The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in the laying out of the sandwalk, his "thinking path", at Down House in Kent in 1846. These aspects of Darwin's personal life are discussed in John Bowlby's (1990) psychoanalytic biography of Darwin. Darwin emphasises a shared human and animal ancestry in sharp contrast to the arguments deployed in Charles Bell's "Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression" (1824). Bell claimed that the facial muscles were divinely designed in order to express uniquely human feelings. Eager to stress the differences between human and animal communication, Bell wrote: "Expression is to the passions as language is to thought." In "The Expression", Darwin reformulates
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals induce directly opposing movements. Finally, he discusses a "direct action of the nervous system", in which an overflow of emotion is widely discharged, producing more generally expressed emotions. This is followed by a section (three more chapters) on modes of emotional expression peculiar to particular species, including man. He then moves on to the main argument with his characteristic approach of astonishingly widespread and detailed observations. Chapter 7 discusses "low spirits", including anxiety, grief, dejection and despair; and the contrasting Chapter 8 "high spirits" with joy, love, tender feelings and devotion. Subsequent chapters include considerations of "reflection and meditation" (associated