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"All the states of mind which language designates by the metaphors bitter, harsh, sweet, combine themselves, therefore, with the corresponding mimetic movements of the mouth"

— James, William (1842-1910)

Author

The Principles of Psychology

Date

1890

Metaphor

"All the states of mind which language designates by the metaphors bitter, harsh, sweet, combine themselves, therefore, with the corresponding mimetic movements of the mouth"

Metaphor in Context

Another principle, to which Darwin perhaps hardly does sufficient justice, may be called the principle of reacting similarly to analogous-feeling stimuli. There is a whole vocabulary of descriptive adjectives common to impressions belonging to different sensible spheres -- experiences off all classes are sweet, impressions of all classes rich or solid, sensations of all classes sharp. Wundt and Piderit accordingly explain many of our most expressive reactions upon moral causes as symbolic gustatory movements. As soon as any experience arises which has an affinity with the feeling of sweet, or bitter, or sour, the same movements are executed which would result from the taste in point.[31] "All the states of mind which language designates by the metaphors bitter, harsh, sweet, combine themselves, therefore, with the corresponding mimetic movements of the mouth." Certainly the emotions of disgust and satisfaction do express themselves in this mimetic way. Disgust is an incipient regurgitation or retching, limiting its expression often to the grimace of the lips and nose; satisfaction goes with a sucking smile, or tasting motion of the lips. In Mantegazza's loose if learned work, the attempt is made, much less successfully, to bring in the eye and ear as additional sources of symbolically expressive reaction. The ordinary gesture of negation -- among us, moving the head about its axis from side to side -- is a reaction originally used by babies to keep disagreeables from getting into their mouth, and may be observed in perfection in any nursery.[32] [p. 482] It is now evoked where the stimulus is only an unwelcome idea. Similarly the nod forward in affirmation is after the analogy of taking food into the mouth. The connection of the expression of moral or social disdain or dislike, especially in women, with movements having a perfectly definite original olfactory function, is too obvious for comment. Winking is the effect of any threatening surprise, not only of what puts the eyes in danger; and a momentary aversion of the eyes is very apt to be one's first symptom of response to an unexpectedly unwelcome proposition. -- These may suffice as examples of movements expressive from analogy.(pp. 481-2)