Sentimentalism, Moral Values, and Emotional Expression in Darwin and the Anatomists*

Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 47(4), 335–358 Fall 2011 View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/jhbs.20515 © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

THE NATURALIST AND THE NUANCES: SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS*

STÉPHANIE DUPOUY

Comparing Charles Darwin’s account of emotional expression to previous nineteenth- century scientific studies on the same subject, this article intends to locate the exact nature of Darwin’s break in his 1872 book (as well as in his earlier notebooks). In contrast to a standard view that approaches this question in the framework of the creationism/ evolutionism dichotomy, I argue that Darwin’s account distinguishes itself primarily by its distance toward the sentimentalist values and moral hierarchies that were traditionally linked with the study of expression—an attitude that is not an inevitable ingredient of the theory of evolution. However, Darwin’s approach also reintroduces another kind of hierarchy in human expression, but one based on attenuation and self-restraint in the exhibition of expressive signs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

INTRODUCTION

. . . if . . . a man grinning is to exposes [sic] his canine teeth, no doubt a habit gained by formerly being a baboon with great canine teeth.—(This may be made capital argument if man does move muscles for uncovering canines).—Blend this argument with his having canine teeth at all. This way of viewing the subject important.—Laughing modified barking, smiling modified laughing. Barking to tell other animals in associated kinds of good news, discovery of prey. . . . Under this point of view, expression of all animals becomes very curious. (Darwin, 1987, p. 315) This note from the “C Notebook,” written by Darwin in 1838 (while conceiving the out- line of his evolutionary theory), captured for the first time the core insight of his theory of expression, which he would extend and publish more than thirty years later in his Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Darwin considered emotional expressions such as smiling (or laughing) as an evolutionary legacy, both hereditary vestige and proof of our animal origins. Because baboons uncovered their large canine teeth when they saw some food (either in preparation for eating, or to call their fellows to share the meal), men still uncover their teeth even now when they are in a joyful mood—although this gesture, in the latter case, has become useless and purely automatic: “[W]ith respect to sneering, the very essence of an habitual movement is continuing it when useless—& therefore it is here continued when the uncovering the canine useless” (Darwin, 1987, p. 542). Expressions are therefore the behavioral equivalent of atrophied organs that indicate some species’ former ways of life (such as webbed feet in animals that no longer swim). Consequently, expression has not been favored by natural selection for its adaptive value as a communication tool, but as a by-product of other biological mechanisms. Darwin’s explanation of expression, and more generally his 1872 book, have been widely and excellently commented on, mostly by historians of evolutionary theory, by historians of

* This article won the 2009 John C. Burnham Early Career Award from the Forum of the History of Human Science.

STÉPHANIE DUPOUY was trained in philosophy. Her PhD dissertation was on the subject of scientific approaches to emotional expression in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She teaches philosophy and history of science at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris.

335 336 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY art, and by a long line of scientific researchers on emotions and facial expressions (Ekman, 1973, 1998; Gilman, 1979, 1982; Gruber, 1981; Burkhardt, 1985; Browne, 1985a, 1985b; Montgomery, 1985; Richards, 1987, 2003; Fridlund, 1992; Duvernay-Bolens, 1998; Armstrong, 1998; Prodger, 1998). Within this body of scholarship, a standard account has emerged concerning the nature of Darwin’s break in the study of emotional expression. Darwin is usually credited with having substituted evolution for Providence as the origin of expression: Formerly conceived on the model of an immutable language, given to human beings by God on the day of Creation, human expressions would become, in Darwin’s scenario, the result of other biological functions, the blind and indirect product of evolution. A related view argues that Darwin introduced the “why” question, as opposed to the “how” question, in the investigation of expression: Whereas his forerunners had contented themselves with describing the signs of the various passions, Darwin opened up the question of their origin (e.g., Ekman, 1998; Delaporte, 1999). It is also common to oppose the pre- Darwinian “spiritual” treatment of expression, conceived as a human privilege—the mirror of the soul—to Darwin’s approach, which reduced expression to a purely physiological and organic phenomenon, common to the entire animal kingdom. Another widespread analysis, influenced by contemporary issues in the cognitive sciences, suggests that Darwin was the first to see human expression as universal, in opposition to previous physiognomy that emphasized the individual element in the human face (Ekman, 1973, 1998; Browne, 1985b). None of these statements, of course, is devoid of truth. However, I intend to show that they are all too simple, given the sophistication of Darwin’s forerunners’ accounts, and are rarely grounded in a sensitive reading of these authors. Among the scientists of expression quoted by Darwin in the Expression, only Charles Bell has been studied by most historians, and even Bell has rarely been read on his own terms and context. I believe that this restricted scope, as well as this teleological perspective, have contributed to slightly distorting the perception not only of Darwin’s forerunners, but even of Darwin’s own contribution. Darwin’s book on expression has generally been approached within the framework of the history of the theory of evolution—a perspective that has had to confront the vexing question of the absence of the natural selection principle in Darwin’s explanation of expression.1 Nevertheless, as other studies have convincingly demonstrated, Darwin’s book can also be understood within other contexts, such as the history of scientific illustration, argumentative strategies, and popular science (Prodger, 1998, 2009; Smith, 2006; Voss, 2007); the history of philosophical, literary, and scientific ideas on emotion (Stedman, 2002; Dixon, 2003; White, 2009, 2011); or the history of physiognomy and the scientific approach to the face (Drouin- Hans, 1995; Hartley, 2003; White, 2008). Dixon (2003), in particular, has recently given an illuminating account of the theories of affectivity in nineteenth-century British philosophy and psychology, showing how the diverse and nuanced affective categories of the early nineteenth century have been progressively eroded by the single and simplified notion of “emotion,” conceived of as an amoral, disintellectualized mental state—a shift in which Darwin’s book on emotion played a decisive part. In a series of stimulating articles, White has investigated the place of sentimentalism and sympathy in Victorian science, especially in the scientific discourse on the emotions and the face (particularly in Darwin); he describes with finesse the various manners in which Darwin uses, objectifies, and reconfigurates his own

1. The usual picture of Darwin’s account as an evolutionary response to Bell’s natural theology, although initially propagated by Darwin himself, was indeed supported by this focus of the Darwinian scholarship, since Darwin’s opposition to Bell’s creationism provided a convenient explanation for this puzzling lack of discussion of natural selection in the Expression (Burkhardt, 1985; Fridlund, 1992; Ekman, 1998; Dixon, 2003).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 337 sentimental experience to produce knowledge on emotions. The following analysis is greatly indebted to the (somewhat complementary) perspectives of Dixon and White. White and Dixon (and the researchers associated with Queen Mary, University of London’s Centre for the History of Emotions) are both concerned to read Darwin’s writings in their own context (and in the light of previous research traditions), in order to avoid the hindsight bias resulting from the perception of Darwin as a forerunner of contemporary science. Following these broader accounts, I would like to compare Darwin’s work on expression to the long prior tradition of scientific investigation on facial expression by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century anatomists.2 Against this background, I argue that the originality of Darwin’s treatment of this subject relies more on the moral judgments that pervade his devel- opments on expression than on the explanatory mechanisms he invokes. Compared to those of his forerunners, Darwin’s analysis (particularly in the Notebooks), stands out for the casu- alness, indeed the irony with which he approaches the sentimentalist values and the moral hierarchies that had been traditionally linked to the theme of emotional expression. His approach is salient in its juxtaposition of the supposedly refined or sublime human expressions to their prosaic or sensual, potentially ridiculous or improper, animal origins. This moral and cultural dimension of Darwin’s contribution was not a necessary part of evolutionary theory, although he himself uses it in its defense. Nevertheless, as I shall argue, Darwin’s position tends to become much more complex in his 1872 book, displaying several intertwined argumentative strategies. Not only does Expression credit man with some specifically human expressions, but it also emphasizes the attenuated character of human expressions, compared to those of animals, as well as the specific human ability to control and to inhibit expressions. In this sense, Expression introduces new kinds of hierarchy in the human expressive palette. But for Darwin, as opposed to the preceding anatomists, humanization and civilization manifest themselves not by the enlargement and refinement of the expressive range, but by the restraint and discipline of expression.

THE ANATOMIES OF EXPRESSION (MOREAU, BELL, GRATIOLET): ROOTING EXPRESSIVE PHENOMENA IN THE LIVING ORGANISM At the time of the publication of Darwin’s Expression, facial expression already had a long past as an object of scientific investigation. In the seventeenth century, philosophers (such as Descartes in his treatise on the passions), artists (such as the painter Charles Le Brun in his Conférence sur l’expression), and physicians (such as Cureau de la Chambre, Louis the XIVth’s doctor) had speculated on the physiological mechanisms of emotion and expression. Since the middle of the eighteenth century, moreover, anatomists, too, had investigated the muscular contractions associated with emotional expressions on the human face. These scientists worked under the general assumption that anatomical knowledge of facial muscular structure led to more accurate description and classification of the various expressions that the passions impart to the countenance, and, thereby, could help artists render the passions onto the canvas. This scientific enterprise, however, was not monolithic; in particular, it underwent a major change at the turn of the nineteenth century, in the context of the birth of comparative anatomy. If Darwin’s treatment of the subject can be clearly contrasted to the

2. On Darwin’s place in this tradition of research, see White (2008), as well as the pioneering work of Drouin-Hans (1995), which follows the emergence of a network of authors working on nonverbal communication in the nineteenth century. Interesting comparisons between Darwin’s Expression and specific anatomists can also be found in Montgomery (1985), Browne (1985a), Delaporte (1999), Hartley (2003), and Smith (2006). See also Dupouy (2007).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 338 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY approach of the eighteenth-century anatomists, who conceived of expression as a “natural language” of the soul established by Providence, this is less true of the subsequent science of expression, which constituted the more immediate context of his work. In what follows, I will consider the work of three of these later anatomists. The first is Louis-Jacques Moreau de la Sarthe, a French physician and physiognomist who in 1806–1809 published an augmented French translation and edition of Lavater’s Physiognomy, including an anatomy of expression of his own. This edition, published again in 1820 (Moreau, 1820), and widely distributed in nineteenth century, was one of the editions in which Darwin read Lavater while beginning to work on expression in his notebooks; Darwin still praised Moreau’s anatomical description of the face in Expression, even if he was critical of Moreau’s attempt to raise physiognomy to the rank of a science (Darwin, 1989, pp. 2–3). The second anatomist is Charles Bell, the famous author of The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression as Connected with the Fine Arts, a lavishly illustrated work which went through several editions in the nineteenth century; Darwin read the first edition in 1840 and referred to the third edition in Expression (Bell, 1806, 1844; Browne, 1985a, p. 324). In Expression, Darwin, although admiring Bell’s work, presented his own theory in contrast to Bell’s creationist account and natural theology of expression. The third anatomist is Louis-Pierre Gratiolet, a French naturalist who in 1865 published De la physionomie et des mouvements d’expression—a work that offered a detailed analysis of many physiological mechanisms involved in expressive phenomena, and which Darwin would use and cite extensively in Expression (Gratiolet, 1865).3 Since the late seventeenth century, the nonverbal expression of the passions was often described by philosophers as an innate, immutable, and universal language, given to man by God.4 The first anatomical treatise on expression, a work of the English surgeon James Parsons (1705–1770) entitled Human Physiognomy Explain’d (which Darwin read while writ- ing his notebook N, and from which he quoted in Expression) was clearly inscribed in this providentialist perspective (Parsons, 1746–1747; Darwin, 1987, p. 592, and 1989, p. 1).5 The Creator, according to Parsons, had given mankind natural signs in order to favor the conser- vation of the human species through the mutual communication and sharing of the passions: The expression of sadness on the human face was useful to incline human beings to sympathy, the expression of fear to warn them against danger, the expression of scorn or wickedness to inspire defiance against their bearers, and so on (Parsons, 1746–1747, pp. 33–34). In this perspective, expression was considered as a preestablished correspondence between soul and face, holding in all places and at all times. Parsons conceived his treatise chiefly as a descrip- tive inventory of the natural signs: His purpose was generally not to explain why such-and- such a passion was related to such-and-such a specific expression, but simply to map, with the help of anatomical knowledge, the various expressions of the face. Parsons rejected as irredeemably conjectural any attempt (such as the earlier ones of Descartes and Le Brun) to identify, invoking a healthy dose of animal spirits, the deep physiological causes of the external signs of the passions. In his view, the question of the physiological machinery behind the

3. On this tradition of research, see Cummings, 1964; Cowling, 1989; Cule, 1993; Jordanova, 1993, 1995; Drouin- Hans, 1992, 1995; Roberts and Tomlinson, 1992; Percival, 1999; Röhrl, 2000; Delaporte, 2003; Hartley, 2003; Dupouy, 2007; White, 2008. 4. From the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, the philosophical elaboration of this idea can be followed, in the French context, in the writings of Géraud de Cordemoy, Nicolas Malebranche, and the Abbé du Bos; and later in the works of the Scottish philosophers Thomas Reid and Dugald Steward. This providentialist perspective, however, is foreign to other, earlier, traditions of thinking on the face, such as in the writings of Descartes. See Dupouy (2007). 5. On this text, see: West (1990), Cule (1993), and Franz (2000); briefer analyses can be found in Kirchner (1991, pp. 317–321), Montagu (1994, pp. 101–102), and Percival (1999, pp. 33–35).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 339 expressive signs was, for the main part, irrelevant. Parsons’s book fits well with the usual picture of Darwin as having substituted explanation for description, and blind biological trans- formations for what was seen as an immutable divine gift and a human privilege.6 Nevertheless, the science of expression that developed in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the decades preceding Darwin’s own tackling of the subject, contrasted sharply with Parsons’s treatise. To begin with, it was usual in this tradition not only to view some human expressions as resembling those of animals, but also to consider the animal expressions as being the keys to the human, and to regard at least some human expressions as a sign that man and animals share a common nature. Moreau, Bell, and Gratiolet were all working in the tradition of Cuvier’s comparative anatomy. Cuvier analyzed the human face as consisting of two kinds of morphological and functional structures, some of which being common to some or all mam- mal species (and contributing to the main physiological functions of the organism: nutrition, respiration, and circulation), and some of which being peculiar to the human species (and linked to the specific human muscles, sense organs, and nervous system). When human beings feel an “animal passion,”—that is, one that occurs in the context of activities related to animal life (for example, when fearing for one’s life)—such a passion and its expression would then naturally borrow the functional apparatus, organs, and muscles that human beings share with other species, whereas distinctively human passions (such as remorse, hatred, love, compassion, courage, indignation, irony, etc.) would be partly (but not exclusively) conveyed by the muscles and organs peculiar to humans (cf. Moreau, 1820, I, pp. 100–108, and IV, pp. 198–209; Bell, 1844, pp. 59–60, 136–139, 164–168). As a result, part of the human expressive range closely resembles that of other animals, and the comparison of human facial structure to that of other species could help to explain some features of human expression. Moreau, for example, argued that the expression of rage in human beings proceeds naturally from a contraction of the muscles involved in chewing and swallowing in carnivores (Moreau, 1820, IV, p. 202). In a similar vein, Bell described how animal species develop their expressive range according to their way of life: The typical attitudes of carnivores naturally express ferocity, whereas those of herbivores naturally express timidity or idiocy; human beings, for Bell, exhibit the same expressions when they feel comparable passions (Bell, 1844, pp. 122–136). As a result, these anatomists explained many human expressions by animal analogies. When Gratiolet, for example, seeks to explain why anxiety makes men frantically look to both sides, he refers to the behavior of the rabbit to elucidate this human expression: The eyes have a marked tendency to look backwards; this gaze direction is easy for certain shy animals, for hares and rabbits, for example . . . the ease with which they can do this is for them a very precious ability: being constantly under the attack of carnivores, they can, during their frantic flights, more easily escape from the danger that threatens them by measuring the distance between themselves and the fox, the wolf or the dog that pursues, without having to turn their head backwards. . . . The parallel alignment of the ocular axes in man makes this backwards gaze direction absolutely impossible. However, there are certain cases, and these cases are frequent throughout the world, in which the eyes have an obvious but useless tendency to look in this way: they can be seen turning to one side or the other . . . and one could say . . . that they are to turn around the head. In animals this way of looking is a symptom of shyness, of fright, or at least of worry;

6. The same can be said of another anatomical treatise on expression from the eighteenth century, the lecture on expression delivered in 1774 by the Dutch anatomist Petrus Camper to the Amsterdam Academy of Drawing. See Camper (1803).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 340 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY in man, it is a sign of suspicion, of hidden curiosity, and sometimes indicates a jealous preoccupation that cannot be admitted. (Gratiolet, 1865, pp. 16–17)7

Thus, an anxious man behaves as a rabbit, looking back at a pursuing predator. The biological function of certain gestures in animals explains why human beings exhibit these same movements, even if they are, in this case, absolutely useless—an argument very similar to the one Darwin developed, seven years later, in his book on expression. Although Gratiolet was by no means an evolutionist, his use of animal behavior as an explanatory tool for human expressions—and in particular his idea that some human expressions are “reductions” (diminutifs) of functional movements in animals (Gratiolet, 1865, p. 154)—comes very close to the Darwinian explanation.8 It was widely acknowledged, therefore, in the pre-Darwinian science of expression, that at least some human expressions were similar to those of animals, and could be explained by invoking both morphological structures and biological functions common to human and animal species. Among Darwin’s forerunners, however, this reasoning clearly does not apply to all human expressions, but only to some of them: What Darwin did, consequently, was mainly to expand this argument to all human expressions. Accordingly, the idea that Darwin was the first to address the “why” question, whereas his predecessors would have limited themselves to the “how” question, is for the most part false. Contrary to Parsons, anatomists of expression after 1800 intended not only to make an inventory of facial expressions, but indeed to explain, with the help of comparative anatomy and physiology, why such-and-such a gesture has the meaning that it does or the connection to a certain state of the mind.9 Their purpose was to show how an organism becomes naturally expressive in the accomplishment of its biological functions (or under the pressure of physiological changes associated with the passions). The general schema of their explanations was as follows: When an organism experiences a passion (fear, rage, love, and the like), it is driven to perform certain external gestures, either related to the target of the passion or resulting from the bodily perturbation caused by the passion. These gestures (such as opening the mouth in preparation for biting in the case of rage, or in order to breathe in the case of fear) then became naturally expressive of the passion in question. Moreau, for example, explained the frown in passions such as sadness or anxiety by a general effort of the organism to con- strict and tighten itself, in order to protect itself from external dangers (Moreau, 1820, IV, p. 229). Bell held that many features of human and animal expressions result from respiratory constraints: In the course of its passions, the “economy” of the organism was affected in such a way that its respiration would change, and the external movements of the mouth in expression were nothing but the natural extension of those of the respiratory system (Bell, 1844, pp. 84–86). Gratiolet extended this physiological logic even to the higher human expressions: Because of the close unity between soul and body during life, the most intellectual and moral passions of human beings had somehow to borrow their expressions from the most

7. The translation of this extract, like all the other texts by Gratiolet and Moreau quoted in this article, is mine. Concerning this text, see Drouin-Hans (1990, 1992). 8. The main difference between Gratiolet’s and Darwin’s explanations lies in the fact that, in the case of Gratiolet, the similarity of expression between humans and animals doesn’t rest on an hereditary transmission, but results simply from analogous, actual morphological and physiological structures, and from comparable possibilities of action between different species. 9. This shift was more generally related to the transformation of natural history into biology—that is, the transition between a science of life based on the observation of the external characters of animals and plants, and a taxonomy conceived as a comparative anatomy grounded in the notion of biological function, as exemplified by Cuvier. On this epistemic break, see Foucault (1966).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 341 basic sensorimotor actions.10 For example, Gratiolet attributed expressive signs of scorn to the movements associated with the vomiting reflex—even when this “scorn” was abstract, tar- geted at a philosophical proposition, for example (Gratiolet, 1865, pp. 14, 42, 44, 52). To a certain extent, therefore, Darwin’s forerunners clearly proposed a biological or physiological origin of expressivity, and it cannot be maintained that expression was conceived, in pre- Darwinian studies, as an immediate, arbitrary and preestablished manifestation of the soul. This is already true of many features of human expression in Bell. Contrary to the common picture of Bell drawn by the historians of Darwinism, Bell was mostly opposed to the view that expression, even in humans, could be simply explained by “the idea of a direct influence of the Mind upon the feature,”11 as was suggested by Parsons and Camper. A good illustration of this can be found in Bell’s explanation of the expression of prayer. Significantly, Bell analyzed the upward movement of the eye in prayer as the result of the exhaustion of some muscles around the eyes (exhaustion that occurred in various states of mind and body such as religious exaltation, but also fainting or agony), mechanically triggering the upward rolling of the eyeballs. The ecstatic religious look, therefore, did not result from the direct institution of the divinity, nor from men’s belief that the dwelling place of the gods was above: It was, on the contrary, this belief that resulted from the muscular and nervous structure of the human eye (Bell, 1844, pp. 102–105). This kind of explanation testifies to Bell’s effort to rely, as much as possible, on physiological mechanisms, instead of on a deus ex machina, in order to account for expressive phenomena. Nevertheless, it is true that Bell, who did not wish to be suspected of materialism, did not push this thesis too far, maintaining that human beings also had a peculiar set of facial muscles (corrugator supercilii, triangularis oris) proper to man, having no other function than expression, and, presumably, directly subjected (via the nerves and the brain) to the influence of the soul (Bell, 1844, pp. 121, 136–141). These muscles, however, were not sufficient, in Bell’s view, to account for human expression. Bell’s restriction, in addition, was severely criticized by Gratiolet, who held that there was not a single muscle in the human face that had been given to man solely for expression (Gratiolet, 1865, p. 12). Gratiolet refused the residual finalism of Bell’s conception: In his theory, expressions never occurred simply to mirror the soul, but were always the indirect results of movements accomplished under the influence of (or in response to) the passions. But despite these differences between Bell’s and Gratiolet’s accounts, both shared an effort to root expressive phenomena in the movements and needs of the living organism. Expression, in their view, was at least partly, if not entirely, the by-product of other biological functions. Therefore, the common view that Darwin substituted evolution for Providence as the origin of expression needs also to be considered cautiously. Undeniably, Bell and Gratiolet partly conceived their enterprise of an anatomy of expression in the framework of natural theology: The study of the subtle movements of the human face, accounting for its superior expressivity, was for them a way to praise the divine design visible in the creation of the human body (Bell, 1844, pp. 83–84, 149; Gratiolet, 1865, p. 11). Nevertheless, this providentialist perspective, in their view, did not absolve scientists from looking for the physiological causes of the expressive movements. Their investigations, in fact, can be read as an attempt to secularize

10. See, for instance, Gratiolet (1865, pp. 65–66). For similar statements in Bell, see Bell (1844, pp. 82–83, 198–199). 11. See, for example, the title of the third chapter in his book: “Of Those Sources of Expression in the Countenance which cannot be explained on the Idea of a Direct Influence of the Mind upon the Features” (Bell, 1844, p. 82)

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 342 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY and embody what had been previously conceived of as a providential language proceeding from an immediate connection between soul and facial movements. Moreover, natural theology was entirely foreign to Moreau’s agenda. Moreau, like his master the French physician and philosopher Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis, was a materialist and freethinker, and seems to have subscribed to an atomist, epicurian form of transformism (Moreau, 1805, p. 19). If he credited the human face with a greater expressive power than those of animals, this ability did not appear in his theory as a divine gift, but was strictly conditioned by the complexity of the facial musculature, itself related (as demonstrated by comparative anatomy) to human intellectual and sensory capacities and to brain structure. Moreau, to be sure, was inclined to consider expression as a partly independent function of the human face, that is, not entirely reducible to other functions such as nutrition and mastication, respiration, circulation, and the like (Moreau, 1820, IV, p. 205). But in his view, there was nothing in the organization of the human face that constituted a supernatural order of facts that would escape biology. For Moreau, social skills, expressive behavior, intellectual abilities, and facial mor- phology were congruent and interrelated in the human species, but this was Nature’s work, as well as, to some extent, the result of human history—and not God’s creation. These various reasons explain why the opposition between creationism and evolutionism may not, as such, constitute the most appropriate historical framework to apply to the science of expression and to analyze Darwin’s contribution to the field. Moreover, it must be clear now that many of Darwin’s theoretical insights concerning expression were prepared by, and in continuity with, those of his anatomist forerunners.12

NUANCES, MORAL HIERARCHIES, AND SENTIMENTALIST VALUES IN PRE-DARWINIAN ANATOMIES OF EXPRESSION There remain, nevertheless, a number of other—moral—aspects in Darwin’s account of expression that contrast sharply with these previous studies. Moreau, Bell, and Gratiolet all shared certain assumptions concerning human expressions. First, human expressions were held by these anatomists to be innumerable, infinitely diverse, and subtly nuanced. Second, they tended to order them according to a hierarchical scale, ranging from the lowest, the most brutal and bestial, to the highest, most noble, sublime, and spiritual ones. Third, expression was fundamentally seen by these authors as a useful and harmonious mechanism, contributing to create and maintain social links between human beings, and to guarantee some kind of moral regulation in human interactions. As we shall see, Darwin’s analysis would challenge all these postulates and values. For Darwin’s forerunners, the human face distinguished itself by the variety and nuance of its expressive range: Moreau, Bell, and Gratiolet all held that the human expressive palette was much richer, finer, and more delicate and complex than that of animals, and that it revealed man’s intellectual and moral superiority over beasts. Moreau, in particular, gave the classical statement of this position, grounded in a precise analysis of the anatomical structure of the human face compared to those of other mammals. In his view, a careful observation of the facial musculature of nonhuman mammals revealed that their faces can only manifest a small number of strong and stereotyped expressions. In Moreau’s words, their muscles are “voluminous, hardly differentiated, alike in different individuals, and fitter for producing convul- sions . . . than for expressing delicate movements and the passionate interplay [jeu passionné] of the countenance” (Moreau, 1820, I, p. 108). Human facial muscles, on the other hand, are

12. See White (2008, pp. 7–8) for a converging analysis regarding Bell’s work.

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 343 more numerous (Moreau counted no less than 53 muscles in the human face13), more delicate, less powerful, and allowing for more degrees of contraction than the facial muscles of other mammals, and than the muscles of the rest of the human body. Immersed in the thickness of the skin (instead of being covered by the platysma muscle as in animals), their contraction has, in Moreau’s view, the peculiarity of producing fine wrinkles on the surface of the (hair- less) skin, which can infinitely combine and merge with one another. In addition, the dispo- sition of these muscles slightly differs from one individual to another; this fact, added to the unequal susceptibility of the individuals for the various passions, explained how the wrinkles resulting from habitual expressions would progressively give to each human face its individual physiognomy.14 Similarly, Bell emphasized the complexity of the human facial structure and the variety of its expressive range, compared to that of animals: “While the human countenance is capable of expressing both the rage of the more ferocious animals, and the timidity of the milder, it possesses, by the consentaneous action of a few superadded muscles, power of expression varying almost to infinity. It is curious to observe how the muscles thus afford a new occasion of distinguishing the classes of animals; and how, as signs of superior intelligence, they give proofs of the endowments of man, and the excellence of its nature” (Bell, 1844, p. 141).15 In Moreau’s case, this new emphasis on the notion of “nuance” and “delicacy” in the description of the human expressive range was related to a new concern for the rendering of individual differences in expression—a legacy of Enlightenment aesthetics. Whereas the analysis of passions and expressions in the seventeenth-century writings of Descartes and Lebrun rested on the counting of a small number of primitive, “pure” passions (and expressions), a wide range of authors, from 1750 onward, criticized the abstraction and the essen- tialism presupposed by this traditional view and defended a more gradualist, historicized, and individualized picture of the human affective and expressive palette.16 Art theorists such as C.-H. Watelet (1718–1786) and Diderot (1713–1784) urged artists to prefer the depiction of mild and individualized nuances of the passions instead of Lebrun’s models of intense, “pure” expressions, now perceived as exaggerated and ugly.17 Another influence came from sensualist philosophers such as Condillac or Rousseau, who argued that the complexity of affective life grows with the intellectual and moral development of an individual or civilization. For example, children and man in the state of nature were supposed to have few passions, as compared to the civilized adult. Moreau, who was familiar with all of these authors, adapted these views to the subject matter of expression (Moreau, 1824, p. 414; 1820, IV, p. 211, and V, p. 165): For him, children had, as compared to adults, a small and unrefined range of passions and expressions, and the same was true of savages compared to civilized people.18 The higher

13. See Moreau, 1820, IV, p. 205. 14. Moreau (1820, IV, p. 220). 15. See also: “[B]esides the muscles analogous to those of brutes, others are introduced in the human face, which indicate emotions and sympathies of which the lower animals are not susceptible; and as they are peculiar to man, they may be considered as the index of mental energy, in opposition to mere animal expression” (Bell, 1844, pp. 136–137). 16. On this gradualist view of the passions, see the excellent book of Percival (1999), as well as Walsh (1996). 17. Watelet’s classification of the passions, quoted in the article on “Passions” in the Grande Encyclopédie was a good example of this unprecedented multiplication and subtilization of the passions (and expressions). See Jaucourt (1765, p. 151). See also Watelet’s article on “Expression” (Watelet, 1756, p. 319), as well as Diderot (1984, p. 371). 18. “In the infant and the savage, moral sensibility is not nearly developed enough to be susceptible to imperious passions that disturb intellectual functions. . . . In general, in children affections are fleeting, bounded, personal.... Society’s childhood resembles that of the individual as concerns the passions. . . . In reviewing the history of progress of human understanding, one could note the dates, indicate the ages of many of the passions, and take these ages as epochs of moral nature . . .” (Moreau, 1824, XI, p. 414).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 344 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY the degree of civilization, the more complex the affective life, the larger the expressive palette of the human face, and the more differentiated the expressive range of different individuals. Humanization and civilization went hand-in-hand with an increase in expressive power and a growing individuation of the countenance.19 A related feature of the expressive classifications of our anatomists concerns the hierarchical categories they used to describe expressions. In their treatises, expressions were qual- ified as either low or high, brutal or noble, bestial or sublime. In Moreau’s and Bell’s analyses, in particular, this dichotomy chiefly overlapped with the animal/human distinction: Expressions in humans ranged from the most bestial and crude, involving muscles and movements very similar to those of animals (and instantly revealing the lower and sensual passions of their bearer), to the most sublime and delicate, emphasizing the distinctive features of the human face (and revealing the higher and noble passions of the subject). The lower expressions were said to be conveyed by the strong and powerful muscles around the mouth and the jaws, similar in humans and in many mammals, whereas the higher expressions were said to involve the fine and delicate muscles peculiar to the human face around the eyes, the forehead and the angle of the mouth.20 For these authors it was clear, therefore, that the animality of a human expression (its reliance on muscles not proper to man) necessarily had negative value and was seen as potentially ludicrous or despicable in its bearer,21 whereas human expression was noble and refined when it involved a muscular and physiological apparatus belonging to man alone, indicating, for this very reason, the emotions unavailable to beasts. In Bell’s theory, for example, anger was beastly when expressed solely by the masticatory muscles of carnivorous animals, but the addition of the contraction of the corrugator muscle gave it a distinctive nuance of mental energy and dignity (Bell, 1844, pp. 138–139).22 Gratiolet’s analysis was distinctive here: In his theory, the expressive analogy between human and animal expression was not thought of as something that should inevitably impart bestiality to the human countenance. If we come back to the example of the anxious man and the rabbit, the movement of the eye that expresses “shyness” or “fright” on the rabbit’s face would naturally, in its attenuated form, convey an expression of “suspicion,” “dissimulation,”

19. This analysis is largely in agreement with Dixon’s reading of the evolution of the classifications of the passions in nineteenth-century British philosophy and psychology as a movement toward simplification and reduction (Dixon, 2003). Whereas Dixon interprets the complexity and subtlety of affective categories in the early nineteenth century as a distant heritage of Christian thought, here I emphasize the distinctive impact of eighteenth-century aesthetic and philosophical (sensualist) views in the Enlightenment’s proliferation of the categories of passions and sentiments. In my view, both of these accounts are valid but their emphasis varies from one author to another. In the case of Moreau, it is clear that eighteenth-century aesthetics and philosophy are the pertinent variables. This thesis does not apply as clearly to Bell or Gratiolet, and may not hold for the British context in general, which was studied by Dixon. 20. The polysemic notion of “delicacy,” in Moreau’s theory for example, qualifying both certain muscles and certain passions, helped to bridge the gap between an anatomical analysis of facial muscles and a moral classification of the passions. See, for example, Moreau (1820, I, p. 108). 21. See Moreau (1820, I, p. 208): “All exaggeration in the expression of physical needs degrades man, bringing him closer to the animals and making him ridiculous or despicable.” See also Moreau (1820, IV, p. 204). 22. “The rage of the graminovorous animal is chiefly visible in the eyes, in the inflation of the nostril, and in the dis- turbed state of the body. It is expressed most strongly by the carnivorous animals: in them it is wild, ferocious, and terrifying . . . the expression of the human rage partakes of both. . . . Of a face under the influence of such actions, a spectator would infallibly say, that the aspect was brutal, savage, and cruel; but when the corrugator supercilii, a muscle peculiar to human expression, is brought into action, the sign is altered . . . the energy of the mind is appar- ent, and there is a mingling of thought and emotion with the savage and brutal rage of the mere animal” (Bell, 1844, pp. 138–139). See also the description of the various nuances of fear, from animal fear to human terror (Bell, 1844, pp. 164–168).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 345 or “jealousy” in the human countenance. For Gratiolet, the surfacing of very simple reflexes in human expressions was not necessarily degrading for the human face. Nevertheless, Gratiolet’s description of human expression was no less suffused with hierarchical values than those of his forerunners; in his account, the difference between the lower and higher expression rested on the division between the inferior and superior senses (smell and taste vs. hear- ing and sight). Hence, the expression of spiritual love involved movements of the visual apparatus, whereas sensual love expressed itself by movements of the nostrils (Gratiolet, 1865, pp. 49–50; see also p. 21). In any case, all of our anatomists presupposed that expressions revealed the moral and intellectual value of the corresponding passions, and consequently of their bearers (in that respect, although these authors all rejected Lavater’s postulate that the individual character was legible in the hard, solid part of the face, their enterprise was akin to physiognomy23). This hierarchical perspective was closely related to the moral issues to which the subject matter of expression was intimately linked during the Enlightenment. At this time, for many philosophers of language, moral sentiments, and art, the manifestation and communication of the passions through the natural language of expression, as well as the receptivity of man to the expressions of others, was often considered to be the first manifestation and incentive of human social and moral nature. The natural sensibility of human beings to the emotions con- cretely exhibited on the face of their fellow creatures was seen as an empirical foundation for the development of sympathy among human beings. When humans see tears or smiles on the faces of their fellow creatures, they cannot help being moved by the same passions they see in others, and this sensitivity is intimately connected with their moral sense or faculty. In the eighteenth century, these views of expression were common, for example, not only among providentialist accounts of expression as a divine gift (such as in the work of the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche, or later in the philosophy of the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid), but also in the empiricist and more mundane philosophy of David Hume or in the French ency- clopedists, as well as among many art theorists. In relation to this moralized view of expression, it was often said that the expressive language of the passions was more intelligible, more instantaneous, more efficient, more eloquent, and more authentic than articulate language, and that it allowed for a less ambiguous and more unifying form of communication.24 The same set of views also included the idea that benevolent and sociable passions would be manifested by attractive expressions, whereas the expression of malicious passions would be necessarily unpleasant and repulsive for the viewer.25 Expression, thus, was commonly seen as a mechanism that initiated and favored social and moral cohesion between humans. Moreau, Bell, and Gratiolet were all deeply influenced by this set of ideas, which partly explained their interest in expression. For them, it was clear that the function of expression (and of the related anatomical organization of the human face) was to bring human beings to sympathize with one another. Moreau emphasized that the muscular complexity of the human face had a specific function, enabling a community of feelings and mutual aid between individuals: The human face “is the organ . . . [by which] man does not himself execute what he wants, what he desires, but requests all that is around him to serve his will, to understand his thought, to respond to his affections” (Moreau, 1820, IV, p. 207).26 Bell argued that expression’s

23. On the flexible frontiers between physiognomy and the study of expression in the eighteenth century, see Percival (1999). 24. On this set of ideas, see Dupouy (2007, Chapter 1), as well as the excellent book of Rosenfeld (2001). 25 See, for example Smith (2002, pp. 44–45). 26. See also the reference to sympathy in Moreau, 1824, p. 415.

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 346 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY “very nature is to excite sympathy; . . . it radiates and is understood by all; . . . it is the bound of human family” (Bell, 1844, p. 145).27 Gratiolet significantly concluded his Conference on Expression on the compassion excited by the expression of pain: “These expressions of pain bite the heart. . . . This compassion, this charity is offered to every thing that suffers.... Thanks to these expressions, thanks to these divine sympathies, the feeling of humanity wakes and protects the world (Gratiolet, 1965, p. 68). Sympathy—the ability to share passions—was a cardinal value for these authors: “We esteem and honor that man most who . . . cultivates [the passions] which have their source in benevolence . . . who enters warmly into what others feel— . . . who cultivates these enjoyments in which he participates with others” (Bell, 1844, p. 200). Moreover, Moreau, Bell, and Gratiolet all assumed that wickedness distorts the countenance, whereas goodness embellishes it.28 “It is by the habit of expression that the countenance is improved or degraded, and that the characters of virtue or vice are imprinted,” writes Bell (Bell, 1844, p. 142). In Gratiolet’s words, the expression of benevolence “exerts an irresistible attraction on the hearts,” whereas its opposites, such as hate or scorn, “repel” (Gratiolet, 1865, p. 51). Expression functions so as to naturally propagate sympathetic feelings among individuals and isolate the bearers of antisocial or immoral feelings. Hence the peculiar, reverential, and exalted style with which Gratiolet, for example, approaches the subject: “[T]he language of the countenance and gesture . . . is spoken from the beginning of time; as long as life exists on the face of the earth, it will manifest itself, will resound in space, give off sparks as a necessary beam of life united with sensibility” (Gratiolet, 1865, pp. 1–2). For Darwin’s predecessors, the theme of expression was clearly inseparable from a sacralized moral vision of the human body, and from a utopian, sentimentalist view of the feelings (and of their expression) as favoring the moral unity of mankind. Thus, for the pre-Darwinian science of expression, its subject matter was closely associated with a number of sentimentalist values: the idea of complexity and subtlety of human expressions and passions, the moral hierarchies supposedly visible on the human face, and the ideal of expressive communication as promoting moral unity between human beings. Against this background, the peculiarity and subversive potential of Darwin’s approach to expression become, I believe, more salient.

DARWIN’S SATIRICAL LOOK AT “DELICATE” EXPRESSIONS In his Notebooks, Darwin speculates that all human expressive signs—including the most “delicate” ones—are vestigial remnants of our animal past. What is original in this hypothesis, and in Darwin’s treatment of expressive phenomena in general, is not only that it offers a natural (physiological) explanation of human expressions, but that it tends to contradict the idea—assumed by his anatomist predecessors—that the expressive range could grow richer and subtler in the scale of nature and with the degree of civilization. Darwin’s account threatens the scenario of expressive refinement defended by his forerunners, together with the moral hierarchies and values that organized their inquiries. It suggests that expression, far from developing in the course of evolution, has to diminish progressively, if anything; that the so-called higher and noble human expressions could be nothing but the compulsory remnants of animal habits, simply beautified by our anthropocentric illusions; and that expressions, as stereotyped, generic gestures, cannot constitute privileged signs of our individuality.

27. For similar statements, see, for example, Moreau (1824, p. 415, and 1820, IV, p. 207). 28. See, for example, Moreau (1820, I, p. 111), Bell (1844, p. 142), and Gratiolet (1865, pp. 51, 58–62).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 347 Moreover, instead of approaching expressive communication in a valorized and moralizing tone, Darwin sometimes emphasizes the potentially embarrassing, indeed indecent, nature of the reversion to animality that defines facial expression. A first layer of Darwin’s argumentative strategy, easily seen in the Notebooks, but still discreetly present in Expression, has an odor of reductionism: It consists in pointing out the animal origins—prosaic, or even crude—of the supposedly delicate or sublime human expressive signs. If we go back to the quotation from Darwin’s C Notebook (see Introduction), it has to be emphasized that Darwin’s original insight related to a significant example, the human smile. Beneath the human smile, in Darwin’s hypothesis, lurk the screams of the hungry baboons about to devour their prey. This, indeed, was a rather striking hypothesis. The smile was usually considered proper to man (Bell, 1844, p. 69; Gratiolet, pp. 46–48). In the philosophical tradition of the moral sentiments, which Darwin knew since he referred to Adam Smith’s theory of sympathy in his notebook on expression (Darwin, 1987, p. 546), the smile was seen as one of the most elementary operators of sympathy among human beings. Adam Smith states, for instance: “The sight of a smiling countenance . . . elevates even the pensive into that gay and airy mood, which disposes him to sympathize with, and share the joy which it expresses; and he feels his heart, which with thought and care was before that shrunk and depressed, instantly expanded and elated” (Adam Smith, 2002, p. 44). It is significant that the expression chosen by Darwin in the first mention of his hypothesis is not a vulgar, rude, or cruel expression commonly seen as resembling those of animals, but a gentle and benevolent one— the smile. The strength of Darwin’s intuition relies precisely in bringing together this mild expression—which was often thought to initiate sympathetic feelings in man toward his fellow creatures—to the baboon’s voracious meal.29 Darwin’s 1838–1839 notebooks reveal his jubilation in toying with these iconoclastic views, applied to the most emblematic of human “delicate” and “intimate” expressions: for example, the sigh, the romantic expression par excellence, became in Darwin’s words an “abortive groan” (Darwin, 1987, p. 589).30 Analogously, the frown, considered since Lebrun as one of the most expressive and humanizing features of the human countenance, apt to sig- nify noble indignation (contrasted to bestial rage) or meditation, is related by Darwin either to an “ancient movement of ears,” or to “short-sightedness” (Darwin, 1987, p. 579).31 Similarly, the expressions of contempt and arrogance, symbols of human pride, evoke a comic bestiary: Seeing how ancient these expressions are, it is no wonder that they are so difficult to con- ceal. . . . A man . . . may despise a man & say nothing, but without a most distinct will, he will find it hard to keep his lip from stiffening over his canine teeth.—He may feel satisfied with himself, and though dreading to say so, his step will grow erect and stiff like that of turkey.” (Darwin, 1987, pp. 541–542)

29. Gratiolet, by contrast, relates the movement of the mouth in smiling to respiration rather than nutrition (Gratiolet, 1865, pp. 23–24). 30. “A sigh is an abortive groan.” Compare with Bell: “The contemplation of beauty, or the admiration of soft music, produces a sense of languor; . . . the lips are half open . . . the breathing is slow . . . and from the absolute neglect of bodily sensation, and the temporary interruption of respiration, there is a frequent low-drawn sigh” (Bell, 1844, pp. 154–155). 31. Compare with Bell: “The forehead is more than any other part characteristic of human countenance. It is the seat of thought, a tablet where every emotion is distinctly impressed; and the eyebrow is the moveable type for this fair page” (Bell, 1844, p. 98).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 348 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY In the Notebooks, Darwin particularly enjoys juxtaposing the description of the delicate expressions, and of the most sensual ones—the latter being often linked to the sexuality of men or animals. Shivering, he remarks, occurs in vastly different contexts: “A man shivers, from fear, sublimity, sexual ardor” (Darwin, 1987, p. 579). The blush (a privileged Victorian sign of moral emotions such as shame and modesty) is compared to an erection: “Blushing is intimately concerned with thinking of ones appearance,—does the thought drive blood to surface exposed, face of man, face, neck—upper bosom in woman: like erection” (Darwin, 1987, p. 577). Darwin also relates the human expression of love and desire (kisses in particular) to the compulsory salivary needs and olfactive functions of our animal ancestors, themselves linked to their sexual behavior: Sexual desire makes saliva to flow, yes, certainly.—curious association: I have seen Nina [Darwin’s dog] licking her chops. . . . Ones tendency to kiss, & almost bite, that which one sexually loves is probably connected with flow of saliva, & hence with action of mouth and jaws. Lascivious women. Are described as biting: so does stallions always. . . . The association of saliva is probably due to our ancestors having been like dogs to bitches. (Darwin, 1987, p. 574) What an animal like taste of, likes smell of . . . hyaena likes smell of that fatty substance it scrapes off its bottom.—It is a relic of same thing that makes one dog smell posterior at another.—Why do bulls & horses, animals of different orders turn up their nostrils when excited by love? Stallion licking udders of mare strictly analogous to men’s affect for womens breasts. (Darwin, 1987, p. 536)32

Significantly, these notes show no trace of Gratiolet’s careful distinction between the expressions of spiritual and sensual love (in Gratiolet’s view, only the latter are linked to the movements of the olfactive and gustative organs). What seems to me striking in these examples is how Darwin emphasizes the crude and even grotesque character of these expressive comparisons. Darwin’s point here is not only to show that expressions are indirect, useless, and rather than being a divine gift, are a product of evolutionary history and chance. Here, moreover, emotional expressions really have something incongruous, embarrassing, and improper: However delicate and refined human emotions may be, insists Darwin, they seem to be ironically doomed to express themselves by gestures that are reminiscent of the most sensual and wild passions of animals. These various examples form a striking contrast with the traditional, sentimentalist account of expression as favoring harmony, authenticity, and morality in human interactions. Darwin even amuses himself by noting how his theory paradoxically agrees with the Christian condemnation of the passions as remnants of original sin: “Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!!— The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather!” (Darwin, 1987, p. 550).33 Why did Darwin commit himself to such a provocative account of human expressions? There is no doubt that, in the notebooks at least, he viewed it as a convincing argument in favor of the theory of evolution, even if he would be more cautious in Expression.34 Reducing the delicate expressions to mere anthropocentric illusions was for him a way to bridge the gap between

32. On the same subject, see Darwin (1987, p. 540). 33. I appreciate Dixon’s (2003) reading, in which he compares the Darwinian scenario to the Fall. 34. Compare for example this triumphal note of the M Notebook: “Origin of man now proved . . . —He who un- derstands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke. A dog whines, & so does man” (Darwin, 1987, p. 539) to the concluding remarks of Expression: “The study of the theory of expression confirms to a certain limited extent the conclusion that man is derived from some lower animal form” (Darwin, 1989, p. 285; emphasis mine).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 349 man and animals. Nevertheless, we should be aware, contrary to what is often assumed, that such a thesis was not an inevitable ingredient of evolutionary theory. An evolutionist could also have considered some expressions as distinctively human, in the same way that some animal species, according to current ethology, have specific expressions (and in fact, as we will see below, Darwin realized this point in Expression). Moreover, some adepts of Darwinism among the physiognomists of the last third of the nineteenth century, such as the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909), easily maintained the hierarchical ordering of the expressions that Darwin, in his notebooks, tended to flatten. “Expressive reductionism,” so to say, was nei- ther a necessary consequence of evolutionism, nor a robust argument in its favor. Darwin’s attack on sentimentalist values was a metaphysical as well as an aesthetic stance. Given the pervasiveness of the moral, social, and aesthetic divide between higher and lower passions in Victorian culture, it hardly comes as a surprise that Darwin, imagining an evolutionary scenario that would turn these very same values upside down, became fascinated and puzzled by the subject. The young Darwin was immersed in the usual pathognomic categories of his time. Darwin’s father, for example (who figures prominently in the notebooks on expression), was presented by Darwin as possessing prodigious skills in the reading of expression, which gave him the ability to almost instantaneously penetrate the inner passions and moral qualities of strangers from their outward appearance.35 Some notations of the Beagle journal, describing the faces of the savages as reflecting their “ferocious,” “debauched,” or “abject” character, attest to how much the young Darwin was influenced by these hierarchies.36 His later, debunking, views on expression, however, may also have been consonant with other aspects of the cultural context in which he lived. I would be inclined, for example, to establish a parallel between Darwin’s notes on expression and the cultivation of objectivity by artists of the mid-nineteenth century, rejecting the sentimentalist outpouring of the Romantic age. I would also suggest that Darwin’s ironic, sometimes grotesque vision of the expressions may reflect the influence of the contemporary fashion of caricature, which also strove to emphasize the animal component of human expression.37 Over thirty years later, in Expression, Darwin’s arguments will be, as we shall see below, much more complex and multifaceted than in the Notebooks. Nevertheless, some parts of the work still echo the sarcastic insights of his earlier writings, such as when Darwin compares the expression of the gaze in piety to the “absurd appearance of ecstatic delight” of babies sucking at the breast, or identifies the frown in the expression of thought and meditation to the countenance of someone who encounters an unpleasant taste while eating (Darwin, 1989, pp. 169, 171). Another example occurs when Darwin compares the expression of maternal love to animals’ craving for rubbing against each other: Although the emotion of love, for instance that of a mother for her infant, is one of the strongest of which the mind is capable, it can hardly be said to have any proper or peculiar means of expression. . . . No doubt, as affection is a pleasurable sensation, it generally causes a gentle smile and some brightening of the eyes. A strong desire to touch the beloved person is commonly felt; and love is expressed by this means more plainly than by any other. Hence we long to clasp in our arms those whom we tenderly love. We probably

35. Darwin’s father was a physician who, like Moreau, defended psychosomatic medicine; he was obviously con- vinced that character was legible not in the hard parts of the body (in the shape of the nose or the skull, as Lavater and Gall argued) but in the soft parts, mostly in the expressive face, and used these signs for his diagnoses. See the beginning of the M Notebook (Darwin, 1987). 36. See Browne (2002, I, p. 236). 37. It is significant, in my view, that Darwin describes in Expression the face of an infant about to cry as follows: “[A]nd the expression of misery then becomes a ludicrous caricature” (Darwin, 1989, p. 148).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 350 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY owe this desire to inherited habit, in association with the nursing and tending of our children, and with the mutual caresses of lovers. With the lower animals we see the same principle of pleasure derived from contact in association with love. Dogs and cats mani- festly take pleasure in rubbing against their masters and mistresses, and in being rubbed and patted by them. Many kinds of monkeys . . . delight in fondling and being fondled by each other. (Darwin, 1989, p. 165) For the modern reader, no longer accustomed to the affective categories prevalent in Darwin’s time, this passage can easily pass unnoticed among the profusion of examples in the book. Nevertheless, it takes on another tone if it is juxtaposed with other passages, in the first chapters, describing the pleasure of animals of being fondled: Dogs scratch themselves by a rapid movement of one of their hind feet; and when their backs are rubbed with a stick, so strong is the habit, that they cannot help rapidly scratching the air or the ground in a useless and ludicrous manner. The terrier just alluded to, when thus scratched with a stick, will sometimes show her delight by another habitual movement, namely, by licking the air as if it were my hand. (Darwin, 1989, p. 33) Darwin’s descriptions of animals’ pleasure in being scratched emphasize here its frenetic, exuberant, and sensual nature.38 Suggesting that maternal love—a feeling considered as sublime and unselfish, immediately evoking the pictorial tradition of the Virgin and child— owe its origin to the sexual caresses of lovers and to the animals’ delight to be rubbed was dis- turbing to a Victorian audience (as it may well remain today). In an unsigned article published in the Edinburgh Review (but which is known to have been written by the philosopher Thomas Baynes), the critic is indignant that such a pure emotion as maternal love becomes in Darwin’s view “a cutaneous affection, resting ultimately on the mutual contact and irritation of adja- cent claws and skins, and represented in the most lively form by the favorite actions and occu- pations of apes and monkeys” (Baynes, 1873, p. 524). In Baynes’s view, Darwin vulgarizes and degrades human expression. Interestingly, Baynes does not seem to have been opposed to the biological theory of evolution, but was shocked by Expression for cultural and aesthetic reasons. Baynes blamed Darwin for being rude and illiterate. For him, the manner in which Darwin relates the higher human expressions to the savage impulses of animal life was an insult to good taste, demonstrating his insensitivity to culture and art: A final note in the evolutionists is what may be called their illiterateness. . . . Just as religious sectaries think merely their own thoughts, read none but their own books. . . . so genuine evolutionists appear to have no interest in any subject except natural history.... The greatest poets—Homer, Virgil, Dante and Shakespeare—are passed by as mere “fid- dlers.” . . . As a rule, therefore, the evolutionists have little or no knowledge of literature, philosophy, or history. (Baynes, 1873, p. 506) Interestingly, Darwin’s own reaction to this review suggests that he appreciated the critique, despite its harshness.39

DARWINIAN HIERARCHIES Thus far, I have emphasized the reductionist dimension of Darwin’s account, as presented in the notebooks and in Expression. This, however, constitutes only one thread—and

38. In contrast to many other texts by Darwin, who often (in the Descent of Mman, in particular), tends to dignify and soften the animal, by emphasizing, for example, animal emotions such as the tenderness of dogs for their off- spring or master. 39. See Francis Darwin (1887, III, p. 116). On Baynes’s critique, see also Dixon (2003).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 351 not the most salient—of Darwin’s approach in his book. I shall now argue that in many respects, Expression re-endorses a hierarchical view of human expressions, but one different than those of the previous anatomists. Except in few passages (such as the one on maternal love quoted above), Darwin, in his 1872 book, generally tends to avoid the brutal juxtaposition of crude, savage behavior of animals with the noble, refined expressions of civilized adults. Expression was conceived as a popular book, intended for a general audience; it is a very cautiously constructed text, in which animal and human expressions are treated separately, and where Darwin is careful to expose the most sensitive issues only gradually, amidst other, more acceptable themes. The first part of the book, for example, focuses largely on the pleasant subject of the various expressions of familiar domestic animals. In the second part, when he turns to human expressions, the illustrations of the book, generally charming or amusing, and conforming to the pictorial codes of the Victorian bourgeoisie, contribute to neutralizing the possible accusations of animalizing humans, and watering down the content of the text, as Voss and Smith have convincingly shown (Smith, 2006; Voss, 2007). Moreover, whereas the notebooks were mostly concerned to identify elements of continuity between humans and animals, a declared aim of Expression is to catalog the distinctive expressions of man. This is already visible in the book’s construction, which separates the “special expressions of animals” (Chapters 4–5) from the “special expressions of men” (Chapters 6–13). Darwin describes, for instance, the expression of “grief and anxiety” as “eminently human” (Darwin, 1989, p. 282), or the blush—once compared (in the notebooks) to the blushing of chameleon and octopus (Darwin, 1987, p. 579)—as “the most strictly human [of all expressions]” (Darwin, 1989, p. 283). In addition, in the conclusion of his work, Darwin explains that human expressions can be ranked according to their time of appearance in evolution. Laughter, fear, rage, and pouting, for example, are, according to Darwin, ancient expressions, predating the bifurcation of the human species from its animal ancestors, whereas weeping, frowning, and blushing occurred more recently in our descent. Darwin also sometimes distinguishes different motions, of more or less removed origins, in the expression of the same human emotion: In the expression of human anger, the exposition of the canine teeth is a very primitive vestige, whereas the erection of the head and clenching of the fist must have appeared only after man had acquired his upright attitude; in the human expression of contempt, the movements reminiscent of vomiting are from ancient origin, whereas the more refined gesture of turning away the eyes from the despised object has been acquired at a later period (Darwin, 1989, pp. 282–283). The phylogenetic order of occurrence of expressions has replaced the traditional hierarchy of the lower and higher ones. Were these old ideas in new guise? Not quite. In fact, Darwin takes pains not to present this evolutionary genealogy, which he characterizes as “a curious, though perhaps an idle speculation,” as a straightforward scenario of progress.40 He insists that the peculiarly human expressions are no less mechanical or even absurd than the most primitive ones. Concerning tears, for example, Darwin’s explanation does not relate the ability to weep to any peculiar feature of human sadness. Tears occur in order to lubricate the eyeballs when periocular muscles contract, and to avoid the intrusion of dust. “Weeping [is] . . . an incidental result, . . . as a sneeze from the retina being affected by a bright light” (Darwin, 1989, p. 133). Darwin’s physiological account of the origin of tears leaves human nature out.41 Concerning the blush,

40. “It is curious, though perhaps an idle speculation, how early in the long line of our progenitors the various expressive movements, now exhibited by man, were successively acquired” (Darwin, 1989, p. 281; emphasis mine). 41. On Darwin’s research on weeping, see the excellent forthcoming article by White (in press).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 352 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY on the contrary, Darwin makes it depend on the development of the higher mental faculties, in particular self-consciousness. Nevertheless, even here, Darwin emphasizes the dysfunc- tional and potentially embarrassing nature of this expressive sign. He underlines the ironic processes linked to the blush (the more we try to repress it, the more we blush; we blush because we are embarrassed by the attention of others on ourselves, but blushing increases this very attention). Moreover, in contrast to the views of the surgeon Thomas Burgess, who treated the blush as proof of man’s innate moral conscience and sense of guilt,42 Darwin insists that the blush expresses a concern for our physical, rather than moral, appearance, and that it can be caused by shyness or absurdities, rather than a guilty conscience. Even in the case of the blush, therefore, Darwin is concerned to establish that this expression, although distinctly human, must have appeared “before [primeval man] ha[d] acquired much moral sensitiveness” (Darwin, 1989, p. 258). Darwin is careful not to hastily read human superiority in the most human expressions. Another kind of expressive hierarchy, however, pervades more extensively and deeply, I believe, Darwin’s argument in his book. According to Darwin, animals and humans, as well as humans compared to one another differ in the strength of their expressive vestiges. Whereas animal expression, as previously shown, is often pictured by Darwin as intense and frenetic, involving the animal’s entire body, human expression is characterized, in Darwin’s book, by its feeble amplitude and the limited portion of the body that it activates—mostly the face.43 Animals, and to a lesser extent madmen, savages, and children, tend to exhibit more strongly (or to inhibit less) the expressive signs than normal civilized adults. This postulate significantly attenuates the brutality of human–animal comparisons in the 1872 book, where the identification of the animal component in human expressions is almost always softened by the intermediate link of savages, children, and madmen: It is, however, by no means improbable that this animal-like expression [sardonic laughter] may be more common with savages than with civilized races. (Darwin, 1989, p. 193) Young children, when in a violent rage, roll on the ground on their backs or bellies, screaming, kicking, scratching or biting everything within reach. So it is . . . with the young of the anthropomorphous apes. (p. 184) Our early progenitors, when enraged, would probably have exposed their teeth more freely than does man, even when giving full vent to his rage, as with the insane. (p. 357) We thus see that the protrusion of the lips, especially with young children, is characteristic of sulkiness throughout the greater part of the world. This movement apparently results from the retention, chiefly during youth, of a primordial habit. . . . Young orangs and chimpanzees protrude their lips to an extraordinary degree . . . when they are dis- content. (p. 178) Darwin’s Expression maintains a hierarchical ordering of human beings, in the sense that the expressions of civilized human adults, being less pronounced, are farther from those of

42. For example: “The probable intent of the Creator, in endowing man with this peculiar property, was that the soul might have sovereign power of displaying on the cheek . . . the various internal emotions of the moral feelings whenever they are infringed upon . . . and that this precaution had the salutary effect of enabling our fellow-beings to know whenever we transgressed or violated those rules which should be held sacred, as being the bounds that unite man and man in the civilized state of existence” (Burgess, 1839, p. 48). 43. “When animals suffer from an agony in pain, they generally writhe about with frightful contortions; and those which habitually use their voices utter piercing cries or groans. Almost every muscle of the body is brought into strong action. With man the mouth may be closely compressed, or more commonly the lips are retracted, with the teeth clenched or ground together” (Darwin, 1989, p. 53).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 353 animals, than are those of savages, children, or madmen—a point that also explains why Darwin favors animals and uncivilized subjects for observation. This point has to be under- lined in contrast to the contemporary cognitivist readings of the book, which tend to ascribe to Darwin a strong universalist position concerning the human expressive repertoire. Interestingly, Darwin’s view of the evolution of the expressive range is, in a way, the opposite of what previous anatomists had assumed: Instead of arguing that expressivity (and emotional life) became enriched ascending the chain of being and with cultural development, Darwin equated humanization and civilization with a restraining process in the exhibition of expressions. Whereas the development of emotional (and expressive) life was usually seen, in the legacy of the Enlightenment, as a product of human social existence, linked to the progress of the intellectual and moral faculties of man, Darwin’s approach here tended to relegate emotions to primitive life and animality—to reduce emotions to natural impulses destined to be softened by culture. Here again, this shift was conceptually independent of the biological theory of evolution, although simultaneous with it. This move was eminently Victorian, in the sense that the emphasis on will, restraint, and self-control as hallmarks of human nature was very widespread in the moral discourse of Darwin’s time (Vincent-Buffault, 2001; Smith, 1992; Daston & Galison, 2007)—although this injunction for self-control and for the man- agement of emotions and manners had also been, as Norbert Elias has shown, a long-running concern in Europe since the Middle Ages, essential to what he calls the “civilizing process” (Elias, 1969).44 According to Darwin, this shrinking process in the exhibition of expressive signs results from various intricate causes. The development of the will and the power of learning and education is one of these. For instance, Darwin argues that the progress of the will had the effect of repressing tears, frequent among children and madmen, rare in adults (Darwin, 1989, pp. 117–118, 146)—the culmination of this civilizing process occurring in male Englishmen, who “rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief,” whereas women, as well as men “in some parts of the Continent,” and a fortiori savages, weep “much more readily and freely” (Darwin, 1989, p. 117). A long habit, associated with the belief that crying is indignant, teaches men to refrain from weeping. One of the best illustrations of this power of voluntary inhibition in human expression can be found Darwin’s amazing description of an old woman facing him on a train: An old lady with a comfortable but absorbed expression sat nearly opposite to me in a railway carriage. Whilst I was looking at her, I saw that her depressors anguli oris became very slightly, yet decidedly contracted; but as her countenance remained as placid as ever, I reflected how meaningless was this contraction, and how easily one might be deceived. The thought had hardly occurred to me when I saw that her eyes became suddenly suffused with tears almost to overflowing, and her whole countenance fell. There could be no doubt that a painful recollection, perhaps that of a long-lost child, was passing through her mind. As soon as her sensorium was thus affected, certain nerve-cells from long habit instantly transmitted an order to all the respiratory muscles,

44. It would be too simple, however, to argue that the moral norms of the Victorian period (or even of Victorian science) generally favored emotional inhibition, in contrast to the cultivation of sensibility advocated by the Enlightenment. In addition, Victorian culture remained in many respects influenced by sentimentalism, although it was no longer considered appropriate in certain scientific settings—a major difference between Darwin and the previous anatomists. Besides this, as White has shown, Darwin himself, like many scientists of his time, displayed different attitudes toward emotional experience and sentimentalism in different social situations and in different types of writings (White, 2006, 2009, in press). Thus it would be incorrect to contrast Enlightenment and Victorian culture as, respectively, cultivating or inhibiting sentimentality; the difference lies more in how, when, and where feelings could be expressed. (I thank one of the anonymous referees for his comments on this issue.)

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 354 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY and to those round the mouth, to prepare for a fit of crying. But the order was counter- manded by the will, or rather by a later acquired habit, and all the muscles were obedi- ent, excepting in a slight degree the depressors angulis oris. The mouth was not even opened; the respiration was not hurried; and no muscle was affected except those which draw the corners of the mouth. (Darwin, 1989, pp. 148–149) In the case of this dignified, self-controlled Englishwoman, the rudimentary vestiges of the screaming fits of infants were almost imperceptible—mastered by the will that stopped the initial movements, inherited from infancy. The human will was strong enough to render the lady’s sadness, so noisy in children, almost invisible to even the most astute observer, even if it could not prevent some muscles of the corner of the mouth from slightly contracting, nor the eyes from momentarily filling with tears. In agreement with this view of human expression as characterized by inhibition, Darwin comes close, in some passages (in particular in the conclusion of his book) to the idea that the movements most expressive and distinctive in humans are the ones that serve to hide expression (or at least its more primitive forms). Thus, says Darwin, the expression of grief and anxiety is characterized by movements of the eyebrow and mouth that initially were made to prevent an access of tears: Some highly expressive movements result from the endeavour to check or prevent expressive movements; thus the obliquity of the eyebrows and the drawing down of the corners of the mouth follow from the endeavour to prevent a screaming-fit from coming on, or to check it after it has come on. (Darwin, 1989, p. 276)45

Another example given in passing by Darwin is the inhibition of laughter, which produces a peculiar expression of malice (Darwin, 1989, p. 164). The blush, another peculiarly human expression, also follows the same pattern to a certain extent, in the sense that this expression is increased by our very attempt to repress it. These various remarks suggest that one of the most peculiar and salient features of human expressivity, linked to self-awareness and to the conscience of being observed by others, consists in its effort to hide and control expressions and emotions in public—this very effort sometimes giving birth to some specific, “secondary” so to say, expressive signs. Darwin even admits that the power of education can go so far as to fully inverse the sense of the expressions: In some cultures, people learn to weep at will, and Darwin thought it possible that, given an appropriate education, children could learn to cry when happy (Darwin, 1989, p. 118). Here, Darwin takes position in a debate opened by the philosopher Thomas Reid and the theologian and chemist Joseph Priestley (a close friend of Erasmus Darwin, Darwin’s grandfather) concerning the arbitrari- ness of expressive language (Priestley, 1775). Whereas Reid considered the production (and understanding) of expressions as immediate, evident, and instinctive (i.e., what he called an “axiom of the common sense”), Priestley thought that the meaning of facial expressions was fixed by experience and that it is possible to substitute the signs of benevolence and anger by an appropriate education.46 Darwin, following Priestley, emphasized the power of learning

45. See also: “Our early progenitors, when suffering from grief or anxiety, would not have made their eyebrow oblique, until they had acquired the habit of endeavouring to restrain their screams. The expression, therefore, of grief and anxiety is eminently human” (Darwin, 1989, p. 282). 46. “I . . . do not hesitate to say that if it were possible always to beat and terrify a child with a placid countenance, so as never to assume that appearance in these circumstances, and always to soothe him with what we call an angry countenance, this natural and necessary connection of ideas that Dr. Reid talks of would be reversed, and we should see the child frightened with a smile, and delighted with a frown” (Priestley, 1775, p. 91).

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs SENTIMENTALISM, MORAL VALUES, AND FACIAL EXPRESSION IN DARWIN AND THE ANATOMISTS 355 and education in human expression. Here again, Darwin’s argument cannot be exhausted by the affirmation of expressive continuities between man and animals: Darwin pays tribute to the Victorian conception of will as the hallmark of man and basis of morality. Nevertheless, Darwin—in contrast to other scientists of his time—does not conceive of the will as a metaphysical faculty, but rather as a physical organ, inherited at birth and subjected to change, improvement, or degeneracy. Thus, Darwin insists that the power of the individual human will on expression is not without limits. As we have seen in the example of the old lady on the train, there are certain expressive signs (depending on the autonomous nervous system, in particular), that cannot be fully controlled by the will; in addition, the will alone is powerless without habit: Concerning tears, for instance, Darwin argues that the momentary effort to repress them is generally counterproductive (increases the grief) if not habitual since infancy (Darwin, 1989, pp. 118–119); significantly, in the case of the English lady, the will is described by Darwin as nothing but “a later acquired habit,” practiced and rehearsed throughout life, rather than a permanent, essential faculty. Finally, Darwin seems to regard voluntary control itself, and the softening of the expressive signs in general, as hereditary faculties, shaped by evolution. Many passages of the book, for instance, show that Darwin views the shrinking of expressive signs in evolution as a biological process comparable to the atrophy of vestigial organs resulting from disuse. At least in some cases, the decrease of expression is an evolutionary process that takes place in the course of successive generations: Nor it is an anomalous fact that the children of savages should exhibit a stronger tendency to protrude their lips, when sulky, than the children of civilized Europeans; for the essence of savagery seems to consist in the retention of a primordial condition, and this occasionally holds good even with bodily peculiarities. (Darwin, 1989, p. 179) Similarly, Darwin believes that young English children do not shrug, whereas French ones do, for hereditary reasons (Darwin, 1989, p. 208), and suggests that insane people who are prone to exhibiting their canine teeth in rage also have larger canines than most (Darwin, 1989, pp. 186, 194). These various examples suggest that, in Darwin’s view, the softening of the expressions—a human trait—is shaped by heredity, and therefore varies from one individual (or human group) to another. Consequently, the mastery by different individuals of their own expressions seems to be, in Darwin’s view, partly determined by the behavior of their ancestors. The decrease of the expressive phenomena in the development of the species and the individual does not seem to be just a matter of instantaneous decision or even of the habitual moral temperament of the subject himself: It is a slower, collective process based on evolution. Whereas Moreau, for instance, wished to built a theory of expression and a physiognomy that does not contradict human perfectibility and moral freedom (in contrast to Gall’s phrenological determinism), Darwin suggests that individual character alone, or an education operating on the individual time scale, could be insufficient, at least in some cases, to humanize and civilize the expressive signs.

* * * The preceding pages have sought to locate the exact nature of the Darwinian break in his analysis of expression. Darwin’s theory was not the first one to offer a biological, secularized account of expressive phenomena—as a close look at the previous works of anatomists such as Moreau de la Sarthe, Bell, and Gratiolet has revealed. For these authors, however, the subject matter of expression was closely related to a complex moral ideal, implying a view of

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs 356 STÉPHANIE DUPOUY expression as a finely nuanced language, subtly reflecting the moral and intellectual value of the individual, and favoring the establishment of moral links between humans. Compared to this earlier background, Darwin’s initial insights on the subject, as developed in the early notebooks, can be read as a strong and provocative attack against the moral hierarchies, the sentimentalist values, and the ideal of expressive refinement to which his forerunners subscribed. However, in Darwin’s 1872 book, this subversive stance became mixed with, and partly covered by, other concerns. Darwin’s aim, in this later work, is not only to point out expressive continuities between animals and humans, but also, more discretely, to reflect on what is peculiarly human in human expression. In that respect, human expression is distinguished, in Darwin’s view, not so much by certain particular expressions, but rather by the general ability to control and attenuate the spontaneous expressive signs. In other words, intelligence, culture, and education appeared primarily for Darwin (contrary to his forerunners) as forces of control and attenuation, rather than of cultivation, of the expressions. As a result, Darwin’s 1872 book is an intricate and multifaceted work: It combines some “reductionist” insights, which attempt to bring the human and animal expressive ranges closer to each other, together with a hierarchical view that defines humanity and civilization by the ability to soften the exhibition of expressions. The same tension manifests itself in Darwin’s hesitation between a universalist position concerning the human expressive range (as a hereditary legacy of the human species), and the construction of a scale of humanity according to which facial expression in certain human groups is closer to the animals than in others—even though Darwin, as opposed to some of his followers such as Lombroso, avoids stigmatizing this proximity. Finally, Darwin does not entirely decide whether control over the expressive signs is within or beyond the reach of the individual will. In any case, evolutionary theory was only one component of Darwin’s thought on expression, mixed with other ideas such as the moral value attributed to the will and to self-restraint in Victorian culture.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science for a fruitful stay in Berlin in 2009, during which I revised a chapter of my PhD thesis and turned it into a first draft of this article (I am especially indebted to Andreas Mayer, Lorraine Daston, and Fernando Vidal for their comments at that time). I also wish to thank Paul White for a later, long and fruitful conversation about Darwin, as well as the two anonymous referees for their very useful remarks. Finally, I’m very grateful to Mark Wexler for considerable assistance with the English version of this article.

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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES DOI: 10.1002/jhbs