fixed, interference with its smooth running causes an emotion.  The nature of the habit broken is of no importance.  If it were habitual for grandes dames to go barefoot on our boulevards or to wear sleeveless dresses at high noon, the contrary would be embarrassing.  Psychologically the important point is that, when the habit is set up, the attention is in equilibrium.  When inadvertently or under a sufficiently powerful stimulus we break through a habit, the attention and associative memory are brought into play.  We are conscious of a break, of what others will think; we anticipate a damaged or diminished personality; we are, in a word, upset.  We may consequently expect to find that whatever brings the individual into conflict with the ordinary standards of life of the society in which he is living is the occasion of a strain on the attention and of an accompanying bodily change.[245]

A minimum expression of modesty, and one having an organic rather than a social basis, is seen in the coyness of the female among animals.  In many species of animals the female does not submit at once to the solicitations of the male, but only after the most arduous wooing.

The female cuckoo answers the call of her mate with an alluring laugh that excites him to the utmost, but it is long before she gives herself up to him.  A mad chase through tree tops ensues, during which she constantly incites him with that mocking call, till the poor fellow is fairly driven crazy.  The female kingfisher often torments her devoted lover for half a day, coming and calling him, and then taking to flight.  But she never lets him out of her sight the while, looking back as she flies, and measuring her speed, and wheeling back when he suddenly gives up the pursuit.[246]

There is here a rapid shifting of attention between organic impulse to pair and organic dread of pairing, until an equilibrium is reached, which is not essentially different from the case, in human society, of that woman who, “whispering, ‘I will ne’er consent,’ consented.”  In either case, the minimum that it is necessary to assume is an organic hesitancy, though in the case of woman social hesitancy may play even the greater role.  Pairing is in its nature a seizure, and the coquetry of the female goes back, perhaps, to an instinctive aversion to being seized.

Our understanding of the nature of modesty is here further assisted by the consideration that the same stimulus does not produce the same reaction under all circumstances, but, on the contrary, may result in totally contrary effects.  A show of fight may produce either anger or fear; social attention may gratify us from one person and irritate us from another; or the attentions of the same person may annoy us today and please us tomorrow.  Mere movement is, to take another instance, one of the most powerful stimuli in animal life; and, if we examine its meaning among animals, we find that the same movement may have