Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/799

Rh There are, then, two kinds of bravery—that of the person who does not suffer from fear, which is easy and of little merit, and the bravery of a person who overcomes his fear. Such a person, in my opinion, is more courageous than any other; but, though I have great respect for him, I should put but little confidence in him, for his heroic effort may be overcome at any time, and virtue, beautiful as it is, is less solid than absence of emotion.

He who is overcome by fear and runs away with all his might is certainly not brave, and is not entitled to any eulogy; but we should be indulgent to him. Who knows whether, with a few words of encouragement or enthusiasm, or by becoming accustomed to danger, he might not have been able to conquer his innate sensibility? Doubtless the bravest also have their moments of failure; even if they have not yet had them, the time may come when, surprised by a violent, sudden, and irresistible emotion, they will not be strong enough to triumph over themselves.

We begin the inquiry into the function of fear in the animal economy with the assertion that none of the natural feelings are for nothing. Whatever theory of the origin of beings we adopt, we are always forced to recognize that everything within us serves some end. Fear shows us where danger lies, creates aversion to that danger, and forces us to flee from it, and is, therefore, a protective instinct. We need to be protected. If we had only our intelligence to inform us of danger, we should be very frequently in peril, and our existence would be greatly abbreviated. Nature seems to have a great distrust of intelligence, and to have given it an insignificant part in our self-protection. Emotion comes in first, and intelligence afterward. Wounds that make blood flow are dangerous to the organism; but, if we had to be convinced of the danger from this source to save ourselves from it, men would long ago have disappeared from the earth. Nature has taken the simpler way of endowing us with such sensitiveness to pain that we avoid being wounded, not because the wound lets the blood flow, but for the more evident reason that it hurts us. So we avoid exposing ourselves to danger, not because it is danger, but because we are afraid.

Of the two elements in fear, the internal emotion, of which the consciousness takes cognizance, and the reflex action, all beings have the reflex element; but the emotion, so far as we can perceive, does not appear to be equally present in all. Apparently, it is more powerful the more intelligence is developed; and inferior, unintelligent beings, feel neither pain nor fear with as much force as man. In passing from the brute to man, fear is transformed and generalized. With the animal it is instinctive, answering to no idea. The hen is afraid of the fox, without knowing that the fox may eat it; the gudgeon of the pike, without thinking of its voracity. The horse shies at the sound of thunder, without knowing that lightning can kill him.