To Frans Cornelis Donders 13 May [1870]1
Down | Beckenham | Kent S.E.
May 13th.
My dear Sir,
In about a fortnight’s time I shall begin to arrange my notes on Expression: & it would be a great assistance to me if you could spare time to give me some notion of any conclusion at which you may have arrived, on the cause of the contraction of the muscles round the eyes during screaming &c2
Secondly, can you give me any explanations why tears are poured out when these same muscles are spasmodically contracted, as during violent choking vomiting &c without any mental emotion such as grief being felt. I find that the voluntary, prolonged & strong contraction of these muscles, even with children, does not cause tears to flow, or hardly at all. I hope my questions will not cause you much trouble, as I know your time is taken up by valuable researches.
I have lately read in an English Journal with extreme interest an abstract of your experiments on the rate of the travelling of the nervous powers.3
With very sincere respect | pray believe me, my dear Sir, | yours faithfully | Charles Darwin.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Donders, Frans Cornelis. 1868. Over de snelheid van psychische processen. Onderzoekingen gedaan in het Physiologisch Laboratorium der Utrechtsche Hoogeschool (1868–9): 92–120.
Donders, Frans Cornelis. 1969. On the speed of mental processes. Acta Psychologica 30: 412–31.
Expression: The expression of the emotions in man and animals. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.
Summary
In a fortnight will begin to arrange notes on expression. Asks for FCD’s conclusions about the contraction of eye muscles. Is interested in abstract of FCD’s experiments on "rate of travelling of the nervous powers".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7187
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Frans Cornelis (Franciscus Cornelius) Donders
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.)
- Physical description
- C 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7187,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7187.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18