Darwin’s book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, was a foray into applying evolution by natural selection to non-physical traits.
The roots for this book extended back to the birth of Darwin’s own children, and he kept notes on their behavior from birth. Later, he supplemented his personal observations by sending questionnaires to correspondents around the world. With these data he established that some behaviors and emotions are indeed universal, a trait of our species, and as such, subject to evolution through natural selection.
The book was significant for another, technical reason: Darwin included photographs to illustrate different facial expressions, and this was one of the first scientific treatises to include this technology. Darwin thought the photos more objective than drawings. The photo here is Plate II from the book, "grief".
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