166 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



doubt that in the eyes of a child of Nature such a personage would 

 seem a sort of moral monster. 



Fear is a reaction aroused by the same objects that arouse ferocity. 

 The antagonism of the two is an interesting study in instinctive dy- 

 namics. "We both fear, and wish to kill, anything that may kill us ; 

 and the question which of the two impulses we shall follow, is usually 

 decided by some one of those collateral circumstances of the particular 

 case, to be moved by which is the mark of superior mental natures. 

 Of course, this introduces uncertainty into the reaction ; but it is an 

 uncertainty found in the higher brutes as well as in men, and ought 

 not to be taken as proof that we are less instinctive than they. Fear 

 has bodily exjjressions of an extremely energetic kind, and stands, 

 beside lust and anger, as one of the three most exciting emotions of 

 which our nature is susceptible. The progress from brute to man 

 is characterized by nothing so much as by the decrease in frequency 

 of proper occasions for fear. In civilized life, in particular, it has at 

 last become possible for large numbers of people to pass from the 

 cradle to the grave without ever having had a pang of genuine fear. 

 Many of vis need an attack of mental disease to teach us the meaning 

 of the word. Hence the possibility of so much blindly optimistic 

 philosophy and religion. The atrocities of life become " like a tale of 

 little meaning though the words are strong " ; we doubt if anything 

 like us ever really was within the tiger's jaws, and conclude that the 

 horrors we hear of are but a sort of painted tapestry for the chambers 

 in which we lie so comfortably at peace with ourselves and with the 

 world. 



Be this as it may, fear is a genuine instinct, and one of the earliest 

 shown by the human child. Noises seem especially to call it forth. 

 Most noises from the outer world, to a child bred in the house, have 

 no exact significance. They are simply startling. To quote a good 

 observer, M. Perez : 



Children between three and ten months are less often alarmed by visual than 

 by auditory impressions. In cats, from the fifteenth day, the contrary is the 

 case. A child, three and a half months old, in the midst of the turmoil of a con- 

 flagration, in presence of the devouring flames and ruined walls, showed neither 

 astonishment nor fear, but smiled at the woman who was taking care of him, 

 while his parents were busy. The noise, however, of the trumpet of the fire- 

 men, who were approaching, and that of the wheels of the engine, made him 

 start and cry. At this age I have never yet seen an infant startled at a flash of 

 lightning, even when intense ; but I have seen many of them alarmed at the 

 voice of the thunder. . . . Thus, fear comes rather by the ears than by the eyes, 

 to the child without experience. It is natural that this should be reversed, or 

 reduced, in animals organized to perceive danger afar. Accordingly, although I 

 have never seen a child frightened at his first sight of fire, I have many a time 

 seen young dogs, young cats, young chickens, and young birds frightened there- 

 by. ... I picked up some years ago a lost cat about a year old. Some months 

 afterward at the onset of cold weather I lit the fire in the grate of my study, 



