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 initial correspondence with the psychiatrist James Crichton-Browne Darwin set aside his material concerning emotional expression in order to complete "The Descent of Man", which covered human ancestry and sexual selection. Darwin concluded work on "The Descent of Man" on 15 January 1871. Two days later, he started on "The Expression of the Emotions" and, on 22 August 1872, he finished work on the proofs. In this book, Darwin brings his evolutionary theory into close approximation with behavioural science, although many Darwin scholars have remarked on a kind of spectral Lamarckism haunting the text of the "Emotions". Universal Nature of Expression: