434 PSYCHOLOGY. 



by ! Servants see more of their masters' characters than 

 masters of servants'. * Where we conceal from our equals 

 and familiars, there is probably always a definite element 

 of prudential prevision involved. Collective secrecy, mys- 

 tery, enters into the emotional interest of many games, and 

 is one of the elements of the importance men attach to 

 freemasonries of various sorts, being delightful apart from 

 any end. 



Cleanliness. Seeing how very filthy savages and excep- 

 tional individuals among civilized people may be, philoso- 

 phers have doubted whether any genuine instinct of clean- 

 liness exists, and whether education and habit be not re- 

 sponsible for whatever amount of it is found. Were it an 

 instinct, its stimulus would be dirt, and its characteristic 

 reaction the shrinking from contact therewith, and the 

 cleaning of it away after contact had occurred. Now, if 

 some animals are cleanly, men may be so, and there can be 

 no doubt that some kinds of matter are natively repugnant, 

 both to sight, touch, and smell — excrementitious and putrid 

 things, blood, pus, entrails, and diseased tissues, for exam- 

 ple. It is true that the shrinking from contact with these 

 things may be inhibited ver}- easily, as by a medical educa- 

 tion ; and it is equally true that the impulse to clean them 

 away ma^^ be inhibited by so slight an obstacle as the thought 

 of the coldness of the ablution, or the necessity of getting 

 up to perform it. It is also true than an impulse to clean- 

 liness, habitually checked, will become obsolete fast enough. 

 But none of these facts prove the impulse never to have been 



* Thackeray, in his exquisite Roundabout Paper, ' On a Chalk -Mark on 

 the Door,' says: "You get truth habitually from equals only; so, my 

 good Mr. Holyshade, don't talk to me about the habitual candor of the 

 young Etonian of high birth, or I have my own opinion of your candor or 

 discernment when you do. No. Tom Bowling is the soul of honor, and 

 has been true to Black-eyed Syousan since the last time they parted at 

 Wapping Old Stairs ; but do you suppose Tom is perfectly frank, familiar, 

 and above-board in his conversation with Admiral Nelson, K.C.B. ? 

 There are secrets, prevarications, fibs, if you will, between Tom and the 

 admiral — between your crew (of servants) and their captain. I know I 

 hire a worthy, clean, agreeable, and conscientious male or female hypo- 

 crite at so many guineas a year to do so and so for me. Were he other 

 than hypocrite, I would send him about his business." 



