So far as we know, or have any record, there is no race 
 of men which has not associated, in some dim way, the up- 
 per spaces with well-being. 
 
 There, in the upper space, was the " Heofon " (the up- 
 heaved) of our Saxon ancestors. There, the abode of war- 
 riors and heroes who had fought well on earth. There, 
 absence of all iUs and discomfiture of all enemies. 
 
 When Christianity had leavened this Saxon savage, there 
 he placed God, the angels, and the saints. 
 
 And so strong is this instinctive leading in our natures 
 that there in the upheaved are the " many mansions " pre- 
 pared from the foundations of the world. There the loved 
 and lost with light in their faces await, us. Ah ! the analo- 
 gies and correspondences of the Zone of the Superior are 
 
 ^ The student is referred to page 145 of this treatise for a fuller 
 discussion of the correspondences of the two worlds. 
 
190 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 pathetic, and how enduring ! What wonder that gestures 
 of face, hand, and voice are so instinctively bound to this 
 region of the beatitudes ! 
 
 (c.) The Zone of the Ineerioe. — To primitive man 
 what was beneath the surface of the earth was hidden and 
 miknown. Before he had an idea that he lived upon a 
 round ball he located the obscure, the harmful, the evil, 
 downwards in the bowels of the earth. The evil mysterious 
 dwelt in the nether voids and caves, as the good mysterious 
 dwelt in the clear light of the upheaved. Doubtless the 
 darkness of caverns and the smoke and fire from the cra- 
 ters of volcanoes strongly wrought upon the imagination of 
 the primitive races of men. 
 
 So in the underneath they built the abodes of the evils 
 and the devils. 
 
 Appealing to this crude but universal instinct that builds 
 objective correspondences of subjective states, Dante con- 
 structed his Inferno and Milton his HeU. 
 
 So the two grandest poems written by man have peopled 
 the nether spaces with their gigantic imagery ! With such 
 a fearful leading as Nature has given in the apprehensions 
 of man, is it strange that our gestures should enforce our 
 darkest passions by correspondences with the Zone of the 
 Inferior ? 
 
 We thus see how inevitable it is that man 
 shall express himself in terms of the globe. 
 Continually impressed by the visible hemisphere 
 and by the restrictions of Space, Time, and Mo- 
 tion, he wUl inevitably express himself in the 
 terms of his environment ; and if we had the 
 power to formulate these expressions, we should 
 reach that ultimate ground upon which a science 
 and art of expression would securely rest. 
 
 We are able, then, to state broadly, and with 
 all the force of law, that our gestures repro- 
 
THE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 191 
 
 duce the elements of Form and Motion in corre- 
 spondence with Space and Time, and from neces- 
 sity. 
 
 Expressive man reproduces, through form 
 and motion, correspondences of his psychic 
 states in exact terms of the globe} 
 
 We ask attention to a few of the correspond- 
 ences which root themselves in our ideas of 
 Space : — 
 
 Gestures of the hand and arm sweeping 
 through wide spaces indicate grandeur, large- 
 ness, comprehensiveness. 
 
 (1.) Through wide spaces of the Zone of 
 Equality, reference to great material or social 
 interests. 
 
 (2.) Through wide spaces of the Zone of the 
 Superior, the greatness and grandeur of ethical 
 and spiritual interests connected with man's 
 well-being. 
 
 (3.) Through wide spaces from the Zone of 
 the Superior through the Zone of Equality and 
 ending in the Zone of the Inferior, the rejection 
 of things that oppress. 
 
 Thus the space we sweep through with the 
 hand and arm becomes a measure of the great- 
 ness and comprehensiveness of our ideas. 
 
 Let us note the correspondences existing from 
 our ideas of time as indicated by gesture : — 
 
 1 How evident the foundation for tiie Nine Laws of Gesture ac- 
 credited to Delsaite, — how natural the confusion as to their number 
 and order ezistiog among his disciples 1 
 
192 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 (1.) Gestures sweeping through long ares in 
 slow time correspond with poise of the Being. 
 They have dignity, majesty, and strength in 
 composure. 
 
 (2.) Gestures sweeping through long arcs 
 with quick motion add intensity to m,ajesty 
 and strength. 
 
 They lose in poise and dignity, hut gain in 
 power and strength. They show an invasion 
 from the Vital side of the Being. 
 
 (3.) Gestures sweeping through long arcs, 
 and ending in attitudes that draw the body 
 upward along the vertical line, disclose the 
 Emotive Being manifesting its highest moods 
 of power and strength. 
 
 Thus the Inner corresponds with the Outer. 
 The physical agents moving through space in 
 time indicate the quality, amount, and intensity 
 of the psychic energy. 
 
 (c.) The student will note that in the law of correspond- 
 ence is found the only justification for such empirical state- 
 ments as are accredited by his followers to Delsarte. Take, 
 for example, this statement of " The Law of Velocity : " — 
 
 The velocity of gesture is in proportion to the mass moved 
 and the power moving. 
 
 Eead this in terms of correspondence, and we can readily 
 see that wide effects of gesture and voice must accompany 
 grand conceptions. 
 
 Here we find the root of the art of burlesque. Bur- 
 lesque is the art of giving ideas a disproportionate setting 
 forth, so we have the antithesis of grand gestures with so- 
 norous voice fitted to a trivial theme, or perhaps a grand 
 theme treated with trifling and inconsequent voice and ac- 
 
THE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 193 
 
 tion. Shakespeare sensed the true law of values and pro- 
 portions when he wrote : — 
 
 " Suit the action to the word, 
 And the word to the action : " — 
 
 which was a unique way of enforcing outer correspond- 
 ences of inner conditions. 
 
 The hand and arm, as a necessity of struc- 
 ture, projects and traces arcs of circles from 
 three centres of motion. Each of these arcs has 
 its psychic significance rooted in the correspond- 
 ences of the sphere, as form, and with the oscil- 
 lations of the pendulum, as motion. These arcs 
 may he traced in both vertical and horizontal 
 directions, and by the sweep of the instrument 
 from either of the three centres. The arc 
 traced by the hand and arm moved from the 
 centre, at the shoulder, will have the greatest 
 sweep, and hence will show correspondences with 
 the grandest moods of the Soul. 
 
 Gestures moving through wide spaces and 
 in slow time express the poise of the Vital, 
 Emotive, and Mental natures. 
 
 The arcs traced from the centre of motion at 
 the elbow are smaller, as the pendulum sweep is 
 through less space. As will be inferred, they 
 express largely blends of Emotive and Mental 
 states. 
 
 Arcs traced from the wrist centre are still 
 smaller. They express mainly the comment of 
 the Mental upon things near at hand. They ob- 
 serve, separate, and discriminate, and by the aid 
 
 13 
 
194 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 of the fingers express Mental sensitiveness and 
 nice discernment. 
 
 Thus man, in reproducing in Space and Time, 
 through nervo-muscular motion, these arcs of 
 the sphere, prophesies the unrestricted ; so, he 
 allies himself with the Infinite and the Unre- 
 stricted. Thus is the Hebrew Scrip>ture justi- 
 fied in its sublime declaration that Man was 
 m,ade after the likeness of God. 
 
 We cannot leave our " Realm of Correspond- 
 ence " without reference to the correspondences 
 wrought into our very Being — to appear through 
 lr£e as expressions — by the most formidable and 
 far-reaching of Nature's agencies, itseK the cor- 
 respondence of the constant and the inevitable. 
 
 We refer to the great Law of Gravitation. 
 From earliest childhood we have been impressed 
 by the phenomena of gravitation. Our childish 
 comment stopped short at appearances. Things 
 heavy fell to the ground or were hard to lift 
 from it. Things hght floated in the air. The 
 heavier the body the quicker it feU, the lighter 
 the slower its fall. 
 
 Now, this lesson of the gravities of things is 
 straightway and constantly reproduced in ges- 
 ture. What are these inevitable correspondences 
 but the efEort of the Psychic to give values? 
 Let us imagine any agent, say hand and arm, or 
 muscles of the face, set in motion through psy- 
 chic energy and describing arcs in certain direc- 
 tions, through certain spaces, and in certain 
 
THE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 195 
 
 times, and the following correspondences are in- 
 evitable : — 
 
 (1.) Downward gestures correspond with 
 our earnest, emphatic, and most important 
 moods. 
 
 The height from which the gesture falls in- 
 dicates the importance and gravity of the mood. 
 The swiftness with which it falls — i. e., the time 
 it takes to fall — indicates the intensity. Com- 
 bine height and swiftness, and you indicate great 
 passions in great heat. Combine height and 
 slowness, and you indicate great passions under 
 great control. 
 
 (2.) Upward gestures correspond with our 
 light, unemphatic, volatile, and least important 
 vnoods. 
 
 But the depth from which the gesture pro- 
 ceeds, the direction in the upper spaces to which 
 it tends, the time given it, the form of the figure 
 it describes, the zone of the body, or the agent 
 from which it proceeds, — all these circumstances 
 are so many comments upon the character and 
 significance of the upward gesture. 
 
 (3.) Poised gestures (i. e., gestures held in 
 equilibrium) correspond with poise of the 
 Being. 
 
 These gestures are the significant symbols of 
 the grand moods of the Soul. 
 
 The higher Emotive states, in strict accord- 
 ance with the law of correspondence, draw up- 
 wards the body in space along the vertical line. 
 
196 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 It is the Outer or apparition projecting itself in 
 as large a form as possible, as if it would rep- 
 resent the stability, dignity, and wholeness that 
 a mountain stands for in a landscape. That was 
 a happy conceit of correspondence, of the Eng- 
 lish prelate, who declared Daniel Webster to be 
 "a walking cathedral." 
 
 (<Z.) The lead given by Nature in her law of gravitation 
 is wonderfully broad and adequate in its application to ges- 
 ture. 
 
 Let the student note a few correspondences based upon 
 our sense of gravity : — 
 
 (1.) Outer Expression. — The hand thrown obliquely 
 upwards — accompanied by snapping with the thumb and 
 second finger — is our action when we throw away (up- 
 wards) some object of little importance or value. 
 
 LsTNEB Correspondence. — By this gesture we reject 
 trivial ideas. Hence ideas we scorn, or treat lightly, we 
 throw into space. 
 
 Intense scorn or belittling adds to the gesture of snap- 
 ping with thumb and finger some play of the face, as an 
 askance look, or a measuring of the person with the eye 
 from the feet upwards. We look him over, that is, we quite 
 over look him, find him trivial and worthless, and say by a 
 complexity of agents in action, " He 's not worth . 
 that!" 
 
 Take the antithesis of this action. 
 
 (2.) Outer Expression. — Hand thrown obliquely down- 
 wards and backwards, palm prone, is our gesture when we 
 throw away things we do not want, things that are in our 
 way. 
 
 Inner Correspondence. — By this gesture — if starting 
 from the Zone of Equality — we throw away ideas that 
 annoy us, but have not weight enough to oppress us. But 
 if the gesture starts from the Zone of the Superior, we cast 
 down ideas that we fear, hate, or that oppress us. 
 
THE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 197 
 
 A curious gesture of the deaf and dumb, and one often 
 used, when they would express their sense of ah insignif- 
 icant or contemptible person, is to roU an imaginary tiny 
 bit of matter between the thumb and forefinger, and then 
 flip it upwards. 
 
 These correspondences we would argue to be universal. 
 They are older than spoken language, and are its accom- 
 paniment and interpreter. Strabo curiously mentions the 
 sign of " I don't care," or " It is not worth,'' in use three 
 thousand years ago. 
 
 He wrote : " At Anchiale there is a monument to Sarda- 
 napalus, a stone statue of him, as if snapping his fingers." 
 An inscription in Assyrian reads : " Sardanapalus built, in 
 one day, Anchiale and Tarsus. Eat, drink, and play ; the 
 rest is not worth . . . that ! " 
 
 The following diagram will represent the sig- 
 nificance of direct and oblique lines of gesture, 
 traced by the hand and arm : — 
 
 1. 77ie vertical line expresses affirmation. 
 The correspondence is that of assent, accept- 
 ance, agreement, certainty. 
 
 The height from which the gesture falls in- 
 dicates the largeness or importance of the accept- 
 ance, agreement, or affirmation. 
 
198 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 The quickness, or time, of the gesture indi- 
 cates its heat or intensity. The head uses the 
 same gesture to express affirmation. 
 
 2. The horizontal line expresses negation. 
 The correspondence is that of denial, non- 
 agreement, opposition. 
 
 In space nothing denies or opposes the vertical 
 so completely as the horizontal. This gesture of 
 the head is weU-nigh universal for " no," as the 
 vertical is for " yes." 
 
 3. Gestures tracing oblique lines upwards 
 and outwards express the rejection or throw- 
 ing aside of light or trivial things. 
 
 4. Gestures tracing oblique lines downwards 
 and outwards express the rejection of heavy or 
 oppressive things. 
 
 In concluding our discussion of gestures of 
 the hand and arm, it will be seen that they fall 
 readily into the two classes discussed at length 
 in Chapter X. of this treatise : (1.) Gestures re- 
 ferring to objects whether real or ideal. (2.) 
 Gestures manifesting states of the Being, 
 
 To this classification we might add a third : 
 (3.) Gestures that are composites or blends of 
 the two classes. 
 
 These gestures correspond with complex states 
 of the Being. 
 
 We then shall have aU gestures classified as 
 objective, subjective, and blends or composites. 
 
 (e.) The student will note that this classification includes 
 all possible gestures. 
 
THE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 199 
 
 Take an illustration of each of these classes : — 
 
 1. Objective. — The comment of the Psychic upon a 
 distant mountain put into gesture of the hand and arm. 
 The gesture marks the position of the object in space, and 
 outlines its main feature of form. We may call this a Vito- 
 Mental comment of the Being. 
 
 2. SuBjECTiVB. — The Soul's communion with itself in 
 view of a dreadful crime. The King in Hamlet : — 
 
 ..." But, O, Tfhat form of prayer 
 Can serve my turn ? Forgive me my foul luurther ? 
 That cannot be ; since I am still possess' d 
 Of those efEects for which I did the murther ! " 
 
 Here the gesture would be concentric. The use of bolih 
 hands would show the intensity of feeling. The torso 
 would be the agent most deeply affected. The face would 
 show the deep Mental distress. The hand directed towards 
 upper torso and head, the nature of the remorse. The 
 whole body would give slow pendulum swing under the 
 sway of the Emotive nature. 
 
 3. Blends. — Complex subjective and objective states. 
 Milton's Satan, cast into Hell, attempts to find a refuge in 
 Space : — 
 
 ' ' Which way shall I fly 
 Infinite wrath and infinite despair ? 
 Which way I fly is Hell ; myself am Hell ; 
 And in the lowest deep, a lower deep 
 Still threatening to devour me, opens wide, 
 To which the heU I suffer seems a Heaven! " 
 
 Here the gestures would alternate between eccentric and 
 concentric. The correspondences with space and time, as 
 wiU be surmised, would give high and broad action and 
 slow time, to mark adequately the grandeur of the poet's 
 imagery. 
 
 A few words should be written here, technical 
 in their significance, based upon our analysis. 
 Whether a gesture shall be effective before an 
 
200 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 audience depends upon a variety of conditions, 
 but chiefly upon tlie condition that it shall cor- 
 respond with the psychic mood which the orator 
 would arouse. An effective gesture must insti- 
 tute the following relations. It must bear refer- 
 ence to : — 
 
 1. The zone of the projected globe towards 
 which it is directed. 
 
 2. The zone of the body from which the 
 gesture proceeds or towards which it is di- 
 rected. 
 
 3. TTie direction it takes, and the point of 
 elevation or depression at which it terminates. 
 
 4. The time or rate of the gesture, whether 
 it be slow or fast. 
 
 5. The space swept through by the gesture, 
 whether vertically or horizontally ; or if the 
 gesture be an attitude, the space and time held 
 by the agent. 
 
 6. The kind, proportions, and symmetries 
 of the figures which are described, whether 
 by straight lines, curves, or composite lines. 
 
 Finally, let the student note the broad corre- 
 spondence between the higher Emotive nature, 
 declaring itself through poise, and the globe, 
 symbol of wholeness and entirety. 
 
 Delsarte has been credited with the statement 
 of the law of poise. 
 
 Strength at the centre gives freedom at the 
 surface. 
 
 Let the student bear constantly in mind that 
 
THE REALM OF CORRESPONDENCE. 201 
 
 it is always the centred Psychic that declares it- 
 self as freedom through the poise of the expres- 
 sive agents. Gesture, without significance, is only 
 a form of reflex action, an aimless discharge of 
 vital force. It is grimace in art. But precision, 
 harmony," gracefulness, find their highest expres- 
 sions in Poise, which is also the highest form of 
 freedom. 
 
CHAPTER Xm. 
 
 THE HUMAN FACE AS AN AGENT OP EXPRESSION. 
 
 We are all unconscious physiognomists. In- 
 stinctively we scan the face to know the man. 
 We say at a glance, without hesitation, and with- 
 out effort of reasoning, of a stranger: "He is 
 proud or deceitful;" or, "He is honest and trust- 
 worthy." When asked what we saw in that in- 
 stant of timg upon which to base so decided 
 a judgment we are puzzled, and say : " Well, I 
 don't know that I can give any reason, but I 
 don't like his face ; I am impressed that he is an 
 unsafe man." 
 
 This is common testimony. It cannot easily 
 be set aside. The art of interpreting the fea- 
 tures by direct beholding and without conscious 
 analysis is widely practised, and decisions based 
 upon it are unhesitatingly pronounced. Said 
 Darwin : " It has often struck me as a curious 
 fact that so many shades of expression are in- 
 stantly recognized without any conscious process 
 of analysis on our part." Sb Shakespeare makes 
 Lady Macbeth read at a glance her husband's dis- 
 traction of soul : — 
 
EXPkESSIONS OF THE FACE. 203 
 
 " Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men 
 May read strange matters." 
 
 *' As for myself," said an eminent portrait painter, 
 a close observer o£ human features, "faces al- 
 most haunt me; and I am so apt to judge a 
 man by his face that I am sometimes fatally 
 tempted to act the police and order an arrest ! " 
 
 The human face presents a complex problem 
 of resemblances and differences, and it is the dif- 
 ferences that count ; otherwise the marvel would 
 be still more marvelous that we are able to dis- 
 tinguish a known face among a thousand stran- 
 gers, and that, too, after the lapse of years. What 
 amazing psychic faculty it is that recalls a face 
 that for years has never once filled our conscious- 
 ness ! " I should have known you if I had met 
 you in Japan, instead of here on Broadway ; and 
 yet fifteen years have passed since I last set eyes 
 upon you ! " 
 
 The problem of reading the countenance in- 
 creases in difficulty, i£ we stop to consider the 
 number of expressions possible to this surface, so 
 small that its expressive region can be' covered 
 with a single hand. And there is a further in- 
 crease of difficulty, if we consider that expression 
 proper rests in motion, and so belongs to the 
 movable features. The form of the forehead and 
 chin are elements of proportion only, and with- 
 out the movable centres of eyes, mouth, and nos- 
 trils have only the negative value of fixed form. 
 
 Delaumosne, student of Delsarte, somewhere 
 
204 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 gives eight hundred as the possible expressions of 
 the eye directed towards the three planes of vis- 
 ion. This at first blush seems an enormous ex- 
 aggeration ; but if we consider the operation of 
 the well-known law of permutation it is by no 
 means incredible. 
 
 Think a moment ! There are but twenty-six 
 letters in our alphabet, yet no valuable thought 
 is in danger of getting lost for want of a sentence 
 in which to imprison it ! Shakespeare used a 
 wonderful vocabulary of fifteen thousand words, 
 each word a permutation of these twenty-six let- 
 ters. 
 
 Nearly one hundred thousand words in Web- 
 ster's Unabridged, and one hundred and thirty 
 thousand in Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, are 
 permutations of twenty-six letters. 
 
 Now, suppose we apply this law to the moving 
 muscles of the face. According to Moreau, there 
 are fifty-five muscles that go to make this wonder- 
 ful organic complex, — the human face. What 
 wonder that the Soul, alarmed by the problem 
 presented through this complexity of moving mus- 
 cle, abandons the slow process of reasoning, cuts 
 the Gordian knot, and solves the problem by in- 
 tuition, or instantaneous impression made by the 
 whole of the moving mass ! What delay would 
 there not be if logic or mathematics should apply 
 their slow processes ? 
 
 (a.) We fail to grasp the almost infinite number of new 
 forma that it is possible to make from a limited number of 
 lines or objects under the operation of this law. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 205 
 
 Think of the endless combinations of various and novel 
 forms that Nature presents, fashioned from the two kinds of 
 lines, straight and curved ! 
 
 Jevons, in his " Principles of Science," gives an illustra- 
 tion of the operation of this law in the deals of the fifty-two 
 cards in whist. The number of distinct hands, in dealing to 
 four persons, is so vast that twenty-eight figures can alone 
 express it. If the population of the world, say one hundred 
 thousand millions, were to deal cards day and night for an 
 hundred thousand years, they would not exhaust one hundred 
 thousandth part of the possible deals ! 
 
 The play of the fifty-five muscles of the human 
 face presents an intricate and baffling study of 
 form and motion. And it is the whole tract of 
 the face that we unconsciously coordinate to ar- 
 rive at a decision. That physiognomy has not 
 yet grown into a recognized science is not to be 
 wondered at. In studies of the human face, there 
 stiU exists that first confusion that puzzles the 
 mind when confronted by a great number of com- 
 plex phenomena. It is well to remember — if one 
 is led to despair that such phenomena can ever 
 be reduced to order — that alchemy led the way 
 to modern chemistry ; that myth and miracle pre- 
 ceded authentic history ; and that the astrologer 
 abused the silent majesty of the stars to foretell 
 himian destiny long before astronomy had its 
 birth as science. 
 
 At present we have a mass of crude observa- 
 tions and unrelated deductions, which we cannot 
 put into statement. Some day a keener vision 
 win relate fact to fact, and conclusion to conclu- 
 
206 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 sion ; and what now seems conjecture will crys- 
 tallize into certainty. 
 
 In oui study of form and motion of the human 
 face, let us recall the fundamental premise upon 
 which rests all expression : — 
 
 In all organisms motion is manifestation: 
 at the base, Life ; at the summit, Soul. 
 
 Man is the only being upon the earth whose 
 manifestations are a synthesis of all form and 
 motion possible to animal life. He is the only 
 being whose expressions are the outcome of the 
 three perfected natures of the Being. 
 
 So it is not strange that he is the only animal 
 on earth that makes a conscious inward gesture ; 
 the only animal who lifts his face to the vertical ; 
 the only being on the earth who can tliink the 
 thought, "I ought," — moved by an impidse 
 higher than instinct. The expressions of all 
 other animals proceed from the Vital, with only 
 rudimentary traces from the Emotive and Mental. 
 And we find in the mammals nearest man — the 
 dog, horse, and elephant — that perception and 
 memory, as in man, lead the Mental faculties. 
 
 So we find the expressions of the lion and the 
 tiger wonderfully strong, when excited by fear or 
 hunger, or when defending their young, or tear- 
 ing the flesh of their prey. 
 
 In the truest sense, i£ we take account of ex- 
 pressions from the Emotive and Mental, Pliny 
 wrote : " To man alone is given a face." And 
 in man alone have face, hand, voice, and articu« 
 late speech become ultimate and final. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 207 
 
 We state the law whicli governs all sentient 
 Being, from the lowest forms of protozoa to man 
 at the summit of psychic development. 
 
 Law : Psychic manifestations are in pro- 
 portion to, and correspond with, their physical 
 supports. 
 
 Mantegazza thus formulates the law : Wealth 
 of anatomy and wealth of expression always 
 correspond. 
 
 (b.) No sentient life exists upon the earth outside a body. 
 The simplest life builds a cell and lives at its centre. The 
 Psychic thus attempts to realize itself. If the Psychic be 
 simple and homogeneous, its body will correspond, and the 
 expressions possible to it will be few and simple. As struc- 
 ture advances in complexity, expressions become varied 
 and complex. In the human body, structure has reached its 
 highest and completest development. And we may confi- 
 dently say that in the human face we find a structure with 
 such delicate complexities of nerves, muscles, and membranes 
 that no emotion is so subtile but that it may find a ground of 
 display in this living mirror. So we may say, broadly, that 
 the faces of animals give comparatively few psychic expres- 
 sions, and these mainly Vital. 
 
 Among the mammals, the larger carnivora are wonder- 
 fully expressive in manifestations of the Vital nature. With 
 them the muscular system is very large, and almost con- 
 stantly in action ; the respiration and circulation extremely 
 active. There is a great waste of Vital energy, which must 
 be reinforced by frequent supplies of flesh. Hence the ex- 
 pressions of uncovering the teeth in order to tear their prey, 
 uncovering the eyes in order to see, uncovering the claws to 
 seize, make the action of the tiger or lion most formidable 
 Vital expressions. 
 
 On the other hand, the graminivorous animals, as the 
 sheep or ox, present few expressions. The skin of the head 
 
208 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 is closely attached to the skull, and is capable of but little 
 motion ; the lips cover the teeth, the eye has slow movement, 
 and the expressions are mild and shovr peaceful intent. 
 
 We may state the Law of Expression in animals nearest 
 man in sti-ucture : — 
 
 The force of the expression is in propoTiion to the strength 
 of the principal action of the animoL when in search of food, 
 or when aroused by resistance of its prey, or when acting in 
 its own defense or that of its offspring. 
 
 Of all living structures, the human face pre- 
 sents the greatest number and complexity of 
 physical supports for psychic manifestations. 
 
 Let us examine these supports, which in the 
 head and face lie open to our inspection : — 
 
 (1.) The most remarkable characteristic of the 
 human head and face, as a structure, is the glob- 
 ular form of the skull, united as it is with the 
 prolate spheroidal form of the face. In this com- 
 bination of curved lines, and in the approxima- 
 tion of the face to the vertical, lie the highest 
 possibilities of expression through form. 
 
 (c.) The student will note that the curves of the outline 
 of the head and face give the element of uniformity ; while 
 the broken lines of the face give the element of variety. 
 
 It is the union of these opposite elements that gives our 
 idea of beauty. 
 
 The infant's face is an outline made up of curves. The 
 man's face, an outline made up largely of broken lines. 
 
 Hence the infant presents, as the ruling expression, uni- 
 formity ; the man, variety. The Greek face of Apollo ideal- 
 izes these elements. 
 
 In the human face, age lessens uniformity, but increases 
 variety. Uniformity is allied with monotony ; variety with 
 picturesqueness. Young faces are symmetrical, but weak in 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 209 
 
 expression ; old faces are picturesque and strong. Ah ! the 
 rare beauty of some old faces, wrought into harmony by the 
 chisel of hard experiences, softened now by the mellow glow 
 of the sunset ! 
 
 (2.) The solid parts of the skull and bones of 
 the face form the groundwork for the more ex- 
 pressive parts. 
 
 We look to the forms of the solid parts for in- 
 dications of character, and to the motions of the 
 softer parts for indications of present feelings. 
 
 The physical supports for facial expression we 
 may name as : — 
 
 (1.) The skull and bones of the face. 
 
 (2.) The organs of the senses. 
 
 (3.) The muscles and tissues. 
 
 (4.) The brain and nerves. 
 
 (5.) The veins and arteries. 
 
 (6.) The beard, and lines of eyebrows and 
 lashes. 
 
 And we may say, speaking broadly, that in the 
 bones rests our sense of stabihty ; in the muscles 
 our sense of motion ; in the brain and nerves, 
 ourselves, our souls. 
 
 It is through and by physical supports, and in 
 no other way, that the Psychic manifests. And 
 this is true alike of the simplest as well as the 
 most complex organism. 
 
 There is no break in Nature's chain of sen- 
 tient life, and no departure from this central law. 
 We shall base our considerations of the expres- 
 sions of the face upon it. Let us particularize. 
 
 14 
 
210 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 I. The basis of expression lies in the mus- 
 cular movement attendant on sensibility. 
 
 Experience tells us that wherever there is mo- 
 tion in an animal there is hfe. Motion in an or- 
 ganism is another name for life. 
 
 Eeflex motions in a babe are assertions of life 
 before consciousness has been awakened. 
 
 II. The face is the primitive and basal agent 
 for the expression of feeling,^ and wherever in 
 the body pain or pleasure may be located, the 
 centre of expression is the face. 
 
 It matters not whether the pain or pleasure be 
 a sensation or an emotion, the face mirrors it. 
 So we have called the face the near centre of ex- 
 pression. 
 
 III. The special organs of sense are grouped 
 in the face, or in close proximity to it. 
 
 This is true, with the single exception of the 
 sense of touch, which is a sensation of the en- 
 velope or skin, but which is epitomized in the 
 ends of the fingers and in the lips. 
 
 This grouping of highly sensitive organs in a 
 small space, and surrounding them with a dehcate 
 network of tissues, easily set in motion, and, more- 
 over, adding outline and color to her display, we 
 may without violence declare to be Nature's an- 
 swer to Art, when she asked for the highest con- 
 crete expression of Form, Color, and Motion. 
 
 ^ The anthor thronghont this treatise adopts the nomenclature and 
 definidon of Herbert Spencer in his division of Feeling into Sensation 
 and Emotion. Sensations are feelings arising in the bodily framework. 
 Emotions are feelings arising in the mental framework. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 211 
 
 (d.) " Why," it is sometimes asked, " are there five senses, 
 and no more ? " Simply because there are five states of mat- 
 ter to be sensed, and no more : solids for touching, liquids 
 for tasting, fluids for smelling, air-waves for hearing, light 
 for seeing ; and some add a sixth sense, the muscular, and 
 so add weight for the muscular sense. 
 
 With our present organs we cannot sense electricity, mag- 
 netism, and actinism ; and subtler forces, perhaps, even than 
 these, that may exist unknown to us. But Nature has made 
 provision for the reception of the strongest possible impres- 
 sions consistent with organization ; hence not one, but five 
 sense organs. And, curiously enough, she doubles the organ 
 where a, single function is to be exercised, but makes the single 
 organ do duty where there is a double function. So our most 
 powerful impressions are received through the double organs. 
 The ear only hears ; it is double. The eye only sees ; it is 
 double. But the nose and mouth are single organs, yet they 
 perform the double office of speech and smell, and speech 
 and taste. And these two organs, let it be noted, are two 
 extemcdly, but are one internally. When they receive im- 
 pressions, they are two ; when they are used to give expres- 
 sion in voice and speech, they act as one agent of the Being. 
 
 IV- The sense organs are in close proxim- 
 ity to the brain, — the seat of all sensation, 
 — with which they are connected by large 
 nerves. 
 
 These nerves are direct lines of communication. 
 They are wonderful physical supports for psychic 
 manifestations. Stating the problem in terms of 
 matter, they are direct roadways to and from the 
 brain. Stating the problem in terms of mind, 
 they are direct roadways to and from the self, — 
 the Ego. 
 
 (e.) Of the sense organs, Luys has graphically said: 
 
212 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 " These are the sole and unique open gates by which all 
 stimuli from without, destined to serve as pabtdum vifce for 
 the cortical cells of the brain, pass." Thus these organs 
 bring to the Soul the whole external world as impressions, 
 to be returned, through external motion, as expressions. 
 
 V. The face is plentifully supplied with 
 nerves that connect its muscles with the brain. 
 
 Kelatively to its size, a larger number o£ nerves 
 are distributed to the face than to any other ex- 
 ternal part of the body. 
 
 From forehead to chin the whole tract is 
 closely packed with interlaced nerves and mus- 
 cles. Around the eye, including those moving 
 the ball, there are not fewer than ten distinct 
 muscles, whose innumerable fibres are vitalized 
 by innumerable nerves. 
 
 In connection with the cheek and mouth there 
 are eleven muscles. Double these figures for 
 both sides of the face, and apply the rule of per- 
 mutation to ascertain the number of possible ex- 
 citations, and it wiU be readily admitted that the 
 physical supports Nature has furnished seem ade- 
 quate to present the nicest shades and gradations 
 of expression. 
 
 (/.) Problem for the student of enepresswn : Given the 
 highest eonceivable inteUigence, the finest Emotive impulses, 
 the mast acute sensiMlity, and tell me what subUe passion 
 the human face could not portray,^ 
 
 ^ Let the stndent of expression not tliink of the body as a mere 
 mechamsm, or carcass of bone, nmscle, and nerves, bnt as a living 
 unity of orderly parts, that through difierentiation haa at last be- 
 come fitted to give ontward expression to the threefold natnre of man. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 213 
 
 We have indicated the physical supports to 
 psychic expression found in the face. 
 
 And we now come to the important question, 
 How is this delicate complexity of muscles, tis- 
 sues, and nerves operated ? 
 
 Three factors are essential to the production of 
 a gestiire : 1. A muscle. 2. A nerve. 3. An 
 expenditure of Vital force. 
 
 It is by this means that an emotion translates 
 itself as motion. A simple diagram will make 
 this plain : — 
 
 Muscle 
 
 Emotion as " ItB appearance 
 
 a State *:.-.' JTerve ''.V* in the 
 
 of the Psychio. - -^ Bod; as Motion. 
 
 Expenditure.--*"'' 
 
 Let us attempt a closer analysis. The simplest 
 motion is a result of the cooperation of these 
 three agencies. Let us trace the office of each 
 agent : — 
 
 1. Muscles are instruments that remain passive 
 untU their power is evoked. 
 
 They never move themselves. We may say 
 that moving muscles are Will made manifest. 
 
 In this outward expression the face leads. It is centre, and all dse of 
 the body is periphery. 
 
 Swedenborg somewhere pictnres a, soul just released from its body, 
 wlio is abont to be examined by "his inqnisitois, the angels." They 
 look into his face, intently scanning its lines. Soon they extend their 
 examination over the whole body, beginning with the fingers of each 
 hand. "This was explained to me: 'Every volition and thought 
 of man is inscribed on bis brain. A^hatever, therefore, is in the mind 
 is in the brain ; and from the brain is in the body, according to the order 
 if its parts.' " 
 
214 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 2. As structure, and seen fresh from an ani- 
 mal, muscles are red flesh, or lean meat. Upon 
 closer examination, a muscle is seen to be com- 
 posed of fibres, or bundles of fibres ; and i£ ex- 
 amined by the microscope, each fibre discloses 
 fibres within fibres. In the last analysis possible 
 to the most powerful lenses, the ultimate fibres 
 lie in form of disks, like coins piled one upon 
 another. 
 
 3. The characteristic of a muscle is its power 
 to contract. To use a figure of speech, contrac- 
 tihty is the soul of the muscle.^ The fixed end 
 of the muscle is termed its origin ; the movable 
 end, its insertion. 
 
 {g.) It will be well for the student to note that not all 
 muscles are attached to bones. The tendons of some pass 
 into soft structures, as, for instance, the orbiculars of the eyes 
 and the round muscle of the mouth. 
 
 4. In the play of the muscles, the larger and 
 coarser muscles are Vital in their expressions. 
 The finer and smaller are Emotive and Mental. 
 The finest and smallest are used to give the del- 
 icacy and finesse of artistic representation. 
 
 And this ratio is constant between the instru- 
 ment and of&ce to be performed by the instru- 
 ment. Thus, the legs have large and coarse mus- 
 cles ; their of&ce is locomotion. The hand is a 
 
 ^ It is a little curious that the creeping notion of the muscle, as if 
 % live animal were under the skin, should have so impressed the ear- 
 lier races that they gave a name that marked the appearance. The 
 Greek, Latin, and German gaye the same name to the creeping ap- 
 pearance under the skin, namely, "a little mouse" (Latin, muscvius). 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 215 
 
 complexity of small and fine muscles, and the face 
 a most delicate net-work of muscular arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 Muscles, then, are our passive " physical sup- 
 ports," ready for motion when either passion or 
 will evokes their power. 
 
 What incites these muscles to activity ? Our 
 answer leads to a definition : — 
 
 The nerves are instruments interposed be- 
 tween the brain (or interior) and the outer world 
 (or exterior). 
 
 1. The nerves have but a single office, — 
 that of receivers and carriers. They originate 
 nothing. They all have identically the same 
 composition. They are white cylindrical threads, 
 of an oily, albuminous appearance ; and the ele- 
 ment phosphorus enters so largely into their 
 composition that Moleschott, thinking he had 
 pushed Nature to the wall, and had wrested from 
 her her greatest secret, cried out when viewing 
 the results of a subtle physical analysis of nerve 
 substance : " Ohne Phosphor kem Gedanke " 
 (without phosphorus, no soul !) 
 
 2. If moving muscles are wiU made manifest, 
 nerves are lines of communication, or roadways, 
 over which the wiU travels. 
 
 There are twelve lines of nerves leading from 
 the brain outwards, and thirty - one pairs, or 
 double lines, leading from the spinal cord into 
 the human territory. 
 
 3. Nerves are divided into two classes, in ac- 
 
216 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 cordance with the nature of their functions. One 
 set of nerves carries impressions from without in- 
 wards; a centripetal wave of motion moves in- 
 wards. The other set of nerves carries impres- 
 sions from within outwards ; a centrifugal wave 
 of motion moves outwards. 
 
 It was upon this physical fact, open to all 
 attentive vision, and simple as it may seem 
 when stated, that Delsarte based his three 
 modes of motion, — eccentric, concentric, and 
 poise. 
 
 And further : it was this physical fact that 
 led straight to the deduction that the Psychic 
 uses these three modes of motion to m,anifest it- 
 self in three phases of one Being. 
 
 Gestures indicating that we are impressed or 
 affected move from outer towards the inner. 
 They follow the ingoing nerves. 
 
 And gestures made with the intent to impress 
 or affect others move from inner towards the 
 outer. They follow the outgoing nerves. 
 
 (h.) The student is urg^d to ponder these statements. 
 They are the key that unlocks the mystery of Delsarte. It 
 will appear the more evident the more it is thought upon, 
 that the outer (the body) is a veritable correspondence of 
 the inner (the Soul or Being), and that the motive (motif), 
 or inner desire, and the outer act, or external sign, are one 
 in expression. 
 
 In all mammals, the same relation exists be- 
 tween the nervous and muscular systems. 
 
 We may state the essential condition of mus- 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 217 
 
 cular motion. It is essential that the nerve shall 
 pass into direct contact with the muscle substance, 
 so that the minutest fibres of the one shall closely 
 interlace and intermingle with the minutest fibres 
 of the other. 
 
 These relations of the two factors, nerve and 
 muscle, are open to analysis by the physicist. 
 The third factor essential to motion — an expen- 
 diture of nerve force, which travels along the 
 line and summons the muscle to action — baffles 
 all his search. Aided by the most powerful 
 lenses, he fails to detect the nature of this subtle 
 force. No amount of spying, weighing, measur- 
 ing, finds this psychic factor. 
 
 So all ends in an hypothesis. And this hy- 
 pothesis the physicist calls " freeing the forces." 
 The nerve irritant is said to set free the muscle 
 forces, and these liberated forces translate them- 
 selves as motion. 
 
 (i.) The freedom and ease with which our muscles most 
 frequently used are called into action, and the slight con- 
 scious effort we make to move them, would suggest that free- 
 ing the muscle force is made with slight expenditure of nerve 
 force. 
 
 This conclusion is believed to be a correct one. The free- 
 ing force is small as compared with the force set free. This 
 freeing of great forces by small forces is only possible in 
 cases of unstable equilibrium. 
 
 Thus, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon may lie in 
 stable equilibrium for years, side by side ; but mingle them 
 in a certain way, and yon have a substance, nitro-glycerine 
 (C3 Hj N3 O9), which the slightest blow may convert into a 
 terrible agent of destruction. 
 
218 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 So the physicist, Rosenthal, declares that these elements 
 lie in close proximity in our muscles, and in unstable equi- 
 librium ; and it is the irritant nerve that releases the force 
 as motion. 
 
 But what a mystery of mysteries lies behind this physical 
 process, when an emotion rises in the psychic framework, 
 and the Soul rushes along the psychic pathway into the am- 
 ple region of the face, and moves its pliant muscles into 
 plastic forms ! 
 
 And this coming forth of the spiritual into the area of 
 the face, to greet the material, gives ground for a new defi- 
 nition of Expression : " Expression is Feature in the mak- 
 ing!" 
 
 How this complexity of human features trans- 
 lates through its zones the three states of the 
 Being, and what is the language of these zones 
 and individual parts, must be left for another 
 chapter. 
 
CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 THE HXTMAN PACE AS AN AGENT OF EXPRES- 
 SION (continued). 
 
 If the human face be examined in profile, or 
 side view, it will be seen to present three natural 
 planes or zones. 
 
 1. The frontal, or plane of the forehead. 
 
 2. The nasal, or plane of the nose and cheeks. 
 
 3. Hie maxillary, or plane of the mouth and 
 chin. 
 
 Now if we examine the profile of an animal 
 with which man is closely allied in structure, say 
 the dog or horse, we shall find the same three nat- 
 ural planes, having the same general structure, 
 containing the same sense organs, and these or- 
 gans holding the same relative positions in the 
 face of the animal as in man. 
 
 But note an important point of difference be- 
 tween the face of the man and the face of the dog 
 or horse. 
 
 In the man the proportions of the face ap- 
 proach the vertical. 
 
 In the dog or horse the proportions of the face 
 approach the horizontal. 
 
 In a profile view of the human face the fore- 
 head, nose, and chin approach a vertical line. 
 
220 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Now, if we should sketch in imagination the 
 outline of the head of the horse, the dots indi- 
 cating the three planes of the face will show the 
 approach to the horizontal liae. 
 
 Plahss of the Face of the Hobsb. 
 # FrontaL 
 
 *..•' Nasal. 
 
 #..•*' MaxSUary. 
 
 Upon this analysis of the faces of man and the 
 animals nearest him in structure, we formulate a 
 most important principle as ruUng iu expres- 
 sion : — 
 
 I. The human proportions are the vertical 
 proportions. 
 
 n. The animal proportions are the horizon- 
 tal proportions. 
 
 And as corollaries of the above propositions, 
 we further state : — 
 
 1. As the planes of an animaVs face ap- 
 proach the vertical the expression becomes more 
 human-like. 
 
 2. As the planes of the human face ap- 
 proach the horizontal the expression becomes 
 more aniTual-like. 
 
 Let the student exercise his imagination, and 
 apply these principles to the human features. 
 Take the three planes of the face, and throw 
 them successively out of the vertical, and note 
 the effect upon the expression. Take the maxil- 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 221 
 
 lary plane : Project the jaws, and you have ani- 
 mal expression of the lowest races of men. 
 
 (a.) Even at the centres of our highest civilizations, in all 
 our great cities, types of the carnivora, with heavy and pro- 
 jecting nnder-jaws, proclaim the persistency of the survival 
 of the animal and brutal Vital. 
 
 No language in the whole realm of Form speaks such 
 wonderful correspondences as are found in the arrangement 
 of the bones of the face. 
 
 The author would refer the student interested in the ex- 
 pressive language of form and motion to Dr. Rimmer's " Art 
 Anatomy," ^ the most exhaustive treatment made in modem 
 times of the apphcation of Anatomy to Art. 
 
 Take the nasal plane : The jutting out of the 
 cheek-bones and the depression of the bridge of 
 the nose give marked animal expressions. 
 
 Take the frontal plane : If we retreat the 
 forehead away from the vertical, we get decided 
 expressions of low mental power. If, on the 
 other hand, we unduly project and enlarge the 
 forehead, we get the expression of deformity. 
 But project the forehead only slightly beyond 
 the vertical, and proportion the rest of the fea- 
 tures to this projection, and we get that " poise " 
 and majesty of form given by the Greek to the 
 front of Jove, and by Michael Angelo to his con- 
 cept of God as Creator. 
 
 And we may say that ideal perfection of the 
 human face, given the world by the Greek, de- 
 creases animal proportions to a minimum, and in- 
 creases to a maximum the human proportions. 
 
 1 Dr. William Eimmer's Art Anatomy, in eighty-one plates from 
 Diiginal drawings. Houghton, MifBin & Co., Boston. 
 
222 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Other defects of individual features usually ac- 
 company a departure from the law of the ver- 
 tical. 
 
 Thus the depression of the bridge of the 
 nose is accompanied by the forward opening of 
 the nostrils, with high cheek-bones. The wide 
 mouth, by thick lips. 
 
 So we may define the highest type of the phys- 
 ical presentation of man as, — 
 
 The animal whose face presents proportioned 
 organs along a line closely approaching the ver- 
 tical. 
 
 And fwrther : that the proportions of the 
 planes of the face, and of its individual fea- 
 tures, hear a constant and fixed relation to the 
 development of the Vital, Emotive, and Mental 
 states of the Being. 
 
 (b.) Reasoning from these correspondences of the outer 
 features with the inner Being, we adopt the general conclu- 
 sions, accredited to Delsarte, regarding the expressions of 
 the three zones of the face : — 
 
 1. The language of the frontal zone is Men- 
 tal in significance ; of the nasal zone. Emotive ; 
 and of the maxillary zone. Vital. 
 
 Thus the human face is the most expressive 
 summary of the Soul. AU psychic motion re- 
 flects itself in this mirror of flesh. As the burn- 
 ing-glass, with its double convexity, converges 
 the sun's rays to a focal point of intense light 
 and heat, so the face becomes the focal centre of 
 psychic radiance and clemency, or of psychic heat 
 and violence. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 223 
 
 Let US examine the face in motion, and en- 
 deavor to interpret the language of its three 
 zones, and of each tract of its territory. 
 
 We shall find that the three modes of mo- 
 tion that interpreted the language of the head, 
 torso, and limbs, as agents of expression, will 
 also interpret the play of the features. These 
 modes of motion are eccentric, concentric, and 
 poise. And we shall further find that each fea- 
 ture of the face, as the forehead, nose, cheeks, 
 mouth, chin, ear, and eye, may reveal some Vital, 
 Emotive, or Mental state through both form and 
 motion. And still further : we shall find blends 
 or composites of psychic conditions expressed by 
 the cooperative action of two or more of the fea- 
 tiires. 
 
 (c.) The modern science of evolution confirms the above 
 conclusions. It teaches that structure and functions of the 
 organs of sense in man have been slowly differentiated from 
 the structural type so common to mammals to meet a similar 
 differentiation of the inner or psychic structure. 
 
 The mouth and nose of man present a most convincing il- 
 lustration of correspondence. From service in the animal 
 economy, these organs have been, through progressive stages, 
 differentiated to serve the purposes of speech. So we can 
 say, with the utmost confidence, that the speechless man of 
 the later tertiary or early quaternary period had a progna- 
 thous face, with undeveloped vocal organs. Before man had 
 articulate language he hore a mussle instead of a face. 
 
 With this brief examination of the human face 
 in profile, let us take a front view, that we may 
 better examine its structure and the disposition 
 
224 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 of the sense organs with their surrounding mus- 
 cles. 
 
 We found it essential to human expression that 
 the facial outline should approach the vertical. 
 
 We shall find it equally essential that the indi- 
 vidual features of the face shall approach the 
 horizontal. 
 
 This disposition of outline and features, as 
 structure, presents the highest types of the hu- 
 man face. It realizes Aristotle's definition of 
 beauty : " The union of contrary principles hav- 
 ing a ratio to each other." These contrary prin- 
 ciples were held to be uniformity and variety. 
 Their union in the face gave the Greek idea of 
 its highest expressions of strength and beauty. 
 So we may state the law of expression, ruling in 
 human features, as formulated by the greatest 
 art teacher America has produced. Let us call 
 this formula 
 
 rimmer's law.^ 
 
 The highest forms of the human face are 
 found where the vertical is attained in the fa- 
 cial outline, and the horizontal is attained in 
 the disposition of the features. 
 
 ^ It is but an act of simple jnstioe to say that in the author's opin- 
 ion Dr. William Rimmer's Art Anatomy is the most perfect compen- 
 dium of artistic knowledge, practically applied, now extant. This 
 great teacher and lecturer deserves a statue of purest marble. He is 
 still held in the memories of those students who listened to his art 
 lectures with a warmth of regard approaching reverence. 
 
 The book contains nearly 900 drawii^, illustrating in the fullest 
 manner the movements and purposes of the human form in the ex* 
 pressions of the passions. Houghton and MifBin, Boston, 1884. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 
 
 225 
 
 A few simple lines wiU. illustrate the force of 
 this law : — 
 
 FliAK OP THE DISPOSITION OP THE FrATUBBS IN THE OFFENSIVE PASSIONS* 
 
 Arrogance. Anger. 
 
 Pride. Bage, 
 
 Contempt. " ^^ ^^ 
 
 Hatred. 
 Malice. 
 
 ^ r 
 
 Jealousy. 
 
 towards verticaL 
 
 FliAH OF TBB DISPOSITION 07 THE FEATDBEB IN HABUOHIODS MOODS. 
 
 Galnmess. 
 
 Contentment. 
 
 Dignity. 
 
 Serenity, 
 
 Bepose. 
 
 Features 
 
 / 
 
 4i^=^' 'fr 
 
 Benevolence. 
 Charity. 
 "Wisdom. 
 Harmony. 
 
 horizontaL 
 
 (<Z.) Let the student study critically these lines, for in 
 their disposition and arrangement lurks the secret of beauty 
 as defined by Winckelmann. Said this great master of theo- 
 retic art : " Beauty consists in harmony, unity, and sim- 
 plicity. All beauty is heightened by unity and simplicity, 
 as is everything which we do or say. 
 
 "If we consider a form in separate pieces, it loses 
 thereby ; when we coordinate all the parts into a whole, 
 beauty comes into it. 
 
 " The forms of a beautiful body are determined by lines, 
 the centre of which is constantly changing, and which if 
 continually produced would never describe circles. They 
 are consequently more simple, but at the same time more 
 complex, than a circle which, however large or small it may 
 be, always has the same centre, and either includes others 
 or is included in others." 
 15 
 
226 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 In studying the two figures the first will illustrate de- 
 partures from both Rimmer's and Winckehnann's laws. 
 
 It will be seen that eight lines give the key to the expres- 
 sions of the animal passions. With man these passions find 
 their root in the Vital Being. Hence savages show their 
 gross psychic natures through strong Vital gestures of the 
 features drawn away from the horizontal. As man emerges 
 from savage conditions the features constantly tend towards 
 the horizontal. 
 
 As an exercise in determining the lines of passion, let 
 the student pronounce the name of the passion, — as for in- 
 stance, pride, — and then note which of the eight lines are 
 engaged in the portrayal when he attempts to illustrate by 
 caUing to mind strongly the passion. 
 
 We may then conclude, from these considera- 
 tions, that the highest forms of human expres- 
 sion — those springing from the Mental and 
 Emotive Being — mil combine and summarize 
 the two principles we have stated, namely, the 
 law governing the outline and the law governing 
 the disposition of the features. 
 
 (e.) The ideal Greek face will best illustrate these two 
 principles. In faces which we call beautiful we find the 
 antithesis of all that we pronounce ugly. Let us consider 
 the separate features presented by the best specimens of 
 Greek art : — 
 
 1. A forehead, tracing the line of the vertical, or perhaps 
 protruding a little beyond the vertical, accompanied by a 
 slight recession of the jaws. 2. Cheek-bones so small as to 
 be scarcely traceable. 3. Bridge of nose so high as to be 
 nearly on a line with the forehead. 4. The alae of the 
 nose joining the face with only slight obliquity, and in front 
 view the nostrils scarcely seen. 5. Mouth small, upper lip 
 short and its line bow-shaped. 6. The outer angles of the 
 eye directed slightly downward from the horizontal. 7. 
 Well-defined frontal sinuses, but not too large. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 227 
 
 The antitheses of these points of structure and disposi- 
 tion of features produce ugliness. They are as well signs 
 of mental and moral inferiority. They show the sway of 
 the baser passions, and the descent towards the animal. 
 
 The face presents three centres of motion. 
 The moving agents — the muscles — group them- 
 selves around these centres. 
 
 These centres are also the seat of the three 
 most expressive organs of sense. 
 
 These groups of muscles surround the eyes, 
 the nose, and the mouth. 
 
 So, each of the three zones of the face pre- 
 sents its form and its centre of motion. 
 
 Thus the frontal zone presents the forehead 
 as form, and the eye and brow as motion. 
 
 The nasal zone presents the nose as form and 
 the nostrils as motion. 
 
 The maxiUary zone presents the jaws as form 
 and the lips as motion. 
 
 The human face is a study of form and mo- 
 tion. And it is upon our estimate of the sig- 
 nificance of these two elements that we almost 
 unconsciously judge the man. In solving the 
 problem we rapidly coordinate the presentation 
 made by form and motion : — 
 
 1. The whole face is passed in review as at 
 rest, the relative force and value of the forms 
 presented are coordinated, and we pronounce 
 our estimate of the character. 
 
 2. The face in motion is scanned, the present 
 or instant mood is perceived by intuition or '' di- 
 
228 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 rect beholding " of certain arrangements of the 
 moving parts which we coordinate, and we pro- 
 nounce our estimate of the present feeling. 
 
 We find ia the face, as in the other agents of 
 expression, three forms of gesture, namely, bear- 
 ings, attitudes, and inflections.* 
 
 And three modes of motion, eccentric, concen- 
 tric, and poise. 
 
 Which reveal the three states of the Being, 
 the Vital, Emotive, and Mental. 
 
 Having given in our first chapter upon the 
 face some account of the physical supports by 
 the aid of which the Psychic manifests, and in 
 this chapter having stated two general laws 
 upon which we conceive expression largely to 
 rest, we proceed to consider the language of the 
 separate parts and organs, that — through their 
 relation one to another, and through motion — 
 make the human face the most expressive agent 
 man has at his command through which to mani- 
 fest his complex nature. And as we have found 
 bfe, mind, and soul, in each division of the body, 
 we may reasonably expect to find these three 
 conditions or phases of the Psychic existing in 
 their highest activity in the wonderful complex- 
 ity of form, motion, color, and sensibility — the 
 himian face. 
 
 ^ For a full discnssion of the significance of bearings, attitude^ 
 and inflections, see pp. 71-74. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 229 
 
 OP THE FOREHEAD. 
 
 The language of the forehead, as form, is 
 Mental. With this decision all the physiogno- 
 mists agree. In all the mammals we may divide 
 the skull into two parts : (1) the brain case, and 
 (2) the bones of the face. In man we shall find 
 the organ of the mind, the brain, filling a larger 
 skull — when compared with the face — than in 
 any of the larger mammals. 
 
 (a.) The deductions of the phrenologists Gall and Spurz- 
 hehn, Combe and Fowler, that the Mental faculties occupy 
 the frontal regions of the brain confirm our decision. So, 
 common observation and scientific deduction are agreed 
 that the language of the forehead is Mental. But in further 
 confirmation of our opinion we add the logic of a structural 
 law thus formulated by Sir Charles Bell : — 
 
 Outward forms result from the degree of development of 
 the contained organs. 
 
 We conclude, then, that a well developed and propor- 
 tioned frontal zone indicates intellectual superiority. 
 
 We note certain correspondences of parts of 
 the face based in structure. These correspond- 
 ences of the outer declare like correspondences 
 of the inner : — 
 
 1. When the forehead is low and retreating, 
 the cheekbones are large and projecting. 
 
 Here the Vital rules and the expression is ani- 
 mal-like. 
 
 2. A fine forehead seldom accompanies 
 coarse animal-like jaws. As the jaws advance 
 the forehead recedes. 
 
230 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 This observation has the force of law in 
 structural development, both of races and in- 
 dividuals. 
 
 3. A convex or rounded forehead indicates 
 an undeveloped mind. 
 
 AU babes have this kind of forehead. The 
 simplicity of the outward form is an exact cor- 
 respondence of the simplicity and homogeneity 
 of the Psychic. Culture the mind, and the 
 convex disappears, the rounded forehead is in- 
 vaded by straight lines which indicate Mental 
 growth. The homogeneous and simple is giving 
 way to the heterogeneous and complex. 
 
 4. The prominence of the forehead in form 
 of a horizontal ridge, immediately above the 
 eyebrows, indicates aptitude for long-continued 
 Mental labor. 
 
 (S.) The author finds this observation confirmed by the 
 most profound physiognomists, by Bedfield, Huatt, Lavater, 
 and Alexander Walker. 
 
 We note a few indications of character based 
 upon the disposition of the muscles of the fore- 
 head, as shown by the wrinkles : — 
 
 1. We have the most ancient authority of 
 Aristotle, that a forehead loaded with wrinkles 
 indicates a gloomy, morose, and overbearing dis- 
 position. If these wrinkles are massed over the 
 eye cruelty is indicated. 
 
 2. Deep vertical wrinkles of the forehead 
 show that the will has been greatly exercised. 
 
 If these wrinkles are invaded by horizontal 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 231 
 
 lines marking the middle of the forehead, there 
 is evidence of great Mental pain. Both Darwin ^ 
 and Duchenne agree with this observation. 
 
 3. Permanent horizontal wrinkles of the fore- 
 head are indications of clemency, good judg- 
 ment, and habitual poise of the Being. 
 
 (c.) Ah ! how time and the experiences of life chisel the 
 placid faces we brought into the realm of our opening man- 
 hood ! If the higher Emotive has held sway lines of uni- 
 formity have been invaded by lines of variety. Heredity 
 has let in our dead ancestors to peep through our living 
 masks. Our better or baser environment, social or busi- 
 ness, has helped to make or mar the mirror of flesh. What 
 an ennoblement of form and feature old age should make 
 us heirs to ! 
 
 OP THE EYE. 
 
 The eye is the centre of expression both of 
 the face and of the body. Whatever sensation 
 or emotion stirs the other centres, some single 
 muscle, or group of muscles in the face, responds, 
 and the eye becomes, as it were, the focal point 
 toward which all the radial lines of feeling con- 
 verge. 
 
 (d.) The movements of the eye are the measure of psy- 
 chic activity. The student will find that when quick move- 
 ments of the eye are made from side to side, or up and 
 
 ' Darwin, in his Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 
 introduces, on page 180, a copy from a photograph by Duchenne of 
 a young man simulating the influence of great grief. The expression 
 is realistic to a degree. The union of the vertical furrows wii^ tho 
 transverse furrows in the middle of the forehead produces a mark on 
 the forehead like a horseshoe. So good an actor was the young man 
 that when Darwin showed the photograph to 6f teen persons in turn, 
 fourteen answered, "despairing sorrow," "great grief," "suffering," 
 "endurance," etc. 
 
232 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 down and around — even with no mental motive — there is 
 awakened an impulse to psychic activity. So slow move- 
 ments of the eye lead to psychic inactivity. Few persons 
 can move the eyes rapidly without a strong impulse to move 
 the body. So, if the eyes be intensely fixed, the body be- 
 comes still. 
 
 The language of the eye is Mental. It is the 
 controlling agent in Mental expressions. 
 
 The eye and its surroundings, are diAdded into 
 active and passive agents of expression. 
 
 The eyebaU is passive and receptive. The 
 eyebrow, upper and lower lids are active and ex- 
 pressive. Passivity and receptivity aUy them- 
 selves with the eyebaU and its organized parts. 
 Activity — and hence expression — ally them- 
 selves with the brow and lids. 
 
 Oken called this organized structure of pas- 
 sivity and activity — the eye — "the nervous sys- 
 tem in a state of purest organization." He said : 
 " In the eye the brain unfolds itseK in order to 
 turn toward the light." 
 
 (e.) The wonderful complexity of arrangement presented 
 in the mechanism of the eye bears out Oken's seeming ex- 
 travagance of statement. Note the wealth of adaptation 
 and contrivance. There are seven matched socket bones. 
 A self-adjusting curtain with its delicate fringes of hair. 
 A projecting eyebrow. A ball made up of two segments 
 of two unequal spheres, one of the segments from a larger 
 sphere than its companion. Six muscles, one of them 
 geared through a pulley to aid in the revolutions of the 
 sphere. Oil and tear glands with an accompanying waste- 
 pipe. In front a transparent lens, the cornea, and behind 
 this the crystalline lens for focussing the rd,ys of light. An 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 233 
 
 expanding and contracting pupil. An aqueous and vitreous 
 humor. A sensitive plate, the retina, of the finest and 
 most delicate texture, with a yellow spot, so called, where 
 the picture seems centred and where alone it is perfectly 
 clear to vision, the rest of the picture heing sketched in. 
 Lastly, the minute rods and cones which the microscope 
 alone discloses, and where at last the known borders upon 
 the unknown. 
 
 In expression the eyeball is an indicator. It 
 shows the direction and position of objects in 
 the spaces of two worlds. 
 
 It never expresses passion. It simply looks 
 toward the object that occasions the passion. 
 
 (y.) This can easily be shown. If we cover the lower 
 part of the face, including the mouth and the alee of the nose, 
 and then give as fuU an expression as possible of anger or 
 rage — putting into the look the utmost force and fierceness 
 — the most critical observer cannot teU whether we de- 
 signed to express anger or rage, or were merely looking in- 
 tently at some object. 
 
 The function of the eye is to look out and to 
 look at. This is true of all the mammals. With 
 man alone has it an added function, namely, to 
 look inwards or in upon. 
 
 So the human eye has but two expressions ; 
 but if we combine these two with the expressions 
 of the fifty-five muscles of the face, we need 
 many figures to sum up the whole delicate play 
 of the moving mirror. 
 
 The two expressions of the human eye are: 
 (1.) Attention. (2.) Intention. 
 
 The eye is attentive when it looks outward, 
 towards, or at, an object. 
 
234 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 It is intentive* when it looks inwards, or to- 
 wards the subject or Ego. 
 
 {ff.) The student will note that these two movements of 
 the eye, eccentric and concentric, show the relations of the 
 mind towards object and subject. The mind looks at, and 
 gets data for reflection ; it looks in, and reflects upon the 
 data it has gathered. 
 
 And it is not a forced inference, but one founded in cor. 
 respondence, that the eye — like the globe which it types — 
 would make an entire revolution, in our reflective states, and 
 look in upon its material empire of thought, the brain, did 
 not its physical hmitations forbid. 
 
 It does the next best thing. It closes its shutters, shuts 
 out the light, and gives the Ego a chance to retire th3t it 
 may reflect or contemplate ! 
 
 And we shall find that the amount of closure of the lids 
 over the globe of the eye corresponds with the amount of 
 intentive activity. 
 
 The structure of the eye discloses its primary 
 function to be that of outseeing, and that the 
 function of inseeing came only with the develop- 
 ment of the Mental nature. In man and all 
 mammals the eye, in structure, is a camera. In 
 simple fact, it is a box and lenses so arranged as 
 to take pictures of external objects upon a plate 
 of sensitive nerve structure, the retina. 
 
 Its primary function being to let the mind see, 
 it, of necessity, must face the object, just as if 
 the photographer wishes to take a picture, he 
 must place the camera in position to receive the 
 impression. 
 
 1 A word happily used by the old psychologists. It is thus defined 
 by Locke. Intention is when the mind with great earnestness and of 
 choice fixes its view on any idea, considers it on every side, and will 
 not be called off by the ordinary solicitation of other ideas. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 235 
 
 These two functions, then, of outseeing and 
 of inseeing, will account for a very large num- 
 ber of expressions. 
 
 (A.) There are clearly two roots from which spring the 
 large body of gestures that make up human expression : — 
 
 (a.) The objective. JPerforminff the act because it is of 
 service in the support of life or some of its interests. 
 
 (b.) The subjective. Using the gesture as a symbol or 
 correspondence of some psychic state. 
 
 Exaggerate the act of looking at, or physical 
 seeing, and you have gestures of perception or 
 mental seeing. 
 
 Note carefully the action of the eye in the 
 following series : — 
 
 1. Interest in an object or subject opens the 
 eyes to take the impression. 
 
 2. Curiosity sHghtly exaggerates the act of 
 physical seeing. 
 
 3. Surprise adds somewhat more to the strength 
 of the action. 
 
 4. Joy still further exaggerates the action. 
 
 5. Hope adds to the action of outseeing. 
 
 6. Ecstacy, the sight of the seer, the vision of 
 the mystic ; utmost exaggeration of physical out- 
 seeing. 
 
 And the antithesis of all these acts of out- 
 seeing holds true in another class of feelings. 
 
 Thus, exaggerate the act of physical not-see- 
 ing and we have gestures of reflection or mental 
 inseeing : — 
 
 1. A want of interest in an object or subject 
 
236 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 turns away the eyes, that no impression may be 
 taken, or, 
 
 2. A desire to think about or reflect upon 
 what has been seen or perceived closes the eyes 
 that there may be no disturbance of the think- 
 ing. 
 
 We present two series : — 
 
 1st Series : Dissent, depreciation, disdain, dis- 
 gust. 
 
 Note how the eyes rule the expression ! In 
 dissent the head aids the gentle closure of the 
 eyes by presenting the correspondence of un- 
 stable equilibrium. The Ego says : " You see I 
 am out of poise regarding your proposition." 
 
 Depreciation. The eyes first look askance at 
 the object, then are partly closed and turned 
 away. The head assists by a gesture thrown ob- 
 liquely upwards. 
 
 Disdain adds to the gestures of depreciation 
 motions of the nose and mouth. 
 
 Disgust adds to the gestures of disdain stronger 
 gestures of nose and mouth, as though the Ego 
 said : " You are an offense to my eyes, nose, and 
 stomach." 
 
 2d Series : Reflection, meditation, self-exami- 
 nation, thoughtful consideration. 
 
 In this series the eyelids close over the ball. 
 The amount of closure and the stillness of the 
 features show the amount of self-introspection. 
 The Ego retires to its Mental centre, reflects, com- 
 munes, absorbs itself in thought. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 237 
 
 This conscious slow movement and approach of 
 the eyelids to cover the globe of the eye is a 
 purely human gesture. No animal save man 
 makes it. The mammals nearest him in struc- 
 ture close the eyes in fatigue, and sleep, or from 
 extreme irritation. With man, the slow openings 
 and closures of the lids are attitudes, and are 
 vastly significant of reflective states. 
 
 (i.) It is a matter of common observation, that round and 
 open-eyed people see much and live much in the senses, but 
 think little and reflect less. 
 
 Narrow-eyed people, on the contrary, see less objectively, 
 but vastly more subjectively, and think much. Observe the 
 eyes of the child, how open and round they are ! He lives 
 to receive impressions. He is full of outseeing impulse and 
 desire ; for curiosity is an inheritance dating back to his ear- 
 liest ancestors. All the whQe he is gathering materials, 
 moved by motives that are a near approach to the instincts 
 of animals who lay in a store for winter. 
 
 What shall turn his eyes inward ? When will he reflect ? 
 when reason ? Fear not ; his schoolmaster is as old as Adam, 
 and always abroad ! His name is Experience. He turns 
 our errors, our neglects, our failures, our ambitions — all 
 our shortsightedness and round and open-eyed seeing — to 
 good account. He compels us to see again, and reflect upon 
 our seeing. 
 
 THE THREE PLANES OP VISION. 
 
 It is through the eye that we inhabit space. 
 The telescope and the microscope are complemen- 
 tary eyes, through which we discover the infinity 
 of the great in space and the infinity of the little 
 in structure. 
 
 And we have shown how it is that, through 
 
238 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 correspondences of vision, our gestures bear a 
 constant and fixed relation to the visible hemi- 
 sphere. 
 
 Hence the three planes which man alone sur- 
 veys, — the planes of Equality, the Inferior, and 
 the Superior. 
 
 The globe of the eye, in outseeing, sweeps 
 through 180° of a circle. Like the hand, it 
 traces, by its motion, vertical lines from zenith to 
 nadir. And it traces lines parallel with the hori- 
 zon through 180°. 
 
 By this means it surveys the three zones of 
 two spheres, — the objective and the subjective 
 spheres. 
 
 Thus man is conscious that he stands at the 
 centre of the Universe, and projects radial lines 
 from where he stands into the infinite spaces. 
 
 In his littleness, he is a finite speck of matter 
 crawling upon the face of a cosmic sphere; in 
 his greatness, he is a Soul who creates anew the 
 orderly procedure, unfolding, and continuance of 
 the Kosmos. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 the human face as an agent of expression 
 (concluded). 
 
 op the eybbkow. 
 
 We have found that the globe of the eye, 
 through structure and function, is an indicator. 
 The eyebrow is a revelator. The eye -without the 
 brow simply sees. It takes no active part in ex- 
 pressing passion. With open lids it sees the 
 outer. It closes the lids when it would see the 
 inner. 
 
 The language of the eyebrow is Mental in sig- 
 nificance. With primitive man, we may say that 
 its language was Mento- Vital. 
 
 (a.) With primitive man, surromided by the complex 
 phenomena of nature, curiosity must have been wonderfully 
 active. It is so to-day in our present races of savages, and 
 in all children. 
 
 The desire to see a new object leads ; the desire to take it 
 in hand follows. Note the action of the eyebrow. 
 
 Says Darwin : ' " Attention, if sudden and close, gradu- 
 ates into surprise, and this into astonishment, and this into 
 stupefied amazement. Attention is shown by the eyebrows 
 being slightly raised ; and as this state increases into surprise 
 they are raised to a much greater extent." 
 
 1 See Eicpressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals, p. 279, chap, 
 xii. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 
240 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 The degree of the raismg of the eyebrows is a measure of 
 the degree of the surprise. 
 
 Primarily, then, the eyebrow was raised in order more 
 plainly to see the object, that the Mental nature might draw 
 its inferences. 
 
 But this Mental gesture, growing out from the 
 root of simple curiosity, coordinates with gestures 
 of other zones of the face, i£ the Vital and Emo- 
 tive natures invade the Mental condition. Thus, 
 i£ surprise and astonishment are followed by fear, 
 terror, and horror, the other muscles of the face 
 join in forming the expression.^ From the cen- 
 tres of the mouth and nose the Vital and Emo- 
 tive natures would add their expressive gestures. 
 The whole body would sympathize with these 
 facial movements. In horror, the platysma would 
 make the neck rigid and wrinkled, the muscles 
 of respiration would add their expression, sweat 
 would exude from the pores of the skin, and trem- 
 blings shake the bodily frame. 
 
 Through the action of the eye and eyebrow, 
 coordinated with gestures from the other zones of 
 the face, we have revelations from the Vital and 
 Emotive natuw»3. 
 
 We conclude, then, that reasonable deductions 
 from both structure and function will declare the 
 expression of the eyebrow to be Mental. 
 
 1 This statement that other muscles must coordinate with the gesture 
 of the eyebrow is fully justified by the remarkable experiments of Dr. 
 Duchenne. He has shown in one of his photographs (see Me'canisme 
 de la pht/sionomie humaine) that a widely-opened month, with eyebrows 
 only slightly raised, results in a meaningless grimace. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 241 
 
 (b.) Students of Delsarte in America, and Delaumosne 
 and Arnaud in France, have represented him — the latter 
 by implication, though nowhere directly — as teaching the 
 following as the language of the active agents of the eye : — 
 
 In expression, the eyebrow is Mental; the upper lid is 
 "Moral;" the lower lid is Vital. 
 
 The author of this treatise prefers the statement that the 
 three states of the Being reveal themselves as blends or com- 
 posites through these active agents. He has not yet found 
 reason to adopt the division accredited to Delsarte by these 
 representatives.. 
 
 By the same authority, Delsarte is represented as giving 
 the following as the expressions of the organic parts of the 
 passive agent, — the eyeball : — 
 
 The white of the eye is Vital in expression ; the pupil is 
 Mental ; the iris is '■ Moral." ^ 
 
 While the firm and tenacious structure of the sclerotic 
 coat, which covers the posterior four fifths of the eyeball, 
 may give some ground for the inference that the white of the 
 eye is Vital in significance, it is extremely hazardous to at- 
 tempt to connect the pupU with the Mental, or the iris with 
 the Emotive (Moral) nature. While we can find no satis- 
 factory basis for these divisions of the eyeball, nearly all 
 physiognomic authorities agree in regarding the eye as the 
 centre of Mental expression. 
 
 1 While the ahove lines were beii^ written the author received the 
 latest contribution to the Delsarte literature, — The Delsarte System of 
 Dramatic Expression, hy Miss Genevieve Stehhins, — which is sup- 
 posed to reflect the teachings of Delsarte through Mr. Steele Maokaye. 
 We quote Miss Stehhins (p. 138) : "The pupU is Mental; the white 
 is Vital ; the iris is ' Moral.' " 
 
 We are constrained to ask whether there is any basis, founded in 
 fa«t, or in fair inference, for the idea that the pupil is Mental and the 
 iris "Moral" in expression, except a blind adherence to "the univer- 
 sal formula," which Delsarte conceived must apply "to all sciences, to 
 all things possible," — the formula of the Trinity ? This unsupported 
 inference may some day be proven to be fact. We submit whether 
 there be at present sufficient data for its application to the organic 
 structure, — the eyeball ? 
 16 
 
242 PSILOSOPSY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 We cannot leave this part of our subject with- 
 out making an observation of value in determin- 
 ing many complex expressions in which the eye 
 leads. 
 
 It will furnish the key to a large number of 
 complex psychic states. 
 
 The eorrugators (muscles that knit the brows) 
 are muscles of the will. 
 
 If now we accept the empirical statement of 
 Delsarte, that the will lends itself to whichever 
 state of the Being dominates consciousness, we 
 shall find that the surrounding muscles of the 
 eyes in connection with the eorrugators give ex- 
 pressions in which we may detect blends or com- 
 posite states of the Being. 
 
 Let us illustrate by first naming the objective 
 and subjective elements that must enter into our 
 problem : — 
 
 1. The three sides or phases of the Being, 
 Vital, Emotive, and Mental. 
 
 2. The three modes of motion, eccentric, con- 
 centric, and poise. 
 
 3. The agents of the Being, the eyes, the eye- 
 brows, lids, and eorrugators. 
 
 4. The determining power or wiQ, the imme- 
 diate agent of the Ego. 
 
 Of these agencies, the first and fourth are in- 
 terior. The second and third are exterior. 
 
 The motion of the exterior agencies in space 
 and time corresponds with the quality, amount, 
 and intensity of the passion. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 243 
 
 Take one of the primitive passions, that of 
 astonishment, and note the action of the external 
 agents. 
 
 1. Astonishment: Presented through the ac- 
 tive agents of the eye as a composite or blend of 
 the three states of the Psychic. 
 
 The eyes in astonishment are wide open, the 
 eyeballs are parallel, the lids and brows are 
 raised. The motion is first eccentric, and then 
 poised. 
 
 We quote Darwin : " Astonishment is ex- 
 pressed the world over with remarkable uniform- 
 ity." The Vital act is that of trying hard to 
 see a material object. The Mental and Emotive 
 acts are those of trying hard to see a mental ob- 
 ject. So, we find the Vital nature leading the 
 expression in beasts, — more especially with 
 the carnivora, — in savages, and in all children. 
 It is the Mental blend, Mento- Vital, in civilized 
 children that gives the peculiar round-eyed ex- 
 pression of wonder. 
 
 In intense astonishment these expressions of 
 the eyes are assisted by other agents. The whole 
 body is stilled. There is a cessation of breath- 
 ing. The lower jaw falls and the mouth is wide 
 open. It is curious, too, that several races of 
 men in astonishment give a prolonged whistle. 
 This whistling sound is often condensed into the 
 interjection whew ! 
 
 Note, too, the correspondence which astonish- 
 ment makes with space. We again quote Dar- 
 
244 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 win : "A surprised person often raises his opened 
 hands high above his head, or by bending his 
 arms only to the level of his face. The flat 
 palms are directed toward the person who causes 
 the surprise, and the straightened fingers are 
 separated." 
 
 If the student would reflect through gesture 
 the astonishment of primitive man, when con- 
 fronted by something unusually startling and 
 unexpected, let him with a single impulse give 
 the f oUowing action : — 
 
 (a.) Open eyes and mouth very widely. (6.) 
 Draw in forcibly the breath, (c.) Throw both 
 arms above the head, {d.) React with the whole 
 body. 
 
 2. Firmness : In astonishment, or in lighter 
 manifestations of the same emotion, — as wonder, 
 curiosity, or admiration, — it will be noticed that 
 the corrugator muscles were not called into ac- 
 tion. But firmness is so nearly allied to the will 
 that we may define it as " will in action." 
 
 Now, in the knitting of the brow, by the ac- 
 tion of the corrugators, we have the external 
 sign which the eyes give of all the emotions that 
 ally themselves with firmness. AU the aggres- 
 sive gestures of whatever agent of the body are 
 accompanied by the action of these muscles of 
 the will. 
 
 (c.) Dr. Duchenne, in his " M^canisme de la physionomie 
 humaine," calls the corrugator the muscle of reflection. 
 This is only true when in our reflective moods we meet with 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 245 
 
 opposition. Thinking, pure and simple, stills the face ; the 
 brow remains smooth until some obstacle in our thinking 
 arises, then a frown passes over the forehead. The frown 
 is the outer correspondence of " force in will." No gesture 
 of the face is truer to its office. ^ Says Darwin : " Men of 
 aU races frown when they are in any way perplexed in 
 thinking." And Sir Charles Bell ranks the corru gator as 
 " the most remarkable muscle of the human face," and 
 says : " When the eyebrows are knit enevgy of mind is ap- 
 parent." 
 
 If firmness as a Mental condition is strongly 
 invaded by the Vital and Emotive natures, we 
 find added to the gesture we have already given 
 — the knitting of the brow — strong gestures of 
 the mouth and clenched fists, showing a tend- 
 ency to revert to the savage and Vital rage of 
 our remote ancestors. 
 
 3. Stupor : Nothing could be adduced that 
 more strongly argues the immanence of the Soul 
 in the body than the appearance of the external 
 in stupor. In this state the Mental and Emotive 
 are paralyzed. The Vital makes an instinctive 
 effort to restore order in the physical realm. 
 But the will lends no assistance. This condi- 
 tion of affairs leads to the following gestures of 
 the face. 
 
 There is first a struggle of the Vital to com- 
 pass the act of seeing ; so the eyebrows are raised 
 and the lids Kfted. The eyeballs, unable to ad- 
 just themselves so as to take an impression, are 
 slightly turned upwards. All the muscles of the 
 face are relaxed and the jaw drops. It is clear 
 
246 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 that for the time the Mental and Emotive na- 
 tures are helpless. And if the most persistent 
 psychic force — the life element — cannot restore 
 order in the physical reahn, so that the Mental 
 rule may be estabhshed, the phenomena called 
 death wiU ring down the curtain and close the 
 drama. 
 
 (rf.) No matter what estimate may be given as to the 
 purely philosophic value of the division of the Psychic into 
 the three natures, Vital, Emotive, and Mental, the teacher 
 will find the division of great practical value in his work 
 with students. So definite and clearly marked are the ex- 
 ternal gestures of each of these three states of the Being 
 that the student soon comes to regard them as three persorv- 
 alities, each ready, in turn and on occasion, to invade con- 
 sciousness and to assume the role of chief actor. 
 
 The author is confident that the expression of whatever 
 passion, based upon such an analysis, wiU attain a degree 
 of definiteness and clearness of outline impossible t-o be at- 
 tained under the old systems.-' 
 
 And why not, if manifestations clearly show that the 
 three phases of the Psychic can seize the body and express 
 themselves through it ? 
 
 We therefore postulate, with Hermann Lotze, the exist- 
 ence of an entity called the Soul, which inhabits and mani- 
 fests through its body. 
 
 The greatest of purely subjective thinkers, Hegel, has 
 given such a wonderful analysis of the passions that we 
 may be excused if we quote him. 
 
 Like Oken, he connects expression intimately with " the 
 entity called the Soul." To read his realistic sketches is 
 
 1 The anthor of this treatise may be excused, perhaps, by teachers 
 of expression, if he emphasize the value of the method above named. 
 He has taught the large classes of flie Boston School of Oratory by its 
 use, and with a degree of success which he is certain could not result 
 from purely abstract methods. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 247 
 
 good medicine to one sick with the miasma of materialism. 
 He thus graphically describes grief as " that powerless self- 
 interment of the Soul." What could better describe the con- 
 centric motion of the return of the Being to its centre ? 
 
 Terror " is the collapse of the Soul before a seemingly 
 unconquerable antagonist." 
 
 Shame " is an anger of man against himself, a reaction 
 against the contradiction between what he ought to be and 
 what he is, a defence of the Inner against the Outer." 
 
 Laughter " results from the perception of a sudden in- 
 troversion or immediate contradiction, either physical or 
 psychical. We feel our substantial poise or balance, the in- 
 substantial balance of another amuses us. So the Inner 
 immediately suffuses the smiling countenance, while the 
 Ego's repulsion of the ridiculous is expressed through the 
 voice by repeated sudden explosions of sound — ha ! ha ! 
 ha!" 
 
 OP THE NOSE AND CHEEKS. 
 
 In our examination of the frontal zone of the 
 face we found form in the outlines of the fore- 
 head, and motion in the gestures of the eye and 
 its surrounding muscles. 
 
 So, in the nasal zone we shall find form in 
 the outline of the nose and cheeks, and motion 
 in the alse of the nostrils. 
 
 We may state, in the language of two great 
 observers, the principle ruling the expressions of 
 this zone. 
 
 Dr. Eimmer thus formulates : — 
 
 When the nose attains its highest develop- 
 ment the Vital or animal ceases to rule the ex- 
 pression. 
 
 And Oken: The human face approaches per- 
 
248 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 fection when the nose is parallel with the 
 spinal column. 
 
 (a.) To iihese conclusions of a great teacher of art an- 
 atomy, and of a great philosophic observer, we may add 
 that of a great artist, Michael Angelo : " The stronger the 
 deviation of the nose from the vertical, the farther the face 
 deviates from a perfect form." 
 
 The Greek nose Is the most ideally human of all the fea- 
 tures ; all other noses are a compromise with animalism. 
 
 There is a substantial agreement among close 
 observers that the form of the nose is an index of 
 character. Thus, Lavater, Redfield, , Alexander 
 Walker, Gratiolet, and physiognomists generally, 
 agree that large hooked noses indicate a love of 
 power, desire to rule, acquisitiveness, aggressive- 
 ness; while the opposite type — the thin, straight, 
 and finely -fashioned nose — indicates sensitive- 
 ness, dehcacy, a retiring and unaggressive char- 
 acter, and decided aesthetic tastes. 
 
 (S.) A study of the nose in the accredited busts or por- 
 traits of Csesar or Napoleon will reveal in every line the vast 
 ambitions of these colossal characters. 
 
 The depression of the bridge of the nose and 
 the forward opening of the nostrils are allied 
 with animal features; and wide -spread nostrils, 
 opening outwards, usually accompany staring 
 eyes, and denote " frog-like stupidity." ^ 
 
 (c.) Dr. Rimmer declares that a high nose is seldom found 
 in a face of the animal type. 
 
 1 Let a beginner, says Le Bruri, draw a head, and the face -will al- 
 ways hear an expression of stupidity, — never one of malignity. Is not 
 this an important fact ? Stupidity is incongruity. 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 249 
 
 The phrenologist, Gall, associated sensuality 
 with a flat nose. 
 
 (d.) It is related of Socrates that Zophyras told this wisest 
 of the Greeks that the shape of his nose indicated a tendency 
 to drunken;nes8, theft, brutality, and lasciviousness ; to which 
 the great philosopher replied that such were his natural dis- 
 positions, which he had striven to conquer. 
 
 Stated broadly, we may conclude that the lan- 
 guage of the nasal zone is Emotive in expres- 
 sion. The nostrils are Vital, as primary expres- 
 sion, but their gestures, in our present civilization, 
 show blends of the Mental and Emotive. 
 
 (e.) That the nostrils are Vital as their primary expres- 
 sion both structure and function seem to confirm. As struc- 
 ture, they are cartilages moved by muscles and excited by 
 motor nerves proceeding from the fifth pair. 
 
 These same nerves also excite the lungs to action. In 
 function, the nostrils are connected with the Vital act of 
 breathing, and they pulsate with the outgoing and incoming 
 breath in animal excitement. Shakespeare, in " King Henry 
 v.," allies their action with the Vital : — 
 
 " Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide ; 
 Hold hard the breath." — Act III. So. I. 
 
 So both strrrcture and function seem to pro- 
 nounce the language of the nostrils to be Vital, 
 though fine Mental and Emotive blends arise from 
 this gross animal root. 
 
 OP THE EAE. 
 
 Oken has somewhere said : " Seeing gives us a 
 consciousness of the universe ; hearing, a con- 
 sciousness of self." 
 
250 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 The anatomist divides the human ear into three 
 divisions, — the external, middle, and internal. 
 It is in the inner ear that the process of hearing 
 completes itself. There, hidden in the deep cav- 
 ity of the skull, securely locked in a bony case, 
 are the complicated terminal organs of the ear. 
 It is here that the auditory nerve penetrates the 
 solid structure of the skull, and embraces with its 
 minute filaments the wonderfully delicate and 
 sensitive organs found in the labyrinth. What 
 milst be the subtlety of that essence that trans- 
 lates the tremblings of these minute terminal 
 points into that form of consciousness which we 
 call hearing ! What wonderful power of analysis 
 in these terminal organs, where the spiritual 
 comes out to make such subtle contact with the 
 material ! 
 
 The organ of Corti — the nerve key-board of 
 the ear, according to Hehnholtz — is a minute 
 instrument with about three thousand sensitive 
 strings. What wonder that Music is a imiversal 
 language, which every one has learned he knows 
 not where, that every one understands he knows 
 not why? Music is consciousness communing 
 with itself. And in some moods, listening to 
 music, we hear our whole Being discourse. In 
 such moments the soul pours forth a flood of rem- 
 iniscences, which we fail to account for as belong- 
 ing wholly to our mundane existence. Indeed, 
 the author calls to mind a sensitive soul, who de- 
 clared : " I never listen to the dreamy tone-fanta- 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 251 
 
 sies of Chopin but I am convinced that I have 
 heard those strains in another and previous exist- 
 ence." Ah ! that the breath and haze of an at- 
 mosphere of music can so sense and type the 
 spiritual ! 
 
 If, then, we consider the inner ear in its inti- 
 macy with the Soul, we must pronounce its strong- 
 est aUiance to be with the higher Emotive na- 
 ture. 
 
 (a.) The power of music to stir the emotions' seems to be 
 universally acknowledged. But not until the amazing re- 
 searches of Helmholtz was it conjectured that music had its 
 physical basis in the wave-motion of fluids, and in the pulsa- 
 tions of the forms of energy which we cover with the term 
 " natural forces." 
 
 It would seem that everything moves to measure. In the 
 Universe this orderly principle swings to and fro like the 
 shuttle of a great loom, and the soul of man finds the high- 
 est correspondence of this gigantic rhythm in the tone pulses 
 of music. 
 
 We can without violence say of the senses that 
 they make strong alliances with the Psychic. Thus 
 we may say that the sense of seeing is allied with 
 the Mental nature, the sense of hearing vidth the 
 Emotive nature, and that the senses of touch 
 and taste, and the muscular sense, make strong 
 aUiance with the Vital nature. 
 
 Delsarte is reported by Delaumosne to make 
 the language of the external ear Mental in sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 Lavater declares that a finely formed and deh- 
 cately shaped ear indicates Mental sensitiveness 
 
252 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 and aesthetic tastes, and says: "Nature has di- 
 vested it of ornaments; its dress is simplicity, 
 deUcacy, and completeness." 
 
 Dr. Eimmer remarks : " A coarse ear accom- 
 panies coarse hands and feet ; if the ear be well 
 made, hands and feet will be well made." 
 
 (5.) An argument deduced from the admitted physio- 
 logic truth, that organs develop in proportion to the amount 
 of their use, would argue that the ears of primitiye man were 
 Vital in expression. 
 
 " If," says Darwin, " our ears had remained movable, their 
 gestures would have been highly expressive in rage, as is the 
 case with aU animals that fight with the teeth." 
 
 According to modern conclusions of the evolutionists, the 
 ear is an atrophied organ. In primitive man, say even so 
 recent as the glacial period, it was larger than now and 
 easily movable. 
 
 The atrophied ear of to-day has lost motion. Its Vital 
 significance has gone. As form, its Mental and Emotive 
 significance is an element of considerable strength when co- 
 ordinated with the moving features. 
 
 OP THE MOUTH. 
 
 We have passed in review two planes or zones 
 of the face, the frontal and the nasal, and have 
 stated the reasons for our inferences that the 
 Psychic manifests — as if by preference — its 
 Mental nature through form and motion of the 
 frontal zone, and its Emotive nature through the 
 form and motion of the nasal zone. 
 
 If we accept the essential expressions of these 
 zones as Mental and Emotive, we shall find very 
 strong evidence, in structure, function, and corre- 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF TEE FACE. 253 
 
 spondence, that the expression, of the third zone 
 — the maxillary — is Vital. 
 
 In all land mammals, except man, the jaws are 
 used for seizing, turning, and placing food un- 
 der the action of the teeth. This Vital act was 
 also largely an action of primitive man. And we 
 may say confidently that if with man these or- 
 gans had held their primitive function, the 
 higher o£&ce of speech, through their differentia- 
 tion, would have been an impossibility. 
 
 (c.) That the European of to-day is quite another being 
 from the quaternary man the most modern discoveries con- 
 firm. 
 
 Quatrefages, speaking of this far-distant era, says : " The 
 climate was that of the glacial period, — ice covered Europe 
 as far south as France. Man contended with the fury of 
 the elements and with the fury of the carnivora." 
 
 Of the Cronstadt race, he says : " The cranium and face 
 must have presented a strangely savage aspect. The face 
 was prognathous, rude, and massive ; the bones of the limbs, 
 thick and protuberant, must have sustained great muscles. 
 This being disputed the earth with the great mammals now 
 extinct." 
 
 And of the skull of the Neanderthal man, discovered near 
 Diisseldorf in 1857, he says : " The frontal sinuses have an 
 exceptional development, like the anthropoid apes." 
 
 With the evolution of the Mental faculties 
 came a corresponding differentiation of organs 
 and functions to suit the advance. 
 
 And if we ask ourselves what most distin- 
 guishes man from the beasts, the answer will lead 
 us back to the operative causes that have at last 
 released the human mouth from its primitive ani- 
 mal office. The distinguishing cause is speech. 
 
254 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 The speechless man of perhaps as far back as 
 the close of the tertiary era — hair-clad, large- 
 muscled, heavy-jawed, -with coarse hpS easUy re- 
 tracted from his canine teeth — used the mouth 
 for tearing flesh and for fighting. 
 
 But along with speech-development came a 
 gradual refinement of the features : the jaws be- 
 gan to release themselves ; the lips became more 
 mobile, and assimied a curve ; the chin rounded 
 itself; the cheek-bones retreated; the forehead 
 advanced towards the vertical; and soon there 
 lurked in the upward turn of the angle of the 
 mouth, and the raising of the inner extremity of 
 the eyebrow, the first outward signs <rf a sense of 
 humor, — that purely human sense that came in 
 with speech. 
 
 Thus the differentiation of the mouth kept 
 pace with, and became the Adsible correspondence 
 of, man's release from the Vital, and advance 
 toward the heights of the Mental and Emotive. 
 
 Thus at last he has become the animal of pro- 
 portioned features. 
 
 We conclude, then, that structure, function, 
 and utility show that the primary expressions of 
 the maxillary zone were Vito- Vital ; and further, 
 that the civilized man of this nineteenth century 
 stiU gives, through the play of the mouth, rudi- 
 ments and faint reflections — echoes, we may call 
 them — of the animal gestures of his savage pro- 
 genitors. 
 
 (d.) Darwin, in his masterly treatise, to which we have so 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 256 
 
 often referred the student, " The Expressions of Man and 
 Animals," gives illustrations of these rudimentary or reflected 
 gestures, which, as he remarks, are intelligible, if we admit 
 tiiat the structure and habits of all animals have been grad- 
 ually evolved. Thus, in sneering or defiance, the upper lip 
 is lifted and retracted in such a manner that the canine tooth 
 on one side of the face ^ alone is shown, the face being up- 
 turned and half averted from the person causing offence. 
 
 Darwin pertinently remarks that it is a surprising fact 
 that man should possess this power to uncover the canine 
 tooth, or exhibit any tendency to its use. To account for 
 this civilized gesture, he goes on to say : " We may readily 
 believe that our male semi-human progenitors uncovered 
 their canine teeth when prepared for battle, as we still do 
 when feeling ferocious, or when merely sneering at or defy- 
 ing some one, without any intention of making a real attack 
 witih our teelih." 
 
 OP THE LIPS AND CHIN. 
 
 As structure, the lips are formed by a circular 
 muscle, which entirely surrounds the mouth. This 
 single muscle closes and purses the mouth by an 
 inward motion. This motion is opposed by ten 
 muscles, which have their origin in prominent 
 points of the bones of the face, and converge to- 
 wards the mouth, opening it, and moving the lips 
 in various directions. 
 
 We find, then, eleven muscles giving form and 
 motion to the lips. Five muscles surround each 
 eye, and four give play to the nostrils. 
 
 Here are twenty-five elements that enter into 
 
 1 TJsnally tbe left canine tooth is nncovered. With primitiTe man 
 this gave freedom of action to the right hand in striking, and to the 
 mouth in tearing with the formidable canine tooth. 
 
Missing Page 
 
EXPRESSIONS OF THE FACE. 257 
 
 (e.) Among the disciples of Delsarte there is a difference 
 of opinion regarding the language of the lips and chin. That 
 the upper lip is Vital, the lower lip Emotive, and the chin 
 Mental seems to find .the greater number of supporters. This 
 empirical division is not entirely without reason, if based in 
 function and correspondence. 
 
 As we have elsewhere said, most people when sneering 
 lift the upper lip from the canine teeth on one side of the 
 face. This is a rudiment from man's Vital era. Among 
 animals, no correspondence of a human sneer is stronger 
 than the action of imcovering the teeth by the carnivora. 
 Indeed, the word " sneer," according to Wedgewood, is the 
 same as "snarl," which was originally "snar," the "1" being 
 merely an element implying continuance of action. 
 
 Lavater declares that the upper lip, by its upward gesture, 
 is a universal sign of menace and effrontery. 
 
 The lower lip moves much more freely than the upper. 
 This mobility is seen in the acts of laughing and crying in 
 young children. Children preparing to cry tremble the un- 
 der lip before the burst of feeling. 
 
 The connection of the lips with speech and with ready ex- 
 pressions of feeling makes blends of these agents proceeding 
 from the Mental and Emotive natures difficult to classify. 
 That these agents, through form and contour, express men- 
 tal delicacy and beauty of moral character, no close observer 
 can doubt. That they make ready response to instant moods 
 is a matter of conmion observation. 
 
 Speaking broadly, we may say : The upper lip 
 is more expressive through form and contour. 
 The under lip is more expressive through mo- 
 tion. 
 
 The chin rounds off the ellipse of the face. 
 Lavater truly remarks that deformity here is 
 hideous. 
 
 (/.) The chin is the more remarkable as a feature of ex- 
 
 17 
 
258 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 pression since its forward projection is distinctive of the 
 higher races of man. 
 
 The lower animals can truly be said to have scarcely 
 more than a vestige of the human chin. 
 
 Curiously enough, the muscles which render the chin so 
 prominentiy a human feature are the same that by their ac- 
 tion give the human expression of a resolution to resist op- 
 pression, as also the expression of the assertion of supe- 
 riority. 
 
 We cannot close our comments upon this expressive region 
 of the face without reference to the half-poetic and half- 
 scientific deductions of the quaint old physiognomist Carus. 
 
 With entire gravity of conviction he has mapped out the 
 territory of the mouth and chin, and has given a local habi- 
 tation to Mental and Emotive qualities. Love is given the 
 entire rule of the under lip, while in the narrow dell be- 
 tween the mouth and chin dwell four of his relatives. Clem- 
 ency, Pity, Sympathy, Benevolence. Five qualities group 
 themselves along the contour of the upper Up and spaces 
 below the nose, while Cheerfulness peeps out from the cor- 
 ners of the mouth. 
 
 We conclude our analysis of the expressions 
 of the separate features with a confirmatory gen- 
 eralization of Lavater : The upper part of the 
 face down to the root of the nose is the seat 
 of thought ; it is the region where our projects 
 and resolutions are formed. It is the office of 
 the middle and lower zones to unfold them. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE ECUMAN VOICE AND ITS EXPRESSIONS. 
 
 The great naturalist Agassiz, in speaking of 
 voice as a correspondence of the nature of ani- 
 mals, said : " Voice is a fundamental character- 
 istic of the animal, adhering to the nature of the 
 being, and incapable of disappearing while the 
 animal Kves." 
 
 Oken declares "the cry of an animal to be 
 an expression of its innermost." 
 
 Thus, everywhere lions roar, wolves howl, 
 horses neigh, savages cry. In a word, through 
 its voice the animal expresses and epitomizes its 
 being. Its voice is as unmistakable as its ges- 
 tures, and always corresponds with them. The 
 stealthy glide of the carnivora and their gesture 
 of striking — swift as a beam of light — are not 
 more characteristic than is the ferocious blend 
 of radical and vanish in the stress of the voice. 
 
 We may state with confidence that in expres- 
 sion the language of voice — pure and simple 
 — is Vital. 
 
 In man, and the land mammals to which he is 
 allied through structure, voice has the same sig- 
 nificance. It is the expression of the Vital or 
 instinctive nature given to the ear as sound. 
 
260 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 In the cries of all land mammals are detected 
 modulated sounds, sometimes approaching mu- 
 sical intonations. With man these sounds be- 
 come conscious modulations and intonations, 
 made expressive by the use of musical tech- 
 nique. 
 
 No other animal attains the inflected voice, 
 which is used alone by the thinking animal, man, 
 to accompany articulations and to mark the rela- 
 tions of ideas. And the simple and homoge- 
 neous being of the animal finds in sound and its 
 modulations a sufficient vehicle of expression. 
 It is because of the wonderful complexity and 
 heterogeneity of the Being that man has such 
 an unswerving complexity of agents through 
 which to manifest. Of the three bodily agents 
 we may say, speaking broadly, that the voice 
 reveals his Vital, gesture his Emotive, and ar- 
 ticulate speech his Mental nature. 
 
 And all these forms of expression — except 
 cries of animal pleasure and pain — and reflex 
 motion came as man assumed the vertical and 
 gained the use of the released fore limbs. 
 
 The 'development of faculty and the use of 
 faculty still keep equal pace in man's advance. 
 
 (a.) Gustave Jaeger has clearly pointed out the intimate 
 relation between the vertical position and the production of 
 voice sounds. He shows that there are two indispensable 
 physical conditions to the production of the modulated voice 
 in mammals. These conditions are : first, the ability to ex- 
 pel the air from the lungs with a sustained effusive outgo ; 
 and second, the ability to give a slight pressure or stroke, 
 
THE HUMAN VOICE. 261 
 
 80 as to break the outgoing breath into impulses or separate 
 sounds. 
 
 Now, the haying these two conditions of phonation would 
 give the mammal possessing them a superiority over his 
 congeners. In man these conditions exist in their highest 
 perfection. On the other hand, the quadrupeds, bound to 
 earth by four tethers, find great physical difficulty in giving 
 free motion to the horizontal lungs. So, it is a noticeable 
 fact that when our large quadrupeds, deer or cattle, call 
 loudly or continuously, they halt, stand still while so doing, 
 showing that the fore limbs must rest in the act of calling. 
 
 The structure of the instrument of the voice 
 is essentially the same in all land mammals, and 
 is connected -with the respiratory act. Every- 
 where animals breathe to live. So the human 
 instrument of the voice is the differentiated end 
 of the breathing^tube. This differentiation is ac- 
 companied by a further differentiation of mouth, 
 tongue, hps, and nose. So that a statement of 
 the progressive functions of the mouth is also a 
 statement of the progressive evolution of ^ the 
 Psychic, and marks the stages of himian prog- 
 ress. 
 
 Man, in his Vito- Vital state, fed and fought 
 with the mouth. He uttered significant cries 
 through the mouth, and began to connect sounds 
 with ideas of things, as he advanced toward the 
 Mental. He now reveals through the mouth the 
 highest moods of his Emotive and Mental na- 
 ture, by the use of perfected musical and speech 
 forms. So, we may define the human voice as 
 the audible correspondence of the Being. 
 
262 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 And we may add to our psychological defini- 
 tion the admirable technical definition of the 
 eminent American philologist, Professor Whit- 
 ney : " Voice is the audible result of a column 
 of air, sent from the lungs, stamped with so- 
 nancy and variety of pitch by the larynx, and 
 individualized by the mouth." 
 
 Let us first examine this instrument as a struc- 
 ture, and then its outcome or play as recognized 
 by the ear. 
 
 OF THE ORGAN OP THE VOICE. 
 
 The instrument of the human voice is most 
 nearly represented by the church organ. Mu- 
 sically speaking, it is a reed instrument. It con- 
 sists of the lungs, — the air chest or bellows, — 
 capable of sending through the wind-pipe a cur- 
 rent of air, which vibrates the natural reeds or 
 lips of the tone box or larynx. These vibrations 
 from the lips of the larynx pass into the variable 
 cavity above it, which consists of the pharynx, 
 mouth, and nose. The current of air is forced 
 from the lungs by the action of a powerful mus- 
 cle, the diaphragm.^ 
 
 The result of the play of this instrument is 
 the human voice. We introduce a diagram to 
 show the relative positions of the parts that go 
 to make this complex organ. 
 
 ^ This word still holds its early signification, "a partition wall." 
 Voice proper came in with the diaphragm. Only in the mammalia is 
 there a complete diaphragm. Only in man are the lungs placed ver- 
 tically above the diaphragm. 
 
THE HUMAN VOICE. 263 
 
 Now, as this instrument is a musical 
 instrument, the result of its play should ^"^f 
 be musical. i,„y^ 
 
 And being a living entity in struc- ^ 
 ture, fashioned by the plastic hand of !■ 
 Nature, while all other musical instru- | 
 ments are made by the hand of man, Lm,gs. 
 its music, by parity of reasoning, should Diaphragm. 
 give forth elements not found in dead 
 structures. That it does so is a recognized fact. 
 Beyond a doubt, the success of the vocal artist 
 depends upon his power to give forth qualities 
 from his instrument which we recognize as dis- 
 tinctively psychological. 
 
 The Soul must attune the instrument to the 
 theme. 
 
 (h.) Nothing is so. utterly unsatisfactory in the whole 
 reahn of art as the human voice with a perfected technique, 
 and no soul behind it ! If the artist cannot inform his tech- 
 nique with psychic force, no grimace of mechanical forms 
 of time, force, and movement can save him ! The music- 
 box may be absolutely accurate in time, force, and move- 
 ment ; it is only when teohnique is a vehicle in which rides 
 the Being that it becomes of value in any high sense. 
 
 The vocal instrument, if we admit it to be a 
 musical instrument, must combine the parts of 
 a musical instrument. 
 
 No instrument can give forth musical sounds 
 unless it combines in its construction three ele- 
 ments. These three essential elements are : 1. A 
 motor element. 2. A resonant element. 3. A 
 vibratory element. 
 
264 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 (c.) Take as illustration of the combination of these es- 
 sentials the most primitive of musical instruments, the 
 drum. The motor element is the drumstick ; the vibra- 
 tory, the tense membrane that forms the head of the drum ; 
 the resonant element, the body or cavity. So, in the more 
 complex instrument, the piano, the keys, or inner hammers 
 moved by the keys, are the motor element, the strings the 
 vibratory, the body and inclosed space the resonant. 
 
 These same- elements enter into the living structure of 
 the organ of the human voice. The diaphragm is the motor 
 element; it acts upon the bellows, the lungs, and sends a 
 column of air through the wind-pipe into the larynx, which 
 holds, protects, and favorably presents the glottal lips to 
 the outgoing air. These lips of the glottis are the vibratory 
 element. The pharynx, the mouth with its arch, the nasal 
 cavities, the bones of the face, are the resonators. 
 
 Without doing violence to the facts presented to our rea- 
 son — facts of structure and function — we may fairly infer 
 Nature's purpose held from the beginning to the consum- 
 mated end. All this complex structure was evolved that 
 two lips of the glottis might present their sensitive and 
 parallel edges to the outgoing stream of air. 
 
 Such is the instrument of the human voice. 
 Clearly a Vital structure at its root. Its out- 
 come and product the audible symbol of life. 
 He who doubts should study attentively that 
 epitome of the human race, the babe, a constant 
 witness that organic sensibility to pain first gave 
 impulse to voice with primitive man, and was 
 the first step in the evolution of language.' The 
 
 1 The author ia aware that Darwin has argued that the vocal organ 
 was developed through the force of sexual impulse, in order that one 
 sex might call or charm the other. 
 
 Is it not more prohable that a greater nervous excitement would 
 come from the intense pain consequent upon the laceration of the 
 body in the fierce contests to which primitive man was exposed ? 
 
THE HUMAN VOICE. 265 
 
 startled cry of the new-born babe is an echo of 
 the Vital cry of the race. Nothing is so fine a 
 correspondence as this purely animal cry of the 
 babe. Through the cry he announces his sub- 
 jugation to organic want. He lives, eats, sleeps, 
 cries, and waQs. This is the Vital round of his 
 existence. 
 
 — " We come crying hither. 
 Thou knowest the first time that we smell the air 
 We wawl and cry : — I will preach to thee : mark 
 When we are bom, we cry that we are come 
 To this great stage of fools ! " 
 
 But what other elements shall we find in the 
 human voice besides this persistent Vital, which 
 allies itself so unmistakably with our animal 
 and instinctive Being ? 
 
 The coordinated action of two organs is es- 
 sential to the production of voice. These organs 
 are : 1. The larynx. 2. The ear. Nature's laws 
 governing sounds are fixed and invariable. So 
 we have, as the constant physical factors in our 
 problem, the ear, the larynx, and invariable Na- 
 ture. 
 
 Let us examine the outcome from the action 
 of these three factors : — 
 
 At first thought, a sound of the voice reaching 
 the ear seems very simple ; but if we should 
 stop to analyze it, we should find it to be quite 
 complex, and when analyzed by a trained and 
 expert ear, aided by the delicate and exact me- 
 chanical instruments now in use by physicists, 
 it yields to persistent solicitation its wonderful 
 properties. 
 
266 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 The exhaustive researches of the German 
 physicist, Hehnholtz, have reduced the phenom- 
 ena of sound to an exact and intensely inter- 
 esting science. And what does experimental 
 science say about the sounds of the human 
 voice ? Upon analysis, all sounds that reach 
 our consciousness, as voice, are found to have 
 three properties : — 
 
 1. We recognize that a given sound is louder, 
 or less loud, than some other sound with which 
 we compare it ; and we say of it that it has the 
 property of intensity, force, loudness. 
 
 2. We recognize that it has a higher or lower 
 place on the musical scale than some other 
 sounds we have heard ; and we say of it that it 
 has pitch or position, high or low, upon an ar- 
 ranged scale of sounds. 
 
 3. We recognize one other property. If we 
 ask each one of a half score of persons to give 
 separately the same sound, with the same degree 
 of loudness and with the same pitch, we find 
 that each person gives forth a different kind of 
 voice from any one of the others. We find 
 each one to have his own voice as distinctively 
 as his own face. So we say of the voice that 
 it has a third property, — timbre, quality, or 
 Tonfarhe} 
 
 When we have found these three elements we 
 
 1 Neither the French nor the English word is so finely desctiptiTe 
 d this subtle element of the voice as is the German Tonfarbe, tone 
 color. 
 
THE HUMAN VOICE. 267 
 
 have found all that a physical analysis yields. 
 We know all that is ascertaiuahle at this stage 
 of scientific progress. 
 
 {d.) At present neither physical nor psychological science 
 can give any adequate account of the subtle element which 
 we all recognize in the human voice, and which, for the want 
 of a better term, we speak of as " magnetic." Of an hun- 
 dred readers, actors, or singers, one only may possess this 
 power. But the voice that thrills, arouses, electrifies, yields 
 nothing to physical analysis. Does law govern here, or is 
 all caprice ? 
 
 Three elements determine the voice as the 
 three lines determine the triangle. We diagram 
 these elements : — 
 
 Quality. 
 
 Two conditions of voice are frequently spoken 
 of in books of elocution as properties of the voice. 
 These are Time or Duration, and Distancing or 
 Reach. 
 
 It will be readily seen that the continuance for 
 a longer or shorter time of a tone can only be a 
 condition of the tone, and no part of the sound 
 presented to consciousness, — just as a year of 
 one's life is no part of the essence itself. 
 
 So of reach of voice, which may be defined as 
 an inherent power by which the voice penetrates 
 space, and is heard above other sounds or con- 
 fused noises. 
 
 This carrying power we conjecture to be in some 
 
268 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 wa,j dependent upon the elements that go to make 
 the composite tone sent forth by an accurate ad- 
 justment of the vocal organs. It is always an 
 accompaniment of the poise of the Being, and 
 those who use it to cover distances declare that it 
 is not by using high degrees of force that they 
 accomplish it. They often describe it as " pla- 
 cing or throwing the voice." 
 
 (e.) The author of this treatise has taught, successfully, 
 as a part of vocal technique, " carrying power of voice," un- 
 der the term " Distancing." 
 
 So far as he has heen able to analyze, the process is both 
 physiological and psychological. There is (1) the purely 
 physiological process of taking, holding, and giving out the 
 breath, — the one thing that can never be neglected ; and 
 (2) the physiological process of opening the organs of the 
 throat and nostrils.* 
 
 Now comes the psychological process, which we may state 
 briefly as (1) poise, (2) think distance, (3) throw the voice, 
 as the hand would a ball, to a distant ear. 
 
 These outer and inner processes fulfil the best conditions. 
 Let the student remember that to depend upon force or loud- 
 ness will be to court defeat ! Musical tones travel ; noises 
 disintegrate, and go to pieces. It is the " poised " voice 
 that holds the subtle elements which are presented as phe- 
 nomena of " distancing." ^ 
 
 ^ Open the throat and nostrils, as if abont to gape ; this action gives 
 freedom to the larynx, and resonance from the mouth and snrroonding 
 cavities. No part of vocal technique is more important. 
 
 '^ To the technique of distancing should he added frequent practice 
 in sustained increase of force, called in Music ' ' crescendo. ' ' This move- 
 ment is the vocal correspondence of enlargement. The object grows 
 larger and larger as one looks. This crescendo movement is a power 
 ful element in vocal expression. The following passage from Othello 
 will suggest the use of these two technical artifices : — 
 
 " Roderigo. I '11 call aloud. 
 
 logo. Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell 
 > Aa when, by night and negligence, the iire 
 Ifl spied in populous cities." 
 
THE HUMAN VOICE. 269 
 
 Miss Aima Diekiifson, then reigning queen of the lyceum 
 platform, was once asked how she was able to be heard so 
 distinctly in Music Hall, Boston. This great audience-room 
 seats nearly three thousand people. The platform is large, 
 and the benign bronze Beethoven stands behind the speaker. 
 At the extreme opposite, high above the audience, is the fig- 
 ure of Apollo, the gift of the great actress, Charlotte Cush- 
 man, to the city of Boston. Miss Dickinson's answer epito- 
 mizes our processes of distancing : " When I come on to the 
 platform, and find myself facing the great audience, I make 
 a' full pause, then take a good ready, and speak to Apollo ! " 
 
 As the human larynx is the differentiated end 
 of the breathing-tube, we should expect the act 
 of breathing and of voice production to be in 
 some way connected. And so intimate are their 
 relations that Oken has, in happy phrase, called 
 speech " gentle respiration." 
 
 Life demands for its continuance two move- 
 ments, followed by an interval of silence. These 
 movements are involuntary as a life process, and 
 occur in the following order : 1. Inspiration. 2. 
 Expiration. 3. Silence. As an art process, the 
 movements are under control of the will, and 
 occur in the following order : 1. Inspiration. 2. 
 Silence. 3. Voice, or audible expiration. 
 
 These three movements regulate the play of 
 the instrument. And silence is by no means the 
 least of the three in importance. He who has 
 not learned the art significance of moments of 
 silence has studied to little purpose. In expres- 
 sion, silence is indeed golden. 
 
 (/.) Technically, in expression, silence is termed Ellip 
 
270 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 sis. The word signifies " to leave out ; " hence, a space, a 
 chasm. Delaumosne reports Delsarte as saying : " Gesture 
 is an elliptical language." The space covered and the time 
 taken by an agent in these moments of silence in the midst 
 of a discourse give the artist Ids greatest opportunity ; his 
 ellipses must be filled with expressive gesture, the face lead- 
 ing all the other agents. 
 
 The strength of the ellipses will be readily surmised in 
 the following sentences from Shakespeare : — 
 
 "Not atx thy sole, || but on thy soul, '| false Jew I " 
 
 " Pit out the Ught, I and then — || put out the light I " 
 
 Ellipses are ruUng artifices of the Emotive nature. Hence, 
 in our highest moods of passion, we make little of words, but 
 much of the tones, ellipses, and gestures which accompany 
 the words. Grammatical and logical relations give way to 
 musical treatment, until tones and gestures find their climax 
 in stress and rhythm. 
 
 Sterne thus satirizes the critic who would bind Emotive 
 expression by logical and grammatical rules : " ' How did 
 Garrick speak the soliloquy last night ? ' ' Oh, against all 
 rule, my Lord, most imgrammatically ! Betwixt the substan- 
 tive and the adjective, which should agree together in num- 
 ber, case, and gender, he made a breach || stopping as if the 
 point wanted settling. And after the nominative, which 
 your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended 
 his voice in the epilogue a dozen times, — three seconds and 
 three fifths by a stop-watch, my Lord, each time ! ' ' Ad- 
 mirable grammarian ! But in suspending his voice, was the 
 sense suspended likewise ? IWd no expression of attitude or 
 countenance fiU up the chasm ? Was the eye silent ? Did 
 you narrowly look ? ' 'I looked only at the stop-watch, my 
 Lord ! ' ' Excellent observer ! ' " 
 
 Thus respiration becomes representative phe- 
 nomena of the Being. It is to our actions what 
 words are to our thoughts, or tones to our emo- 
 tions. If we hear the breath we know the mo- 
 
THE HUMAN VOICE. 271 
 
 tive behind it ! Physical and psychic strength 
 both lean upon our respiration. 
 
 Note how our breathing illustrates the three 
 states of the Being : — 
 
 The Vital predominating y respiration is quick, 
 strong, and sustained. 
 
 The Mental predominating, respiration is 
 slow, interrupted, and often suddenly ar- 
 rested. 
 
 The Emotive predominating, respiration is 
 deep, sustained, and poised. 
 
 Note the order of action as each of the three 
 natures in turn dominates consciousness. 
 
 1. THE VITAL IN ACTION. 
 
 We are out walking along a narrow, pleasant 
 country road. The sights and sounds of sum- 
 mer are full of delight, and we are fuU of the 
 glow and exhilaration of Life. Our breathing is 
 quick, strong, and sustained. Walk, breath, and 
 heart-beats pulse in rhythm. Suddenly, without 
 a moment's warning, a carriage with two fright- 
 ened horses appears. What happens ? The Men- 
 tal immediately arrests the body ; a sudden inspi- 
 ration, — almost a gasp, — then a cessation of 
 breathing ! 
 
 2. THE MENTAL IN ACTION. 
 
 The Mental is now in action. It stopped the 
 breath and stilled the body, but at the same in- 
 stant seized the eyes; the motions of the two 
 
272 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 globes are like two flashes of lightning from two 
 near clouds, — the wrinkled eyebrows. In the 
 moment of swift glancing, the Mental observes, 
 compares, concludes ! The breathing is resumed. 
 
 3. THE EMOTIVE IN ACTION. 
 
 The Emotive now poises, and balances the 
 body. What ought to be done is recognized, 
 and the three natures — the whole Psychic — 
 blend in the act of arresting the horses. 
 
 Thus the body, in all its acts, is seen to be the 
 outer correspondence of the Psychic. 
 
 OP TONES. 
 
 There is a propriety in classifying the ear as 
 an organ of voice. 
 
 So thoroughly is it auxiliary to speech that no 
 ear KteraUy signifies no speech. 
 
 As we have shown in another part of this trea- 
 tise, the structure of the human ear and its inti- 
 mate physical connection with the brain declare j 
 it to be an instrument for the reception, analy- 
 sis, and presentation to our consciousness, of 
 sounds. 
 
 Upon the sensibilities of the ear rests the sci- 
 ence of music. 
 
 Hehnholtz relates the power which music has 
 over our feelings to motion. So music is the sub- 
 jective correspondence of matter in motion. It 
 expresses our psychic moods, because we seem to 
 see with the eye of the ear the dance of objects 
 
TEE HUMAN VOICE. 273 
 
 in space. We thus translate the subtle force 
 that the Greek philosophers called rhythm. In 
 a word, we execute in idea a dance of tones in 
 time and space. And we are entirely justified in 
 saying that the tones of the human voice are 
 audible correspondences of the subtle law of the 
 universe, — rhythm. 
 
 From the animal cry of primitive man have 
 arisen the perfected arts of Music, Poetry, and 
 Oratory. The crude, monotonous, but rhythmi- 
 cal sing-song of the savage has given way to an 
 idealized language of wonderful complexity and 
 significance. And this development is a result, 
 and not a cause. It is as inevitable a result of 
 evolution from the Vital root as the ripened grain 
 from seed and blade. 
 
 We may summarize our conclusions : — 
 
 I. Primitive voice was the crude and Vital 
 language of the sensations. 
 
 III. The modulated and intoned voice is the 
 language of the Emotive nature. 
 
 II. The inflected voice, accompanied hy artic- 
 ulated or jointed sounds, is the language of the 
 Mental nature. 
 
 (g.) That the human voice was primarily a reflex gesture 
 from the animal root, and was the outcome of sensations of 
 pain and pleasure, both structure and function of the instru- 
 ment still continue to testify in the utterances of sounds 
 heard wherever man is in the savage condition, or wherever 
 in civilization there is a momentary " reversion " to the sav- 
 age instincts of our earliest progenitors. 
 
 So the novelist of two hundred years ago might picture in 
 
 18 
 
274 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 a single sentence the raucous voice of his age and time : 
 " The jeers of the theatre, the pillory, and the whipping-post 
 are very near akin." Even in our advanced civilization, in 
 intense excitement of the nervous system, caused hy an over- 
 whelming access of rage or terror, there comes back into the 
 voice the echo of a far-distant age of savagery ! Hence, hu- 
 man cries of terror, rage, alarm, fear, cries of pursuit and 
 of flight, cries of hunger, cold, and thirst, rooted in organic 
 want, all tell of the animal that still lurks in ambush, ready 
 to spring "forth! 
 
 Hugo, in his novel " Ninety-Three," sketches in a few 
 lines a peasant mother's cry when she sees her three chil- 
 dren in the burning tower of La Tourge : — 
 
 "The mother recognized her children. She uttered a 
 fearful cry. That cry of indescribable agony is only given 
 to mothers. No sound at once so savage and so touching ! 
 When a woman utters it, you seem to hear the yell of a she- 
 wolf ; when the she-wolf cries thus, you seem to hear the cry 
 of a woman." 
 
 In technical training for a superior voice, all 
 the elocutionist's artifices are founded upon the 
 three essential properties of the voice, — Force, 
 Pitch, and Quality or Tone Color. Each of these 
 essential properties we shall find to have a physi- 
 cal basis. Let us consider, briefly, what scientific 
 investigation reports regarding the phenomena 
 presented. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF FORCE AND PITCH. 
 
 The sensation of strength or loudness (tech- 
 nically, " force "), as a physical fact, depends 
 upon the extent, swing, reach, or amplitude of 
 the air-waves 'set in motion by some mass of mat- 
 ter in vibration. The larger the waves, the louder 
 the sound. 
 
THE HUMAN VOICE 275 
 
 (h.) A simple illustration, addressed to the eye, will make 
 this plain. Suppose we throw into the stUl water of a lake, 
 each in its turn, a marble, a stone the size of a base-ball, and 
 a cannon-ball. As each of these objects strikes the water 
 there is formed a ring, which, moving outwards, spreads in 
 all directions over the surface in a continually enlarging 
 circle. The weight of the stone determines the size and ex- 
 tent of the wave. 
 
 Now what is seen to take place upon the surface of the 
 water takes place in the air, with this difference : the air- 
 waves spread outwards like a globe from the point of agi- 
 tation, in the spacious sea of air, in aU directions. As a 
 physical fact, then, loudness or force depends upon the am- 
 plitude, reach, or extent of the air-waves proceeding from 
 the vibrating bodies. 
 
 The sensation of pitch, as a physical fact, de- 
 pends upon the number of vibrations given forth 
 in a second of time. The fewer the vibrations, 
 the lower the pitch of the sound ; the greater the 
 number of vibrations in each second, the higher 
 the pitch. 
 
 (i.) Let us take an illustration from the piano. If we 
 should strike the lowest "C," and immediately after the 
 highest " C," and mark the number of vibrations sent forth, 
 as did Helmholtz by delicate instruments, we should find for 
 the lowest " C" 32 vibrations in a second, and for the high- 
 est «C" 4,096. 
 
 So we find that the pitch of a sound depends entirely upon 
 the number of vibrations in a second, and not at all upon 
 the body set in vibration. It is quite indifferent whether 
 these vibrations come from the strings of the violin or piano, 
 the vocal lips of the human larynx or the metal tongues of 
 the harmonicon, the trembling lips of the trumpeter or the 
 reeds of the organ ; any sound from any instrument that is 
 a result of the same number of vibrations in a second of 
 time has always the same pitch. 
 
276 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 THE ELEMENT OP TONE COLOR. 
 
 The sensation of quality or timbre, as a phys- 
 ical fact, depends upon the forms of the air-waves 
 sent out from the vibrating body. As a purely 
 physical fact, the conditions of a harsh or of a 
 harmonious sound are impressed upon the air. 
 
 (y.) The student will note that none of the early books 
 upon elocution gave any account of the phenomena of qual- 
 ity. The solving of the mystery is an achievement of mod- 
 ern science, largely due to the genius of Helmholtz. This 
 great scientist reasoned that, as force was due to the ampli- 
 tude of the air-waves, pitch to their number in a second, 
 quality might be due to their form. An exceedingly exhaust- 
 ive and interesting series of investigations and experiments 
 ended with the throwing upon a white screen, for the eye to 
 see, the actual forms of these waves. And, curiously enough, 
 soft, melodious, smooth, and agreeable tones gave rounded 
 curves of waves, while sharp, harsh, grating sounds gave an- 
 g^ar and irregular forms. Tuning-forks traced Hogarth's 
 line of beauty, while some harsh notes from the strings of a 
 violin gave sharp angles, for all the world like a schoolboy's 
 iirst attempt at writing. The variety and beauty of these 
 wave-fonns Helmholtz found to be beyond computation. 
 
 We must mention one other discovery of Helmholtz bear- 
 ing upon tone color. It had long been known to musicians 
 that when a tone was given from a musical instrument a cer- 
 tain number of both higher and lower tones accompanied it. 
 These accompanying tones were weaker and fainter than the 
 tone struck out upon the instrument. 
 
 Helmholtz called these accompanying tones, overtones. 
 The tone which the ear recognized he called the fundamen- 
 tal tone.^ 
 
 ^ It is impossible for an untrained ear to perceive these overtones. 
 So accustomed is the ear to receive the tone as a whole, and the fun- 
 ilamental tone so overbears the overtones, that, though they exist 
 
TBE HUMAN VOICE. 277 
 
 We may state, briefly, the conclusions arrived at by Helm- 
 holtz bearing upon quality. These conclusions are the re- 
 sult of the most critical, patient, and exhaustive anal- 
 ysis : — 
 
 1. There is no musical instrument whose fundamental tone 
 is not accompanied by overtones. 
 
 2. The number, kind, and intensity of the overtones differ 
 in different instruments ; and it is this difference that causes 
 the characteristic quality of any instrument. 
 
 3. The fundamental tone, if accompanied by consonant 
 overtones, gives to the ear harmonious, agreeable, and pleas- 
 ing qualities. If accompanied by dissonant overtones, it 
 gives to the ear harsh, unpleasant, unmusical qualities. 
 
 As physical phenomena, vre may formulate the law for 
 quality or tone color : — 
 
 Law : The timbre, tone color, or qualUy of tones depends 
 upon the form of the fundamental soundrwave as modified 
 hy its accompanying overtone waves. 
 
 Thiis it will be readily inferred that the qual- 
 ity or color of each voice is entirely personal and 
 characteristic. Each one's voice is his voice just 
 as truly as each one's face is his face. Each hu- 
 man voice is a differentiated product of an instru- 
 ment alike in structure with all races of men upon 
 the earth. 
 
 We may make a division of expressive quali- 
 ties of the voice into (1) Natural and (2) Acquired 
 or Modified. 
 
 Natural qualities are the result of inheritance, 
 normal growth, and a healthy condition of the 
 vocal organ. These qualities are fixed and per- 
 manent, and undergo but slight change even un- 
 der the persistent drill of the elocutionist. 
 
 above and below the fundamental tone, only expert and musically 
 trained specialists can detect these blends or composites of sound. 
 
278 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Modified qualities are largely the result of im- 
 itation, and are acquired by art study and prac- 
 tice. They must have their bases in structure 
 and inheritance, are to a certain degree under 
 command, and can be consciously employed by 
 the speaker as art elements in expression. 
 
 In conclusion, the elements of force, pitch, and 
 tone color found in our analysis of sound, to- 
 gether with the two elements of time and rhythm, 
 — not found by analysis, but always accompany- 
 ing the voice, — give all the elements of voice 
 that we use when we sing, recite a poem,, or speak 
 as orators or actors. And if we were told that 
 our every-day talk was a series of tunes we should 
 be incredulous. Yet every affirmation we make, 
 every question we ask, and, more especially, aU 
 our enthusiasms of expression are set to music. 
 More than this is true : the shades of meaning, 
 the amoimt, intensity, and freedom of the emo- 
 tion, are told by the tune. So the sentence means 
 one thing if we sing it to one tune, and quite 
 another thing if sung to another "tune. 
 
 So we have tunes into which we project our 
 humor, our rage, our grief, satire, petulance, 
 prayer ! Life is so complex that words alone 
 cannot serve us. If we could not sing tunes of 
 our feelings set to these words, how often we 
 should be dimib ! 
 
 Each of the essential properties of the voice — 
 force, pitch, and quality — we shall find to be 
 variously modified by the action of another in- 
 
THE HUMAN VOICE. 279 
 
 strument. The double play of two iustruments 
 acting as one gives — as outcome — Speech. 
 
 To the instrument of articulate language we 
 shall devote the concluding chapter of this trea- 
 tise ; for, if our views be correct, the long chain 
 of organic events upon the earth ends with man ; 
 and through speech man best realizes the full 
 correspondence of his threefold and proportioned 
 Being. 
 
CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 ABTIOULATE SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF 
 EXPRESSION. 
 
 In considering in the preceding chapter the 
 outcome of the human vocal instrument, we 
 came to the conclusion that voice was primarily 
 a manifestation of the sensitive or Vital nature, 
 and that tones or modulated voice were mani- 
 festations of the Emotive nature. What shall 
 manifest the third or Mental state of the Being? 
 
 Let us consider the intellect or Mental nature 
 as wanting to maniEest itself. And for conven- 
 ience let us separate the inseparable in fact, the 
 knowing nature from the feeling nature. Let 
 that state of the Being which perceives, memo- 
 rizes, makes pictures, thinks, reasons, general- 
 izes, desire to express itself. How can it do so ? 
 What means, what instrument, has it? Let us 
 see. A professor of geology has brought into 
 the class-room a stone as large as one's fist. He 
 lays it upon the table in view of a class of twenty 
 students. Now, what the intellect can know 
 about this stone is its relations as shown by 
 points of resemblance and difference to all else 
 in the range of its knowing. If it could know 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 281 
 
 all its possible relations to other things, it would 
 know all possible to be known about the stone. 
 Suppose it to know many of these relations, 
 founded in identity and diversity, how is it to 
 tell to the twenty students any part of what it 
 knows ? 
 
 Its entirely adequate instrument is articulate 
 speech. Give the intellect gesture, — it fails. 
 Give it voice, — it is inadequate. Through speech 
 alone can it reveal itself. 
 
 (a.) Through spoken and written language man recre- 
 ates the past. Let the language of a people be entirely- 
 lost, and a reconstruction of any age or time of that people 
 becomes impossible. The written remains of a language 
 are, in a psychological sense, fossils imbedded in the banks 
 and drift of the period. One day there comes along an 
 archaeologist who shall breathe life into these dry bones, 
 clothe this exhumed skeleton with flesh, and lead back into 
 the present the long-buried past.* Sayce has justly said : 
 " One might be tempted to call language a kind of picture 
 of the universe, where words are figures and images of all 
 particulars." 
 
 But let us approach nearer the heart of our 
 subject and examine it more closely. 
 
 Spoken language is sound made significant. 
 That is, back of the sound there is a thought. 
 Articulated sound, then, is thought outwardly 
 embodied. Historically, the sentence, and not 
 the word, comes first. The sentence is the unit 
 of thought. 
 
 ^ As a most notable instance of the reconstruction of a great era in 
 Roman history, through an exhaustive study of "fossil" language, 
 the student is referred to Fronde's Ccesar. The age, time, pressure of 
 events, the customs, religion, amhitions of an era, environ the colossal 
 proportions of imperial Ceesar. 
 
282 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 (5.) It is a mistake to call the word the unit of thought. 
 As a psychic experience — easily tested by any one — the 
 thought greatly precedes the construction of the sentence. 
 We may say that the thought comes as a whole and in- 
 stantly. We never think first the subject, then the predi- 
 cate, but we relate subject and object by a simultaneous 
 psychic act, and then we make it objective in a spoken sen- 
 tence. We think in flashes, we construct with words. 
 
 So the sentence consists of two factors, one 
 the external sound, the other the internal 
 thought. 
 
 When, however, a thought which, again and 
 again, had taken a whole sentence to express it 
 becomes familiar and in everyday use, conven- 
 ience urges condensation, and we make a single 
 word stand as the sign of the sentence. And 
 this labor-saving process, by which an abstract 
 stands for many words, is as much an evidence 
 of an advanced civilization as is a modern Ames 
 plough over the primitive plough — a crooked 
 limb of a tree drawn by cattle to scratch the earth. 
 "The number of abstracts," says Sayce, "pos- 
 sessed by a language is a gauge of its develop- 
 ment ; " and he adds, " We cannot realize the 
 mental struggles primitive man made to gain 
 ideas now so familiar to us." 
 
 Oken called a word a crystalized thought. If 
 our thoughts upon a given subject are not 
 clearly held, not well defined, we are apt "to 
 talk aU around it," when a few well -chosen 
 words, with much thinking, would as surely con- 
 dense values for us as a single gold eagle con- 
 denses the value of ten silver dollars. 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 283 
 
 As an illustration take the. concept "man." 
 It is expressed by a monosyllabic word, spoken 
 by a single impulse of the voice. And yet it 
 covers each one of the millions of human beings 
 upon the earth. But when a race of undersized 
 men is discovered in the heart of Africa, no one 
 word can, at first, cover the new concept. A 
 man of this race is called " the short man with a 
 large head ; " after a while he is called " dwarf." 
 That a child or savage could have called, at first 
 sight, the object that draws the train of cars 
 over the rails an engine, would be possible only 
 upon the supposition that he held in mind the 
 idea of the Latin word ingenmm, — inhorn. So 
 the child calls the locomotive engine the " puff, 
 puff," and the savage calls it " the swift horse 
 that breathes fire." ^ 
 
 We find speech to be a complex physiological 
 process, which answers to a complex psycholog- 
 ical process. A threefold objective presenta- 
 tion of a threefold Being. The spoken word 
 alone is the whole word. It presents to the ear 
 a triple blend or composite, and one may detect 
 the whole Being in a finely spoken sentence : in 
 
 1 That the savage, upon first sight of the locomotive engine, en- 
 tertains the idea that the ohject is alive, and like himself can dictate 
 its motions and scream with its voice, there can be no doubt. Hence, 
 with the savage, the sight of, and the sound made by the object would 
 give it a name of more than one word. But the word " engine " dis- 
 closes the fact that he who called the marvelous machinery, moving 
 as if by an inner impulse, "the engine," held the full significance 
 of the Latin ingenmm : innate spirit, soul, or life. (From in and gen, 
 root of gignere, to beget. ) 
 
284 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 sonancy we may detect the correspondence of 
 the Vital nature ; in intonation, the correspond- 
 ence of the Emotive; and in articulation, the 
 correspondence of the Mental. 
 
 (c.) Whitney declares the term " articulation " (jointed) 
 to be " precisely and in the highest degree descriptive of hu- 
 man speech utterance, as distinguished from the utterances 
 produced by the organs of the lower animals." He adds : 
 " The term ' articulation ' is one of the happiest hits ever 
 made in the way of nomenclature by the ancient founders 
 of our civilization and science." 
 
 One might say that articulation is a succession of joints 
 or segments by the aid of which thought walks.^ 
 
 The printed word is the symbol of the real 
 word, but the spoken word plus gesture is the 
 real word. It is an accord of three. It presents 
 to ear and eye a triple blend. 
 
 Thus the whole Being externalizes itself 
 through voice, gesture, and articulation. Hence, 
 the difference between reading an essay to an 
 audience and speaking it from three centres. 
 Mathematically it is the difference between one 
 and three. Psychologically it is the difference 
 between giving your thought and giving your 
 soul ! Practically this difference represents the 
 wide chasm between success and failure as an 
 orator. 
 
 ^ The analysis of an author's thought can be best taught by blow 
 pronunciation. By this means the pupil thinks the separate elementSj 
 and gives them oial expression while he is thinking. 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 285 
 OP THE ORGAN OP ABTICULATION. 
 
 In our last chapter we described the structure 
 and operation of the instrument whose outcome 
 or play is voice. 
 
 We found the organ of the voice to be the 
 differentiated end of the breathing -tube, and 
 that its primitive office was connected with the 
 life process. It was evident that if, by any con- 
 siderable differentiation of this breathing-tube, 
 it became capable of giving forth a variety of 
 sounds, those sounds would be correspondences 
 of the Vital nature. 
 
 (d.) This correspondence of the Being vpith the physical 
 organ which serves it seems to have suggested to Delsarte a 
 twofold division of the voice into vocal and dynamic. He 
 said: "There are two kinds of loud voices, — the vocally 
 loud and the dynamically loud." This accords with his the- 
 ory that voice is primarily the language of our sensations, 
 and is rooted in the Vital nature, while that in the voice 
 which expresses the conscious forces of the Being, he would 
 term dynamic. 
 
 Another statement seems to make clear this twofold divi- 
 sion : " A voice, however powerful it may be, shomld he infe- 
 rior to the power which animates it." * 
 
 The articulatory organ is the differentiated 
 mouth with its enclosed and surrounding parts. 
 To him who weighs impartially the constantly 
 accumulating evidence, it will seem that this is 
 the final differentiation upon earth, both of the 
 race and of the individual. And this view is 
 
 1 See Delsarte System of Oratory. Pub. by Edgar S. Werner, No. 48 
 University Place, New York. 
 
286 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 fortified by the discoveries of modern anthropol- 
 ogy. Vogt, Bouillaud, Ferrier, and Darwin had 
 reasoned that there must be a seat in the brain 
 for the faoulty of articulation. 
 
 To the researches of Broca, Nature yielded the 
 secret which she had so long and so jealously 
 guarded. The great French anthropologist de- 
 monstrated the existence of a special seat of the 
 faculty of articulate speech, localized in the pos- 
 terior extremity of the third frontal convolution, 
 especially on the left side of the brain.^ When 
 this tract is injured the man is still able to think 
 and to connect his ideas, but cannot summon the 
 muscles into action for articulation. 
 
 (e.) The remarkable experiments of Hitzig and Fritsch 
 upon the cortex tended to show the existence of centres in 
 the brain which govern definite groups of muscles ; but it 
 was left for Ferrier to demonstrate the exact position of 
 these centres. He has shown that all the muscles of the 
 body have their tracts in the cortex of the brain. He has 
 accounted for all the muscles of the body, and finds that 
 their centres in the cortex are arranged in their order from 
 below upwards, — face, arm, leg, torso. And this order 
 agrees with the progressive evolution of our sense faculties. 
 Dr. Lauder Brunton finds that the lowest tract upon the cor- 
 tex is that which controls the muscles of the face. So we 
 find the lowest animals seize food with the mouth. We next 
 find the arm tract developed, next the tract that controls the 
 legs, and lastly the tract that controls the muscles of the 
 torso. 
 
 ' It is not by accident that we are right-handed. Modem research 
 has disclosed that the left hemisphere of the hrain presides over the 
 movements of the right side of the body. Heredity has given, by con- 
 stant transmission of faculty, a greater amount of activity to the left 
 hemisphere of the brain than to the right. 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 287 
 
 And one point deserves special note. The higher and 
 the nearer to the fore-brain these centres, the more they re- 
 quire education. Thus, the articulatory centre requires long 
 practice to perform its exalted service. So all our art forms, 
 to be of highest value in after life, must have their founda- 
 tion laid in childhood. 
 
 The act o£ articulation is an organic result of 
 three factors : — 
 
 1. A material seat in the brain of a psychic 
 faculty, that strives to express itself by the use 
 of jointed sounds. 
 
 2. A specialized organ to serve this faculty. 
 
 3. Motor agents between the brain seat and 
 the special organ. 
 
 The result of the play of this organic instru- 
 ment is articulate speech. Through articulate 
 speech the Mental nature manifests itself in com- 
 pleteness. Said Oken : " When conversing, man 
 is a self -manifestation unto self." By the act he 
 makes that exterior which a moment before was 
 interior. So " to utter " is to put outside one's 
 self, — " to make outer." In deep thought we 
 carry a world within us ; we project a world into 
 the outer when we speak. 
 
 The action of three material agents gives, as a 
 result, articulation. These three agents are the 
 tongue, the lips, and the lower jaw. 
 
 Let us examine the structures that go to form 
 the articulatory organ. 
 
 The mouth cavity is situated above the larynx, 
 and receives the sound struck out by the lips of 
 that instrument. The ceihng of the mouth is 
 
288 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the hard palate. This ceiling has the form of 
 an arch. The floor of the mouth is the lower 
 .jaw. Its sides are the cheeks. At its back is 
 the muscular enlargement of the oesophagus, — 
 the pharynx. It is nearly filled by the tongue, 
 the synonym of speech. It can be lengthened 
 by the protrusion of the Hps. It is made vari- 
 able — that is, longer or shorter, closer or opener 
 — by the play of its parts. 
 
 We may find the happiest correspondence of 
 the play of this complex instrument in the action 
 of the human hand, and so may say that it ma- 
 nipulates the tone sent to it. And we do no vio- 
 lence to the exact facts when we say of one who 
 has a finished articulation that he is dextrous 
 through the mouth. 
 
 Three movements control the size of the mouth 
 cavity. In speaking, these movements are acts 
 of intelligence, and are dictated from the speech 
 centre of the brain. And we may conclude 
 articulation to be purely an act of the Mental 
 nature. 
 
 (/.) Two great discoveries of the functions of inner or- 
 gans go far toward determining a Philosophy of Expression. 
 These discoveries are, first, that of Corti, — of the delicate 
 organ in the cochlea of the ear, which the microscope dis- 
 closes as literally a harp with three thousand minute strings, 
 with nerve fibres reaching each string, and whose office is to 
 respond to the most delicate variations of tone. 
 
 And the second is that of Broca, already described. The 
 small tract of the brain — the seat of articulate speech — 
 should be named the organ of Broca, after its great dis- 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 289 
 
 The three movements that control the size of 
 the variable cavity are, — 
 
 1. The movements of the lower jaw. 
 
 2. The play of the tongue, towards or touch- 
 ing any part of the walls of the mouth. 
 
 3. The play of the lips, by loosening, tighten- 
 ing, or protruding them. 
 
 (ff.) We give in diagram the arrangement of both the 
 voice and articnlatory organs : — 
 
 (1-) 
 
 
 (2.) 
 
 
 Tub Orgait of 
 
 Voice. 
 
 
 Variable cavity. 
 
 The Mouth cavity, Passive agent 
 
 Eeed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lower Jaw, 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Tongue, 
 
 Active 
 agents. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Lips, , 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Lungs. 
 Diaphragm. 
 
 We shall now readily comprehend that spoken language, 
 as it reaches the ear, is a complexity of sounds made by the 
 action of two organs. 
 
 We have presented as a whole to consciousness a com- 
 plexity of sounds arising from the simultaneous play of the 
 voice organ and the say of the articulatory organ. 
 
 Let the student bear in mind that the ear is an indispensa- 
 ble ally of the voice organ, and the organ of Broca of the 
 articulatory organ. We may now let this complex organ 
 play and say. The play of the voice organ has projected 
 voice into the variable cavity. Here it is jointed, moulded, 
 or segmented by the action of the lower jaw, tongue, and 
 lips. If we observe the process of the formation of these 
 jointed sounds as they issue from the mouth, we shall find 
 that sometimes the mouth channel is open and free from all 
 obstruction, from the vibrating lips of the glottis to the outer 
 air. 
 
 19 
 
290 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 Sometimes we find the chamiel contracted and narrowed, 
 but nowhere entirely closed. Again, it is partly obstructed ; 
 and once more, it is entirely closed against the outflowing 
 stream. 
 
 Now it is this issuing stream of sound poured through 
 an open or narrow mouth - channel, through a partly ob- 
 structed channel, or breaking through an entirely obstructed 
 channel, that gives to the ear all the elements that enter into 
 speech. And when, by an act of intelligence, trains of these 
 segmented sounds become significant of ideas, we have 
 spoken language. 
 
 OF THE ELEMENTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 All spoken language is made up of the sounds 
 of two organs acting with a common impulse. 
 The sounds are tones and articulations. As they 
 are organic, they are essentially the same the 
 world over. The human organs of speech have 
 the same general structure, and hence give forth 
 the same sounds. 
 
 As all violins give forth the sounds of the vio- 
 lin, so all tuman speech organs, of whatever race, 
 .age, or sex, give forth the sounds of the human 
 instrument of speech. 
 
 A universal language, to be read and spoken 
 by men of all races and tongues, must be repre- 
 sented by symbols which shall show to the eye 
 the positions and motions of the organs when in 
 the act of speaking. 
 
 (h.) Such a diagram alphabet of organic symbols has been 
 given to the world by A. Graham Bell.^ These symbols rep- 
 
 ' Visible Speech. Published by Cowperthwait & Co. , Philadelphia, 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 291 
 
 resent the positions and actions of the organs, and thus make 
 speech visible. 
 
 The written language, composed of these diagram letters, 
 is easily learned, and children of whatever race can be taught 
 to read and speak the sounds indicated by the letters. 
 
 Its adoption would give the same tongue to all the nations 
 of the earth. 
 
 With the deaf and dumb, two senses — sight and touch — 
 supply the want of hearing and speaking. The eye of the 
 deaf mute sees an organic position. A sensation of touch 
 feels this position and locates it, say in the throat or palate, 
 or on the tongue or lips. The result of the most patient 
 teaching is that the dumb speak through the education of 
 the sense of touch. They literally feel their way into 
 speaking ! 
 
 Let US examine a little more closely these 
 sounds or elements of spoken language. All 
 sounds reported by our ears are either tones or 
 noises. The whistling of the wind, the rattling 
 of a wagon, the scraping of the feet on the sanded 
 floor, the filing of a saw, — all the pufEs, hisses, 
 buzzes, clicks, that reach our ears are noises. 
 
 Tones are the products of musical instruments. 
 The piano, the violin, the flute, give forth tones. 
 
 If this division of sounds be correct, the 
 sounds we make in speaking are also tones and 
 noises. We call the tones vowels, and the noises 
 consonants. 
 
 The peculiarity of the vowels is that they are 
 sounds resulting from an open channel outward 
 from the lips of the glottis. There is no ob- 
 struction to the outgoing sound. 
 
 In all consonants there is obstruction. The 
 
292 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 active organs in some way obstruct the vocal 
 channel. 
 
 In organic positions and actions of and within 
 the variable cavity of the mouth — the cavity 
 extending from the soft palate to the protruded 
 lips — we shaU find all possible sounds of the 
 complex organ, from the purest musical tones 
 due to structure, use, and training, to the clicks, 
 buzzes, puffs, hisses, and gutturals due to some 
 form of partial or entire closure. We diagram 
 the extremes of vowel sounds. Between these 
 limits lie all possible vowels. 
 
 J. as in father is the funda- 
 mental tone of the instrument, 
 ' the purest outcome from the 
 lungs, throat, and variable cavity. 
 
 The human instrxunent tuned to a always 
 gives this fundamental tone, and can give no 
 other. If we open the throat naturally and 
 without effort, as in the act of gaping, getting 
 everything out of the way of the issuing stream, 
 — the teeth out of the way, the Ups and tongue 
 out of the way, — a as m father will be the sound 
 given, whether by Saxon or Celt, by African, 
 Chinese, Esquimo, Indian, or Hottentot, by every 
 man, woman, or child, of whatever race. This 
 starting-point established, it becomes a necessity 
 of structure that if we narrow the oral cavity at 
 different points and by different degrees, aU the 
 vowels win be sounded in their turn. 
 
 Tuning the instrument for its fundamental 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 293 
 
 sound, the vocal a as in father, and proceeding 
 towards closure, we form a triple series of vowel 
 sounds along three lines of closure. 
 
 1st Series : along the line from a to e. 
 
 This series is due to the action of the tongue, 
 which marks intervals or spaces in the mouth 
 cavity, the largest space giving a, the narrow- 
 est e. 
 
 This series of vowels is called the lingual se- 
 ries. 
 
 2d Series : along the line from a to oo, as 
 in ooze. 
 
 This series is due to the pushing forwards and 
 rounding the lips, which lengthens the mouth 
 cavity and thus creates new resonant spaces. 
 
 The series of vowels thus formed is called the 
 labial series. 
 
 3d Series : along the line from a to various 
 closures made by the combined action of the 
 tongue and lips. 
 
 This series is due to the coordinate action of 
 the tongue and lips. The vowels thus formed 
 are called glides. They are composites or 
 blended sounds. 
 
 Along these three lines of closure the vowel 
 sounds of all languages must be f ound.^ 
 
 If we regard the vowels as musical tones, aU 
 the articulations must be ranked as noises. But 
 
 ^ The student is referred to Professor Whitney's Cfrowth of Lan- 
 guage and Bell's Visible Speech for an exhaustive treatment of this 
 subject. Both these authorities found their scheme of vowel sounds 
 upon organic structure, and can be profitably studied together. 
 
294 PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 the ear easily marks a distinction between these 
 noises. It divides them into two classes : — 
 
 1. Those in which it recognizes a considerable 
 basis of tone, and which are not decidedly un^ 
 pleasant or inharmonious, — such composites as 
 6, d, I, m, n, r, ng, v, th (as in then), z, zh. 
 These elements form the class of sub-vocals. 
 
 2. Those in which the ear recognizes the 
 slightest basis of tone or none at all, and which 
 are, for the most part, unpleasant, inharmonious, 
 and to be avoided, — such noises as p, t, k, s,f, 
 sh, th (as in thin), ch. These elements form the 
 class of aspirates. 
 
 Now, our speech is made up of these three 
 classes of sounds. And the delight the Psychic 
 finds in tone and rhythm and in dramatic pre- 
 sentation is evident from the way it realizes it- 
 self by using the three kinds of sounds. So 
 we may say that the Psychic expresses its mu- 
 sica,l states through the vowels, its passionate 
 states through the sub-vocals, and that it uses 
 the aspirates to form the boundaries or outlines 
 of the projected tones. 
 
 And through correspondence, these blends or 
 composites of three kinds of sounds present to 
 the ear what graceful forms present to the eye, 
 namely, the elements of the beautiful, — uniform- 
 ity and variety. 
 
 (i.) Tennyson has given a fine illustration of the value 
 of vowel sounds in the art of poetry. In the lines we 
 quote, he speaks of the inscription upon the cenotaph of 
 Sir John Franklin in Westminster Abbey : — 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 295 
 
 " Not here ! The white north has thy bones ; 
 And thou, heroic sailor soul, 
 Art passing on thy happier voyage now, 
 Toward no earthly pole." 
 
 Note how these vowels are attuned to gratify the sense 
 of tone and rhythm. The poet begins with the short sound 
 of " o." This sound must be struck with the radical stress ; 
 it win not admit of quantity. But the purely English " o " 
 in " north," modified by " r," is a most musical element ; 
 next comes the complex " i " in " white " and the long " o" 
 in " bones," which could be sung rather than spoken. But 
 the whole series of sounds find their climax in the resonant 
 march of tone upon the words " thou, heroic sailor soul." 
 The vowel long "o" is the proudest and "a " the most mu- 
 sical of the English vowels. What poise, dignity, strength, 
 and harmony of grateful sounds the above lines present to 
 the ear ! 
 
 We cannot refrain from another quotation from a poem 
 on the death of Princess Alice, where he makes a climax of 
 vowel sounds that are richer through speech than any set 
 musical treatment could give : — 
 
 " Thou England's England-loTing daughter. 
 Dying so English thou wonldst have her flag 
 Borne on thy coiEn." 
 
 These lines seem cast in the most suggestive form for 
 treatment by values, tone color, and rhythm. 
 
 Now, the sub-vocals are equally expressive when depth of 
 passion rules the utterance. The correspondence for the 
 inflections of voice in our deepest Emotive states is with 
 the force of gravity. And the sub-vocals lend themselves 
 to this downward movement more readily than the vowels. 
 
 The author had said this much to a student one day. 
 She was reading the play of Julius Caesar. These lines oc- 
 curred : — 
 
 " Cassius. Age, thou art shamed! ^ 
 
 Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods I 
 When went there by an age, since the great flood, 
 But it was famed with more than with one man I " 
 
296 PHILOSOPHT OF EXPRESSION. 
 
 My student read these lines with great force, but with 
 shallow downward inflections. When told to give the deep- 
 est possible downward slide upon the sub-vocal " g " in 
 " age," upon " m'd " in " shamed," upon " m " in " Rome," 
 and to give three successive deep falling slides upon the 
 sub-vocals in the words "more," "one," and "man," she 
 met with most gratifying success. 
 
 Of one thing we. may be entirely certain: that 
 the spoken language of to-day, in this advanced 
 civilization, is not the language of the England 
 of a century ago, nor is that of the era of Shake- 
 speare the language of Chaucer, nor is that of 
 Chaucer the language of our earlier Saxon an- 
 cestors, nor did theirs bear a very close resem- 
 blance to the Aryan or race language. 
 
 Whitney says that the primitive language of 
 our family had not half the sounds heard to-day. 
 Spoken language is a living tree. In the lapse 
 of ages it is root, trunk, branch, flower, fruit. 
 
 The oldest trees of language on the earth 
 have borne no improved fruit. Nor do they 
 take kindly to engrafting other stock upon the 
 old. According to Sayce, the language of the 
 nomads of the desert of Sahara has been station- 
 ary for the last four thousand years. And yet 
 it is a thrifty though slow-growing tree, com- 
 pared with that revealed by the oldest monu- 
 ments of Egypt, " decrepit, outworn, with none 
 of the bloom of creative youth." 
 
 According to Dr. Edkins, it takes twelve hun- 
 dred years, in Chinese, to grow a new tone. So 
 a new tone in the Chinese language is a twelve- 
 century plant ! 
 
SPEECH AS AN ELEMENT OF EXPRESSION. 297 
 
 In the Aryan root word, man is he who 
 thinks, he who means. And man is man in vir- 
 tue of the faculty of articulate speech. 
 
 Said Martins : " Articulate language is the 
 distinctive characteristic of man." 
 
 Said Darwin : " Articulate speech is peculiar 
 to man." And Haeckel : " Nothing can have 
 transformed and ennobled the faculties of the 
 brain of man so much as the acquisition of lan- 
 guage." 
 
 And with a broader spiritual insight, Oken 
 said : " In the mind of man universal life has 
 become subjective, and language is this subjec- 
 tivity externalized." 
 
 In conclusion, we may say that, with the evo- 
 lution of the mouth organs as an instrument of 
 expression, man has reached the climax of phys- 
 ical differentiation. 
 
 It is not probable that a new being is to ap- 
 pear upon the earth, with a physical structure 
 differing in any essential from the present man. 
 
 The exterior has completed itself. Any fur- 
 ther differentiation must be looked for along the 
 parallels of the mental, ethical, and spiritual. 
 
 Along the psychic parallels we may expect 
 Nature to complete her design, held from the 
 beginning of life upon the earth, to crown her 
 creative acts by the presentation of a being in 
 whom the Spiritual shall realize itself.