HUMAN TRAITS IN THE ANIMALS 



filled with terror of the sea as she saw it for the 

 first time from the beach. 



Fear seems to have the same effect upon both 

 man and beast, causing trembling of the muscles, 

 a rapid beating of the heart, a relaxation of the 

 sphincters, momentary weakness, confusion, panic, 

 flight. It would be interesting to know if the blood 

 leaves the capillaries in the faces of animals during 

 sudden fright, as it does in man, producing paleness. 



The panic that sometimes seizes a multitude of 

 animals, resulting in a stampede, a blind, furious 

 rush away from the real or the imaginary danger, 

 seems to differ but little from that which at times 

 seizes the human multitude in theatre, or circus, 

 or on the field of battle. It is a kind of madness, 

 augmented and intensified by numbers. The con- 

 tagion of fear works among all creatures, like the 

 contagion of joy, or anger, or any other sudden 

 impulse. These things are " catching;" an emotional 

 state in one man or one animal tends to beget the 

 same state in all other near-by men or animals, 

 either through imitation, or through some psychic 

 law not well understood. Like begets like through- 

 out nature. Just as our bodily temperature rises in 

 a crowd, so does that psychic state become more 

 acute in which we are liable to sudden enthusiasms 

 or panic, fear or animal cruelty. Mobs are guilty 

 of things, especially in the way of violence, that the 

 separate members of them would never think of 

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