This young face becomes still more terrible by the
greatest contraction of that little muscle at the summit
of the nose (pyramidalis nasi). Who would recognize,
in Fig. 83, the same young woman whose countenance
is so charming in its expressions of sympathy above?
Here Lady Macbeth is seen, at the moment of her
impulse to murder King Duncan, when cruelty becomes
ferocity. To complete the expression of the aggressive
passions, the depression of the comers of the
lips must be added to the contraction of the eyebrows.
The triangular of the lips must cooperate with the
pyramidal of the nose. In this subject the corners of
the mouth are naturally drawn down; it sufficed then
to excite the pyramidal alone. The reciprocal influence
of the mouth and eye may be appreciated on
these figures, by hiding alternately one or other of
these parts of the face. This sign of wickedness is also
recognized upon the physiognomy of men who instinctively
do evil for the sake of evil, whether armed with
the pen or with the dagger; tyrants, whose life has
been a long succession of cruelties, generally bear this
ineffaceable stigma. Behold Nero's portrait, for example:
the face is in repose; the features of wickedness
or of cruelty, that distinguish it are due to the
predominant tonic force of the pyramidal muscle of the
nose developed by the frequent exercise of these evil
passions. However slightly the pyramidal of the nose
may act upon the origin of the eyebrows and the space
between them, it always imparts hardness to the mildest
look, and announces aggression.
This phenomenon is observed in Photograph 16. The pyramidals, although strongly contracted, meet in this young subject with so much resistance from the skin of the middle of the brow, that their terminal fibres have creased a deep wrinkle in the space between the eyebrows. The bellying of the muscle in this space is just perceptible, and the eyebrows are but slightly depressed toward it. This experiment brought to light an anatomical fact previously ignored: that the pyramidals terminate above, in the skin of the space between the eyebrows-consequently the complete independence of these muscles, which had been considered as the termination of the frontal (muscle of the scalp) and were called by anatomists its pillars.
Photograph 4, which shows the physiognomy of 16 in the state of repose, has no such transverse wrinkle. The rheophores which produced it when placed on the root of the nose, ceased to cause any contraction when transferred to the point just above in the line of this wrinkle. Immediately above the line traced by this transverse fold, between the eyebrows, the rheophores drew the skin from below upward, in the opposite direction to that in which the pyramidals draw, which shows that the latter are not only independent of the frontal, but are also its antagonists.
M. Duchenne has obtained from the scalpel of a consummate anatomist, M. Ludovic Hirschfeld, whose atlas of the nervous system is well known to men of science, the confirmation of this physiological induction. Dissection has now ascertained that the point of separation between the pyramidal and the frontal, the discovery of which was made by electro-muscular exploration, and which is a neuter point, is constituted by an intersection of aponeuroses. When the skin of the forehead above the space between the eyebrows yields easily to the action of the pyramidals, the transverse furrow indicating the upper termination of this pair of muscles in the skin is less apparent than in 16. Thus, referring to Plate II. of the work, in the old man, 17 and 18, the skin of the forehead, very movable, has been much drawn down by the electric contraction of his pyramidals and the skin of the root of the nose, thrust down below, is furrowed by several transverse plaits. In comparing 17 and 18 with 16, we remark that the head of the eyebrow is the more drawn downward by the pyramidal, in proportion as the skin of the forehead has yielded to the action of the latter. In consequence, the eyebrow no longer describes its natural curve; its internal half has an oblique direction from without inward and from above downward, and the skin of the middle part of the forehead is necessarily tense and smooth.
Photograph 16 renders the maximum of hatred and wickedness which the pyramidals of this subject were capable of expressing, and this is the more singular, as he possesses extraordinary power over his eyebrow muscles, can give his eyes varied expressions, and move them in contrary directions. But his will does not exert the least action over his pyramidals. He cannot, by any effort, give to his countenance the expression of hardness, of aggression, of wickedness. This fact is explained by the slight development of the muscles which represent this kind of passion, and which, in him, obey the rheophores alone. This young man is of a very gentle character; had he become the prey of evil passions, their gymnastic exercise would have very soon developed his pyramidals, and changed the habitual expression of his countenance. In other subjects, such as the young woman who has sat for Lady Macbeth, a much greater natural development of the pyramidals is equally consistent with their habitual repose.
The first plate which we have selected from M. Duchenne's work represents the author making an electro-physiognomical experiment. The other two are composed-of three of his plates, and are the most striking in the volume.
Our limits preclude the anatomical figures and synoptical analyses, for which the experimental artist must refer to the original work.