attention often and earnestly directed to their personal appearance,
and especially to their faces, any incipient tendency in the facial
capillaries to be thus affected will have become in the course of time
greatly strengthened through the principles just referred to, namely,
nerve-force passing readily along accustomed channels, and inherited
habit. Thus, as it appears to me, a plausible explanation is afforded
of the leading phenomena connected with the act of blushing.
_Recapitulation_. Men and women, and especially the young, have always
valued, in a high degree, their personal appearance; and have likewise
regarded the appearance of others. The face has been the chief object
of attention, though, when man aboriginally went naked, the whole
surface of his body would have been attended to. Our self-attention is
excited almost exclusively by the opinion of others, for no person
living in absolute solitude would care about his appearance. Every one
feels blame more acutely than praise. Now, whenever we know, or
suppose, that others are depreciating our personal appearance, our
attention is strongly drawn towards ourselves, more especially to our
faces. The probable effect of this will be, as has just been explained,
to excite into activity that part of the sensorium, which receives the
sensory nerves of the face; and this will react through the vaso-motor
system on the facial capillaries. By frequent reiteration during
numberless generations, the process will have become so habitual, in
association with the belief that others are thinking of us, that even a
suspicion of their depreciation suffices to relax the capillaries,
without any conscious thought about our faces. With some sensitive
persons it is enough even to notice their dress to produce the same
effect. Through the force, also, of association and inheritance our
capillaries are relaxed, whenever we know, or imagine, that any one is
blaming, though in silence, our actions, thoughts, or character; and,
again, when we are highly praised.
On this hypothesis we can understand how it is that the face blushes
much more than any other part of the body, though the whole surface is
somewhat affected, more especially with the races which still go nearly
naked. It is not at all surprising that the dark-coloured races should
blush, though no change of colour is visible in their skins. From the
principle of inheritance it is not surprising that persons born blind
should blush. We can understand why the young are much more affected
than the old, and women more than men; and why the opposite sexes
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