FEAR (AS. fcvr, Ger. Oefahr, danger; con nected with GI:. 71-Eipa, peira, trial, attack, rEpar, peran, to cross, Skt. par, to cross). A term which has been used in two senses in psychology. (1) As one of the cardinal emotions of time (see EMOTION) , the opposite of hope, fear is essen tially a transient experience, passing of necessity into one or other of the qualitative emotions, alarm and relief. But, since fear and alarm are both unpleasurable. and the passage from the one to the other is not definitely marked in con sciousness, fear is also used to designate (2) the state of fear fulfilled. for which alarm is the better term. Fear proper is an unpleasant ex pectation (q.v.) ; fear fulfilled is a typical emo tion of quality, with characteristic expression. Darwin seeks to explain the bodily phenomena of fear, in part, by appeal to the principles of habit, association, and inheritance. We open the eyes and raise the eyebrows. e.g. that we may see as clearly as possible all that is going on about us. In past generations, fear-strieken men have taken to headlong flight, or struggled violently with their enemies; and the utter prostration, pallor, sweat, and trembling of this exertion still ap pear when the emotion is set up, though the actual movements of escape or resistance are not made. Ile admits, however, that the symptoms
are directly due, in part, to "disturbed or inter rupted transmission of nerve-force from the cere brospinal system to various parts of the body." James seems to agree, when he says that "trem bling, which is found in many excitements besides that of terror, is quite pathological." The stand ing on end of the hair in extreme fear Darwin regards as a relic of the bristling up of animals. whose appearance is thus made more terrible to their antagonists.
Fear is exceedingly contagious, as the records of battles and of commercial crises sufficiently show. Morbid fears play a large part in the classification of insanity (q.v.), and are alsa connected with certain organic and functional, diseases of the heart (panphobia). Consult: Darwin. Tire Expression of the Emotions (Lon don. 1390 ) ; rues, Principles of Psychology (New York, 1390) ; Mantegazza, Lrr physiognomic et Pexpression des sentiments (Paris, 1885) Mosso, Fear (London, 1896).