THE POWER OF FEAR
The function of fear is quite clear. Fear is the guardian instinct
of life. The intensity of the struggle for existence and the
preservation of life of the animal are expressed in the instinct of
fear. The fear instinct in its mild form, when connected with what
is strange and unfamiliar, or with what is really dangerous to the
animal, is of the utmost consequence to the life existence of the
animal. What is strange and unfamiliar may be a menace to life, and
it is a protection, if under such conditions the fear instinct is
aroused.
Again, it is of the utmost importance in weak animals, such as
hares or rabbits, to have the fear instinct easily aroused by the
slightest, strange stimulus: the animal is defenseless, and its
refuge, its safety, is in running. The unfamiliar stimulus may be a
signal of danger, and it is safer to get away from it; the animal
cannot take chances.
On the other hand, animals that are too timid, so that even the
familiar becomes too suspicious, cannot get their food, and cannot
leave a progeny,--they become eliminated by the process of natural
selection. There is a certain amount of trust that nature demands
even of its most defenseless and timid children.
Animals in whom the fear instinct can be aroused to a high degree
become paralyzed and perish. Under such conditions the fear
instinct not only ceases to be of protective value, but is the very
one that brings about the destruction of the animal possessed by
it. Intense fear paralyzes the animal.
“One of the most terrible effects of fear,” says Mosso, “is the
paralysis which allows neither of escape nor defense. Not all
the phenomena of fear can be explained on the theory of natural
selection. In their extreme degree they are morbid phenomena,
indicating imperfection of the organism. One might almost say that
nature had not been able to find a substance for brain and spinal
cord which should be extremely sensitive, and yet should never,
under the influence of exceptional or unusual stimuli, exceed in
its reactions those physiological limits which are best adapted to
the preservation of the animal.” Mosso quotes Haller to the effect
that “phenomena of fear common to animals are not aimed at the
preservation of the timid, but at their destruction.”
The fear instinct is no doubt one of the most fundamental and one
of the most vital of animal instincts, but when it rises to an
extreme degree, or when associated with familiar instead of strange
and unfamiliar objects, then we may agree with Haller that the
phenomena are not aimed at the preservation of the animal, but at
its destruction; or, as Darwin puts it, are of “disservice to the
animal.” This is just what is found in the case of psychopathic
or neurotic affections. The fear instinct, when aroused and
cultivated in early childhood, becomes associated in later life
with particular events, objects, and special states.
When the instinct of fear is aroused in connection with some future
impending misfortune, the feeling of apprehension with all its
physiological changes, muscular, respiratory, cardiac, epigastric,
and intestinal, goes to form that complex feeling of anxiety so
highly characteristic of the acute varieties of psychopathic
maladies. When fear reaches its acme, the heart is specially
affected; circulatory and respiratory changes become prominent,
giving rise to that form of oppression which weighs like an incubus
on the patient,--the feeling known as “precordial anxiety.”
The fear instinct is the ultimate cause of functional
psychosis,--it is the soil on which grow luxuriantly the infinite
varieties of psychopathic disturbances. The body, sense, intellect,
and will are all profoundly affected by the irresistible sweep of
the fear instinct, as manifested in the overwhelming feeling of
anxiety. The fear instinct and its offsprings--hesitation, anxiety,
conflicts and repressions--weaken, dissociate, and paralyze the
functions of the body and mind, producing the various symptoms of
psychopathic diseases. The fear instinct keeps on gnawing at the
very vitals of the psychopathic patient.
Even at his best the psychopathic patient is not free from the
workings of the fear instinct, from the feeling of anxiety which,
as the patients themselves put it, “hangs like a cloud on the
margin or fringe of consciousness.” From time to time he can hear
the distant, threatening rumbling of the fear instinct. Even when
the latter is apparently stilled, the pangs of anxiety torment the
patient like a dull toothache.
Montaigne, writing of fear, says, “I am not so good a naturalist
(as they call it) as to discern by what secret springs fear has
its motion in us; but be this as it may, it is a strange passion,
and such a one as the physicians say there is no other whatever
that sooner dethrones our judgment from its proper seat; which is
so true, that I myself have seen very many become frantic through
fear; and even in those of the best settled temper, it is most
certain that it begets a terrible confusion during the fit. Even
among soldiers, a sort of men over whom, of all others, it ought to
have the least power, how often has it converted flocks of sheep
into armed squadrons, reeds and bullrushes into pikes and lances,
and friends into enemies....
“The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear. That passion
alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents. Such
as have been well banged in some skirmish, may yet, all wounded and
bloody as they are, be brought on again the next day to the charge;
but such as have once conceived a good sound fear of the enemy
will never be made so much as to look the enemy in the face. Such
as are in immediate fear of losing their estates, of banishment
or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite
and repose. And the many people who, impatient of perpetual alarms
of fear, have hanged or drowned themselves, or dashed themselves
to pieces, give us sufficiently to understand that fear is more
importunate and insupportable than death itself.”
A well known writer, who is a psychopathic sufferer, writes:
“Carlyle laid his finger upon the truth, when he said that the
reason why the pictures of the past were always so golden in tone,
so delicate in outline, was because the quality of fear was taken
from them. It is the fear of what may be and what must be that
overshadows present happiness; and if fear is taken from us, we
are happy. The strange thing is that we can not learn not to be
afraid, even though all the darkest and saddest of our experiences
have left us unscathed; and if we could but find a reason for the
mingling of fear with our lives, we should have gone towards the
solving of the riddle of the world.”
Anxiety states of neuroses and psychoses are essentially clue
to the awakening of the fear instinct, normally present in every
living being. The fear instinct is a fundamental one; it is only
inhibited by the whole course of civilization and by the training
and education of life. Like the jinn of the “Arabian Nights,” it
slumbers in the breast of every normal individual, and comes fully
to life in the various neuroses and psychoses.
Kraepelin and his school lay special stress on the fact that
“Fear is by far the most important persistent emotion in morbid
conditions.... Fear is manifested by anxious excitement and by
anxious tension.” “Experience,” says Kraepelin, “shows an intimate
relationship between insistent psychosis and the so-called
‘phobias,’ the _anxiety states_ which in such patients become
associated with definite impressions, actions, and views.” The
states are associated with the thought of some unknown danger.
Violent heart action, pallor, a feeling of anxiety, tremor, cold
sweat, meteorisms, diarrhœa, polyuria, weakness in the legs,
fainting spells, attack the patient, who may lose control of his
limbs and occasionally suffer complete collapse.
“These states,” says Kraepelin, with his usual insight into
abnormal mental life, “remind one of the feeling of anxiety which
in the case of healthy people may, in view of a painful situation
or of a serious danger, deprive one of the calmness of judgment and
confidence in his movements.”
Thus, we find from different standpoints that the feeling of
anxiety with its accompanying phenomena is one of the most potent
manifestations of animal instincts, the fear instinct, which is at
the basis of all psychopathic, neurotic maladies.
The fear instinct, as the subtle and basic instinct of life, is
well described by Kipling:--
Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,
And the whisper spreads and widens far and near;
And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now--
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!
Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks are ribbed
with light,
When the downward dipping trails are dank and drear,
Comes a breathing hard behind thee--_snuffle_--_snuffle_ through
the night--
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
On thy knees and draw the bow; bid the shrilling arrow go:
In the empty, mocking thicket plunge the spear;
But thy hands are loosed and weak, and the blood has left thy
cheek--
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
When the heat-cloud sucks the tempest, when the slivered pine
trees fall,
When the blinding, blaring rain-squalls lash and veer;
Through the war gongs of the thunder rings a voice more loud
than all--
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
Now the spates are banked and deep; now the footless boulders
leap--
Now the lightning shows each littlest leaf-rib clear;
But thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against thy side
Hammers: Fear, O Little Hunter,--This is Fear!
It is interesting to learn what a practical and thoughtful surgeon,
such as George Crile, has to say on the matter of fear. Dr. Crile
lays stress on the facts that in his researches he finds evidence
that the phenomena of fear have a physical basis similar to those
morphological changes in the brain cells observed in certain stages
of surgical shock and in fatigue.... That the brain is definitely
damaged by fear may be proved by experiments.
“According to Sherrington the nervous system responds in action as
a whole, and to but one stimulus at a time.... Under the influence
of fear or (fear of) injury the integration of the common path is
most nearly absolute.... Hence fear and injury (or fear of injury)
drain the cup of energy to the dregs....
“We can understand why it is a patient consumed by fear suffers
so many bodily impairments, (so many functional disturbances)
and diseases even. We can understand the grave digestive and
metabolic disturbances under strain of fear.... We can understand
the variations in the gastric analyses in a timid patient alarmed
over his condition and afraid of the hospital. The patient is
integrated by fear, and since fear takes precedence over all other
impulses, no organ can function normally (under the influence of
fear)” ... Dr. Crile arrives at the conclusion that “Fear dominates
the various organs and parts of the body....”
Dr. Crile lays special stress on the pathological character of the
fear instinct: “That the brain is definitely influenced, damaged
even, by fear has been proved by the following experiments: Rabbits
were frightened by a dog, but were neither injured nor chased.
After various periods of time the animals were killed and their
brain cells compared with the brain cells of normal animals,
wide-spread changes were seen (in the brain cells of the animals
affected by fear). The principal clinical phenomena expressed by
the rabbits were rapid heart, accelerated respiration, prostration,
tremors, and a rise in temperature. The dog showed similar
phenomena, excepting that, instead of such muscular relaxation as
was shown by the rabbit, it exhibited aggressive muscular action.”
Animals in which the fear instinct can be aroused to a high degree
become paralyzed and perish. The animal mechanism is by no means
perfect. A stab in the heart, a rip in the abdomen, a cut of the
carotids, a prick in the medulla, a scratch of a needle infected
with anthrax, or tetanus bacilli, a drop of hydrocyanic acid, an
arrow tipped with curare, extinguish every spark of life. Organic
material may be delicate and complex, but for that reason it is
highly imperfect and vulnerable.
Living matter is the feeblest material in nature, and is as fragile
as a delicate crystal vase. Protoplasm, or living matter, may be
wonderful material, but it can be crushed with a pebble. The most
beautiful colors may be displayed by a thin, delicate bubble, but
it bursts at the least touch. Living matter is like a bubble, like
foam on the ocean. Perhaps no better material is available for the
functions of life.
Meanwhile it remains true that the flimsiness of living material
makes it easily subject to decay and destruction. It is a profound
error, having its root in prejudice, that nature always helps, and
that the processes going on in the organism are always of benefit
to the individual. Nature is as ready to destroy life as to protect
it.
Preservation or destruction of a particular individual depends
on the fact as to whether or no normal or pathological processes
predominate in the total economy of the organism. This holds true
of the fear instinct. The fear instinct is a delicate mechanism,
and when its action is slightly intensified, the animal is on the
way to destruction. For the cosmic forces are careless of the
creatures which keep on pouring forth in generous profusion from
the lap of nature.
Living matter, or protoplasm can only exist under special,
restricted conditions,--the least variation means death. The more
complicated, and more organized protoplasm is, the more restricted
are the conditions of its existence. A rise of a couple of degrees
of temperature or a fall means disease and death. The same holds
true of the rise and fall of quantity and quality of bodily
secretion of glands and of other organs. Protoplasm can only exist
in an _optimum_ environment. Any change spells disease and death.
The fear instinct, being at the heart of highly organized life
activities, is delicately responsive to any changes and variations
from the _optimum_, requisite for the proper functioning of the
organism. Any deviation from the _optimum_ environment, external or
internal, produces corresponding changes in the fear instinct with
consequent pathological changes in the organism.
The fear instinct like a delicate indicator is the first to get
deranged, with harmful results to the organism as a whole. We can
thus realize the importance of keeping the fear instinct in good
condition. We can understand the significance of Plato’s doctrine
of rational guidance of the fear instinct. “What to fear and what
not to fear” is at the basis of all organized life, individual and
social.[3]
FOOTNOTE:
[3] See my work “The Source and Aim of Human Progress.”