Notwithstanding this great muscular force, the anthropoid apes are cowardly. They have no idea of their strength, but fly from the approach of the slightest imagined danger. My young chimpanzees, although their teeth and muscles were already formidable weapons, showed the greatest fear when I put with them animals even so weak and harmless as guinea-pigs, pigeons and rabbits. Mice frightened them very much at first, and it took them a considerable time before they got over their fear of so insignificant an enemy. When living in a state of nature the anthropoid apes scarcely ever assume the offensive. “Though possessed of immense strength,” wrote Huxley,[153] “it is rare for the Orang to attempt to defend itself, especially when attacked with fire-arms. On such occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to escape along the topmost branches of the trees, breaking off and throwing down the boughs as he goes.” Savage[154] wrote of chimpanzees that “they do not appear ever to act on the offensive, and seldom, if ever really, on the defensive.” When a female was surprised on a tree with her young ones “her first impulse was to descend with great rapidity and make off into the thicket.”[155]
The gorilla, the strongest and most ferocious of the apes, has sometimes been observed to take the offensive. Savage, quoted by Huxley, said that “they are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their habits, never running from man, as does the chimpanzee. The females and young, at the first cry, quickly disappear. He (the male) then approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his horrid cries in quick succession.”[156] Only males take the offensive, nor can this be of frequent occurrence, as one of the most recent observers, Koppenfels,[157] states that “the gorilla never attacks man spontaneously; he tries to avoid him, and, as a rule, takes to flight as soon as he sees a man, uttering peculiar guttural cries.”
Which of these characters are preserved in the human race? Man is naturally feebler and less of a gymnast than the great apes, but his disposition is cowardly. One of the earliest signs of mental activity in an infant is the fear of surrounding circumstances. The smallest change in its balance or its being put in a bath cause it to show signs of real terror. Later on, it is alarmed when it sees any kind of animal, exactly in the fashion of a young chimpanzee. The most harmless spider is enough to frighten it.
Although mental culture subdues fear to a large extent, fear reveals itself more or less strongly from time to time, and it is on such occasions that we may find in the human being psychological relics of his ancestors. An analysis of fear is of special interest.
The first result of the emotion of fear is flight. Consciousness of danger sets our limbs in motion, and our instinctive desire to escape displays itself even when flight is more dangerous than what we wish to avoid. At the first alarm of fire in a public building, people rush towards the exits and in so doing often perish from their wish to escape. Even in the extreme of terror, the desire of flight is one of the earliest impulses. Mosso, a well-known Italian physiologist, in a monograph on fear, relates that when a Calabrian brigand was sentenced to death “he uttered a sharp cry, heart-rending and terrible, looked around him as if he were eagerly seeking for something, and then stepped backwards as if to fly, and threw himself against the wall of the court, writhing, with arms outstretched, scratching at the wall as if he were trying to break through it.”
Although in such a case it was futile and often is harmful, the instinct of flight from danger is inherited from ancestors from a time when it served to save life. Attempts to escape are not the only signs of fear. There is often a trembling fit which would make flight impossible. In Mosso’s case of the Calabrian brigand, “after his struggles, cries and contortions, he fell on the ground in a motionless heap, like a wet rag; he became pale and trembled more than I have seen any other person tremble; his muscles seemed changed into a soft and quivering jelly.” This condition of trembling inertia is another legacy from animals. Quivering of the muscles often manifests itself in terrified animals. Darwin[158] wrote of it, “trembling is of no service, often of much disservice, and cannot at first have been acquired through the will, and then rendered habitual in association with any emotion.” The phenomenon seemed to him obscure and difficult to explain, a view shared by Mosso. The trembling of the musculature of the body is a generalised and exaggerated form of the movements of the cutaneous muscles in the condition known popularly as “goose-skin.” The latter, however, is a relic of an adaptation useful to some animals. The hedgehog rarely takes to flight at the approach of danger, but stands still, and using strongly developed muscles, rolls itself into a ball. In birds and many mammals, the muscles of the skin cause erection of the feathers or hairs. These movements often are performed during fright, and according to Darwin, serve not only to warm the skin, but sometimes to make the animal appear larger and more terrifying to enemies.
Fear and cold alike cause contraction of the superficial blood-vessels, and, in man, excite the contraction of the minute rudimentary muscles inserted to the roots of the hairs. “Goose-skin” is caused by the contraction of these muscles, the condition being a functional rudiment, no longer serving to warm the skin nor to make the body appear larger. In a few exceptional cases, “goose-skin” can be produced voluntarily. In the normal condition, the rudimentary cutaneous muscles of man are immobile, and it requires some special stimulation to set them in action.
Fear, which is occasionally able to excite the contraction of the involuntary muscles, also stimulates other muscles against the will. Under the influence of emotions that powerfully affect the nervous system, and particularly under that of fear, contractions of the bladder and intestines may be so violent that it is impossible to prevent the voiding of their contents. Accidents of this kind are not infrequent in the case of youthful candidates at examinations. Mosso relates of a friend, a volunteer in the war of 1866, that he was seized with terror during a battle and that the utmost efforts of his will failed to make his body endure the terrible spectacle.
The involuntary action of the bladder and intestines during fear is a legacy from animals. The phenomenon is common in dogs and monkeys. Chimpanzees, when laid hold of, discharge their urine and fæces. At Madeira I had an unusually cowardly Cercopithecus monkey which when at all alarmed discharged the contents of the rectum. Quite possibly such a mechanism was useful for the preservation of the individual. The emission of various kinds of excretions is of use in the struggle for existence. In that way the fox drives the badger from its earth and takes possession of it, whilst polecats and skunks defend themselves against more powerful carnivorous animals by discharging on them fœtid secretions.
Instinctive fear is therefore a very powerful stimulant, awakening functions which are rudimentary and almost completely extinct. Sometimes it sets in operation mechanisms which have long been paralysed. Pausanias gives an example of a dumb young man who recovered his speech when he was terrified by seeing a lion. Herodotus relates that the son of Crœsus, who was dumb, on seeing a Persian about to kill his father, cried out: “You must not kill Crœsus,” and from that time onwards was able to talk. These ancient narratives have been confirmed by many modern observations. A woman, for instance, who had been dumb for several years, on seeing a fire, was terrified and cried out suddenly “Fire!” after which her speech was restored. Such are cases of the awakening of a function which has been arrested only for several years. But fear can bring into activity other mechanisms which have been inactive from time immemorial.