HEALTH AND MORBIDITY
While health cannot be separated from disease by a sharp line, the
two are relative and fluctuating. Still, on the whole, the two can
be differentiated by the criterion of hurt and dissolution. Any
process or state conducive to hurt, and tending to dissolution of
the organism may be regarded as pathological or abnormal. The same
criterion should be applied, when differentiating the healthy,
normal states of instincts and emotions from abnormal and morbid
states of instinctive and emotional activities. Those states that
further life activities are healthy, normal; those that hinder life
are morbid.
The same holds true of the fear instinct. Every form of fear
which, instead of helping or furthering vigor of life, instead of
stimulating living energy, instead of being a protection, becomes a
hindrance, a menace to the organism, is accompanied with suffering
and distress, and ultimately leads to destruction, should be
regarded as essentially morbid.
The following are the chief characteristics of morbid instinctive
and emotional states:
I. When they are _disproportionate_ to the cause.
II. When they are chronic.
III. When their feeling-tone is _painful_, _distressing_.
IV. When they are _non-adaptive_ to the stimulations.
V. When the reactions are _not adjusted_ to the external
environment.
VI. When they are _uncontrollable_.
VII. When coming in _recurrent_ or _periodic attacks_.
VIII. When the physical and mental reactions are of _great
intensity_.
IX. When they are _dissociative_.
X. When they lead to _dissolution_.
Fear is not a matter of belief. To regard fear as a form of belief,
is fallacious, dangerous, and suicidal. It is as dangerous as to
consider smallpox and cholera the result of faith. We must never
forget that fear is one of the most fundamental of animal instincts
having its roots deep down in animal life existence. To ignore this
fact is suicidal.
According to the great anthropologist, Galton: “Every antelope in
South Africa has to run for its life every one or two days, and
the antelope starts and gallops under the influence of a false
alarm many times a day. Fear is a fundamental condition of animal
existence.”
The fear instinct in its healthy normal state is a protection
and defense. As Ribot puts it: “The basis of fear exists in the
organism, forms part of the constitution of animals and man, and
helps them to live by a defensive adaptation:” In fact, we may even
go to the point of affirming that the fear instinct, like all other
healthy, normal instincts, is absolutely requisite in the total
economy of animal and human life.
In man, however, fear should not be at the mercy of blind animal
instincts and reflexes, but should be guided and controlled
by reason, by reflection, by scientific, medical measures, by
scientific sanitation, by physical and mental hygiene, and by the
rational cultivation and development of all human functions and
faculties.
One of the greatest Greek thinkers well puts it: “Imbeciles, fools,
and the mad alone have no understanding of fear. True education,
true reason, and true courage consist in the knowledge of what to
fear and what not to fear.”
Mysticism, occultism, and credulity act like virulent germs,
fatal to man. “Metaphysical” cults anesthetize the intellect, put
judgment into lethargic sleep from which there is no awaking.
Mysticism kills the most precious essence of man’s life,--the
critical sense of human personality.
Occultism, mysticism, _et id genus omne_ declare that “fear is
a false belief, an error of the mortal mind.” Mystics claim the
“unreality” of the material fear instinct of which they are in
“reality” in “mortal” terror. This zealous negation of fear is its
strongest affirmation.
As a matter of fact, fear is one of the most stern realities of
life. The neurotic in denying disease, evil, and fear is like the
proverbial ostrich which on perceiving danger hides its head in the
sand. _The “Love” of mysticism is the Fear of death._