168 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



JBlacJc things, and especially dark places, boles, caverns, etc., arouse 

 a peculiarly gruesome fear. This fear, as well as that of solitude, of 

 being "lost," are explained after a fashion by ancestral experience. 

 Says Schneider : 



It is a fact that men, especially in childhood, fear to go into a dark cavern 

 or a gloomy wood. This feeling of fear arises, to he sure, partly from the fact 

 that we easily suspect that dangerous beasts may lurk in these localities a sus- 

 picion due to stories we have heard and read. But, on the other hand, it is 

 quite sure that this fear at a certain perception is also directly inherited. Chil- 

 dren who have been carefully guarded from all ghost-stories are nevertheless 

 terrified and cry if led into a dark place, especially if sounds are made there. 

 Even an adult can easily observe that an uncomfortable timidity steals over him 

 in a lonely wood at night, although he may have the fixed conviction that not 

 the slightest danger is near. 



This feeling of fear occurs in many men even in their own house after dark 

 although it is much stronger in a dark cavern or forest. The fact of such in- 

 stinctive fear is easily explicable when we consider that our savage ancestors 

 through innumerable generations were accustomed to meet with dangerous 

 beasts in caverns, especially bears, and were for the most part attacked by such 

 beasts during the night and in the woods, and that thus an inseparable associa- 

 tion between the perceptions of darkness of caverns and woods, and fear took 

 place, and was inherited.* 



High places cause fear of a peculiarly sickening sort, though here, 

 again, individuals differ enormously. The utterly blind, instinctive 

 character of the motor impulses here is shown by the fact that they 

 are almost always entirely unreasonable, but that reason is powerless 

 to suppress them. That this is a mere incidental peculiarity of the 

 nervous system, like liability to sea-sickness, or love of music, with no 

 teleological significance, seems more than probable. The impulse is 

 much of an individual idiosyncrasy, and its detrimental effects are 

 so much more obvious than its uses, that it is hard to see how it could 

 be a selected instinct. Man is anatomically one of the best fitted of 

 animals for climbing about high places. The best psychical comple- 

 ment to this equipment would seem to be a " level head " when there, 

 not a dread of going there at all. In fact, the teleology of fear, be- 

 yond a certain point, is very dubious. Professor Mosso, in his inter- 

 esting monograph, " La Paura " (which has recently been translated into 

 French), concludes that many of its manifestations must be considered 

 pathological rather than useful ; Bain, in several places, expresses the 

 same opinion ; and this, I think, is surely the view which any ob- 

 server without a priori prejudices must take. A certain amount of 

 timidity obviously adapts us to the world we live in, but the fear- 

 parozi/sm is surely altogether harmful to him who is its prey. 



Fear of the supernatural is one variety of fear. It is difficult to 

 assign any normal object for this fear, unless it were a genuine ghost. 



* " Dcr Menscblicbe WiHe," p. 224. 



