This phenomenon is correctly enough called involuntary, though that quality can scarcely be ascribed to any vital process, in regard to which it may not be shown that the will in certain circumstances seems to exercise some influence. Indeed this is true even of ordinary reflexes, though generally it is by strain-ing and loose phrasing that voluntariness in them is shown or attempted to be shown. If will does in-fluence blushing it is rather by increasing than by preventing it, in the sense that a wish to avoid or restrain blushing seems to induce and prolong it. This is said to happen, and perhaps it does happen, but there is no proof. It is a natural thing for a blusher to say that he had tried not to blush, but that the more he tried the more he blushed. But the continuance or repetition of the blushing may really have been as involuntary as its starting.

When it is said that the dread of blushing acts as a restraint and prevents it, it is impossible either to assent or dissent. There is no way of knowing for a certainty where the truth lies. I have never been able to find evidence that the fear of blushing has ever directly prevented the blush from arising, but it is quite easy to get abundant evidence of the opposite - namely, that the fear of blushing, even when very strong, has altogether failed to prevent its appearing, and it will often seem that the fear has deepened the blush rather than prevented it.

(14) It seems desirable to ask whether blushing can be regarded as a mere reflex.

A reflex, according to Darwin, is 'the excitement of a peripheral nerve, which transmits its influence to certain nerve cells, and these in their turn excite certain muscles or glands into action,' and he say that, though this may be accompanied by sensation or consciousness, it may also take place without any sensation or consciousness. This looks simple and satisfying, yet in reality it will scarcely be found to meet and cover all alleged reflexes, especially those in which complex, obscure, and widespread muscular movements arise.

The will plays no part in such excitement of muscles into action, as it is now manifested to our observation, yet originally, a very far way back, some believe that the excitement into action may have been under the direction of the will and that the movements may then have been habitually thus performed, becoming eventually involuntary, and appearing as inherited instincts. This is an ingenious speculation, and it may, perhaps, be a true history of some reflexes, but it can scarcely be the history of others, which have almost certainly appeared through all time as they appear now - beyond control of the will. The contraction of the iris under the stimulus of light on the retina has never in any animal been known to be voluntary, and it is difficult to see how it can be regarded as a habit that has become an instinct.

In blushing there occurs no acting on peripheral nerves to call it into existence. If, however, we regard the mental state of which it is the expression, as transmitting something from its seat in the cerebrum to the parts of the nervous centres in charge of the circulation in the capillaries of the face and neck, which thereupon transmit their influence to the blood vessels of the face, then perhaps we get what may be considered as somewhat analogous to an ordinary reflex from the excitement of a peripheral nerve. This may possibly be a speculation which travels towards truth, but it yields no ex-Planation of why an excited centre of the sense of shame should send a message to the centres con-trolling the capillaries of a special part of the body.

If such a message is sent by this emotion or mental state, then I think we may speculate further, and ask Whether every comparable mental state, or indeed Whether every occurring mental state of any kind, does not send a message to some nerve centres which in their turn call into existence physical or bodily phenomena - these being the bodily expression of the mental state in question. In the case of blushing, the induced change is visible, but of course it is easily conceivable that changes may be induced, which are neither seen nor felt. The whole play of the mind-all mental operations - may thus be expressed on some part or other of the body, either internally or externally ; and we know enough to make it certain that there need be no relation, which we can understand, between the part of the body affected and the character of the mental state - no closer relation, for example, than there is between redness of the face and a sense of shame. Such expressions, if they exist may be manifested in any part or organ of the body.

This, if true, seems almost to justify an opinion that in a certain sense we think with the whole body or at least that the whole body is engaged in our thinking. It is, perhaps, only another way of holding such an opinion to say that all the nervous centres co-operate in our thinking - are all then at work - sending or receiving messages - from a periphery to a centre or the reverse, or from a part of one centre to a part of another - in all possible ways in short - no centre ever acting quite alone - with no mental operation that is not expressed in a bodily change.

Such universal bodily manifestations of mental action, if they exist, are of course physiological. There is no disease in them. It is not perhaps correct to say that their effect on health is good, because they belong to health. They may appear to be extravagantly purposeless, but they may nevertheless serve some good purpose, and this would no doubt be as true of those of them, which are neither seen nor felt, as of those which are either seen or felt.

When a particular state of mind, which ought only to be occasional and of short duration, is by our will or otherwise made to be of frequent occurrence and long duration, then disease may show itself; and the beginnings of that disease may be in the part of the body in which that mental state is too frequently and too continuously expressed, as in a gland for example, or the beginnings of the disease may be in the seat of the special mental state itself. It seems possible that these inter-relations of mind and body may tend to the preservation of health, through the controlling influence which they may exercise in the prevention of excesses. It is not easy to say precisely how this would come about, but it may be held that it always happens that for the continuance or repetition of complex productions all parts contributing must be responsive - if one part fails Production would cease, and this may in practice prove a check on excess.