Advantage for the race is certainly gained, but this wholly unconsciously; and it plays no part in the actual psychism of the individual. In a highly social, which is also in the most effective and advantageous mode of life, it is certain that the purely self-seeking will be at a disadvantage in general, whereas those who give themselves up to help others are by others so helped, that the final status of the individual is higher and better than if he had been wholly a self-seeker. However, he who, perceiving this law, sets out to be altruistic for his own ends, invariably suffers defeat in the long run, for entire disinterestedness can alone avail. But the problem of altruism, from an evolutionary point of view, cannot here be further remarked on; a fuller discussion would lead us too far afield. However, we are convinced that altruism springs up and grows like the other elements of psychic life, as functional in the largest way to the demands of life in the struggle for existence.
Horror is a distinctive term for altruistic fear. When on a train, I am terrified if I perceive a collision imminent and inevitable, but as a mere spectator walking near the tracks, I am horrified by the prospect of a collision. One may be “in mortal terror,” but not in mortal horror.
Our sense of the feelings of others towards us, whether they be egoistic or altruistic, determines a large class of reflex emotions which are often very subtle. If we perceive that some one is fearing us or fearing for us there is immediate reaction on our part. Feeling response to feeling acts and reacts in a multitude of complex ways, as we cannot but observe when in the company of very “sensitive” people. The “sensitive” one is he whose emotional life is governed by his perception of the feelings of others toward himself, and he becomes wonderfully responsive to the least expressions of emotion toward himself. The delicate responsiveness of women, their intuitions, are merely quick perceptiveness of emotion expression. The fears of such are largely concerned with this dependence on the emotional attitudes of others toward themselves; they fear to incur displeasure, they fear loss of love, etc. Thus psychical phenomena become more and more determined by psychical phenomena as interpreted and considered with reference to the self. Panic is contagious fear, and has originated and been developed as securing mutual safety in societies of animals. However, there is less real fear on occasions of panic than is often supposed, for much of the expression which we read as fear inspired is really merely imitative, and does not signify any real basis of emotion. Moreover, we must note that there is no direct contagion, but the perception of fear in others merely leads us to dimly body forth some fearful events as impending, which representation involves the full phenomenon of fear. There is also a discrimination as to those who shall impart fear; the fear of a child on shipboard will not start a panic, while the fear of a captain would. Convinced that there is something worth fearing, we fear, and make frantic efforts to escape.
We have before mentioned (p. 89) the peculiar fear of fear. The latest and culminating differentiation of fear is awe, and the highest, most refined development of awe is in the feeling for the sublime. The sense of magnitude and mighty potency of injurious agents or agencies in themselves considered, and not as immediately affecting the individual or any individual, is the essential element in awe as a species of fear. This fear is then neither egoistic nor altruistic, but impersonal. We fear neither for ourselves nor others in standing awestruck at the foot of Niagara, but a sense of overwhelming greatness and might stirs a thrill of emotion which is at bottom a sublimation of fear. The view which to a peasant or an animal would give terror, or produce no emotional effect whatever, with very rational and sensitive minds produces awe. Awe does not, as early emotions and fear generally, lead directly to will, it is not a stimulant to action, and thus has not been evolved by the principle of usefulness for action which governs the general course of physiological and psychical evolution. It is evident that with awe and the sense of the sublime emotion has a value and end in itself. In the higher evolution of man we see that the psychic elements evolve no longer in a strict dependency for their value in securing advantage and success in the struggle for existence, but comfortable existence being practically assured, psychic development is pushed on in lines ethical, emotional and intellectual, for no practical end, but for their own intrinsic value. Thus the feeling for the sublime is a purely independent development, which, indeed, is based upon man’s capacity to fear egoistically and altruistically, but is really exercised solely for its own sake. A consciousness which has had no common fear stage, could never arrive at awe. We stand in awe of persons who are totally beyond us in their superiority, who exist in a sphere of power and glory, which transcends even our understanding, and thus awe has a religious as well as æsthetic side.
The chief differentiations then of fear we note as intensive dread, as altruistic horror, as impersonal awe. The chronological order of evolution may be denoted in this order—fright, alarm, terror, dread, horror.
CHAPTER IX
ON DESPAIR
Despair is a phase of painful emotion which is certainly related to fear, yet is very distant from it. Despair has always a fear basis; we can only despair where fear is implied, and what does not excite fear will give no hold for despair. I must first fear a pain before I can despair of escaping it. The prisoner condemned to death must fear death before he will be in despair at the prospect of it. Yet while despair always implies fear, fear may often exist and that in very strong form without despair. The prisoner often displays great fear, but no despair.
There is, in fact, a strong contrast between fear and despair. Fear normally stimulates effort, despair depresses it. Fear is active, despair passive. Deep dejection and lassitude mark despair, while fear is intense agitation and activity. Fear in its original and normal function is stimulant of defensive action, fear as paralytic being secondary or abnormal, but in normal despair there is absolute inertness. Fear, again, in contrast with despair, is direct and transitive. I fear the pain or injury, but my despair is only in relation to it, despair of, in despair, etc. Fear is at the evil itself, it is a direct attitude of mind toward it, through an ideal pre-experiencing, the very representation of any pain as experienceable carrying with it a thrill of fear. But despair concerns itself, not with the pain per se as experienceable, but with the inevitability of the painful. Fear rests upon idea of pain, despair, upon idea of its inevitability. “I despair of escape,” means a recoil of painful emotion at inevitability of painful experience. Sense of complete and permanent inability to attain an end, whether release from pain, or positively, a securing a pleasure, generates commonly this distressful emotion. Despair is not then simple pain at pain, but at the unavertibility of the pain. Despair is then the mind bent down and crushed by the sense of the inevitable and irremediable nature of the pain, positive or negative, it experiences or is to experience. Despair is, indeed, hopelessness, though all hopelessness is not despair. There is no hope in stolidity or in stoicism, psychic modes quite distinct from despair, but which take the place with some natures.
Again, we must note that while fear has its degrees, and may be but partial, despair is always complete collapse. I may fear a little but not despair a little, I may be frightened “just the least bit,” but not despair a little bit. The hostess who is “in despair” because the ice cream has not come, speaks truly, however, for the affair is for her so important and momentous as to be the basis of real despair. That which is the occasion of despair must always be or seem of capital value.
An adjacent and often precedent state to despair is desperation, which is a feeling of the almost inevitable. In the face of heavy odds there is often awakened a painful emotion which we term desperation, and which leads to strong and furious will action, to an intense and general struggle which is often advantageous. An enemy fears to drive his adversary to desperation. In desperation we take one chance in a thousand or in a million; for example, the leader of a forlorn hope. It would be difficult to say whether despair or desperation contains more of pain, but they are obviously quite opposite in their character. To combative temperaments and with pugnacious animals the sense of the seeming inevitable is often stimulative of desperation rather than despair. Such are “game” to the last. A criminal of this type will run amuck rather than submit to his fate in despair. The desperado is defiant to the end. With some whose natures are balanced between reflection and action there are in the face of the inevitable or almost inevitable rapid fluctuations of despair and desperation.