is drawn down, and the lip arched and elevated, and hence the most
contemptuous and proud expression.
r . The T emporal M uscle. A strong muscle, closing the lower
jaw. It is assisted by the M asseter muscle, which lies on the
outside of the lower jaw, and which arises from the jugum, and
is inserted into the angle of the jaw.
OF TH E EXPRESSION OF THE HUMAN EYE.
Although I have made some .remarks on the motions of the eyebrows
and eyelids, the subject admits of a deeper interest, for the
motion of the eyeball in conjunction with the eyelids has been quite
overlooked. The eyeball has one set of muscles for moving it under
the influence of the will, and to direct its axis to objects. It has
another class of muscles, which are involuntary in their operations,
and those move the eye in an insensible manner, for the purpose
of preserving the organ, as I have elsewhere shown *. The muscles,
which perform the involuntary rolling motions of the eyeball, have
connexion through the fourth nerve with the system of respiratory
nerves; and that is equivalent to saying, with the nerves
of expression.
In all violent and excited conditions of the organs of breathing,
the eye by the influence of this nerve is turned up, and this is the
* Philos. Transactions.
reason of a very striking coincidence in the features of expression—
the rolling upwards or elevation of the eyeball in all powerful
emotions of the mind, during which the respiratory organs suffer
disturbance; in that agony which is shown by sighing or deep inspiration,
by a certain modification of the lips, and expansion of the
nostrils: whether it comes from pain of body or mental suffering,
the pupils of the eyes are raised and half obscured by the eyelids.
This sometimes imposes the necessity of a certain position of
the head; for to direct the eye downwards at the time that the
agony experienced tends to drag it upwards, are inconsistent conditions
of the muscular system of the eye. In bodily pain, as well
as in certain conditions of mental suffering, the eye is directed upwards,
and therefore the natural position of the head is forwards.
During a lecture I sketched these outlines with chalk to illustrate
this fact; and, however faulty, I could not improve them. The
engraver has transferred them to the margin.
The muscles which turn up the eyeball under the upper eyelid
during sleep being involuntary muscles, they prevail whenever the
voluntary muscles are enfeebled or relaxed. This is the reason that
during the influence of depressing passion, as for example grief,
when the body and limbs are flung relaxed, the pupil is raised at
the same time that the eyelid hangs low. We see this in some fine
heads of the Magdalen, a favourite study of the old painters, where
the eyelids are livid and swollen with weeping, and the eye, still
g 2