The direction which this nerve-force follows is necessarily determined by the lines of connection between the nerve-cells, with each other and with various parts of the body."Lack of space prevents our following up the details of Darwin's treatment of expression. Whether we accept or do not accept his three principles of explanation we must regard his work as a masterpiece of descriptive analysis, packed full of observations possessing lasting value. For a further development of the subject it is essential that the instinctive factors in expression should be more fully distinguished from those which are individually acquired--a difficult task--and that the instinctive factors should be rediscussed in the light of modern doctrines of heredity, with a view to determining whether Lamarckian inheritance, on which Darwin so largely relied, is necessary for an interpretation of the facts.
The whole subject as Darwin realised is very complex. Even the term "expression" has a certain amount of ambiguity. When the emotion is in full flood the animal fights, flees, or faints. Is this full-tide effect to be regarded as expression; or are we to restrict the term to the premonitory or residual effects--the bared canine when the fighting mood is being roused, the ruffled fur when reminiscent representations of the object inducing anger cross the mind? Broadly considered both should be included. The activity of premonitory expression as a means of communication was recognised by Darwin; he might, perhaps, have emphasised it more strongly in dealing with the lower animals. Man so largely relies on a special means of communication, that of language, that he sometimes fails to realise that for animals with their keen powers of perception, and dependent as they are on such means of communication, the more strictly biological means of expression are full of subtle suggestiveness. Many modes of expression, otherwise useless, are signs of behaviour that may be anticipated,--signs which stimulate the appropriate attitude of response.
This would not, however, serve to account for the utility of the organic accompaniments--heart-affection, respiratory changes, vaso-motor effects and so forth, together with heightened muscular tone,--on all of which Darwin lays stress ("Expression of the Emotions", pages 65 ff.) under his third principle. The biological value of all this is, however, of great importance, though Darwin was hardly in a position to take it fully into account.
Having regard to the instinctive and hereditary factors of emotional expression we may ask whether Darwin's third principle does not alone suffice as an explanation. Whether we admit or reject Lamarckian inheritance it would appear that all hereditary expression must be due to pre-established connections within the central nervous system and to a transmitted provision for coordinated response under the appropriate stimulation. If this be so, Darwin's first and second principles are subordinate and ancillary to the third, an expression, so far as it is instinctive or hereditary, being "the direct result of the constitution of the nervous system."Darwin accepted the emotions themselves as hereditary or acquired states of mind and devoted his attention to their expression. But these emotions themselves are genetic products and as such dependent on organic conditions. It remained, therefore, for psychologists who accepted evolution and sought to build on biological foundations to trace the genesis of these modes of animal and human experience. The subject has been independently developed by Professors Lange and James (Cf. William James, "Principles of Psychology", Vol. II. Chap. XXV, London, 1890.); and some modification of their view is regarded by many evolutionists as affording the best explanation of the facts. We must fix our attention on the lower emotions, such as anger or fear, and on their first occurrence in the life of the individual organism. It is a matter of observation that if a group of young birds which have been hatched in an incubator are frightened by an appropriate presentation, auditory or visual, they instinctively respond in special ways. If we speak of this response as the expression, we find that there are many factors. There are certain visible modes of behaviour, crouching at once, scattering and then crouching, remaining motionless, the braced muscles sustaining an attitude of arrest, and so forth. There are also certain visceral or organic effects, such as affections of the heart and respiration. These can be readily observed by taking the young bird in the hand. Other effects cannot be readily observed; vaso-motor changes, affections of the alimentary canal, the skin and so forth. Now the essence of the James-Lange view, as applied to these congenital effects, is that though we are justified in speaking of them as effects of the stimulation, we are not justified, without further evidence, in speaking of them as effects of the emotional state. May it not rather be that the emotion as a primary mode of experience is the concomitant of the net result of the organic situation--the initial presentation, the instinctive mode of behaviour, the visceral disturbances? According to this interpretation the primary tissue of experience of the emotional order, felt as an unanalysed complex, is generated by the stimulation of the sensorium by afferent or incoming physiological impulses from the special senses, from the organs concerned in the responsive behaviour, from the viscera and vaso-motor system.