22. It is necessary now to advert to the effects of emotion not muscular, or the influences upon the secretions, excretions, the circulation, &c. Hardly any portion of the system seems exempt from the diffusive action of an emotional excitement. All functions liable to be affected by influence at a distance conveyed through the nerves, as digestion, perspiration, the action of the heart and of the capillaries, and many other processes, are quickened or deranged by mental commotion.

The Lachrymal Secretion claims attention in the first place. The Anatomy of the apparatus has been touched upon in speaking of its associated organ, the Eye. The effusion of tears from the gland over the eyeball is constantly going on during waking hours. Certain emotions, to be afterwards defined, specifically affect the effusion (just as pain and anger curve the under lip), and cause the liquid to be secreted and poured out in large quantities, so as to moisten the eye, and overflow upon the cheek. By this outpouring there is a relief afforded to the vessels of the brain, which are congested under the pressure of painful emotion. A strong sensibility lodges in the lachrymal organ, which will require to be minutely described at another time. For the present, we may remark of emotional diffusion in general, that every part excited into action, whether moving organ, secretion, or excretion, is itself the source of a distinct sensibility which mixes with and often greatly modifies the original emotion; in pleasure enhancing, and in pain neutralizing it.

Perhaps one of the most notable of the effects now under consideration is Blushing. This is an action on the vascular system, or the capillary blood-vessels of the face, neck, and breast. According to Sir C. Bell, it is too sudden to be traced to the heart's action, and we must therefore compare it to a cold sweat, or to some of the actions of the nervous system upon the capillary circulation. Blushing is an expression apparently dormant until the individual has become strongly susceptible to the human presence, and is one of the effects of any great excitement from this cause.

The bursting out of a Cold Sweat is an action diffused from fear, and does not come alone. The same influence

extends to the inward secretions, to the intestines, the kidneys, the liver, &c. The cold perspiration is a sudden discharge from the sudorific glands of the skin, like the outburst of tears from the lachrymal gland. The character of the insensible or gaseous perspiration is changed under strong excitement.

The salivary and gastric secretions are extremely susceptible to emotional influence. But the same may be said of Digestion at every stage. This is only one of the many consequences of the intimate connexion between the brain and the alimentary canal, which makes the sensations from this last organ so massive and prominent. The depressing and perturbing passions impair all the functions of the stomach, destroying appetite, and relaxing the tone of the intestinal canal. A hilarious excitement, within limits, stimulates those functions, but joy may be so intense as to produce the perturbing effect.

The Secretion of Milk from the breast is notoriously liable to mental influences; some favourable to a healthy flow, while depressing passions check and poison it.

I am unable to give an exhaustive catalogue of this class of influences, or to define precisely those now cited. Knowledge on this subject appears to be as yet imperfect. These, however, will serve as examples to show how essentially connected with Emotion is the fact of a free diffusion over every part that is reached by the nervous ramifications of the central brain.

23. It now remains for us to advert to the two convulsive outbursts, Laughter and Tears.

Laughter is properly an expression of joyous emotion. This remarkable perturbation of the system is brought on in many ways, and often by very slight causes. Mere hilarity, or animal spirits; cold, and acute pains, when not so intense as to stimulate the expression proper to pain; tickling; hysterical fits; self-complacency, and a feeling of triumph at some striking effect produced by self or others, (the point insisted on by Hobbes in his theory of Laughter); kindly feeling; the spectacle or notion of filthy, degraded, or forbidden things; the so-called ludicrous, which is usually the

clash of dignity with meanness;-these, and perhaps other circumstances besides, rank among the causes of laughter. The medulla oblongata, which is the immediate organ in bringing on the outburst, is very prone to be irritated to a discharge of this special influence. We find that some temperaments are peculiarly liable to be excited to laughter; the liability may be so great as to be a positive weakness, indicating a sort of dissolute incontinence of the nervous system.

24. The action is of the respiratory class. Observe,' says Sir Charles Bell, 'the condition of a man convulsed with laughter, and consider what are the organs or system of parts affected. He draws a full breath, and throws it out in interrupted, short, and audible cachinnations; the muscles of his throat, neck, and chest, are agitated; the diaphragm is especially convulsed. He holds his sides, and, from the violent agitation, he is incapable of a voluntary act.' The expiratory muscles are strongly convulsed in laughter, those namely, of the chest and abdomen; and by 'convulsions' we mean those rapid and violent contractions which the will cannot resist, any more than in the spasms of nervous disease. A sudden discharge of nervous energy from the medulla oblongata is the immediate cause of the extraordinary excitement and acceleration of the respiratory system of movements. Passing next to the sympathies or accompaniments of the face, we find the relaxation of the mouth and of the corrugator of the eyes, should this last happen to be in action; with this there may be an additional tension imparted to the antagonising muscles which open the features; hence, by a lateral stretching of the mouth, and a raising of the cheek to the lower eyelid, a smile is produced. If the idea be exceedingly ridiculous, it is in vain that we endeavour to restrain this relaxation, and to compress the lips. The muscles concentring to the mouth prevail; they become more and more influenced; they retract the lips, and display the teeth. The cheeks are more powerfully drawn up, the eye-lids wrinkled, and the eye almost concealed.'-BELL, Anatomy of Expression, p. 147.

The convulsion of the respiratory muscles in laughter is

OUTBURST OF GRIEF.

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doubtless one distinct effect, namely, the discharge of an increased shock of nervous excitement from the centre that supports the ordinary movements. The action on the muscles of the face we may look upon as another effect, not growing out of the respiratory stimulus, but arising apart, although in concert with the first. The tension of the larynx, which renders laughter vocal, may likewise be a distinct impulse from the common centre of Emotion. Although all these influences spring immediately from the medulla oblongata, and may there receive an impress of harmony, yet their remote and primary stimulus is in the seat of emotion, the cerebral hemispheres.

The Respiratory Organs are convulsed in different ways according to the nature of the stimulus; at all events the effects are very different in such acts as coughing, sneezing, yawning, hiccup, &c. The difference of effect is most marked, in the midst of much that is common, in comparing Laughter with the manifestations of grief or pathetic emotion.

25. The convulsive outburst of grief is described by Sin Charles Bell as follows:

'The lachrymal glands are the first to be affected; then the eyelids; and finally, the whole converging muscles of the cheeks. The lips are drawn aside, not from their circular fibres relaxing, as in laughter, but from their being forcibly retracted by the superior influence of their antagonist muscles. Instead of the joyous elevation of the cheeks, the muscle which pulls down the angle of the mouth, triangularis oris, is more under influence, and the angle is depressed. The cheeks are thus drawn between two adverse powers; the muscles which surround the eyelids, and that which depresses the lower lip.

The

'The same cause which drew the diaphragm and muscles of the chest into action in laughing, is perceived here. diaphragm is spasmodically and irregularly affected; the chest and throat are influenced; the breathing is cut by sobbing; the inspiration is hurried, and the expiration is slow, with a melancholy note.

'In the violence of weeping, accompanied with lamentation,

the face is flushed, or rather suffused with stagnant blood, and the veins of the forehead distended. In this we see the effect of the impeded action of the chest.'

In laughter, the lachrymal effusion is last in the series. of effects; here it comes first. It would seem as if this organ were affected sooner than the chest, and had an influence in bringing on the respiratory convulsions. There is a cry of pain, often manifested by infants, without tears, and capable of being instantly arrested. This is a mere vocal disturbance, implying a sharp but not convulsive expiration, and a tension of the vocal ligaments. This is the cry of anger likewise, which is marked by being very sharp and violent. When the lachrymal organs are affected to profuse flooding, the larynx and chest are usually convulsed at the same time, and sobbing ensues. In this case the diaphragm, the chief muscle of inspiration, is affected with convulsions, and the glottis being usually closed, no air really enters, so that the action of the lungs is impeded all the while. Here lies the great contrast between the two opposite emotions; in laughter, the expiration is excited to convulsion; in sobbing, the inspiration is convulsed, and the expirations are forced on as a consequence. The hysterical sensation at the throat is produced by the stimulus that convulses the larynx closing the glottis, and affecting the vocal cords.

The muscles of expression of the face brought into play in this emotion are those already cited as characteristic of painful states. The depressor of the angle of the mouth is a specific muscle of pain, as the zygomatic and elevators of the angle of the mouth are of pleasure.

The coincidence of a certain muscular expression with a specific secretion, as the contortion of pain with the flow of tears, is to be ranked among the pre-established harmonies of the system operated through the central organs of the brain. In other emotions, the feelings of sex, for example, there are similar coincidences.