CHAPTER V

OF THE LAWS OF THE INTERACTION OF FEAR AND Anger

1. Of the Complicated Relation of the Systems of Fear and Anger.

THERE are some laws of character so familiar that we ignore them, which yet ought to be the foundation of our science. We should endeavour to express them with precision, and to discover the limits of their truth; and the conditions on which they depend. The law that Fear and Anger tend to exclude one another is impressed on us by our own experience. It seems to be true of animals and men. The dog, so brave when angry, seems at other times timid and under the influence of fear. He allows the cat who is so spoilt that she does almost what she pleases, to take the first taste of his food, and is afraid to thrust her aside, and whines and looks to his master for intervention. Yet the same dog will threaten or attack the cat when he is aroused to anger,-as when she attempts to get at his bowl when he is already feeding from it, and will fearlessly attack other dogs bigger than himself, against whom he has no chance of victory. The cat does not show much trace of anger in her ordinary behaviour. She avoids encounters with the dog, and keeps to the neighbourhood of garden walls and trees, where, if threatened, she can quickly place herself in safety. Like others of her species she chiefly attacks animals of inferior strength to her own. Her instincts of pursuit and destruction are aroused by the sight or sound of a small bird or mouse; and at first her secret and stealthy movements, apart from the

expression of her eyes, seem to signify fear rather than anger. Even when she has seized her prey, and her instinct of destruction is active, is her struggle with so weak an opponent sufficient to arouse the emotion of anger? For she often plays with it, and manifests as little anger as does Iago when he is compassing the destruction of Othello. But when at bay facing the dog with growls and hisses, she seems to feel anger. Dogs too seem to feel anger when they snarl at one another and show their teeth. It may be that their instinct of destruction too is excited in some degree, but their anger is at first confined to threats. Is it partially counteracted by fear? It bursts all restraints when one dog flies at the throat of the other. Boys at school, before they enter on a fight, often feel some degree of fear, but as soon as they give and receive blows, hot anger excludes it. But a cowardly boy, when he receives a painful blow, begins to cry, and sorrow and fear exclude anger. There are some men who can intimidate even brave men with whom they come into contact. A glance of their eyes cools anger and excites fear. Thus the first form of the law of the interaction of fear and anger is this (38) Fear and anger tend always to exclude one another, where both are referred to the same object; being, as Bain expressed it, " opposite in all their outgoings."1

Let us next attempt to discover the cases which contradict this law.

There is one variety of fear which, though directed by the instinct of flight, may, under opposition, become violent and aggressive. Cowardly animals fight at bay. When a panic occurs in a crowd, men fight with and trample on one another in their efforts to escape. When a ship is sinking, the people of cowardly nations stab those who bar their way to the boats, and hurl back into the water those who attempt to get into them. And tyrants kill those whom they fear, and by those who live in dread of them are often murdered. Has anger or fear caused the greater number of homicides ?

In a previous chapter, we found that there were two alternative explanations of this type. The more obvious explanation was that, under sudden opposition to its impulse, 1 The Emotions and the Will,' ch. ix.

fear may give place to anger. And in some cases this is probably the true one. But this does not easily interpret the strict subordination of the struggle to the end of fear in other cases. Where anger drives out fear, the end of fear is for the time forgotten, replaced by some end of anger. Anger may then carry a man far from his former end: having begun to fight, he may fight for the end of destruction or revenge. But when an animal struggles violently to escape, as soon as it is free it betakes itself to flight. In such a case there is no essential incompatibility between the systems of fear and anger. Some instinct or tendency of anger is aroused with fear, but subordinated to its present end. This utilisation of part of one system by another is not confined to fear. The system of anger may, in pursuit of its aggressive end, sometimes manifest the behaviour of fear. This is characteristic of certain animals, as the Felidæ. In their stealthy and silent approach, in the sudden spring upon their prey from behind, we see that the instinctive behaviour of their anger contains, by innate prearrangement, something of the behaviour of fear. The instincts of concealment and silence which distinguish one variety of fear, are innately organised in their system of anger. Both cases are instances of the law of the transference of instincts from one emotional system to another that we noticed in Book II, Chapter I, 2. For an instinct that is chiefly serviceable in one system, may also be occasionally serviceable in another. Man himself, who manifests the behaviour of such different types of animals, also sometimes discovers a similar secrecy and silence in his revenge, and springs from some hiding-place upon his unsuspecting enemy. And this behaviour is even characteristic of the revenge of certain races; whilst it is repudiated by others as cowardly and dishonourable.

These facts contradict the law of the mutual exclusion of fear and anger as we have previously stated it. It is not true, as Bain supposed, that these emotions are opposite "in all their outgoings." They are opposite in most; the law is true within certain limits, but what are these limits?

We fly from danger: we become angry with something else that impedes our escape. We are brave enough to fight with

a powerful enemy, but not brave enough, or too prudent, to fight him openly, and borrow the self-protecting instinct of fear. Yet although there is this much harmony between these antagonistic systems, the harmony does not seem to extend to their emotional feelings. The emotions of fear and anger may rapidly alternate, but each tends to exclude the other from simultaneous presence. When the wounded lion conceals itself from its pursuer behind some foliage, whence it springs suddenly upon him, the emotion of its rage excludes the emotion of fear, though including one of its instincts. Or when a man in terror of his life struggles with another who bars his way, his fear excludes the emotion of anger, though including one of its forms of behaviour. And if this is not true of all cases, if sometimes the emotion of anger is aroused by the struggle, then this, in its turn, suspends the emotion of fear.

There are then limiting conditions of the law of the mutual exclusion of fear and anger, and we must restate the law so as to take them into account. Fear and anger tend to exclude one another so far as they are antagonistic; but their antagonism does not include all parts of their systems. It does not exclude some instinct of aggression from the one, nor some instincts of concealment and silence from the other; but it does exclude their respective emotions. We shall therefore restrict the law to the emotion: (39) The emotions of fear and anger tend to exclude one another from simultaneous presence in consciousness, and resist fusion into one complex

emotion.

2. Of the Relation of Jealousy to Fear and Anger.

When we find that opposite emotions are so often blended together, we may well doubt whether the law as we have just restated it is true without further limitations. Joy and sorrow are fused in some, at least, of the tender emotions of love. The joy of meeting has remembrance in it of the sorrows of absence, and the sorrow of parting, of the joys of being together. The emotion of pathos is sorrowful; but the joy of beauty is fused with it. In the emotion of reverence two emotions with antagonistic tendencies are blended together.

One is the admiration of greatness, the other is fear or awe. The one impels us forward; the other would turn us back. The one holds us entranced in contemplation; the other precludes familiarity, and keeps us at a respectful distance. Is this also sometimes the case with fear and anger?

There is one complex and derivative emotion that if we closely study its behaviour shows clear traces of the action of both these emotions. Jealousy manifests in certain situations the secretive behaviour of fear. Some Mahometan nations are peculiarly jealous of their women, and seclude them from the society of men. The women live a concealed life in their homes, protected from admiration and pursuit ; if they go out they must be attended and closely veiled. This concealment points to the influence of fear in moulding the behaviour of jealousy. And if we consider how frequently jealousy commences in a state of doubt and suspicion concerning the action of the man of whom we are jealous, either because of his attention to the woman we love or possess, or of his rivalry with us for some position of power or reputation, then because we desire exclusive possession of the one or the other, we feel fear or anxiety, because we are in danger of losing it or of not attaining to it. Fear is then at the root of jealousy, is manifested in its behaviour, and sometimes may come to the surface of consciousness and be felt as the emotion. Thus, Descartes 1 defines jealousy to be 1 une espèce de crainte qui se rapport au désir qu'on a de se conserver la possession de quelque bien."

If fear is one of the roots of jealousy, anger is another. The behaviour of jealousy is marked on different occasions by all degrees of aggressive anger, from rudeness, which is a threat, to insult, assault, and murder. As doubt and suspicion ripen into certitude, rage replaces fear.

In the behaviour of certain animals on account of which jealousy has been attributed to them, there is clear evidence of the influence of anger. A dog may fly at another because he witnesses his master caressing the stranger. Romanes relates that one of his correspondents had "seen the same rage manifested by a fine cockatoo at the sight of his mistress

1 'Les Passions de l'Ame,' Art. 167.

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