Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/793

Rh profuse, cold, clammy perspiration covers the body; the skin feels shivering, and the hair-bulbs over it swell up and harden. A convulsive thrill, with a feeling of cold, runs down the body, from the nape to the toe, coursing along the back at intervals like a cold electric wave. The face grows pale, and the heart beats violently, as if it would burst out of the chest; or else, perhaps, it almost stops, producing a feeling of indescribable distress. The pupils dilate, the eyes open wide, and the features assume a repulsive aspect, which has been well represented by the great painters. The voice sticks in the throat, and the victim of the emotion is speechless. These are the manifestations of fear in one of its highest forms. They are less evident in moderate fear, according as it is moderate; while the most intense degree of emotion produces syncope, or arrest of the movements of the heart.

The syncope is rarely prolonged till death ensues; but well-authenticated cases are on record in which death has resulted immediately, while simple syncope is quite frequent. Most of the physical effects of fear, in fact, the pale face, the general weakness and paralysis, the buzzing in the ears, and the vertigos, are symptoms of syncope; and when they accompany sudden fright they are probably less due directly to the fright itself than to the arrest of the movements of the heart which it provokes. This profound emotion of fear, with its accompaniment of violent external phenomena, is fatal and involuntary, and is a reflex action, provoked by an irresistible force, independent of ourselves.

Besides the physical reflex actions, well known to physiologists and often described, I have defined a class of psychical reflex actions. Ordinary reflex actions, like the contraction and enlargement of the pupil under varying intensities of light, are dependent on the most simple excitations and require no intelligence, comprehension, or mental elaboration. Other reflex actions are of a different character. They are reflex, in that they are involuntary; and conscious, in that we can give a complete account of them; but they are also psychical, in that a considerable degree of intelligence is required for them to occur. Take, for example, the simple instance of the soldier who dodges when he hears a bullet whistling near him. The motion is entirely reflex, for the poor fellow has dodged before he has even thought of the ball that might hit him; but it is also conscious and psychical. A number of analogous actions might be cited; and if we give the subject a little attention we shall find that they play an important part in our everyday life. The conscious moral emotion and the exterior movement accompanying it are caused by a sensible excitation which in itself is nothing, but is transformed by the mind so as to become effective. The whistling of a bullet as a mere noise would not cause one to dodge. It is a noise which, in itself, is quite incapable of provoking such a movement. If, then, the soldier dodges so abruptly, it is