As Mr.Darwin observes, a real dread of definite consequences may enter into this > stage-fright' and complicate the shyness.Even so our shyness before an important personage may be complicated by what Professor Bain calls 'servile terror,' based on representation of definite dangers if we fail to please.But both stage-fright and servile terror may exist with the most indefinite apprehensions of danger, and, in fact, when our reason tells us there is no occasion for alarm.We must, therefore, admit a certain amount of purely instinctive perturbation and constraint, clue to the consciousness that we have become objects for other people's eyes.Mr.Darwin goes on to say: "Shyness comes on at a very early age.In one of my own children, two years and three months old, I saw a trace of what certainly appeared to be shyness directed toward myself, after an absence from home of only a week." Every parent has noticed the same sort of thing.Considering the despotic powers of rulers in savage tribes, respect and awe must, from time immemorial, have been emotions excited by certain individuals; and stage-fright servile terror, and shyness, must have had as copious opportunities for exercise as at the present time.Whether these impulses could ever have been useful, and selected for usefulness, is a question which, it would seem, can only be answered in the negative.Apparently they are pure hindrances, like fainting at sight of blood or disease, sea-sickness, a dizzy head on high places, and certain squeamishnesses of æsthetic taste.They are incidental emotions, in spite of which we get along.But they seem to play an important part in the production of two other propensities, about the instinctive character of which a good deal of controversy has prevailed.I refer to cleanliness and modesty, to which we must proceed, but not before Tire have said a word about another impulse closely allied to shyness.I mean -- Secretiveness , which, although often due to intelligent calculation and the dread of betraying our interests in some more or less definitely foreseen way, is quite as often a blind propensity, serving no useful purpose, and is so stubborn and ineradicable a part of the character as fully to deserve a place among the instincts.Its natural stimuli are unfamiliar human beings, especially those whom we respect.Its reactions are the arrest of whatever we are saying or doing when such strangers draw nigh, coupled often with the pretense that we were not saying or doing that thing, but possibly something different.Often there is added to this a disposition to mendacity when asked to give an account of ourselves.
With many persons the first impulse, when the door-bell rings, or a visitor is suddenly announced, is to scuttle out of the room, so as not to be 'caught.' When a person at whom we have been looking becomes aware of us, our immediate impulse may be to look the other way, end pretend we have not seen him.Many friends have confessed tome that this is a frequent phenomenon with them in meeting acquaintances in the street, especially unfamiliar ones.The bow is a secondary correction of the primary feint that we do not see the other person.Probably most readers will recognize in themselves, at least, the start , the nascent disposition, on many occasions, to act in each and all of these several ways.That the 'start' is neutralized by second thought proves it to come from a, deeper region than thought.There is unquestionably a native impulse in every one to conceal love-affairs, and the acquired impulse to conceal pecuniary affairs seems in many to be almost equally strong.It is to be noted that even where a given habit of concealment is reflective and deliberate, its motive is far less often definite prudence than a vague aversion to have one's sanctity invaded and one's personal concerns fingered and turned over by other people.Thus, some persons will never leave anything with their name written on it, where others may pick it up-even in the woods;
an old envelope must not be thrown on the ground.Many cut all the leaves of a book of which they may be reading a single chapter, so that no one shall know which one they have singled out, and all this with no definite notion of harm.The impulse to conceal is more apt to be provoked by superiors than by equals or inferiors.How differently do boys talk together when their parents are not by! Servants see more of their masters'
characters than masters of servants'. Where we conceal from our equals and familiars, there is probably always a definite element of prudential prevision involved.Collective secrecy, mystery, enters into the emotional interest of many games, and is one of the elements of the importance men attach to freemasonries of various sorts, being delightful apart from any end.
Cleanliness.Seeing how very filthy savages and exceptional individuals among civilized people may be, philosophers have doubted whether any genuine instinct of cleanliness exists, and whether education and habit be not responsible for whatever amount of it is found.Were it an instinct, its stimulus would be dirt, and its characteristic reaction the shrinking from contact therewith, and the cleaning of it away after contact had occurred.
Now, if some animals are cleanly, men may be so, and there can be no doubt that some kinds of matter are natively repugnant, both to sight, touch, and smell -- excrementitious and putrid things, blood, pus, entrails, and diseased tissues, for example.It is true that the shrinking from contact with these things may be inhibited very easily, as by a medical education;
