Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Varieties Of Form And Colour Are Frequent
Only In Domestic Animals.
How great is the difference, with respect
to mobility of features and variety of physiognomy, between dogs
which have again returned to the savage state in the New World, and
those whose slightest caprices are indulged in the houses of the
opulent!
Both in men and animals the emotions of the soul are
reflected in the features; and the countenance acquires the habit
of mobility, in proportion as the emotions of the mind are
frequent, varied, and durable. But the Indian of the Missions,
being remote from all cultivation, influenced only by his physical
wants, satisfying almost without difficulty his desires, in a
favoured climate, drags on a dull, monotonous life. The greatest
equality prevails among the members of the same community; and this
uniformity, this sameness of situation, is pictured on the features
of the Indians.
Under the system of the monks, violent passions, such as resentment
and anger, agitate the native more rarely than when he lives in the
forest. When man in a savage state yields to sudden and impetuous
emotions, his physiognomy, till then calm and unruffled, changes
instantly to convulsive contortions. His passion is transient in
proportion to its violence. With the Indians of the Missions, as I
have often observed on the Orinoco, anger is less violent, less
earnest, but of longer duration. Besides, in every condition of
man, it is not the energetic or the transient outbreaks of the
passions, which give expression to the features.
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