FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   >>  
roism and fearlessness pour life and strength through the veins and muscles, the eyes sparkle, the breast heaves, all the limbs arm themselves alike for combat--the man has the appearance of a war-horse. Fright and fear extinguish the fire in the eyes, the limbs sink powerless and heavy, the marrow in the bones seems frozen, the blood falls back on the heart like a stone, a general weakness cripples the powers of life. A great, bold, lofty thought compels us to stand on tiptoe, to hold up the head, to expand the mouth and nose. The feeling of eternity, the outlook on a wide open horizon, the sea, etc., make us stretch out our arms--we would merge ourselves into the eternal: with the mountains, we would grow towards the heavens, rush thither on storms and waves: yawning abysses throw us down in giddiness. In like manner, hate is expressed in the body by a repelling force; while, on the contrary, in every pressure of the hand, in every embrace, our body will merge into that of our friend, in the same manner as the souls are in harmonious combination. Pride makes the body erect as the soul rises; pettiness bends the head, the limbs hang down; servile fear is expressed in the cringing walk; the thought of pain distorts our face, if pleasurable aspects spread a grace over the whole body; anger, on the other hand, will break through every strong opposing cord, and need will almost overcome the impossible. I would now ask through what mechanism it happens that exactly these movements result from these feelings, that just these organs are affected by these passions? Might I not just as well want to know why a certain wounding of the ligament should stiffen the lower jaw? If the passion which sympathetically awakened these movements of the frame be often renewed, if this sensation of soul become habitual, then these movements of the body will become so also. If this matured passion be of a lasting character, then these constitutional features of the frame become deeply engraved: they become, if I may borrow the pathologist's word, "deuteropathetic," and are at last organic. Thus, at last, the firm perennial physiognomy of man is formed, so that it is almost easier afterwards to change the soul than the form. In this sense, one may also say, without being a "Stahlian," that the soul forms the body; and perhaps the earliest years of youth decide the features of a man for life, as they certainly are the foundation of his moral c
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   >>  



Top keywords:

movements

 

thought

 

features

 

manner

 

passion

 

expressed

 

affected

 

passions

 

overcome

 

result


impossible

 

feelings

 

mechanism

 

organs

 

opposing

 

strong

 

renewed

 

change

 
physiognomy
 

perennial


formed

 
easier
 

Stahlian

 

foundation

 

decide

 

earliest

 

awakened

 

sympathetically

 

spread

 
sensation

ligament
 

stiffen

 

habitual

 

matured

 
pathologist
 
deuteropathetic
 
organic
 

borrow

 
engraved
 

lasting


character

 

constitutional

 

deeply

 

wounding

 

weakness

 

general

 

cripples

 

powers

 

frozen

 

expand