Mind and body : the theories of their relation / by Alexander Bain.

  • Bain, Alexander, 1818-1903
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mind and body : the theories of their relation / by Alexander Bain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/256 (page 7)
    On this uniformity of connexion between feelings and their bodily expression depends our knowledge of each other’s mind and character. When anyone is pleased, or pained, or loving, or angry, unless there is purposed concealment, we are aware of the fact, and can even estimate in any given case the degree of the feeling. From a variety of causes, we are deeply interested in the outward display of emotion. The face of inanimate nature does not arrest our attention so strongly as the deportment of our fellow beings; in truth, the highest attraction of natural objects is imparted to them by a fictitious process of investing them with human feelings. The sun and the moon, the winds and the rivers, are less engaging when viewed as mere physical agencies, than when they are supposed to operate by human motives and purposes, loves and hates. The interest of the human presence, in all its various workings, regarded as symptomatic of mental processes, is laid hold of and heightened in the Fine Art of cultivated nations. To the painter, the sculptor, and the poet, every feeling has its appropriate manifestation. Not merely are the grosser forms of feeling thus linked a fierce mob, “ Am I afraid ? feel my pulse.” So a man may intensely hate another ; but until his bodily frame is affected, he cannot be said to be enraged. (‘ Expression/ p. 239.) To the like effect Dr. Maudsley observes :—“ The special muscular action is not merely the exponent of the passion, but truly an essential part of it. If we try, while the features are fixed in the expression of one passion, to call up in the mind a different one, we shall find it impossible to do so.” (‘ Cody and Mind,’ p. 30.)