77 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



When the battle had begun and the bullets and shot, rattling about 

 him, made him tremble, he remarked to himself : " You are trembling, 

 carcass of mine ; you would tremble more if you knew where I was 

 going to take you ! " 



In fact, the feeling of fear can not be subdued. It is an irresisti- 

 ble emotion that depends upon our organization, and one which all 

 the most logical reasonings can not change. Nothing is more true 

 than the common saying that fear does not reason ; and it is remark- 

 able how little efficacy intelligence and its efforts have to arrest 

 its effects. I know a highly intelligent person, with a strong and 

 clear mind, who believes he would be lost if he had to go irto a 

 boat. Yet the sea is smooth, the course is short, and the boat stanch. 

 Excellent reasoning, but it does not take hold of him. His emotion is 

 stronger than all the arguments you can invent, however irreproach- 

 able they may be, and no matter how fully the poltroon may recog- 

 nize their force. How many children there are who do not dare to 

 cross in the night the garden where they have played all day, where 

 they know there is no danger, and where they will not lose sight of 

 the lights in the house ! 



An instance out of my own experience will go to show how fear 

 does not reason. About ten years ago, when I was in Baden, near the 

 Black Forest, I was in the habit of walking alone in the evening till 

 late in the night. The security was absolute, and I knew very well 

 that there was no danger ; and, as long as I was in the open field or 

 on the road, I felt nothing that resembled fear. But to go into the 

 forest, where it was so dark that one could hardly see two steps ahead, 

 was another thing. I entered resolutely, and went in for some twenty 

 paces ; but, in spite of myself, the deeper I plunged into the darkness 

 the more a fear gained possession of me which was quite incompre- 

 hensible. I tried in vain to overcome the unreasonable feeling, and I 

 may have walked on in this way for about a quarter of an hour. But 

 there was nothing pleasant about the walk, and I could not help feel- 

 ing relieved when I saw the light of the sky through a gap in the 

 trees, and it required a strong effort of the will to keep from pressing 

 toward it. My fear was wholly without cause. I knew it, and yet I 

 felt it as strongly as if it had been rational. Some time after that 

 adventure, I was traveling at night, alone with a guide in whom I had 

 no confidence, in the mountains of Lebanon. The danger there was 

 certainly much greater than around Baden, but I felt no fear. 



The only effective means of obtaining the mastery over fear is by 

 habit. It is with the moral emotions as with muscular exercise. To 

 become a good walker one must be trained to it, by accustoming him- 

 self to greater and greater efforts every day till he arrives at the full 

 extent of his powers. Habit has such an effect upon fear that noth- 

 ing that is usual to us can make us afraid. Hence the frequency and 

 ease of what is called professional courage. That kind of courage is 



