432 PSYCHOLOGY. 



when first addressing a public assembly, and most men remain so 

 through their lives." 



As Mr. Darwin observes, a real dread of definite conse- 

 quences may enter into this ' stage-friglit ' and complicate 

 the shyness. Even so our shyness before an important per- 

 sonage may be complicated by what Professor Bain 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 indefinite 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 noticed the same 

 sort of thing. Considering the desjDotic 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 hindrances, like fainting at sight of blood or dis- 

 ease, sea-sickness, a dizzy head on high places, and cer- 

 tain 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 

 calculation and the dread of betraying our interests in some 

 more or less definitely foreseen way, is quite as often a blind 



