Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/693

Rh whom we have been looking becomes aware of us, our immediate impulse may be to look the other way, and pretend we have not seen him. Many friends have confessed to me 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