IS FEAR A DISEASE?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17076, 1 September 1917, Page 6

IS FEAR A DISEASE?

Fear is'an emotion excited by danger, or an apprehension of danger. Excessive fear almost amounts to a disease and it is always connected with th^ br-un.

If you look from the top of a lift shaft down, to'the depths below, and as you imagine how it would feel to fall down that shaft, you shudder and turnsick with fear, although probably you know that it is impossible to fall down the shaft because the iron gate at the top is locked.

Again, if you think you hear burglars afc midnight your imagination sets to work and recalls all sorts of horrors connected Avith burglaries in the past. Thus people with vivid, imaginations are liable to fear.

Habit eliminates fear. Many a soldier who was tei'rified the first time lie went into the trenches, who jumped at every shot fired, who trembled with apprehension each time he heard the crash of a shell, has found that after a few days these sightj and sounds hardly disturb him, because he has got' used to them.

Very often & man lias great physical i:-ar. hut he ha..-; moral courage, with which to overcome that fear. Mnnji hero has owned that before performing an heroic deed he was seized with fear, and the bravest deeds are those done by men who have conquered this natural fear.

Moral fear, which is far worse than physical fear, tak<^ a multitude of forms and is more di^ulfc to overcome.