With some sects, both past and present, religion and love
have been strangely combined; and it has even been maintained,
lamentable as the fact may be, that the holy kiss of love
differs but little from that which a man bestows on a woman,
or a woman on a man.[25] Devotion is chiefly expressed by the face
being directed towards the heavens, with the eyeballs upturned.
Sir C. Bell remarks that, at the approach of sleep,
or of a fainting-fit, or of death, the pupils are drawn
upwards and inwards; and he believes that "when we are wrapt
in devotional feelings, and outward impressions are unheeded,
the eyes are raised by an action neither taught nor acquired."
and that this is due to the same cause as in the above
cases.[26] That the eyes are upturned during sleep is,
as I hear from Professor Donders, certain. With babies,
whilst sucking their mother's breast, this movement of the eyeballs
often gives to them an absurd appearance of ecstatic delight;
and here it may be clearly perceived that a struggle is going
on against the position naturally assumed during sleep.
But Sir C. Bell's explanation of the fact, which rests on the
assumption that certain muscles are more under the control of the will
than others is, as I hear from Professor Donders, incorrect.
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