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-coloured races blushing,
in whom a change of colour in the skin is scarcely or not at all visible.
[31] Bell, `Anatomy of Expression,' p. 95. Burgess, as quoted
below, ibid. p. 49. Gratiolet, De la Phys. p. 94.
No doubt a slight blush adds to the beauty of a maiden's face;
and the Circassian women who are capable of blushing, invariably fetch
a higher price in the seraolio of the Sultan than less susceptible
women.[32] But the firmest believer in the efficacy of sexual selection
will hardly suppose that blushing was acquired as a sexual ornament.
This view would also be opposed to what has. just been said about
the dark-coloured races blushing in an invisible manner.
The hypothesis which appears to me the most probable, though it
may at first seem rash, is that attention closely directed
to any part of the body tends to interfere with the ordinary
and tonic contraction of the small arteries of that part.
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