ess common gestures in ourselves, which we are accustomed to
look at as artificial or conventional--such as shrugging the shoulders
as a sign of impotence, or the raising the arms with open hands and
extended fingers as a sign of wonder--we feel perhaps too much surprise
at finding that they are innate. That these and some other gestures are
inherited we may infer from their being performed by very young
children, by those born blind, and by the most widely distinct races of
man. We should also bear in mind that new and highly peculiar tricks, in
association with certain states of the mind, are known to have arisen
in certain individuals and to have been afterward transmitted to their
offspring, in some cases for more than one generation.

Certain other gestures, which seem to us so natural that we might easily
imagine that they were innate, apparently have been learned like the
words of a language. This seems to be the case with the joining of the
uplifted hands and the turning up of the eyes in prayer. So it is with
kissing as a mark of affection; but this is innate, in so far as it
depends on the pleasure derived from contact with a beloved person. The
evidence with respect to the inheritance of nodding and shaking the head
as signs of affirmation and negation is doubtful, for they are not
universal, yet seem too general to have been independently acquired by
all the individuals of so many races.

We will now consider how far the will and consciousness have come into
play in the development of the various movements of expression. As far
as we can judge, only a few expressive movements, such as those just
referred to, are learned by each individual; that is, were consciously
and voluntarily performed during the early years of life for some
definite object, or in imitation of others, and then became habitual.
The far greater number of the movements of expression, and all the more
important ones, are, as we have seen, innate or inherited; and such
cannot be said to depend on the will of the individual. Nevertheless,
all those included under our first principle were at first voluntarily
performed for a definite object, namely, to escape some danger, to
relieve some distress, or to gratify some desire. For instance, there
can hardly be a doubt that the animals which fight with their teeth have
acquired the habit of drawing back their ears closely to their heads
when feeling savage from their progenitors having voluntarily