The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in the field of comparative psychology and his impact on academic psychology was muted, partly because of the widespread influence of the behaviourist school during the twentieth century. The lavish style of biological illustration was followed in work on animal locomotion by photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904)(leading to cinematography), and by the Scottish naturalist James Bell Pettigrew (1832–1908); in the extensively (and controversially) illustrated works of the evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel; and – to a lesser extent – in D'Arcy Thompson's "On Growth and Form" (1917). Darwin's ideas were followed up in William James' "What Is An Emotion ?" (1884); and,
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals shows how human emotions link mental states with bodily movement, and are genetically determined, deriving from purposeful animal actions. He comments on the implications of the book: a single origin for the entire human species, with universal human expressions; and he stresses the social value of expression, citing the emotional communication between mother and child. This was one of the first books to be illustrated with photographs – with seven heliotype plates – and the publisher John Murray warned that this "would poke a [terrible] hole in the profits". The published book assembled illustrations rather like a Victorian family album,