Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/882

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The Sense of Danger and the Fear of Death. A sense of danger is, and always has been, a necessity of conscious life. We can trace its beginnings in the most lowly creatures; we can follow its evolution through all the phases of animal consciousness; we can imagine how important a function it fulfilled in the gregarious life of savage men; and now, under a veneer of latter-day culture, we still discover it as one of the most constant and characteristic elements in human consciousness. In all studies of the natural history of consciousness we read of the instinct for life, the strenuous avoidance of injury and death, as fundamental. If we analyze this instinct for life, it is clear that some method of warning, a sensitiveness to danger, is as essen- tial as a method of escape. The fear of death is one of the emotional forms in which we express this instinct. No matter how it may be modified by convictions relative to the life beyond, there is a startled shrinking from the cold, solitary, disintegrating grave; a sudden terror when for the first time the pain of some fatal disease intimates that the end has begun.

If you touch a worm which has wriggled half way out of its bed after lime has been poured upon turf, for instance it will immediately retreat; a snail, drowsing lazily in the warm shade, draws in his horns with quick alarm at the slightest touch; untamed reptiles recoil like a mainspring from human contact; birds, scariest perhaps of all the land species, are horrified at the slightest approach to caressing. We may not call the worm anxious-minded; it is simply prepared on the slightest occasion to wriggle. That simple and direct response protective in its nature occurs in man also. Most people, if suddenly, though however slightly, touched, when not prepared, recoil an immediate reflex activity. From so primitive a reaction we might trace the evolution of the elaborate processes which underlie fear.

Let us turn to the natural history of this mode of consciousness as a prelude to some remarks on its teleology the uses of fear in the spiritual economy. A great many creatures of all species appear to be very timid, and especially those that have not strong weapons of offense. It is obvious that the common house fly is a timid and fugitive creature compared with the audacious and predatory midge. Among reptiles contrast the armed and predatory crocodiles and alligators, the python, the cobra, with the comparatively defenseless and fugitive turtle and tortoise; among birds, the aggressive eagle and hawk, with the defenseless doves and sparrows; among mammals, the carnivora with the herbivora.

Through all nature, then, the fitness by which the species survive is, in some cases, a power of offense associated with a character that includes courage, audacity, ferocity, and in others, the vast majority, a physical defenselessness associated with caution, timidity, constant watchfulness. To the human consciousness, these diversi- ties have descended. There are men and women, not unfitly described as sharks, who are bent upon turning everything and everybody to advantage, who regard every neighbor as fair game. And there are others, who are mostly afraid, who suggest in their suspicion and anxiety the apparent state of mind of the coy and prudish cow.

The qualities which man inherits, and by which he has survived do not rapidly atrophy and disappear. The cerebral structures which were evolved in primitive man, the vital structures, the structures necessary to protect and prolong life, are deeply organized in the seed of the human race, and are to all intents and purposes, ever- lasting. Some of them, including fear, are dwindling, but they dwindle very slowly.

Yet fear, like other infirmities, has its uses both to the single life and to life in general. A special development of any sort begets a corresponding adaptation in all the world with which it comes into close contact. An improved sense of danger, an increased wariness, reacts at once upon the intelligence and skill to which it is opposed. The more daring the "enterprising burglar" becomes, the more active and intelligent become the police; make new laws factory acts or joint-stock company acts and you promptly stimulate the sense of danger of manufacturers and company promoters, their skill in evading the law improves, and you must draw still closer the meshes of your legal net.

But, generally speaking, the capacity for fear in the human mind is absurdly in excess of its utility. As men evolved past that stage when danger to life was con- stant, fear attached itself to ideas and sentiments; and then its mischievousness began, for there is no end to the possibilities of fear when linked to a vivid imagination. It is at that stage when life became comparatively safe that the by-products of fear