But when and where was the dawn of
fear? I touch a sea-anemone and it contracts. Has it felt fear? I
think not. The action certainly may be purely reflex. Natural
selection, not mind, deserves the credit of that action. But I am
sure that the cat fears the dog, or the dog the cat, as the case may
be. I have little or no doubt that the bird fears the cat. I am
inclined to believe that the insect fears the bird and the spider
the wasp. But does the highest worm fear? I do not know. I do not
see how there can have been any fear until there was a nerve-centre
highly enough developed to remember past experiences of danger and
fair sense-organs to report the present risk.
Other emotions soon follow. Anger appears early. The order of
appearance of these emotions or motives I shall not attempt to give
to you. Indeed this is to us of relatively slight importance. The
important point to notice is that a host of these have appeared in
mammals and birds, and that each one of these is a new spur to the
will. And the will of a horse or dog, to say nothing of a pig, is by
no means feeble. And these are slowly emancipating the animal from
the tyranny of appetite. But how slow the progress is! Has the
emancipation yet become complete in man? I need not answer.
The will has in part, at least, escaped from abject slavery to
appetite; it sometimes rises superior to fear.
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