xalted. But so soon as that surprise is great enough to raise the
shoulders and the arms, as by a galvanic shock, the head takes an
inverse direction, it sinks and seems anxious to become solid to offer
more resistance to that which might attack it, for the first instinctive
movement in such a case is to guard against any unpleasant event; then
if the head is lifted to look at that which surprises it, it is because
it has no great interest in the recognition of that which it considers;
but as soon as that interest commands it to examine, to recognize, it is
instantly lowered and placed in the state of expectation.

O, now it becomes clear.

Now, how does surprise cause us to lift our arms?

The shoulder, in every man who is agitated or moved, rises in exact
proportion to the intensity of his emotion.

It thus becomes the thermometer of the emotions. Now, the commotion that
imprints a strong impression, communicates to the arms an ascending
motion which may lift them high above the head.

But why do not the arms, in an agreeable surprise, tend toward the
object of that surprise?

The arm should move gently toward the object that it wishes to caress.
Under the rapid action of surprise, therefore, it could only injure or
repel that object.

This it does in affright.

But instinct--that marvelous agent of divine reason--in that case turns
the arms away from the object which they might injure by the rapidity of
their sudden extension, and directs them toward heaven, leads them to
rise as if expressing thanks for an unexpected joy, so true it is that
everything is turned to use and is modified under the empire of our
instinct. Certainly, there is no similarity between this and the
superfluous action, the inconsequent movements determined by the working
of a rule without a reason. And this is so because in all that instinct
suggests, it is the Supreme Artist himself who disposes of us and acts
in us, while whatever is suggested by a reason insufficiently inspired
by the contemplation of the divine handiwork is fatally incoherent, for
we thus pretend to substitute ourselves for God, and God thenceforth
leaving us to ourselves, surrenders us to all the discordant effects of
an inconsequential and vain conception.

It remains to find the justificatory reason for this retroactive
movement of the body, which seems illogical at first sight.

Let us inquire in what case and under the action of what emotions a man
may shri