674 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dreads the notice of strangers, but can hardly be said to be afraid of 

 them ; he may be as bold as a hero in battle, and yet have no self- 

 confidence about trifles in the presence of strangers. Almost every one 

 is extremely nervous when first addressing a public assembly, and 

 most men remain so through their lives." As Mr. Darwin observes, 

 a real dread of definite consequences may enter into this " stage-fright " 

 and complicate the shyness. Even so our shyness before an important 

 personage may be complicated by what Professor Bam calls " servile 

 terror," based on representation of definite dangers if we fail to please. 

 But both stage-fright and servile terror may exist with the most in- 

 definite apprehensions of danger, and, in fact, when our reason tells 

 us there is no occasion for alarm. We must, therefore, admit a certain 

 amount of purely instinctive perturbation and constraint, due to the 

 consciousness that we have become objects for other people's eyes. 

 Mr. Darwin goes on to say : "Shyness comes on at a very early age. 

 In one of my own children, two years and three months old, I saw a 

 trace of what certainly appeared to be shyness directed toward myself, 

 after an absence from home of only a week." Every parent has no- 

 ticed the same sort of thing. Considering the despotic powers of rulers 

 in savage tribes, respect and awe must, from time immemorial, have 

 been emotions excited by certain individuals ; and stage-fright, servile 

 terror, and shyness, must have had as copious opportunities for exercise 

 as at the present time. Whether these impulses could ever have been 

 useful, and selected for usefulness, is a question which, it would seem, 

 can only be answered in the negative. Apparently they are pure hin- 

 drances, like fainting at sight of blood or disease, sea-sickness, a dizzy 

 head on high places, and certain squeamishnesses of aesthetic taste. 

 They are incidental emotions, in spite of which we get along. But 

 they seem to play an important part in the production of two other 

 propensities, about the instinctive character of which a good deal of 

 controversy has prevailed. I refer to cleanliness and modesty, to 

 which we must proceed, but not before we have said a word about 

 another impulse closely allied to shyness. I mean 



Secretiveness, which, although often due to intelligent calcula- 

 tion and the dread of betraying our interests in some more or less 

 definitely foreseen way, is quite as often a blind propensity, serving no 

 useful purpose, and is so stubborn and ineradicable a part of the char- 

 acter as fully to deserve a place among the instincts. Its natural 

 stimuli are unfamiliar human beings, especially those whom we respect. 

 Its reactions are the arrest of whatever we are saying or doing when 

 such strangers draw nigh, coupled often with the pretense that we 

 were not saying or doing that thing, but possibly something different. 

 Often there is added to this a disposition to mendacity when asked 

 to give an account of ourselves. With many persons the first impulse, 

 when the door-bell riugs^or a visitor is suddenly announced, is to scut- 

 tle out of the room, so as not to be " caught." When a person at 



