With respect to the involuntary bristling of the hair, we have
good reason to believe that in the case of animals this action,
however it may have originated, serves, together with certain
voluntary movements, to make them appear terrible to their enemies;
and as the same involuntary and voluntary actions are performed
by animals nearly related to man, we are led to believe that man has
retained through inheritance a relic of them, now become useless.
It is certainly a remarkable fact, that the minute unstriped muscles,
by which the hairs thinly scattered over man's almost naked body
are erected, should have been preserved to the present day;
and that they should still contract under the same emotions, namely,
terror and rage, which cause the hairs to stand on end in the lower
members of the Order to which man belongs. CHAPTER XIII.
SELF-ATTENTION--SHAME--SHYNESS--MODESTY: BLUSHING.
Nature of a blush--Inheritance--The parts of the body most affected--
Blushing in the various races of man--Accompanying gestures--
Confusion of mind--Causes of blushing--Self-attention, the
fundamental element--Shyness--Shame, from broken moral laws and
conventional rules--Modesty--Theory of blushing--Recapitulation.
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