Darwinism stated by Darwin himself: Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles DarwinDarwin, Charles
Science
Darwinism stated by Darwin himself: Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles Darwin
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology)
Many years ago, in the Zoölogical Gardens, I placed a looking-glass
on the floor before two young orangs, who, as far as it was known,
had never before seen one. At first they gazed at their own images
with the most steady surprise, and often changed their point of view.
They then approached close and protruded their lips toward the image,
as if to kiss it, in exactly the same manner as they had previously
done toward each other, when first placed, a few days before, in the
same room. They next made all sorts of grimaces, and put themselves
in various attitudes before the mirror; they pressed and rubbed the
surface; they placed their hands at different distances behind it;
looked behind it; and finally seemed almost frightened, started a
little, became cross, and refused to look any longer.
When we try to perform some little action which is difficult and
requires precision, for instance, to thread a needle, we generally
close our lips firmly, for the sake, I presume, of not disturbing our
movements by breathing; and I noticed the same action in a young orang.
The poor little creature was sick, and was amusing itself by trying
to kill the flies on the window-panes with its knuckles; this was
difficult as the flies buzzed about, and at each attempt the lips were
firmly compressed, and at the same time slightly protruded.
WEEPING OF MAN AND BRUTE.
[Expression of
the Emotion,
page 153.]
Infants while young do not shed tears or weep, as is known to nurses
and medical men. This circumstance is not exclusively due to the
lachrymal glands being as yet incapable of secreting tears. I first
noticed this fact from having accidentally brushed with the cuff of
my coat the open eye of one of my infants, when seventy-seven days
old, causing this eye to water freely; and, though the child screamed
violently, the other eye remained dry, or was only slightly suffused
with tears. A similar slight effusion occurred ten days previously
in both eyes during a screaming-fit. The tears did not run over the
eyelids and roll down the cheeks of this child, while screaming
badly, when one hundred and twenty-two days old. This first happened
seventeen days later, at the age of one hundred and thirty-nine days.
A few other children have been observed for me, and the period of free
weeping appears to be very variable. In one case, the eyes became
slightly suffused at the age of only twenty days; in another, at
sixty-two days. With two other children, the tears did _not_ run down
the face at the ages of eighty-four and one hundred and ten days; but
in a third child they did run down at the age of one hundred and four
days. In one instance, as I was positively assured, tears ran down at
the unusually early age of forty-two days. It would appear as if the
lachrymal glands required some practice in the individual before they
are easily excited into action, in somewhat the same manner as various
inherited consensual movements and tastes require some exercise before
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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