A young man writes me that he is afraid of thunderstorms, and asks if
there is no way for him to overcome this weakness. “I am normal in every
other respect,” he adds, “but notwithstanding my endeavors to fight off
this nervousness I find it to be of no avail; it appears to be a sort of
subconscious fear.”
This is not a matter of ridicule, but a sample of very real and acute
suffering to which many persons are subject by fear-panics due to
various causes.
Many women scream with terror at the sight of a mouse. There is no use
telling them that mice will not hurt them. So doing, you are addressing
their reason, while the trouble lies not in their intelligence—it is a
nervous disease. They scare just as a horse shies at a newspaper
flapping in the wind.
Cæsar Augustus was almost convulsed at the sound of thunder.
Tycho Brahe changed color and his legs shook under him on meeting a
rabbit.
Dr. Samuel Johnson would never enter a room left foot first.
Talleyrand trembled at the mention of the word—death.
Marshal Saxe was mortally afraid of a cat.
Peter the Great could never be persuaded to cross a bridge, and, though
he tried to master his terror, was unable to do so.
I myself have never been able to rid myself of a fear of horses, and the
tamest old nag gives me the creeps.
And I know a senior in Wellesley College, a young lady of strong
intelligence, who could be sent almost into convulsions by showing her a
spider or a caterpillar.
To determine the cause of these fear-obsessions is a business for the
psychologist. They seem to have nothing to do with the mind or the will,
but to be, as my correspondent suggests, rooted somewhere in the
subconsciousness.
That these weaknesses can be entirely eradicated in a grown person is
doubtful. It is about as difficult to uproot an ingrained fear as to get
rid of a distaste for mutton. Certain strong natures can perhaps cure
themselves, but the average man has to accommodate himself to his
weakness and resist it the best he can.
But the cruel part of this whole matter is that almost all of these
fears are TAUGHT US WHEN WE ARE CHILDREN. Many a child’s mind is
deliberately poisoned by fear-suggestions that are to plague him his
life long.
Whoever threatens a child, or frightens a child by the fear of thunder
or lightning or the dark or ghosts or the bad man or death or hell or a
vindictive Deity, should be flogged.
Many a delicate child has been more horribly tormented by suggested
fears than he could ever have been hurt by corporal punishment.
The most deeply moral lesson any mother can instil into her child is
that he be UNAFRAID—of anything in life or death. And whoso teaches a
child a fear has made an incurable wound in his soul.