The other kind of voluntary signs, comprehends certain attitudes and gestures that naturally accompany certain emotions with a surprising uniformity. Thus excessive joy is expressed by leaping, dancing, or some elevation of the body; and excessive grief by sinking or depressing it. Thus prostration and kneeling have been employ’d by all nations and in all ages to signify profound veneration. Another circumstance, still more than uniformity, demonstrates these gestures to be natural, _viz._ their remarkable conformity or resemblance to the passions that produce them[36]. Joy, which produceth a chearful elevation of mind, is expressed by an elevation of body. Pride, magnanimity, courage, and the whole tribe of elevating passions, are expressed by external gestures that are the same as to the circumstance of elevation, however distinguishable in other respects. Hence it comes, that an erect posture is a sign or expression of dignity: Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native honour clad, In naked majesty, seem’d lords of all. _Paradise Lost, book 4._ Grief, on the other hand, as well as respect, which depress the mind, cannot for that reason be expressed more significantly than by a similar depression of the body. Hence, _to be cast down_, is a common phrase, signifying to be grieved or dispirited. One would not imagine, who has not given peculiar attention, that the body is susceptible of such a variety of attitude and motion, as readily to accompany every different emotion with a corresponding gesture. Humility, for example, is expressed naturally by hanging the head; arrogance, by its elevation; and langour or despondence, by reclining it to one side. The expressions of the hands are manifold. By different attitudes and motions, the hands express desire, hope, fear: they assist us in promising, in inviting, in keeping one at a distance: they are made instruments of threatening, of supplication, of praise, and of horror: they are employ’d in approving, in refusing, in questioning; in showing our joy, our sorrow, our doubts, our regret, our admiration. These gestures, so obedient to passion, are extremely difficult to be imitated in a calm state. The ancients, sensible of the advantage as well as difficulty of having these expressions at command, bestowed much time and care, in collecting them from observation, and in digesting them into a practical art, which was taught in their schools as an important branch of education.