DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48956#0082
7 6 EXTERNAL SIGNS OF Ch. XV.
expressed by an eredl posture, reverence by pro-
stration, and sorrow by a dejected look. Second-
ly, we are not even indebted to experience for the
knowledge that these expressions are natural and
universal: for we are so framed as to have an in-
nate conviction of the fad; let a man change his
habitation to the other side of the globe , he will,
from the accustomed signs, infer the passion of fear
among his new neighbours, with as little heijta-
tion as he did at home. But why, after all, in-
volve ourselves in preliminary observations, when
the doubt may be diredly solved as follows ? That
if the meaning of external signs be not derived to
us from sight, nor from experience, there is no
remaining source whence it can be derived but
o
from nature.
We may then venture to pronounce, with some
degree of assurance , that man is provided by na-
ture with a sense or faculty that lays open to him
every passion by means of its external expressions.
And we cannot entertain any reasonable doubt
of this, when we refled , that the meaning of ex-
ternal signs is not hid even from infants: an in-
fant is remarkably asslded with the passions of
its nurse expresled on her countenance; a smile
cheais it, a frown makes it afraid: but fear can-
not be without apprehending danger; and what
danger can the infant apprehend, unless it besen-
sible that its nurse is angry ? We muss therefore
admit, that a child can read anger in its nurse s
expressed by an eredl posture, reverence by pro-
stration, and sorrow by a dejected look. Second-
ly, we are not even indebted to experience for the
knowledge that these expressions are natural and
universal: for we are so framed as to have an in-
nate conviction of the fad; let a man change his
habitation to the other side of the globe , he will,
from the accustomed signs, infer the passion of fear
among his new neighbours, with as little heijta-
tion as he did at home. But why, after all, in-
volve ourselves in preliminary observations, when
the doubt may be diredly solved as follows ? That
if the meaning of external signs be not derived to
us from sight, nor from experience, there is no
remaining source whence it can be derived but
o
from nature.
We may then venture to pronounce, with some
degree of assurance , that man is provided by na-
ture with a sense or faculty that lays open to him
every passion by means of its external expressions.
And we cannot entertain any reasonable doubt
of this, when we refled , that the meaning of ex-
ternal signs is not hid even from infants: an in-
fant is remarkably asslded with the passions of
its nurse expresled on her countenance; a smile
cheais it, a frown makes it afraid: but fear can-
not be without apprehending danger; and what
danger can the infant apprehend, unless it besen-
sible that its nurse is angry ? We muss therefore
admit, that a child can read anger in its nurse s