Although exposure to alternations of temperature, &c., has probably much
increased the power of dilatation and contraction in the capillaries
of the face and adjoining parts, yet this by itself will hardly
account for these parts blushing much more than the rest of the body;
for it does not explain the fact of the hands rarely blushing.
With Europeans the whole body tingles slightly when the face
blushes intensely; and with the races of men who habitually go
nearly naked, the blushes extend over a much larger surface than with us.
These facts are, to a certain extent, intelligible, as the self-attention
of primeval man, as well as of the existing races which still
go naked, will not have been so exclusively confined to their faces,
as is the case with the people who now go clothed.
[25] Mr. Bain (`The Emotions and the Will,' 1865, p. 65) remarks on "the
shyness of manners which is induced between the sexes .... from the influence
of mutual regard, by the apprehension on either side of not standing well
with the other."
[26] See, for evidence on this subject, `The Descent of Man,'
&c., vol. ii. pp. 71, 341.
We have seen that in all parts of the world persons who feel shame for
some moral delinquency, are apt to avert, bend down, or hide their faces,
independently of any thought about their personal appearance.
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