DARWIN. 183 



extensive reading. The novelists are laid considerably 

 under contribution, their power of describing expressive 

 signs of emotion being particularly appreciated. Dickens, 

 Walter Scott, Mrs. Oliphant, and Mrs. Gaskell are 

 among the novelists quoted ; while the author of Job, 

 Homer, Virgil, Seneca, Shakespeare, Lessing, Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds, and many other deceased writers, illustrate 

 the subject. The living authorities scientific men, 

 travellers, doctors referred to for facts are exceedingly 

 numerous, including Sir James Pager, Professor Huxley, 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir J. Crichton Browne, Sir Samuel 

 Baker, Sir Joseph Lister, Professors Cope and Asa Gray, 

 and many others. 



One of the most interesting chapters in the book is 

 that dealing with blushing. It is shown to depend on 

 self-attention, excited almost exclusively by the opinion 

 of others. " 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." This excites the nerve centres receiving 

 sensory nerve for the face, and in turn relaxes the blood 

 capillaries, and fills them with blood. " We can under- 

 stand why the young are much more affected than the 

 old, and women more than men, and why the opposite 

 sexes especially excite each others' blushes. It becomes 

 obvious why personal remarks should be particularly 

 liable to cause blushing, and why the most powerful of 

 all the causes is shyness ; for shyness relates to the 

 presence and opinion of others, and the shy are always 

 more or less self-conscious," 



