Such evidence as we have from the direct observation of children does not seem to me to substantiate the opinion that we have a definite instinctive sensibility to facial expression. Whatever hereditary element there is I imagine to be very vague, and incapable of producing definite phenomena without the aid of experience. I experimented upon my own and some other children with frowns, attempts at ferocity, and pictures of faces, as well as with smiles—in order to elicit instinctive apprehension of expression, but during the first year these phenomena seemed to produce no definite effect. At about fifteen months M. appeared to be dismayed by a savage expression assumed while playing with her, and at about the same period became very sensitive to frowns. The impression left upon me was that after a child learns to expect a smiling face as the concomitant of kindness, he is puzzled, troubled, or startled when it is taken away, and moreover learns by experience that frowns and gravity mean disapproval and opposition. I imagine that children fail to understand any facial expression that is quite new to them. An unfamiliar look, an expression of ferocity for example, may excite vague alarm simply because it is strange; or, as is very likely with children used to kind treatment, this or any other contortion of the face may be welcomed with a laugh on the assumption that it is some new kind of play. I feel sure that observation will dissipate the notion of any _definite_ instinctive capacity to interpret the countenance. I might also mention, as having some bearing upon this question of definite hereditary ideas, that my children did not show that instinctive fear of animals that some believe to be implanted in us. R., the elder, until about three years of age, delighted in animals, and when taken to the menagerie regarded the lions and tigers with the calmest interest; but later, apparently as a result of rude treatment by a puppy, became exceedingly timid. M. has never, so far as I know, shown any fear of any animal. As regards sounds, there is no doubt of a vague instinctive susceptibility, at least to what is harsh—sharp, or plaintive. Children less than a month old will show pain at such sounds. A harsh cry, or a sharp sound like that of a tin horn, will sometimes make them draw down the mouth and cry even during the first week. Darwin records that in one of his children sympathy “was clearly shown at six months and eleven days by his melancholy face, with the corners of his mouth well depressed, when his nurse pretended to cry.”[19] Such manifestations are probably caused rather by the plaintive voice than by facial expression; at any rate, I have never been able to produce them by the latter alone.