In my opinion,
Dr. Duchenne has greatly advanced the subject by his treatment of it.
No one has more carefully studied the contraction of each separate muscle,
and the consequent furrows produced on the skin. He has also,
and this is a very important service, shown which muscles are least
under the separate control of the will. He enters very little into
theoretical considerations, and seldom attempts to explain why certain
muscles and not others contract under the influence of certain emotions.
A distinguished French anatomist, Pierre Gratiolet, gave a course
of lectures on Expression at the Sorbonne, and his notes were published
(1865) after his death, under the title of `De la Physionomie et des
Mouvements d'Expression.' This is a very interesting work, full of
valuable observations. His theory is rather complex, and, as far as it
can be given in a single sentence (p. 65), is as follows:--"Il resulte,
de tous les faits que j'ai rappeles, que les sens, l'imagination et la
pensee ellememe, si elevee, si abstraite qu'on la suppose, ne peuvent
s'exercer sans eveiller un sentiment correlatif, et que ce sentiment se
traduit directement, sympathiquement, symboliquement ou metaphoriquement,
dans toutes les spheres des organs exterieurs, qui la racontent tous,
suivant leur mode d'action propre, comme si chacun d'eux avait
ete directement affecte.
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