The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin (adult books to read TXT) 📕

Confusion of mind.—Most persons, whilst blushing intensely, have their mental powers confused. This is recognized in such common expressions as “she was covered with confusion.”

Persons in this condition lose their presence of mind, and utter singularly inappropriate remarks.

They are often much distressed, stammer, and make awkward movements or strange grimaces. In certain cases involuntary twitchings of some of the facial muscles may be observed.

I have been informed by a young lady, who blushes excessively, that at such times she does not even know what she is saying.

When it was suggested to her that this might be due to her distress from the consciousness that her blushing was noticed, she answered that this could not be the case, “as she had sometimes felt quite as stupid when blushing at a thought in her own room.”

I will give an instance of the extreme disturbance of mind to which some sensitive men are liable. A gentleman, on whom I can rely, assured me that he had been an eye-witness of the following scene:—A small dinner-party was given in honour of an extremely shy man, who, when he rose to return thanks, rehearsed the speech, which he had evidently learnt by heart, in absolute silence, and did not utter a single word; but he acted as if he were speaking with much emphasis.

His friends, perceiving how the case stood, loudly applauded the imaginary bursts of eloquence, whenever his gestures indicated a pause, and the man never discovered that he had remained the whole time completely silent. On the contrary, he afterwards remarked to my friend, with much satisfaction, that he thought he had succeeded uncommonly well.

When a person is much ashamed or very shy, and blushes intensely, his heart beats rapidly and his breathing is disturbed.

This can hardly fail to affect the circulation of the blood within the brain, and perhaps the mental powers.

It seems however doubtful, judging from the still more powerful influence of anger and fear on the circulation, whether we can thus satisfactorily account for the confused state of mind in persons whilst blushing intensely.

The true explanation apparently lies in the intimate sympathy which exists between the capillary circulation of the surface of the head and face, and that of the brain.

On applying to Dr. J. Crichton Browne for information, he has given me various facts bearing on this subject.

When the sympathetic nerve is divided on one side of the head, the capillaries on this side are relaxed and become filled with blood, causing the skin to redden and to grow hot, and at the same time the temperature within the cranium on the same side rises. Inflammation of the membranes of the brain leads to the engorgement of the face, ears, and eyes with blood.

The first stage of an epileptic fit appears to be the contraction of the vessels of the brain, and the first outward manifestation is, an extreme pallor of countenance. Erysipelas of the head commonly induces delirium. Even the relief given to a severe headache by burning the skin with strong lotion, depends, I presume, on the same principle.

Dr. Browne has often administered to his patients the vapour of the nitrite of amyl,[22] which has the singular property of causing vivid redness of the face in from thirty to sixty seconds.

This flushing resembles blushing in almost every detail: it begins at several distinct points on the face, and spreads till it involves the whole surface of the head, neck, and front of the chest; but has been observed to extend only in one case to the abdomen.

The arteries in the retina become enlarged; the eyes glisten, and in one instance there was a slight effusion of tears.

The patients are at first pleasantly stimulated, but, as the flushing increases, they become confused and bewildered.

One woman to whom the vapour had often been administered asserted that, as soon as she grew hot, she grew MUDDLED. With persons just commencing to blush it appears, judging from their bright eyes and lively behaviour, that their mental powers are somewhat stimulated.

It is only when the blushing is excessive that the mind grows confused.

Therefore it would seem that the capillaries of the face are affected, both during the inhalation of the nitrite of amyl and during blushing, before that part of the brain is affected on which the mental powers depend.

Conversely when the brain is primarily affected; the circulation of the skin is so in a secondary manner.

Dr. Browne has frequently observed, as he informs me, scattered red blotches and mottlings on the chests of epileptic patients.

In these cases, when the skin on the thorax or abdomen is gently rubbed with a pencil or other object, or, in strongly-marked cases, is merely touched by the finger, the surface becomes suffused in less than half a minute with bright red marks, which spread to some distance on each side of the touched point, and persist for several minutes. These are the cerebral maculae of Trousseau; and they indicate, as Dr. Browne remarks, a highly modified condition of the cutaneous vascular system.

If, then, there exists, as cannot be doubted, an intimate sympathy between the capillary circulation in that part of the brain on which our mental powers depend, and in the skin of the face, it is not surprising that the moral causes which induce intense blushing should likewise induce, independently of their own disturbing influence, much confusion of mind.

[22] See also Dr. J. Crichton Browne’s Memoir on this subject in the `West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Report,’ 1871, pp. 95-98.

The Nature of the Mental States which induce Blushing.—These consist of shyness, shame, and modesty; the essential element in all being self-attention. Many reasons can be assigned for believing that originally self-attention directed to personal appearance, in relation to the opinion of others, was the exciting cause; the same effect being subsequently produced, through the force of association, by self-attention in relation to moral conduct.

It is not the simple act of reflecting on our own appearance, but the thinking what others think of us, which excites a blush.

In absolute solitude the most sensitive person would be quite indifferent about his appearance. We feel blame or disapprobation more acutely than approbation; and consequently depreciatory remarks or ridicule, whether of our appearance or conduct, causes us to blush much more readily than does praise.

But undoubtedly praise and admiration are highly efficient: a pretty girl blushes when a man gazes intently at her, though she may know perfectly well that he is not depreciating her.

Many children, as well as old and sensitive persons blush, when they are much praised. Hereafter the question will be discussed, how it has arisen that the consciousness that others are attending to our personal appearance should have led to the capillaries, especially those of the face, instantly becoming filled with blood.

My reasons for believing that attention directed to personal appearance, and not to moral conduct, has been the fundamental element in the acquirement of the habit of blushing, will now be given.

They are separately light, but combined possess, as it appears to me, considerable weight. It is notorious that nothing makes a shy person blush so much as any remark, however slight, on his personal appearance. One cannot notice even the dress of a woman much given to blushing, wihout causing her face to crimson.

It is sufficient to stare hard at some persons to make them, as Coleridge remarks, blush,—“account for that he who can.”[23]

With the two albinos observed by Dr. Burgess,[24] “the slightest attempt to examine their peculiarities invariably” caused them to blush deeply.

Women are much more sensitive about their personal appearance than men are, especially elderly women in comparison with elderly men, and they blush much more freely. The young of both sexes are much more sensitive on this same head than the old, and they also blush much more freely than the old.

Children at a very early age do not blush; nor do they show those other signs of self-consciousness which generally accompany blushing; and it is one of their chief charms that they think nothing about what others think of them.

At this early age they will stare at a stranger with a fixed gaze and un-blinking eyes, as on an inanimate object, in a manner which we elders cannot imitate.

[23] In a discussion on so-called animal magnetism in `Table Talk,’ vol. i.

[24] Ibid. p. 40.

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 the presence of the opposite sex than in that of their own.[25] 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 lie 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.”

Of all parts of the body, the face is most considered and regarded, as is natural from its being the chief seat of expression and the source of the voice. It is also the chief seat of beauty and of ugliness, and throughout the world is the most ornamented.[26]

The face, therefore, will have been subjected during many generations to much closer and more earnest self-attention than any other part of the body; and in accordance with the principle here advanced we can understand why it should be the most liable to blush.

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.

The object can hardly be to conceal their blushes, for the face is thus averted or hidden under circumstances which exclude any desire to conceal shame, as when guilt is fully confessed and repented of.

It is, however, probable that primeval man before he had acquired much moral sensitiveness would have been highly sensitive about his personal appearance, at least in reference to the other sex, and he would consequently have felt distress at any depreciatory remarks about his appearance; and this is one form of shame.

And as the face is the part of the body which is most regarded, it