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Evolution, expression, and sensation, cell life and pathology
Evolution expression and sensation cell life and pathology Author:John Cleland Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. ON THE ELEMENT OF SYMBOLIC CORRELATION IN EXPRESSION.1 The very use of the word expression implies a relationship between mind and body; for that whic... more »h is expressed is a condition of mind, and that by which it is expressed is a condition of body; while the problem remains for both the naturalist and the metaphysician—By what means do movements of the body, or more widely, conditions of matter afford an index to conditions of the mind ? Expression may be said to be conveyed through the medium of the senses of sight and hearing. The other senses may be left out of consideration ; for flavours and odours, however far-reaching their effects on the percipient, have no utility whatever in directly determining conditions of other minds, and the sense of touch refers to forms and movementsi 1 Originally published in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, July, 1879. better determined usually by sight. By the blind, forms and movements are appreciated through touch, which by others are more quickly perceived through the medium of vision ; and in the case of the deaf, visible signs may be made to serve a purpose better fulfilled by words when words can be heard ; but it remains true that expression is a mechanism of forms, appreciable movements, and sounds, and that these are most generally conveyed through the portals of eye and ear. Thus the problem of expression as I have defined it involves the whole study of the origin of language, and the same gulf has to be bridged over in determining how meanings have become attached to words as in determining how they are attached to arrangements of feature and gesture. But the origin of the primitive symbols in speech is so obscure, and the interaction of circumstances so complex in the elevation of them into languages, and in ...« less