PRIMITIVE MAN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 August 1924, Page 14

PRIMITIVE MAN.

WHY ARE WE AFRAID? Primitive man begins his existence on earth, under conditions that caused his hair to stand on end a dozen times during the day of thrilling adventures v says E. Y. Odie in “T.P. and Cassell’s iVeekly’ ). When he looked around him it was an anxious, watchful eye for enemies, and an ear trained to catch the howiings of strange beasts. It was M'ith reluctance that ho surrendered his consciousness at night, for there- was no security about his rude couch. . He looked up at the sky with no sense of friendly aid to be sought there, but rather, with i-ravvn dread of some malign intent in the strange movements of the stars, ami in the periodic appearance of flaming comets. Alan lived for countless ages with tear at his elbow; and the. centuries of nis advance to knowledge and culture nave not enabled him to rid himself of the monster. One result of this is that fhe language of almost every civilisation abounds with taboos and superstitions; while even a good many of the sayings of the great ate coloured with the emotion of tear.

Science has disposed of superstition, out it lias come to undertsand only a very little more about the emotion* of fear. It is only in his head and in his heart that man is sometimes a hero; in the pit of his stomach he is always a coM-ard. Psysiologiealiy, the emotion of fear hits us very literally below the oelt. It affects the great network of nerves situated under the diaphram, and known as the solar plexus. These nerves are closely associated with all the most vital organs, and they control the very pivot upon which the human mechanism works. Hence the “sinking feeling” that we experience in moments of fear is due to an actual relaxation of the diaphram itseli, and the consequent embarrassment of the heart and pulmonary system. Science has also discovered that the sense' of when it becomes intensified,, tends to produce a well-marked condition knoun in medical terms as i phobia. 'There are agoraphobia, or fear in crowds; monophobia, or fright >f being in a confined'space; anthrophobia, or 1 right of things falling; phobit, or fright of tilings falling; siderodramophobia. or fright of railway travelling.