Project Gutenberg #1227
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Charles Darwin
1872Darwin's study of emotional expression across humans and animals, converted from Project Gutenberg HTML.
Project Gutenberg #1227 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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the canines are much larger than in the females, uncover them when prepared to fight, is not known.
The expression here considered, whether that of a playful sneer or ferocious snarl, is one of the most curious which occurs in man. It reveals his animal descent; for no one, even if rolling on the ground in a deadly grapple with an enemy, and attempting to bite him, would try to use his canine teeth more than his other teeth. We may readily believe from our affinity to the anthropomorphous apes that our male semi-human progenitors possessed great canine teeth, and men are now occasionally born having them of unusually large size, with interspaces in the opposite jaw for their reception.[1017] We may further suspect, notwithstanding that we have no support from analogy, that our semi-human progenitors uncovered their canine teeth when prepared for battle, as we still do when feeling ferocious, or when merely sneering at or defying some one, without any intention of making a real attack with our teeth.