3 + o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



deception is the alternative. There is no pleasure in the con- 

 sciousness of being an infinitesimal bubble on a globe that is itself 

 infinitesimal compared with the totality of things. 



Those on whom the unpitying rush of changes inflicts suffer- 

 ings which are often without remedy, find no consolation in the 

 thought that they are at the mercy of forces which cause, indif- 

 ferently, now the destruction of a sun and now the death of an 

 animalcule. Contemplation of a Universe which is without con- 

 ceivable beginning or imaginable end and without intelligible 

 purpose yields no satisfaction. The desire to know what it all 

 means is no less strong in the agnostic than in others, and raises 

 sympathy with them. Failing utterly to find any interpretation 

 himself, he feels a regretful inability to accept the interpretation 

 they offer. 



-*- 



STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 



IX. FEAR (continued). 



By JAMES SULLY, M.A.,LL. D., 



GROTE PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LOGIC AT THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 



LONDON. 



IN my last article I gave a general account of children's fears. 

 In this account I purposely reserved for special discussion 

 two varieties of this fear namely, dread of animals and of the 

 dark. As the former certainly manifests itself before the latter, I 

 will take it first. 



It seems odd that the creatures which are to become the com- 

 panions and playmates of children, and one of the chief sources 

 of their happiness, should cause so much alarm when they first 

 come on the scene. Yet so it is. Many children at least are at 

 first put out by quite harmless members of the animal family. 

 We must, however, be careful in distinguishing between mere 

 nerve-shock and dislike, on the one hand, and genuine fear on the 

 other. Thus a lady whom I know as a good observer tells me 

 that, though when her boy was fifteen months old his nerves were 

 shaken by the loud barking of a dog, he had no real fear of 

 dogs. With this may be contrasted another case, also sent by 

 a good observer, in which it is specially noted that the aver- 

 sion to the sound of a dog's barking developed late and was a 

 true fear. 



^Esthetic dislikes, again, may easily give rise to quasi fears, 

 though, as we all know, little children have not the horrors of 



their elders in this respect. The boy C could not understand 



his mother's scare at the descending caterpillar. A kind of 

 aesthetic dislike appears to show itself sometimes toward animals 



