it may be considered as plausible that if the first feeling was pain, the first emotion was also of the pain character. the first representation of an object as painful induced that reaction of mind which we term an emotion, and the painful emotion we call fear. that the first emotion to appear was fear, as fright, seems likely when we consider that the general alertness and defensiveness imperatively required in the struggle for existence is thereby most immediately and simply attained. the acquirement of the power to become frightened is plainly a most important requisite for self-preservation, and thus is indicated as a very early factor in conscious life. an animal being devoured by another may merely suffer pain without any perception of the object as pain-giving and to give pain; but if it attains this perception, there may be added to the stimulus of simple pain that of fright. the direct actual pain may be but small, and so inducing but feeble reaction, as when some less sensitive portion is being injured; but if there occurs a vivid representation of potential pain, fright happens and stimulates most strenuous endeavours, and so rids the animal both of the immediately and the prospectively painful. thus emotion acts as a complement to simple feeling, and also secures practically anticipatory reaction. animals which must receive actual injury before experiencing pain are clearly 94inferior to those which experience emotion-pain before the injury is actually received. other things being equal, the most easily frightened have, in the midst of many destructive agents, the best chance of survival and of perpetuating their kind.
b. originally appeared in part in philosophical review, i. pp. 241-256.
it is unnecessary to dwell at length on child life and savage life as illustrating the primitive quality and function of fear. the earliest experiences of the child with things are lessons of fear. the burnt child dreads the fire, and thus is enabled to preserve himself from threatened injury. fear is a primary and most important motive to action in a very wide range of the lower mental life. those who have observed animals and man in a state of nature are always greatly impressed with the constant and large part which this emotion plays in their consciousness. with the timid and weaker species, like the rabbit and squirrel, it is likely that a majority of their cognitions prompt to fear or are prompted by fear, and with some persecuted races of savages the same may be said.
the necessity and value of anticipatory reaction being acknowledged in the struggle of existence, we plainly see a primitive motive thereto in fear, and the earliest emotional life which we can clearly interpret likewise seems to be fear.
it is sufficiently easy to see the general function of fear and its primitive character, but we find it very hard to make a satisfactory analysis, and to show the exact steps of its evolution. it is obvious, however, in the first place, that fear, like other emotions, is purely indirect and secondary experience; it pre-supposes previous painful experience of the feared object. pain experienced in connection with cognition of object is the basis of all fear. animals that have not felt pain from man do not fear him. but fear while thus based on previous direct experience is always hindered by simultaneous direct experience, as, for 95example, sensation. thus when we, whip in hand, say to a child crying from fear, “i will give you something to cry for,” we imply the law that direct pain and sensation tend to supplant indirect feeling as emotion. this common expression emphasizes the essential representativeness of emotion, its imaginary nature, as also the supplanting power of direct real experience. the sight of the whip inspires fear in the child who has been whipped, but this fear is in the course of a punishment wholly eliminated by the direct pain endured. the direct experience is thus the basis of every fear, but only as it is cognized, and not felt.
the great difficulty in analysing fear is in clearly apprehending the mode in which previous experience is utilized. if we could study in ourselves the genesis of a simple emotion, we should doubtless be enabled to see the steps by which experience reacts upon itself so as to give a reflex form like the emotion of fear, but this is hardly possible. however, cognition is evolved at the instance of pain, and all objects are viewed, not for themselves, but in their feeling significance. cognition is embedded in feeling, and at first is a mere tone of feeling. things are not at first known for themselves but solely as sources of present pleasure and pain. things are perceived in and through the feeling which has stimulated the perception. the immediate feeling value of the object is given by the very origin and process of cognition. when an animal is pained by contact with a sharp rock, and this pain stimulates cognition of the rock, this is solely on the pain account. repeated experiences enable the percept to arise at stimulus of less and less pain, and so the proper reaction is accomplished more and more economically.
we may say that the order of evolution is this: first, a pain; second, a cognition of pain-giver—“it hurts”—third, emotion about pain-giver, as fear thereof—“i am afraid of it.” primitive and normal cognition always 96implies emotion as impelling self-preservative action. knowledge which does not spring into emotion and action is abortive. at first the known is always startling.
the original pain-impelled cognition brings in the painful emotion, primitive fear. and as knowledge has brought in fear, so fear reacts on knowledge, and fearfulness incites to knowing even when the pain from object ceases. thus before any actual experience of an object it may be known and felt about. thus that habit of objectivity is formed, of alertness, of a fearful sensing and perceiving, which is noticeable in many animals. a cognitive-emotive, emotive-cognitive life is formed and developed. it is a tremendous stride onward to be able through fearful cognition to wholly pre-perceive and anticipate the injurious, instead of having to suffer it in part before being enabled to get away.
now primitive fear and all primitive emotion plainly utilizes the past experience as interpreting the future; emotion is about a known potency. yet it is often stated that emotion is but a summation of revivals of past experience. having often been burnt by fires that i have coincidently been looking at, it sometimes happens that i see a fire which has not yet harmed me, but still the mere sight affects me with what i call the emotion of fear, which, in closest analysis, means merely the revival of the burning pains associated with this seeing in the past. “i am afraid” equals “i re-experience the pains of burning” by suggestion. pains faintly re-occurring constitute the painful fear. there is in this mass of re-awakenings no real cognition of experience and no feeling about it as such, no psychosis at the experienceable. and it is certainly true that when a fixed sequence of experiences tend to recur together, there will follow upon the cognition, revival waves of pain before any actual increase of pain is really inflicted in the given case. these waves stand for, and are the echoes of, the former 97real pain sequences of cognition. thus the perception of a great mass of ice will often cause a shivery feeling, a painful sensation is revived as correlated with former cognition experiences. even the image or representation, the purely and consciously ideal cognition, may bring in painful feeling, as when i say, “it makes me shiver to think of it.” here the painful sensation-bringing idea is cognized as such, but the representation here is the occasion of a direct painful sensation, and evidently does not imply fear or other emotion.
while not arising from actual injuries, revivals strengthen both cognition and volition. they have recurred before further hurtful experiences with the fire which originally incited them. these revival pains of previous sequences to the cognition, which are carried along with the present cognition, are real enough in themselves, yet they are objectively anticipatory of actual injury. the whole order of previous experience is by the nature of mind and nervous system re-enacted before the actual injuries are inflicted. it is always a race between mind and nature, but it is a prime function of mind to anticipate practically the movements of nature. mind by its revival forms accomplishes this, but if it lags in its work the real injuries are mercilessly inflicted by slow but sure nature. when the sequence of revival is quicker than the objective sequence, the reactions anticipate objective order, and thus a manifest economy is achieved. but pain revivals of this kind are not fear, nor is there a real pre-perception. since the revival forms are, to the observer’s point of view, incentive to anticipatory reaction, psychologists must often, especially with low organisms, mistake them for fear; the animal is often, doubtless, merely suffering revival pains when it appears to be fearing pain. thus we may suspect that organisms which seem to fear shadows or real objects are often merely suffering revival pains brought up in conjunction with the cognition, and not 98really fearing as result of perceiving feeling quality inherent in the object. manifestation of pain must often be mistaken for manifestations of emotion, and there is as yet no accurate objective determination for fear or other emotions.
revival pains are not representations of pains as in some way coming from object. emotion requires representation, and cannot occur in any presentation or re-presentation chain. true pre-perception is not merely perceiving the thing before its effects in feeling are experienced, but it is a representing the feeling quality of the object before, in any given case, this quality is directly experienced. this obviously rests on past experience, but the connecting of object with pleasure-pain experience is at all times, as before intimated, equally a problem. emotion and representation are built not of revivals, but upon them perceived as such. at some critical moment, in some rather early period in mental development, a consciousness which was pain plus sense of object, realized, under the pressure of struggle for existence, the feeling quality of the object, and there arose with the knowledge of object as pain-giver the painful emotion. and as soon as object is not merely cognized, but cognized as pain-giver, it may be feared. the moment that object was known as a pain agent, then fear of the object came, and thus true anticipatory action arose. we are said, indeed, to fear objects, to fear men, animals, etc., but, in truth, the fear is never of the object as such, but only in view of its pain agency. the cognizing the experienced and experienceable as such seems then a peculiar and distinct process in fear and in all emotion, a genus apart which cannot be constituted by interaction of simple elements. the growth of mind is largely in multiplying and enlarging the signs of experience.
the connecting once achieved of object with pain, it becomes increasingly easy to cognize the feeling value of 99objects, and before full and extreme pain experience therefrom to pre-react through emotion. thus emotion saves both direct pain and injury. as it becomes a permanent tendency, and an impulse of consciousness to proceed from all pure feelings to cognition of object, so also to cognition of object in its feeling quality, and thus by inherent tendency it ultimately comes about that there is attaching of pain to various objects cognized, even when there is no immediate experience of pain to be connected therewith. finally the precedent inciting pains to cognition become such minor factors, and knowledge arises with such apparent spontaneity, that emotion as involving pain significance becomes dominant rather than the immediate pain. an order of consciousness becomes established in which the notable event is emotional cognition of experience values as bringing in permanent emotion rather than an order of pleasure-pain inciting cognition with evanescent emotion. but at the first it is evident that fear was but a slight event in a consciousness which was mainly absorbed in immediate pain experience and some sense of object. it is so habitual and instinctive for us to perceive all things as having feeling value, that it is most difficult to appreciate the standpoint of a consciousness which is just attaining emotion life.
the preliminary elements to simple primitive fear, as expressed by any such phrase as, “it hurts,” are at least four: pain, cognition of object, cognition of the pain, cognition of the pain agency of object. these operations, as being at first successive, do not necessarily imply, however, sense of time. the consciousness of a pain is certainly, at first, consciousness of pain really past, yet not consciousness of it as past. the pain stands as immediately antecedent act to the consciousness which is cognition of it, but sense of experience is not thereby sense of experience in time. the sense of time-relations of experiences is wholly subsequent to the simple sense of experience. all 100experience is, of course, in time, but far from being of time.
an organism, which has suffered knowingly from an object, and so feared, attains at length the power of fearing antecedent to any real injury. this seems to be brought about somewhat in the following manner: if i in any way, as by a pin pricking, rouse a sleeping animal to a cognition of an object which has often injured it, and which it has often feared, immediately there would re-occur the original concomitants of the cognition in the previous cases; there would be pain, cognition of pain, ascription to object, and fear, all merely revivals, and happening most probably before any actual injury, etc., received in the present case. now these revivals, as before insisted, do not and cannot in themselves alone form a new fear. this is only constituted when the revival pains are known as such, when they are not merely presented in consciousness, but represented as belonging to past experience of thing, and so to be experienced. the thing is thereby truly interpreted for its feeling value. not merely pain, as being experienced, is connected with thing, but as having been experienced, and to be experienced. thus only arises that sense of the experienceable, that real apprehension for the future, which is so valuable an acquisition in the struggle for existence. feeling quality comes thus to be assigned as real and permanent property of things, and every cognition comes to imply representation of feeling value, and so to be a basis for emotion. but all sense of experienceability is founded on sense of experience; the sense of things as possibilities of sensation and feeling is based on actual relatings of feelings to objects in simple direct experiences.
fear is in itself pre-eminently a painful state, and we have to inquire as to the origin and nature of this pain. the statement of the problem in general form is, how does that which does not yet please or pain, but is only 101cognized as about to do so, give immediate pleasure or pain?
we have already expressed the opinion that fear is based on more than mere pain revivals; there must be true representation, the revival must be appreciated as representation of past experience, and indicative of future. the painful agitation consequent on prospect of pain seems, indeed, to include as pain element more than revival pain, but it is only seeming. where does the pain come from which a person feels at the mere prospect of pain unless from the past? the pain is, of course, not the identical pain feared. again, one cannot see how a cognition in itself, entirely empty of feeling, can cause a pain, except as acting as a link in a chain of association whereby conjoined past pains are revived. so far as fear is pain, it is, we may be told, revival, for representation of pain is not pain, and cannot cause pain. the pain which arises from cognition of pain to be experienced appears in a strict analysis to be wholly re-occurrence stimulated thereby, and not any new and peculiar mode of pain at pain. that this is the case is apparent from the fact that we can only have the pain of fear so far as we have experienced pain. poignant pains experienced are the basis of poignant pain in fear. the knowledge that you are soon to re-experience an intense pain leads to an intense dread, in which the intense pain is revived from former experience. there are, to be sure, in the phenomena of fear in highly developed consciousness, complex pains which cannot be ascribed to revivals, reflexes upon consciousness of the great tension and agitation thereof, pain of loss of self-possession and self-power, and other modes which proceed from consciousness of consciousness, but this does not bear upon the question how mere cognition of pain, as to be experienced, can in itself give pain; how there arises from mere apprehension a pain which is more than and distinct from the revival pains.
102but, however we may be puzzled to see how mere cognition of experienceable pain develops a peculiar pain which is the essence of fear, yet we must acknowledge its production to be a fact. we may say, indeed, that the bare thought of pain even when conveyed by the printed word—the abstract sign of an arbitrary vocal name—is not without a tinge of a peculiar fear-pain which does not wholly consist of revivals. when preparing to go out into the storm on a very cold day i have pain in anticipation of the pain i am to receive from the bitterly cold wind. now i may have preliminary shiverings, and there may be recurrent painful sensations as i look intently at the raging elements, pains which return from actual experiences which i have before undergone and at the time knowingly connected with wind and snow. but all these revivals, while the basis of my fear, do not give the distinct pain quality of the fear. the pain which i do experience when i actually step into the biting blast i know at once to be entirely distinct in quality from that which i before felt at the anticipation, the real pain, of fear. again, when i say, “i was deeply pained to hear of it,” and when i say, “the noise pained me greatly,” i indicate that difference between purely mental distress and sensuous pain, between pain at representation and pain referred to presentation, which is to be emphasized in all our study of emotion. with a man in the hands of hostile indians the tortures of fear are quite distinct in quality from the tortures actually endured. the agony of fear is a genus apart from the agony of physical pain.
again, if the pain in fear were derived from revivals, then the nature of the pain in different states of fear would be as different as the sensations feared. but as a matter of fact the pain in fear of cold, fear of heat, of famine, of punishment, etc., is substantially of the same quality. i may fear one more than another, but the real mental agitation and pain which constitute the fear are in 103all cases essentially the same. if the pain in fear were sensation revivals, then fear of cold and fear of heat would be quite diverse and contrary in quality of pain value, but we all know that the dread of a cold day and of a hot day are in themselves essentially the same in nature. as far as the states are pure fear and have a pain quality, the conscious activity in both is entirely similar.
further, if the pain in fear were wholly of revival nature, not only should we expect fear of different sensations to be correspondingly distinct, but we should also expect the pain in fear to never exceed in amount and intensity the pain feared as indicated by measure of past experience. but we know that our fears are often much more painful than pain feared and than our experience of past pain. the pang of fear, of sudden fright, is often more acute and intense than any direct pain we have ever experienced. the terrible convulsions of fear which we see in the insane give evidence of pain which could not have been reflection from direct experience. that excessive and sudden fear which turns men’s hair gray in a few hours and transforms their whole physical system is plainly not any revival from the individual’s past experience. as revealed by its effects it is often, perhaps, greater than the whole amount of pain they have ever suffered. where, in the direct-experience form, pain is greater in the fear than the real pain suffered, we express the fact by the common phrase, “more scared than hurt.” in all such cases the pain in fear is not the revival of past experiences of the object feared.
fear is, in the main, the peculiar pain coming from consciousness of experienceable pain, but in general in all complex consciousness it is marked by dissolution and weakening of mental force. there is a shrinking of will, and a clouding of cognition, a general unsettling of all mental elements, a commotion or agitation which destroys the organic consensus of consciousness. but any excessive functioning of some element in consciousness, of emotion 104life, as fear, or of any other form, is unbalancing and detracts from normal activity of the whole. fear, however, in its normal measure and form arose and was developed as a desirable stimulant; where it becomes paralyzing in its force, it is pathological in quality. also where fear is pathologically intense it tends to disappear in sensation feared. cognition becomes so weakened that sense of representativeness is lost, the thing feared is no longer brought before the mind in its potential quality, but is immediately apprehended as present in its influence—though really objectively absent—hallucination is produced, and fear naturally reverts to its earliest and direct form in immediate experience. as cognition is still further weakened the sense of object as giving pain is lost and fear in any form entirely disappears. the pain is not felt which before was feared to be felt. fear thus in the general order of its disappearance repeats the order of its appearance and growth.
fear always includes some sense of object. the apprehension of something evil to happen is the basis of all fear, but the thing, or, subjectively speaking, the objectifying, may be extremely vague. we may fear that some harm is to befall us, but what and how, we know not. we must suppose that in early stages this bare objectifying of approaching pain was a regular incipient form, that an indefinite fear preceded every case of defined fear. we, as a rule, attain a full objectifying with such ease and rapidity that this form does not often appear.
a complete fear movement, then with reference to cognition includes four stages: first, a very general sense of object as about to give pain; second, an increasing definition of object up to the maximum of clearness, thus marking the highest efficiency of the fear function; third, a decreasing definition of object till, fourth, a purely indefinite objectifying is again reached. every fear, if it attains a normal life, will rise, culminate, and decline in 105this way. even in man, where the full development of single simple psychoses rarely proceed undisturbed, there is yet observed a general tendency toward these stages. i awaken in the night at a sudden noise with slight and vague fear; suspicious sounds increase my fear and i listen and look more intently till i see clearly and quite fully crouching near the bed a dark body which i make out to be an armed burglar; as he approaches with his pointed weapon fear will most likely become so intense that i see less and less clearly, and a shot might terrify me into vague but very intense fear. if the object is discerned to be not a burglar but a chair, the fear quickly lapses. at a certain point of maximum clearness either a weakening or an intensifying of fear weakens cognition. too much or too little pain is equally injurious to the knowing activity. low psychisms examine and clearly define only that from which they have something to fear or hope.
the qualitative relation of the pain of fear to the pain feared varies greatly with the evolution of mind. fear-pain could not have originated as a substitutionary function for the real pain except by being at the first somewhat less in quality than the pain to be endured, otherwise there would be no economy in the function. the progress of this function is to secure at less and less expense of fear-pain the suitable reaction. the function of fear being to escape a greater direct pain by a less indirect one, the progress of the function is in diminishing the amount of fear-pain for required effectiveness. the small original gain in the ratio is increased by small increments till in the highest minds proportion of fear-pain to pain feared might be represented by 1?∞. the pain in the usual fear which commonly induces me to step from the track before an approaching train, or which enables me after reading some advice on the subject to take precautions against the cholera, is evidently in infinitesimal relation to the pain feared. when fear is unsuccessful, as in anticipating a 106visit to the dentist, we, of course, suffer a double pain, both the fear-pain and the pain feared.
often we must observe that the pain of fear is equal to or greater than the experience feared, and we have to ask how this disadvantageous excess could have been evolved. often the pain of anticipation turns out to be far greater than the pain anticipated. however, a little reflection assures us that the excess of fear in many cases is only in appearance. we do not fear too much upon the judgment we have formed as to the coming pain, but we have by error of judgment assigned too much value to the pain. when a person being initiated into a secret society trembles with fear at being told to jump from a precipice, when he really is to jump but a few feet downward, his fear was perfectly just according to his judgment. if his belief is perfectly assured, the mortal fear will make him offer the most strenuous resistance and most likely secure his release from the ordeal. in all such cases the feeling is right enough, but the estimate of future experience is inaccurate. when an animal is terrified at its own shadow the fear is justly proportioned to the estimate of danger, which, however, happens to be erroneous. in the evolution of mind in the struggle for existence, more and more accurate calculations of possible injury are attained, and fear becomes more and more rational. educated men fear only what is worthy of fear; they fear many things that lower minds do not, and do not fear many things they do. the true excess of fear is where we fear against judgment, as when, knowing the safety of travel by rail, i am yet constantly in fear while aboard a railway train. when i still continue to fear, though i know the fear to be groundless, this is a true hypertrophy of fear. we constantly observe those who are fearful and timid against their own reason. when dangers known are compared with dangers obscure or unknown—and perceived to be unknowable—the fear of the unknown often prevails 107against the fear of the known, and we prefer with hamlet to fear the ills we have than fly to others we know not of.
i must in conclusion express my conviction that while the physiological and objective study of fear and other emotions is of very considerable value, yet it is only introspective analysis which can reveal the true nature and genesis of fear and all emotion. what fear is and what is the process of its development can only be determined by the direct study of consciousness as a life factor in the struggle for existence. this i attempt in the present chapter, with the main result that fear, as indeed every emotion, does not consist of pain or cognition-revivals in any form, but is a feeling reaction from the representation of the feeling potency of the object.
