The poet Young tells us that “the man that blushes is not quite a brute;” and Darwin quotes from Humboldt a sneer of the Spaniard, “How can those be trusted who know not how to blush?” Darwin’s remark that some idiots, “if not utterly degraded, are capable of blushing,” also accords with Bell’s notion that blushing is a provision for expression. Bell’s assertion that it is “indicative of excitement” is, however, not sufficiently definite. What is it that a blush expresses? Evidently nervous sensibility, a moral sense, modesty, innocence. The Circassian who can blush is more highly valued than another, because the blush is eloquent of maiden modesty and heart untainted. The fact that there is also a blush of violated modesty, a blush of shame, and of guilt, does not argue against this view, any more than the fact that we blush if, though innocent, we are accused of guilt. It is the association of ideas and of emotions that evokes the blush in such cases.
We may therefore conclude that a blush is useful on account of its moral beauty, i.e. its expressiveness of presumptive innocence, or at least of a desire to be considered innocent; whereas the unblushing front and cheek indicate a brutal, callous indifference to virtue. We admire a blush as “the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions.” And we admire it also, to some extent, on purely æsthetic grounds, if not exaggerated. A slight blush has a rosy charm of its own, and it is only when it becomes a too diffused and deep facial Aurora borealis that it loses its charm, because suggestive of the hectic or fever flush, or the redness caused by anger, heat, violent exertion, etc., which has a physiological origin distinct from that of blushing.
According to Bell, “the colour which attends exertion or the violent passions, as of rage, arises from general vascular excitement, and differs from blushing. Blushing is too sudden and too partial to be traced to the heart’s action.” Darwin endeavours to find the explanation of blushing in the intimate sympathy which exists between the capillary circulation of the surface of the head and face, and that of the brain, which would account for the mental confusion of shyness, modesty, etc., being so immediately photographed on the face. He sums up his theory in these words:—
“I conclude that blushing—whether due to shyness—to shame for a real crime—to shame from a breach of the laws of etiquette—to modesty from humility—to modesty from an indelicacy—depends in all cases on the same principle; this principle being a sensitive regard for the opinion, more particularly for the depreciation of others, primarily in relation to our personal appearance, especially of our faces; and secondarily, through the force of association and habit, in relation to the opinion of others on our conduct.”
He gives various illustrations showing how by directing our attention to certain parts of the body we can increase their sensitivity and activity in a manner analogous to that postulated by the theory of blushing. But for these the reader must be referred to his essay on this subject in the Expression of Emotions—a masterpiece of physiological and psychological analysis. One more passage, however, may be cited, as it helps to justify this long discussion of blushing by showing its special relations to Romantic Love and Personal Beauty:—
“It is plain to every one that young men and women are highly sensitive to the opinion of each other with reference to their personal appearance; and they blush incomparably more in presence of the opposite sex than in that of their own. A young man, not very liable to blush, will blush intensely at any slight ridicule of his appearance from a girl whose judgment on any important subject he would disregard. No happy pair of young lovers, valuing each other’s admiration and love more than anything else in the world, probably ever courted each other without many a blush. Even the barbarians of Tierra del Fuego, according to Mr. Bridges, blush ‘chiefly in regard to women, but certainly also at their own personal appearance.’”
THE EARS
A USELESS ORNAMENT
The shell of the ear appears to be the only part of man’s visible body which has ceased to be useful and become purely ornamental “Persons whose ears have been cut off hear just as well as before,” says Professor Haeckel. Dr. J. Toynbee, F.R.S., “after collecting all the evidence on this head, concludes that the external shell is of no distinct use;” and Darwin was informed by Professor Preyer that after experimenting on the functions of the shell of the ear he had come to nearly the same conclusion.
To infer from this that our external ears have been developed, through Sexual Selection, for purely ornamental purposes, would not be in accord with scientific analogies. For, often as existing organs (horns, feathers, etc.) are modified for ornamental purposes, there are no known instances of any that have been specially developed for that purpose; even the facial muscles of expression being, as we have seen, in this predicament. Hence we are led to conclude that man has inherited the shell of his ear from a remote apelike ancestor, to whom it was of use in catching faint sounds, and who consequently had the power, common to other animals, not only of directing the ears as a whole to different points of the compass, but of temporarily altering its shape. Indeed, one of the strongest proofs of our descent from lower animals lies in the fact that man still possesses, in a rudimentary form, the muscles needed to move the ears. Some savage tribes have considerable control over these muscles. The famous physiologist, Johannes Müller, after long and patient efforts, succeeded in recovering the power of moving his ears; and Darwin writes: “I have seen one man who could draw the whole ear forwards; other men can draw it upwards; another who could draw it backwards; and from what one of these persons told me, it is probable that most of us, by often touching our ears, and thus directing our attention towards them, could recover some power of movement by repeated trials.”