Chapter XVI: Section 11: (a) General External Conditions

“Every state of consciousness has its physical correlate,” says Helmholtz,[68] and this proposition contains the all in all of our problem. Every mental event must have its corresponding physical event[69] in some form, and is therefore capable of being sensed, or known to be indicated by some trace. Identical inner states do not, of course, invariably have identical bodily concomitants, neither in all individuals alike, nor in the same individual at different times. Modern methods of generalization so invariably involve danger and incorrectness that one can not be too cautious in this matter. If generalization were permissible, psychical events would have to be at least as clear as physical processes, but that is not admissible for many reasons. First of all, physical concomitants are rarely direct and unmeditated expressions of a psychical instant (e.g., clenching a fist in threatening). Generally they stand in no causal relation, so that explanations drawn from physiological, anatomical, or even atavistic conditions are only approximate and hypothetical. In addition, accidental habits and inheritances exercise an influence which, although it does not alter the expression, has a moulding effect that in the course of time does finally so recast a very natural expression as to make it altogether unintelligible. The phenomena, moreover, are in most cases personal, so that each individual means a new study. Again the phenomena rarely remain constant; e.g.: we call a thing habit,--we say, “He has the habit of clutching his chin when he is embarrassed,”--but that such habits change is well known. Furthermore, purely physiological conditions operate in many directions, (such as blushing, trembling, laughter,[70] weeping, stuttering, etc.), and finally, very few men want to show their minds openly to their friends, so that they see no reason for co-ordinating their symbolic bodily expressions. Nevertheless, they do so, and not since yesterday, but for thousands of years. Hence definite expressions have been transmitted for generations and have at the same time been constantly modified, until to-day they are altogether unrecognizable. Characteristically, the desire to fool others has also its predetermined limitations, so that it often happens that simple and significant gestures contradict words when the latter are false. E. g., you hear somebody say, “She went down,” but see him point at the same time, not clearly, but visibly, _up_. Here the speech was false and the gesture true. The speaker had to turn all his attention on what he wanted to say so that the unwatched co-consciousness moved his hand in some degree.

A remarkable case of this kind was that of a suspect of child murder. The girl told that she had given birth to the child all alone, had washed it, and then laid it on the bed beside herself. She had also observed how a corner of the coverlet had fallen on the child’s face, and thought it might interfere with the child’s breathing. But at this point she swooned, was unable to help the child, and it was choked. While sobbing and weeping as she was telling this story, she spread the fingers of her left hand and pressed it on her thigh, as perhaps she might have done, if she had first put something soft, the corner of a coverlet possibly, over the child’s nose and mouth, and then pressed on it. This action was so clearly significant that it inevitably led to the question whether she hadn’t choked the child in that way. She assented, sobbing.

Similar is another case in which a man assured us that he lived very peaceably with his neighbor and at the same time clenched his fist. The latter meant illwill toward the neighbor while the words did not.

It need not, of course, be urged that the certainty of a belief will be much endangered if too much value is sanguinely set on such and similar gestures, when their observation is not easy. There is enough to do in taking testimony, and enough to observe, to make it difficult to watch gestures too. Then there is danger (because of slight practice) of easily mistaking indifferent or habitual gestures for significant ones; of supposing oneself to have seen more than should have been seen, and of making such observations too noticeable, in which case the witness immediately controls his gestures. In short, there are difficulties, but once they are surmounted, the effort to do so is not regretted.

It is to be recommended here, also, not to begin one’s studies with murder and robbery, but with the simple cases of the daily life, where there is no danger of making far-reaching mistakes, and where observations may be made much more calmly. Gestures are especially powerful habits and almost everybody makes them, mainly _not_ indifferent ones. It is amusing to observe a man at the telephone, his free hand making the gestures for both. He clenches his fist threateningly, stretches one finger after another into the air if he is counting something, stamps his foot if he is angry, and puts his finger to his head if he does not understand--in that he behaves as he would if his interlocutor were before him. Such deep-rooted tendencies to gesture hardly ever leave us. The movements also occur when we lie; and inasmuch as a man who is lying at the same time has the idea of the truth either directly or subconsciously before him, it is conceivable that this idea exercises much greater influence on gesture than the probably transitory lie. The question, therefore, is one of intensity, for each gesture requires a powerful impulse and the more energetic is the one that succeeds in causing the gesture. According to Herbert Spencer[71] it is a general and important rule that any sensation which exceeds a definite intensity expresses itself ordinarily in activity of the body. This fact is the more important for us inasmuch as we rarely have to deal with light and with not deep-reaching and superficial sensations. In most cases the sensations in question “exceed a certain intensity,” so that we are able to perceive a bodily expression at least in the form of a gesture.

The old English physician, Charles Bell,[72] is of the opinion, in his cautious way, that what is called the external sign of passion is only the accompanying phenomenon of that spontaneous movement required by the structure, or better, by the situation of the body. Later this was demonstrated by Darwin and his friends to be the indubitable starting point of all gesticulation:--so, for example, the defensive action upon hearing something disgusting, the clenching of the fists in anger; or among wild animals, the baring of the teeth, or the bull’s dropping of the head, etc. In the course of time the various forms of action became largely unintelligible and significatory only after long experience. It became, moreover, differently differentiated with each individual, and hence still more difficult to understand. How far this differentiation may go when it has endured generation after generation and is at last crystallized into a set type, is well known; just as by training the muscles of porters, tumblers or fencers develop in each individual, so the muscles develop in those portions of our body most animated by the mind--in our face and hands, especially, have there occurred through the centuries fixed expressions or types of movement. This has led to the observations of common-sense which speak of raw, animal, passionate or modest faces, and of ordinary, nervous, or spiritual hands; but it has also led to the scientific interpretation of these phenomena which afterwards went shipwreck in the form of Lombroso’s “criminal stigmata,” inasmuch as an overhasty theory has been built on barren, unexperienced, and unstudied material. The notion of criminal stigmata is, however, in no sense new, and Lombroso has not invented it; according to an incidental remark of Kant in his “Menschenkunde,” the first who tried scientifically to interpret these otherwise ancient observations was the German J. B. Friedreich,[73] who says expressly that determinate somatic pathological phenomena may be shown to occur with certain moral perversions. It has been observed with approximate clearness in several types of cases. So, for example, incendiarism occurs in the case of abnormal sexual conditions; poisoning also springs from abnormal sexual impulses; drowning is the consequence of oversatiated drink mania, etc. Modern psychopathology knows nothing additional concerning these marvels; and similar matters which are spoken of nowadays again, have shown themselves incapable of demonstration. But that there are phenomena so related, and that their number is continually increasing under exact observations, is not open to doubt.[74] If we stop with the phenomena of daily life and keep in mind the ever-cited fact that everybody recognizes at a glance the old hunter, the retired officer, the actor, the aristocratic lady, etc., we may go still further: the more trained observers can recognize the merchant, the official, the butcher, the shoe-maker, the real tramp, the Greek, the sexual pervert, etc. Hence follows an important law--_that if a fact is once recognized correctly in its coarser form, then the possibility must be granted that it is correct in its subtler manifestations_. The boundary between what is coarse and what is not may not be drawn at any particular point. It varies with the skill of the observer, with the character of the material before him, and with the excellence of his instruments, so that nobody can say where the possibility of progress in the matter ceases. Something must be granted in all questions appertaining to this subject of recognizable unit-characters and every layman pursues daily certain activities based on their existence. When he speaks of stupid and intelligent faces he is a physiognomist; he sees that there are intellectual foreheads and microcephalic ones, and is thus a craniologist; he observes the expression of fear and of joy, and so observes the principles of imitation; he contemplates a fine and elegant hand in contrast with a fat and mean hand, and therefore assents to the effectiveness of chirognomy; he finds one hand-writing scholarly and fluid, another heavy, ornate and unpleasant; so he is dealing with the first principles of graphology;--all these observations and inferences are nowhere denied, and nobody can say where their attainable boundaries lie.

Hence, the only proper point of view to take is that from which we set aside as too bold, all daring and undemonstrated assertions on these matters. But we will equally beware of asserting without further consideration that far-reaching statements are unjustified, for we shall get very far by the use of keener and more careful observation, richer material, and better instruments.

How fine, for example, are the observations made by Herbert Spencer concerning the importance of the “timbre” of speech in the light of the emotional state--no one had ever thought of that before, or considered the possibilities of gaining anything of importance from this single datum which has since yielded such a rich collection of completely proved and correctly founded results. Darwin knew well enough to make use of it for his own purposes.[75] He points out that the person who is quietly complaining of bad treatment or is suffering a little, almost always speaks in a high tone of voice; and that deep groans or high and piercing shrieks indicate extreme pain. Now we lawyers can make just such observations in great number. Any one of us who has had a few experiences, can immediately recognize from the tone of voice with which a new comer makes his requests just about what he wants. The accused, for example, who by chance does not know why he has been called to court, makes use of a questioning tone without really pronouncing his question. Anybody who is seriously wounded, speaks hoarsely and abruptly. The secret tone of voice of the querulous, and of such people who speak evil of another when they are only half or not at all convinced of it, gives them away. The voice of a denying criminal has in hundreds of cases been proved through a large number of physiological phenomena to do the same thing for him; the stimulation of the nerves influences before all the characteristic snapping movement of the mouth which alternates with the reflex tendency to swallow. In addition it causes lapses in blood pressure and palpitation of the heart by means of disturbances of the heart action, and this shows clearly visible palpitation of the right carotid (well within the breadth of hand under the ear in the middle of the right side of the neck). That the left carotid does not show the palpitation may be based on the fact that the right stands in much more direct connection with the aorta. All this, taken together, causes that so significant, lightly vibrating, cold and toneless voice, which is so often to be perceived in criminals who deny their guilt. It rarely deceives the expert.

But these various timbres of the voice especially contain a not insignificant danger for the criminalist. Whoever once has devoted himself to the study of them trusts them altogether too easily, for even if he has identified them correctly hundreds of times, it still may happen that he is completely deceived by a voice he holds as “characteristically demonstrative.” That timbres may deceive, or simulations worthy of the name occur, I hardly believe. Such deceptions are often attempted and begun, but they demand the entire attention of the person who tries them, and that can be given for only a short time. In the very instant that the matter he is speaking of requires the attention of the speaker, his voice involuntarily falls into that tone demanded by its physical determinants: and the speaker significantly betrays himself through just this alteration. We may conclude that an effective simulation is hardly thinkable.

It must, however, be noticed that earlier mistaken observations and incorrect inference at the present moment--substitutions and similar mistakes--may easily mislead. As a corroborative fact, then, the judgment of a voice would have great value; but as a means in itself it is a thing too little studied and far from confirmed.

There is, however, another aspect of the matter which manifests itself in an opposite way from voice and gesture. Lazarus calls attention to the fact that the spectators at a fencing match can not prevent themselves from imitative accompaniment of the actions of the fencers, and that anybody who happens to have any swinging object in his hand moves his hand here and there as they do. Stricker[76] makes similar observations concerning involuntary movements performed while looking at drilling or marching soldiers. Many other phenomena of the daily life--as, for example, keeping step with some pedestrian near us, with the movement of a pitcher who with all sorts of twistings of his body wants to guide the ball correctly when it has already long ago left his hand; keeping time to music and accompanying the rhythm of a wagon knocking on cobblestones; even the enforcement of what is said through appropriate gestures when people speak vivaciously--naturally belong to the same class. So do nodding the head in agreement and shaking it in denial; shrugging the shoulders with a declaration of ignorance. The expression by word of mouth should have been enough and have needed no reinforcement through conventional gestures, but the last are spontaneously involuntary accompaniments.

On the other hand there is the converse fact that the voice may be influenced through expression and gesture. If we fix an expression on our features or bring our body into an attitude which involves passional excitement we may be sure that we will be affected more or less by the appropriate emotion. This statement, formulated by Maudsley, is perfectly true and may be proved by anybody at any moment. It presents itself to us as an effective corroboration of the so well-known phenomenon of “talking-yourself-into-it.” Suppose you correctly imagine how a very angry man looks: frowning brow, clenched fists, gritting teeth, hoarse, gasping voice, and suppose you imitate. Then, even if you feel most harmless and order-loving, you become quite angry though you keep up the imitation only a little while. By means of the imitation of lively bodily changes you may in the same way bring yourself into any conceivable emotional condition, the outer expressions of which appear energetically. It must have occurred to every one of us how often prisoners present so well the excitement of passion that their earnestness is actually believed; as for example, the anger of a guiltless suspect or of an obviously needy person, of a man financially ruined by his trusted servant, etc. Such scenes of passion happen daily in every court-house and they are so excellently presented that even an experienced judge believes in their reality and tells himself that such a thing can not be imitated because the imitation is altogether too hard to do and still harder to maintain. But in reality the presentation is not so wonderful, and taken altogether, is not at all skilful; whoever wants to manifest _anger_ must make the proper gestures (and that requires no art) and when he makes the gestures the necessary conditions occur and these stimulate and cause the correct manifestation of the later gestures, while these again influence the voice. Thus without any essential mummery the comedy plays itself out, self-sufficient, correct, convincing. Alarming oneself is not performed by words, but by the reciprocal influence of word and gesture, and the power of that influence is observable in the large number of cases where, in the end, people themselves believe what they have invented. If they are of delicate spiritual equilibrium they even become hypochondriacs. Writing, and the reading of writing, is to be considered in the same way as gesticulation; it has the same alarming influence on voice and general appearance as the other, so that it is relatively indifferent whether a man speaks and acts or writes and thinks. This fact is well known to everybody who has ever in his life written a really coarse letter.

Now this exciting gesticulation can be very easily observed, but the observation must not come too late. If the witness is once quite lost in it and sufficiently excited by the concomitant speeches he will make his gestures well and naturally and the artificial and untrue will not be discoverable. But this is not the case in the beginning; then his gestures are actually not skilful, and at that point a definite force of will and rather notable exaggerations are observable; the gestures go further than the words, and that is a matter not difficult to recognize. As soon as the recognition is made it becomes necessary to examine whether a certain congruity invariably manifests itself between word and gesture, inasmuch as with many people the above-mentioned lack of congruity is habitual and honest. This is particularly the case with people who are somewhat theatrical and hence gesticulate too much. But if word and gesture soon conform one to another, especially after a rather lively presentation, you may be certain that the subject has skilfully worked himself into his alarm or whatever it is he wanted to manifest. Quite apart from the importance of seeing such a matter clearly the interest of the work is a rich reward for the labor involved.

In close relation to these phenomena is the change of color to which unfortunately great importance is often assigned.[77] In this regard paling has received less general attention because it is more rare and less suspicious. That it can not be simulated, as is frequently asserted in discussions of simulation (especially of epilepsy), is not true, inasmuch as there exists an especial physiological process which succeeds in causing pallor artificially. In that experiment the chest is very forcibly contracted, the glottis is closed and the muscles used in inspiration are contracted. This matter has no practical value for us, on the one hand, because the trick is always involved with lively and obvious efforts, and on the other, because cases are hardly thinkable in which a man will produce artificial pallor in the court where it can not be of any use to him. The one possibility of use is in the simulation of epilepsy, and in such a case the trick can not be played because of the necessary falling to the ground.

Paling depends, as is well known, on the cramp of the muscles of the veins, which contract and so cause a narrowing of their bore which hinders the flow of blood. But such cramps happen only in cases of considerable anger, fear, pain, trepidation, rage; in short, in cases of excitement that nobody ever has reason to simulate. Paling has no value in differentiation inasmuch as a man might grow pale in the face through fear of being unmasked or in rage at unjust suspicion.

The same thing is true about blushing.[78] It consists in a sort of transitory crippling of those nerves that end in the walls of small arteries. This causes the relaxation of the muscle-fibers of the blood vessels which are consequently filled in a greater degree with blood. Blushing also may be voluntarily created by some individuals. In that case the chest is fully expanded, the glottis is closed and the muscles of expiration are contracted. But this matter again has no particular value for us since the simulation of a blush is at most of use only when a woman wants to appear quite modest and moral. But for that effect artificial blushing does not help, since it requires such intense effort as to be immediately noticeable. Blushing by means of external assistance, e.g., inhaling certain chemicals, is a thing hardly anybody will want to perform before the court.

With regard to guilt or innocence, blushing offers no evidence whatever. There is a great troop of people who blush without any reason for feeling guilty. The most instructive thing in this matter is self-observation, and whoever recalls the cause of his own blushing will value the phenomenon lightly enough. I myself belonged, not only as a child, but also long after my student days, to those unfortunates who grow fire-red quite without reason; I needed only to hear of some shameful deed, of theft, robbery, murder, and I would get so red that a spectator might believe that I was one of the criminals. In my native city there was an old maid who had, I knew even as a boy, remained single because of unrequited love of my grandfather. She seemed to me a very poetical figure and once when her really magnificent ugliness was discussed, I took up her cause and declared her to be not so bad. My taste was laughed at, and since then, whenever this lady or the street she lives in or even her furs (she used to have pleasure in wearing costly furs) were spoken of, I would blush. And her age may be estimated from her calf-love. Now what has occurred to me, often painfully, happens to numbers of people, and it is hence inconceivable why forensic value is still frequently assigned to blushing. At the same time there are a few cases in which blushing may be important.

The matter is interesting even though we know nothing about the intrinsic inner process which leads to the influence on the nervous filaments. Blushing occurs all the world over, and its occasion and process is the same among savages as among us.[79] The same events may be observed whether we compare the flush of educated or uneducated. There is the notion, which I believed for a long time, that blushing occurs among educated people and is especially rare among peasants, but that does not seem to be true. Working people, especially those who are out in the open a good deal, have a tougher pigmentation and a browner skin, so that their flush is less obvious. But it occurs as often and under the same conditions as among others. It might be said for the same reason that Gypsies never blush; and of course, that the blush may be rarer among people lacking in shame and a sense of honor is conceivable. Yet everybody who has much to do with Gypsies asserts that the blush may be observed among them.

Concerning the relation of the blush to age, Darwin says that early childhood knows nothing about blushing. It happens in youth more frequently than in old age, and oftener among women than among men. Idiots blush seldom, blind people and hereditary albinos, a great deal. The somatic process of blushing is, as Darwin shows, quite remarkable. Almost always the blush is preceded by a quick contraction of the eyelids as if to prevent the rise of the blood in the eyes. After that, in most cases, the eyes are dropped, even when the cause of blushing is anger or vexation; finally the blush rises, in most cases irregularly and in spots, at last to cover the skin uniformly. If you want to save the witness his blush you can do it only at the beginning--during the movement of the eyes--and only by taking no notice of it, by not looking at him, and going right on with your remarks. This incidentally is valuable inasmuch as many people are much confused by blushing and really do not know what they are talking about while doing it. There is no third thing which is the cause of the blush and of the confusion; the blush itself is the cause of the confusion. This may be indubitably confirmed by anybody who has the agreeable property of blushing and therefore is of some experience in the matter. I should never dare to make capital of any statement made during the blush. Friedreich calls attention to the fact that people who are for the first time subject to the procedure of the law courts blush and lose color more easily than such as are accustomed to it, so that the unaccustomed scene also contributes to the confusion. Meynert[80] states the matter explicitly: “The blush always depends upon a far-reaching association-process in which the complete saturation of the contemporaneously-excited nervous elements constricts the orderly movement of the mental process, inasmuch as here also the simplicity of contemporaneously-occurring activities of the brain determines the scope of the function of association.” How convincing this definition is becomes clear on considering the processes in question. Let us think of some person accused of a crime to whom the ground of accusation is presented for the first time, and to whom the judge after that presents the skilfully constructed proof of his guilt by means of individual bits of evidence. Now think of the mass of thoughts here excited, even if the accused is innocent. The deed itself is foreign to him, he must imagine that; should any relation to it (e.g. presence at the place where the deed was done, interest in it, ownership of the object, etc.) be present to his mind, he must become clear concerning this relationship, while at the same time the possibilities of excuse--alibi, ownership of the thing, etc.--storm upon him. Then only does he consider the particular reasons of suspicion which he must, in some degree, incarnate and represent in their dangerous character, and for each of which he must find a separate excuse. We have here some several dozens of thought-series, which start their movement at the same time and through each other. If at that time an especially dangerous apparent proof is brought, and if the accused, recognizing this danger, blushes with fear, the examiner thinks: “Now I have caught the rascal, for he’s blushing! Now let’s go ahead quickly, speed the examination and enter the confused answer in the protocol!” And who believes the accused when, later on, he withdraws the “confession” and asserts that he had said the thing because they had mixed him up?

In this notion, “you blush, therefore you have lied; you did it!” lie many sins the commission of which is begun at the time of admonishing little children and ended with obtaining the “confessions” of the murderous thief.

Finally, it is not to be forgotten that there are cases of blushing which have nothing to do with psychical processes. Ludwig Meyer[81] calls it “artificial blushing” (better, “mechanically developed blushing”), and narrates the case of “easily-irritated women who could develop a blush with the least touch of friction, e.g., of the face on a pillow, rubbing with the hand, etc.; and this blush could not be distinguished from the ordinary blush.” We may easily consider that such lightly irritable women may be accused, come before the court without being recognized as such, and, for example, cover their faces with their hands and blush. Then the thing might be called “evidential.”