So long as speculations of this nature have their character fully acknowledged, and so long as they are not quite idle, they may have a useful outcome. They at least direct attention to what merits consideration, and may lead to a fuller knowledge, even to such a fulness of knowledge as may render them no longer mere speculations. That many mental states have striking bodily expressions, and that many bodily states are attended with special mental states, axe facts, and the speculation here is that both of these things may be more extensively true than is known or acknowledged. The speculation, indeed, goes further, and asks if every mental state without exception may not have a special bodily expression, and if every bodily state may not have its attendant mental state, though we are not conscious of them and though they are not evident to our senses. The point thus raised has at least sufficient support to make it not unworthy of consideration, and, if true, it cannot fail to have a far-reaching influence on the management both of health and disease. If all mental states have bodily expressions and all bodily states have mental expressions, it seems desirable to point out that there are grounds for thinking that these will be most pronounced in early though not in quite early, life. There must be mind before its states can have bodily expressions, and therefore the beginnings of such bodily expressions of mental states must be comparatively feeble in very early life. At what time of life they would reach their maximum of force, how long that would be maintained, and when the decline would commence, it is difficult to say. Those expressions, which are visible, do not seem to follow an identical course in this respect. So far, however, as anything is learned by a study of visible bodily expressions of mental states, the maximum appears to occur about the time when the reproductive powers are established. For example, this is seemingly true of blushing and laughing. As yet we have no facts or observations to indicate when the decline begins. But in the two expressions of mental states, which I have just mentioned, namely blushing and laughing, the decline would be well marked at the age of forty-five, when Presbyopia and other such things may be expected to show themselves. Most men and women, indeed, have ceased to blush at that age, and many of them have begun to laugh less heartily. The decline, as age advances, seems to be well marked, and it is difficult to say why it should be so, for if it is good for girls and boys to blush and laugh, it ought also to be good for grown men and women, and even for old men and women, to do these things.

(15) The blush cannot be excited by physical means. Burgess says that ' it must be solely a moral (mental) stimulus that will excite a true blush,' and that ' its presence is the result of a painful struggle in the mental feelings.' There is truth in this, and a truth of importance. But the ' painful struggle' is Perhaps more correctly defined as uneasiness and Hurry. By no physical means can we cause a girl to blush nor can we teach her how to feign a blush. there may be a feigned merriment and a false laughter, but there is no unreal blush. Much has been attained on the stage, but not the blush. Seneca saw this and says that the Roman players were 'unable to blush in acting shame.' Even pallor at will seems possible, but not colouring-up. The true blush is involuntary, and comes against the will. It comes and goes absolutely without invitation. It does the first almost instantaneously, and the second often with nearly as much quickness. It is the instant echo of a thought, and from this point of view is full of suggestivencss. There is no measurable pause between the sense of shame and the flare of red on the cheeks. No one blushes of his .own free will, and it is doubtful if the will could operate with such rapidity as is done by this instinct. It is probably necessary for the maintenance of steady health that certain things should be freed from the action of will, but it is difficult to see the importance of this freedom as regards blushing.

(16) Darwin says that Humboldt (Personal Narrative, English trans., vol. iii. p. 229) quotes without protest the sneer of the Spaniard: 'How can those be trusted, who know not how to blush ?' If this refers to old persons of any race, it is without sense, for they often cease to blush. If, again, it refers to any whole race, it is equally without sense, for we do not know of any race in which blushing does not appear.1

(17) Albinoism may perhaps be spoken of as a lusus naturae, if there is such a thing. It may appear in any race of men and in any country. It may also occur in the lower animals. It is the same condition in whatever race or country, or in whatever animal it occurs. The albino of a white race blushes freely. Burgess says of one albino: 'Her face became suffused with blood, whenever her companions teased or ridiculed her.' But the point of most interest is that the African albino, or white negro, also blushes freely and strongly. Burgess had an opportunity of examining two cases, and he says that he 'never witnessed a more interesting example of the manner in which the blush rises and overspreads the cheek than these individuals presented.' In the course of twenty minutes they blushed many times. 'The slightest attempt to examine their peculiarities excited this phenomenon.' Tylor also says that negro albinos blush freely.

This makes it probable that the opinion that the black African blushes is correct, and that in his race the blush is expressed, not by redness of the cheeks, but by a deepening of the black. Indeed, the red colour of the blood spreading beneath the dark pigment might be expected, as Burgess points out, to give to the black a deeper tint. If this is true, there can be no hesitation in accepting it as a true and real blush.

1 There are only two references to blushing in the Bible, and both of these refer to the blush of shame:- 'I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my fare to Thee, my God' (Earn ix. 6; and again. ' Were they ashamed when they had committed about nation? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush' (Jeremiah vi. 15). It is proper to say that Robertson Smith was of opinion that in the first of these passages, and, I suppose, in the second also, the word in the original, which is rendered blush in the translation, does not really imply blushing.