RECORD: Anon. 1872. [Review of Expression]. The doctrine of evolution. Carolina Watchman (12 December): 1. [From Richmond Whig]. 

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 10.2022. RN1


[page] 1

THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.

Mr. Darwin has published another book in which he gives some far-fetched, if ingenious, illustrations of his pet theory of evolution. His book is entitled "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals." Some of the illustrations by which he attempts to establish man's kinship to the brute creation are as follows: the bristling of the hair under the influence of extreme terror can only be explained, says Mr Darwin, in the belief that man once existed in a lower and animal-like condition, where this expression is common.— The same is true, he holds, of a similar movement of the facial muscles in the laughter of men and monkeys. The common gesture of children in jerking away one shoulder, when in a pettish mood, finds a counterpart in the action of certain animals. Weeping is traced by Mr. Darwin to the usual outcry of children and animals when hungry— a prolong screaming, filling the blood vessels of the eye, contracting the muscles, and affecting the lachrymal glands. Tears, which are thus traced to a natural source, eventually become habitual and imitative, which accounts for the common expression of pain or grief in weeping. Pouting is one of the most curious illustrations which Mr. Darwin brings to his theory. The protrusion of the lower lip is the common mode of expressing anger or discontent among the young orangs and chimpanzees.—

Among civilized people, this expression is still common with the children, and Mr. Darwin has collected evidences that it is universal among the Chinese, Abyssinians, Malays, Kafirs, Fingoes, Hottentots, Indians, and a host of other barbarous and semi-barbarous people, even when they become adults.

Such forced analogies rather tend to amuse than convince, and the great need of mankind is amusement.— Richmond Whig.

 


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Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

File last updated 10 November, 2022