"
[7] `Handbuch der Systematischen Anatomie des Menschen.'
Band I. Dritte Abtheilung, 1858.
Gratiolet appears to overlook inherited habit, and even to some
extent habit in the individual; and therefore he fails, as it seems
to me, to give the right explanation, or any explanation at all,
of many gestures and expressions. As an illustration of what he calls
symbolic movements, I will quote his remarks (p. 37), taken from
M. Chevreul, on a man playing at billiards. "Si une bille devie
legerement de la direction que le joueur pretend zlui imprimer,
ne l'avez-vous pas vu cent fois la pousser du regard, de la tete et
meme des epaules, comme si ces mouvements, purement symboliques,
pouvaient rectifier son trajet? Des mouvements non moins significatifs
se produisent quand la bille manque d'une impulsion suffisante.
Et cliez les joueurs novices, ils sont quelquefois accuses au
point d'eveiller le sourire sur les levres des spectateurs."
Such movements, as it appeirs to me, may be attributed simply to habit.
As often as a man has wished to move an object to one side, he has
always pushed it to that side when forwards, he has pushed it forwards;
and if he has wished to arrest it, he has pulled backwards.
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