Human uses of mammals that "one is well advised to study the behaviour rather than attempting to get at any underlying emotion". Charles Darwin however had accepted the idea of emotion in animals, writing his 1872 book "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" on the subject. Darwin believed that mammals had social, mental and moral lives. In "The Descent of Man" (1871), he wrote: "There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties." Biologists remained wary of the idea, even for the great apes, but this led to serious difficulties, as Donald O. Hebb explained
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,