As soon as these animals become enraged, the shape of the month wholly changes, and the teeth are exposed. The adult orang when wounded is said to emit "a singular cry, consisting at first of high notes, which at length deepen into a low roar. While giving out the high notes he thrusts out his lips into a funnel shape, but in uttering the low notes he holds his mouth wide open."[11] With the gorilla, the lower lip is said to be capable of great elongation. If then our semi-human progenitors protruded their lips when sulky or a little angered, in the same manner as do the existing anthropoid apes, it is not an anomalous, though a curious fact, that our children should exhibit, when similarly affected, a trace of the same expression, together with some tendency to utter a noise. For it is not at all unusual for animals to retain, more or less perfectly, during early youth, and subsequently to lose, characters which were aboriginally possessed by their adult progenitors, and which are still retained by distinct species, their near relations.
Nor is it an anomalous fact that the children of savages should exhibit a stronger tendency to protrude their lips, when sulky, than the children of civilized Europeans; for the essence of savagery seems to consist in the retention of a primordial condition, and this occasionally holds good even with bodily peculiarities.[12] It may be objected to this view of the origin of pouting, that the anthropoid apes likewise protrude their lips when astonished and even when a little pleased; whilst with us this expression is generally confined to a sulky frame of mind. But we shall see in a future chapter that with men of various races surprise does sometimes lead to a slight protrusion of the lips, though great surprise or astonishment is more commonly shown by the mouth being widely opened. As when we smile or laugh we draw back the corners of the mouth, we have lost any tendency to protrude the lips, when pleased, if indeed our early progenitors thus expressed pleasure.
[11] Muller, as quoted by Huxley, `Man's Place in Nature,' 1863, p. 38.
A little gesture made by sulky children may here be noticed, namely, their "showing a cold shoulder." This has a different meaning, as, I believe, from the keeping both shoulders raised. A cross child, sitting on its parent's knee, will lift up the near shoulder, then jerk it away, as if from a caress, and afterwards give a backward push with it, as if to push away the offender. I have seen a child, standing at some distance from any one, clearly express its feelings by raising one shoulder, giving it a little backward movement, and then turning away its whole body.
_Decision or determination_.--The firm closure of the mouth tends to give an expression of determination or decision to the countenance. No determined man probably ever had an habitually gaping mouth. Hence, also, a small and weak lower jaw, which seems to indicate that the mouth is not habitually and firmly closed, is commonly thought to be characteristic of feebleness of character. A prolonged effort of any kind, whether of body or mind, implies previous determination; and if it can be shown that the mouth is generally closed with firmness before and during a great and continued exertion of the muscular system, then, through the principle of association, the mouth would almost certainly be closed as soon as any determined resolution was taken. Now several observers have noticed that a man, in commencing any violent muscular effort, invariably first distends his lungs with air, and then compresses it by the strong contraction of the muscles of the chest; and to effect this the mouth must be firmly closed. Moreover, as soon as the man is compelled to draw breath, he still keeps his chest as much distended as possible.
[11] I have given several instances in my `Descent of Man,' vol. i. chap. iv.
Various causes have been assigned for this manner of acting. Sir C. Bell maintains[13] that the chest is distend