TT4 The American Naturalist. [September, 
PSYCHOLOGY” 
Fear Among Children.—The term fedr is applied with some 
ambiguity to two distinct phenomena. The sudden and unexpected 
advent of danger arouses the whole organism and causes an uncontrol- 
lable excitement which manifests itself in violent agitation, momentary 
paralysis, or other well-known signs. While the strength and dura- 
tion of the emotion depends largely upon the temperament and nervous 
condition of the individual, it is primarily a function of the immediate 
stimulus, and its basis is physical rather than mental. Chronic fear, 
on the other hand, is determined more by the constitution of the indi- 
vidual than by external stimuli, and remains present after the circum- 
stances which called it forth are removed. It occurs in every degree, 
from the purely normal to the extreme pathological, as exhibited in 
certain forms of insanity. The normal phases of this emotion are best 
observed in children, where repressive self-control is less liable to inter- 
fere with its open manifestation. 
Prof. Alfred Binet has recently carried out such an investigation.’ 
He issued a questionary, addressed principally to school-teachers, but 
circulated also among parents who seemed qualified to give discrim- 
inating answers. From the nature of the case, the replies dealt gen- 
erally with the more permanent form of fear (peur as distinguished 
from crainte). On examination of the reports, M. Binet classes the 
causes of fear as follows: 1. Night, darkness, solitude—the sense of 
mystery in things—in short, what might be termed in English the 
quality of phantomhood. 2. Loud noises, such as thunder or the report 
ofa gun. 3. Objects which excite repugnance or disgust: small crea- 
tures, such as rats or spiders; the sight of blood or a corpse. 4. A 
danger, real but not hitherto experienced by the child, whose likeli- 
hood is greatly exaggerated and which preys upon his mind; thus a 
child may be afraid of meeting a beggar or a drunken man, of being 
bitten bya dog, ete. Such a feeling is generally traceable to some 
story, true or false, which the child has heard. 5. The memory of a 
severe accident or narrow escape leads to a chronic fear of its recur- 
rence. 
We may carry the analysis a step further than Prof. Binet. In 2 
and 5, the distinctive element is a sudden nervous shock, with its after- 
1 Edited by H. C. Warren, Princeton University, Princeton, N. J. 
2 La peur chez les enfants, Année psychologique, 228. 
