STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 349 



feeling of weakness and insecurity comes to the surface in pres- 

 ence of what is unknown, in so far as this can be brought by the 

 child's mind into a relation to his welfare as disturbing noises 

 and the movements of things, especially when they take on the 

 form of an approach. The same thing is, as we have seen, illus- 

 trated in the fear of the dark. This fact, that children's fears are 

 not the direct product of experience, is expressed otherwise by 

 saying that they are the offspring of the imagination. They are 

 afraid because they fancy things, and it will probably be demon- 

 strated by statistical evidence that the most imaginative children 

 (other things being equal) are the most subject to fear. 



In certain of these characteristics, at least, children's fears 

 resemble those of animals. In both alike fear is much more an 

 instinctive recoil from the unknown than an apprehension of 

 known evil. The shying of a horse, the apparent fear of dogs at 

 certain noises, probably, too, the fear of animals at the sight and 

 sound of fire so graphically described by Mr. Kipling in the 

 case of the jungle beasts illustrate this. Animals, too, seem to 

 have a sense of the uncanny when something apparently un- 

 caused happens, as when Romanes excited fear in a dog by at- 

 taching a fine thread to a bone which he was accustomed to drag 

 about with him and, by surreptitiously drawing it from him, giv- 

 ing to the bone the look of self-movement. The same dog was 

 frightened by soap bubbles. According to Romanes, dogs are 

 frightened by portraits. It is to be added, however, that in ani- 

 mal fears the influence of heredity is clearly recognizable, whereas 

 in children's fears I have regarded it as doubtful.* 



Another instructive comparison is that of children's fears with 

 those of savages. Both have a like feeling of insecurity and fall 

 instinctively in presence of a big unknown e.g., at the first sight 

 of the sea into the attitude of dread. In the region of supersti- 

 tious fear more particularly we see how in both a gloomy fancy 

 forestalls knowledge, investing the new or unexplored with alarm- 

 ing traits. 



Lastly, children's fears have some resemblance to certain abnor- 

 mal mental conditions. Idiots, who are so near normal childhood 

 in their degree of intelligence, show a marked fear of strangers. 

 More interesting, however, in the present connection is the exag- 

 geration of the childish fear of new objects which shows itself in 

 certain mental aberrations. There is a characteristic dread of 

 newness, " neophobia," just as there is a dread of water. \ 



While, however, these are the dominant characteristics of chil- 



* On animal fears, see Romanes, Animal Intelligence, p. 455 f. ; Preyer, op. cit, p. 127 

 ff. and p. 135 ; Perez, First Three Years of Childhood, p. 64 ff. 

 f See Compayre, op. cit., pp. 99, 100. 



