Chapter 10

HATRED AND ANGER.

Hatred--Rage, effects of on the system--Uncovering of the teeth--Rage in the insane--Anger and indignation--As expressed by the various races of man--Sneering and defiance--The uncovering of the canine tooth on one side of the face.

IF we have suffered or expect to suffer some wilful injury from a man, or if he is in any way offensive to us, we dislike him; and dislike easily rises into hatred. Such feelings, if experienced in a moderate degree, are not clearly expressed by any movement of the body or features, excepting perhaps by a certain gravity of behaviour, or by some ill-temper. Few individuals, however, can long reflect about a hated person, without feeling and exhibiting signs of indignation or rage. But if the offending person be quite insignificant, we experience merely disdain or contempt. If, on the other hand, he is all-powerful, then hatred passes into terror, as when a slave thinks about a cruel master, or a savage about a bloodthirsty malignant deity.[1] Most of our emotions are so closely connected with their expression, that they hardly exist if the body remains passive--the nature of the expression depending in chief part on the nature of the actions which have been habitually performed under this particular state of the mind. A man, for instance, may know that his life is in the extremest peril, and may strongly desire to save if; yet, as Louis XVI. said, when surrounded by a fierce mob, "Am I afraid? feel my pulse." So a man may intensely hate another, but until his bodily frame is affected, he cannot be said to be enraged.

[1] See some remarks to this effect by Mr. Bain, 'The Emotions and the Will,' 2nd edit. 1865, p. 127.

Rage.--I have already had occasion to treat of this emotion in the third chapter, when discussing the direct influence of the excited sensorium on the body, in combination with the effects of habitually associated actions. Rage exhibits itself in the most diversified manner. The heart and circulation are always affected; the face reddens or becomes purple, with the veins on the forehead and neck distended. The reddening of the skin has been observed with the copper-coloured Indians of South America,[2] and even, as it is said, on the white cicatrices left by old wounds on negroes.[3] Monkeys also redden from passion. With one of my own infants, under four months old, I repeatedly observed that the first symptom of an approaching passion was the rushing of the blood into his bare scalp. On the other hand, the action of the heart is sometimes so much impeded by great rage, that the countenance becomes pallid or livid,[4] and not a few men with heart-disease have dropped down dead under this powerful emotion.

[2] Rengger, Naturgesch. der Saugethiere von Paraguay, 1830, s. 3.

[3] Sir C. Bell, 'Anatomy of Expression,' p. 96. On the other hand, Dr. Burgess ('Physiology of Blushing,' 1839, p. 31) speaks of the reddening