DISTANCE CEPTORS EMOTIONS 153 



need for physical contest remained. His heart beats 

 wildly ; his respirations are quickened ; he trembles 

 and turns cold ; his knees shake ; beads of sweat 

 stand upon his brow ; he is pale and his mouth is dry ; 

 he feels faint and may collapse. Whether the cause 

 of fear be moral, social, financial or intellectual, the 

 result is the same. There is not one form of fear for 

 the defaulting bank president and another for a hunter 

 facing his first game ; not one group of fear phenomena 

 for a mother anxious for her sick child, another for a 

 friend waiting for news from the battlefield, and still 

 another for the soldier facing a superior foe. In every 

 case it is the same fear fear of bodily harm ex- 

 pressed in terms of bodily activation, and involving 

 every organ and tissue, which would be involved were 

 the natural phylogenetic response of flight from an 

 enemy consummated in muscular exertion. 



Although there is no absolute proof, yet there is 

 much evidence to show that the effect of emotion with- 

 out action is injurious, apart from the actual exhaus- 

 tion of potential energy and the increased acid by- 

 products. It is well known that the soldier lying 

 under fire awaiting orders to advance suffers more 

 keenly than the soldier who flings himself actively 

 into the fray. The wild animal in captivity suffers 

 more than the same animal in the struggle for ex- 

 istence in its native woods or plains. Many wild 

 animals in captivity refuse food, sleep little, emaciate 

 rapidly and die. An individual nursing a grievance 

 in secret is measurably improved in health and dis- 

 position by giving vent to his anger in physical combat. 

 The presence in the body of various energizing secre- 



