Fear Page #2

THE learned and eloquent Professor of Physiology at Turin has given us in the book which he has entitled “Fear,” an analysis of this mental condition and its accompanying physical states, which, marked as it is by scientific accuracy and couched in charming and even in poetical diction, will take high rank as a popular exposition of our knowledge of the expression of one of the most interesting of the emotions of both men and animals.

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I confess the problem is difficult, and I believe the easiest way to a partial solution is to analyse without prejudice what we all know about cerebral activity, and to see what physiologists have discovered in studying the emotions and the physical phenomena of thought.

III

Before, however, entering the field of experimental physiology, I allow myself the following remarks. In strict justice the names of many physiologists should be repeatedly mentioned, but I prefer to do so only from time to time, as I fear the interruption of the sentence by names and notes might be tiresome to those whose eye is unaccustomed to the perusal of scientific books, nor do I think there are many who would be curious to know the paternity of every assertion I shall make use of. In order, however, that no undeserved merit may be ascribed to me, I shall, without further ceremony, write in the first person only when an experience or an idea of my own is to be communicated, so that, if I shall be at fault, science may not be held responsible for a personal error.

The first really important book on the physiology of the passions was written by Descartes, the great restorer of science, who, with his prodigious force of intellect, embraced all branches of knowledge, and was at once mathematician, physicist, and physiologist. His is the honour of having shown that the old Aristotelian philosophy, then prevalent in the schools, had never solved one of the problems respecting life. In the treatise upon 'The Passions of the Soul,’ the following words appear in a section in which he investigates the manner in which the passions are excited: 'If the appearance of an animal is very strange and frightful--that is, if it has much resemblance with those things which were originally hurtful to the body, it will excite in the mind the passion of fear, then of boldness or of horror, according to the different temperaments of the body or the force of the soul, and according as one has been able or not to provide one’s self with the means of defence, or of flight from those dangerous things with which the present impression has points of resemblance. This in some men disposes the brain in such a manner that the spirits, excited by the image and formed in the pineal gland (or central part of the brain), pass thence, partly to the nerves which serve to turn the body and move the legs in flight, and partly to those nerves which enlarge and contract the valves of the heart, or stimulate the other parts, whence the blood is sent to them in such a manner that this blood, otherwise elaborated, sends spirits to the brain capable of fomenting and increasing the passion of fear; that is, they are able to keep open or reopen the pores of the brain which conduct them to the nerves.’[1]

No one before Descartes had had so simple a conception of the mechanism by which the involuntary movements accompanying the emotions are produced, and he it is who laid the foundations of the physiological study of the mind. Two centuries and a half have already passed, and his work still remains a monument worthy of all admiration. Science has advanced so greatly that perhaps no one now who wished to learn the elements of physiology would study his treatise on man, and yet none who know the history of science but are moved by those marvellous pages out of which breathes that spirit of innovation which has fertilised the science of centuries. Malebranche relates that when he first took up the treatise--'L’homme et la formation du fœtus,’ by Descartes--the new ideas it stirred up within him gave him a pleasure so intense, and so filled him with admiration, that his heart palpitated and he was obliged to pause from time to time.

[1] Œuvres de Descartes, Les passions de l’âme, xxxvi.

Other two no less celebrated names must also be mentioned here, on account of the strictly scientific character they have given to the study of the emotions. These are Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin. Next to these stands Paolo Mantegazza, with his celebrated researches on pain and his book on physiognomy and mimicry, dedicated to 'Charles Darwin, who, by his immortal work on the expression of the emotions, opened up a limitless horizon to the science of the future.’ The homage of the illustrious Italian physiologist is worthy of the great English master and philosopher. Darwin was a man of genius and at the same time one of the greatest masters of the popular style of authorship. His force lies in the caution with which he made statements and drew conclusions, thus avoiding all absolute formulæ, and this will always make him an incomparable model. Dogmatism, that worm which gnaws and sterilises mediocre minds, which corrupts the rationality of the many--dogmatism, that plague of science, had no hold on him, Darwin knew it not. He candidly shows the public the gaps in science, criticises himself unmercifully, and does not hesitate to point out the defects in doctrines he himself propounded. In reading his books one is inclined to think that he was continually haunted by the fear of being misunderstood by readers insufficiently educated for the comprehension of deeper scientific questions. He was so careful, so temperate in his assertions, so cautious in his inductions, that in his book, 'The Expression of the Emotions,’ which, in my opinion, is one of the less excellent of his works, he leaves not one point on which one can conscientiously contradict him, by taxing him with an error.

And if we are able now to add to his discoveries and to correct some of the judgments in his works, it is only thus because science marches onward with such giant strides that we, although we were his contemporaries, belong even now to a later age, as the context of this work will more clearly show. The theory of evolution will always remain the foundation-stone of modern science, but certain principles formulated by Spencer and Darwin will be modified as our knowledge of the adaptation of organs to their functions increases.

IV

Darwin attributed, I think, too much importance to the will considered as the cause of expression. We younger physiologists are more mechanical; we examine the organism more minutely, and it is in the structure of the organs that we seek the reasons of their functions.

I shall here give an example of this different way in which I have explained a few phenomena.

Rabbits are, as is well known, extremely timid animals, and it is remarkable that no other blushes and grows pale so easily as the rabbit. The changes in circulation produced by psychical impressions and by the emotions are more observable in the ears than in the face, as is indeed the case with many men. In Northern Italy, after someone has received a vigorous scolding, I have heard the popular expression used: 'He caught it hot enough to make his ears turn red.’ In the middle of the auricle of the rabbit’s ear there is an artery, running from the base to the summit, which ramifies and winds in such a manner as to form two veins on the edge of the auricle. In 1854, Moritz Schiff observed that this artery showed alternate movements of contraction and expansion, not corresponding to the systole and diastole of the heart. If one looks at the rabbit’s ear against the light, from time to time one sees the artery decrease in diameter, until at last it quite disappears, then it increases again, and, as it swells, it expands all its branches, so that the whole ear becomes of a vivid red and also warmer. This fulness of blood in the ear lasts a few seconds, then artery and branches contract and the redness gradually dies away. Schiff called this artery an accessory heart, because he imagined that the contractions and expansions observed by him in the vessels of the ear were to promote a better circulation of blood in the ear of the rabbit, just as the heart does for the rest of the body.
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