jo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



child in presence of the sea is well illustrated by the story of the 

 little girl, aged two, who, on being first taken to see the watery 

 wonder, exclaimed, " mamma, look at the soapy water ! " 

 The awful mystery of all the stretch of ever-moving water was 

 invisible to the child, being hidden behind the familiar detail of 

 the " soapy " edge. 



There is probably nothing in the natural world which makes 

 on the childish imagination quite so awful an impression as the 

 watery leviathan. Perhaps the fear which one of my correspond- 

 ents tells me was excited in her when a child by the sudden ap- 

 pearance of a mountain may be akin to this dread of the sea. 



We may now pass to another group of fear-excitants the ap- 

 pearance of certain strange forms and movements of objects. 



The close connection between aesthetic dislike and fear is seen 

 in the well-marked recoil of a child of thirteen months at fhe 

 sight of an ugly doll. The said doll is described as a black doll 

 with woolly head, startled eyes, and red lips. Such an ogre of a 

 doll might well call up a tremor in the bravest of children. 



In another case, that of a little boy of two years and two 

 months, the broken face of a doll proved to be highly disconcert- 

 ing. The mother describes the effect as a mixture of fear, distress, 

 and intellectual wonder. Nor did his anxiety depart when, some 

 hours later, the doll, after sleeping in his mother's room, reap- 

 peared with a new face. 



In such cases, it seems plain, it is the ugly transformation of 

 something familiar and agreeable which excites the feeling of 

 nervous apprehension. Making grimaces that is, the spoiling of 

 the typical familiar face may disturb a child even at the early 

 age of two months.* Such transformations are, moreover, not 

 only ugly but bewildering, and where all is mysterious and un- 

 canny the child is apt to fear. 



Children, like animals, will sometimes show fear at the sight 

 of what seem to us quite harmless objects. A shying horse is a 

 puzzle to his rider, his terrors are so unpredictable. Similarly in 

 the case of a timid child, almost anything unfamiliar and out of 

 the way, whether in the color, the form, or the movement of an 

 object, may provoke a measure of anxiety. Thus a little girl aged 

 one year and ten months showed during a drive signs of fear at a 

 row of gray ash trees placed along the road. This was just the 

 kind of thing that a horse might be expected to shy at. 



As with animals, so with children, any seemingly uncaused 

 movement is apt to excite a feeling of alarm. Just as a dog 

 will run away from a leaf whirled about by the wind, so chil- 



* Quoted bj Tracey, "/>. cit., p. 29. Bui this observation seems to me to need confii 

 mation. 



