Another principle, to which Darwin perhaps hardly does sufficient
justice, may be called the principle of _reacting similarly to
analogous-feeling stimuli_. There is a whole vocabulary of descriptive
adjectives common to impressions belonging to different sensible
spheres--experiences of all classes are _sweet_, impressions of all
classes _rich_ or _solid_, sensations of all classes _sharp_. Wundt and
Piderit accordingly explain many of our most expressive reactions upon
moral causes as symbolic gustatory movements. As soon as any experience
arises which has an affinity with the feeling of sweet, or bitter, or
sour, the same movements are executed which would result from the taste
in point. "All the states of mind which language designates by the
metaphors bitter, harsh, sweet, combine themselves, therefore, with the
corresponding mimetic movements of the mouth." Certainly the emotions of
disgust and satisfaction do express themselves in this mimetic way.
Disgust is an incipent regurgitation or retching, limiting its
expression often to the grimace of the lips and nose; satisfaction goes
with a sucking smile, or tasting motion of the lips. The ordinary
gesture of negation--among us, moving the head about its axis from side
to side--is a reaction originally used by babies to keep disagreeables
from getting into their mouth, and may be observed in perfection in any
nursery. It is now evoked where the stimulus is only an unwelcome idea.
Similarly the nod forward in affirmation is after the analogy of taking
food into the mouth. The connection of the expression of moral or social
disdain or dislike, especially in women, with movements having a
perfectly definite original olfactory function, is too obvious for
comment. Winking is the effect of any threatening surprise, not only of
what puts the eyes in danger; and a momentary aversion of the eyes is
very apt to be one's first symptom of response to an unexpectedly
unwelcome proposition.--These may suffice as examples of movements
expressive from analogy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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