294 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



Many a person has blushed intensely when accused of 

 some crime, though completely innocent of it. 



_ „„ . An action may be meritorious or of an in- 

 Page 334. •' 



different nature, but a sensitive person, if he 



suspects that others take a different yiew of it, will blush. 

 For instance, a lady by herself may giye money to a beg- 

 gar without a trace of a blush, but if others are present, 

 and she doubts whether they approve, or suspects that 

 they think her influenced by display, she will blush. So 

 it will be, if she offers to relieve the distress of a decayed 

 gentlewoman, more particularly of one whom she had 

 previously known under better circumstances, as she can 

 not then feel sure how her conduct will be viewed. But 

 such cases as these blend into shyness. 



p The belief that blushing was specially de- 



signed by the Creator is opposed to the gen- 

 eral theory of evolution, which is now so largely accepted ; 

 but it forms no part of my duty here to argue on the 

 general question. Those who believe in design will find 

 it difficult to account for shyness being the most frequent 

 and efficient of all the causes of blushing, as it makes the 

 blusher to suffer and the beholder uncomfortable, without 

 being of the least service to either of them. They will 

 also find it difficult to account for negroes and other dark- 

 colored races blushing, in whom a change of color in the 

 skin is scarcely or not at all visible. 



BLUSHIKG ACCOITlifTED FOE. 



The hypothesis which appears to me the most prob- 

 able, though it may at first seem rash, is that attention 

 closely directed to any part of the body tends to interfere 



