Chapter 5

FEAR AND REASON.

"In civilized life it has at last become possible for large numbers of people to pass from the cradle to the grave without ever having had a pang of genuine fear. Many of us need an attack of mental disease to teach us the meaning of the word."--William James.

We have all heard the seemingly discriminating remarks that fear is normal and abnormal, and that normal fear is to be regarded as a friend, while abnormal fear should be destroyed as an enemy.

The fact is that no so--called normal fear can be named which has not been clearly absent in some people who have had every cause therefor. If you will run over human history in your mind, or look about yea in the present life, you will find here and there persons who, in situations or before objects which ought, as any fearful soul will insist, to inspire the feeling of at least normal self-protecting fear, are nevertheless wholly without the feeling. They possess every feeling and thought demanded except fear. The idea of self-preservation is as strongly present as with the most abjectly timid or terrified, but fear they do not know. This FEARLESS awareness of fear--suggesting conditions may be due to several causes. It may result from constitutional make-up, or from long--continued training or habituation, or from religious ecstasy, or from a perfectly calm sense of spiritual selfhood which is unhurtable, or from the action of very exalted reason. Whatever the explanation, the fact remains: the very causes which excite fear in most of us, merely appeal, with such people, if at all. to the instinct of self-preservation and to reason, the thought-element of the soul which makes for personal peace and wholeness.

BANISH ALL FEAR.

It is on such considerations that I have come to hold that all real fear-FEELING should and may be banished from our life, and that what we call "normal fear" should be substituted in our language by "instinct" or by "reason," the element of fear being dropped altogether.

"Everyone can testify that the psychical state called fear consists of mental representations of certain painful results" (James). The mental representations may be very faint as such, but the idea of hurt to self is surely present. If, then, it can be profoundly believed that the real self cannot be hurt; if the reason can be brought to consider vividly and believingly all quieting considerations; if the self can be held consciously in the assurance that the White Life surrounds the true self, and is surely within that self, and will suffer "no evil to come nigh," while all the instincts of self--preservation may be perfectly active, fear itself must be removed "as far as the east is from the west."

This splendid conviction I earnestly commend to all readers.

These are the ways, then, in which any occasion for fear may be divided:

As a warning and as a maker of panic. But let us say that the warning should be understood as given to reason, that fear need not appear at all, and that the panic is perfectly useless pain. With these discriminations in mind, we may now go on to a

PRELIMINARY STUDY OF FEAR.

Fear is (a) an impulse, (b) a habit, (c) a disease.

Fear, as it exists in man, is a make-believe of sanity, a creature of the imagination, a state of insanity.

Furthermore, fear is, now of the nerves, now of the mind, now of the moral consciousness.

The division depends upon the point of view. What is commonly called normal fear should give place to REASON, using the word to cover instinct as well as thought. From the correct point of view all fear is an evil so long as entertained.

Whatever its manifestations, wherever its apparent location, fear is a psychic state, of course, reacting upon the individual in several ways: as, in the nerves, in mental moods, in a single impulse, in a chronic habit, in a totally unbalanced condition. The reaction has always a good intention, meaning, in each case, "Take care! Danger!" You will see that this is so if you will look for a moment at three comprehensive kinds of fear--fear of self, fear for self, fear for others. Fear OF self is indirectly fear FOR self--danger. Fear for others signifies foresensed or forepictured distress to self because of anticipated misfortune to others. I often wonder whether, when we fear FOR others, it is distress TO SELF or hurt to THEM that is most emphatically in our thought.

Fear, then, is usually regarded as the soul's danger signal. But the true signal is instinctive and thoughtful reason.

Even instinct and reason, acting as warning, may perform their duty abnormally, or assume abnormal proportions. And then we have the FEELING of fear. The normal warning is induced by actual danger apprehended by mind in a state of balance and self-control. Normal mind is always capable of such warning. There are but two ways in which so-called normal fear, acting in the guise of reason, may be annihilated: by the substitution of reason for fear, and by the assurance of the WHITE LIFE.

Let it be understood, now, that by normal fear is here meant normal reason--real fear being denied place and function altogether. Then we may say that such action of reason is a benefactor to man. It is, with pain and weariness, the philanthropy of the nature of things within us.

One person said: "Tired? No such word in my house!" Now this cannot be a sound and healthy attitude. Weariness, at a certain stage of effort, is a signal to stop work. When one becomes so absorbed in labor as to lose consciousness of the feeling of weariness, he has issued a "hurry call" on death. I do not deny that the soul may cultivate a sublime sense of buoyancy and power; rather do I urge you to seek that beautiful condition; but I hold that when a belief or a hallucination refuses to permit you to hear the warning of nerves and muscles, Nature will work disaster inevitably. Let us stand for the larger liberty which is joyously free to take advantage of everything Nature may offer for true well-being. There is a partial liberty which tries to realize itself by denying various realities as real; there is a higher liberty which really realizes itself by conceding such realities as real and by using or disusing them as occasion may require in the interest of the self at its best. I hold this to be true wisdom: to take advantage of everything which evidently promises good to the self, without regard to this or that theory, and freely to use all things, material or immaterial, reasonable or spiritual. I embrace your science or your method; but I beg to ignore your bondage to philosophy or to consistency. So I say that to normal health the weary-sense is a rational command to replenish exhausted nerves and muscles.

It is not liberty, it is not healthful, to declare, "There is no pain!" Pain does exist, whatever you affirm, and your affirmation that it does not is proof that it does exist, for why (and HOW) declare the non-existence of that which actually is non-existent? But if you say, "As a matter of fact I have pain, but I am earnestly striving to ignore it, and to cultivate thought-health so that the cause of pain may be removed," that is sane and beautiful. This is the commendable attitude of the Bible character who cried: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." To undertake swamping pain with a cloud of psychological fog--that is to turn anarchist against the good government of Nature. By pain Nature informs the individual that he is somewhere out of order. This warning is normal. The feeling becomes abnormal in the mind when imagination twangs the nerves with reiterated irritation, and Will, confused by the discord and the psychic chaos, cowers and shivers with fear.

I do not say there is no such thing as fear. Fear does exist. But it exists in your life by your permission only, not because it is needful as a warning against "evil."

Fear is induced by unduly magnifying actual danger, or by conjuring up fictitious dangers through excessive and misdirected psychical reactions. This also may be taken as a signal of danger, but it is a falsely-intentioned witness, for it is not needed, is hostile to the individual because it threatens self-control and it absorbs life's forces in useless and destructive work when they ought to be engaged in creating values. Hence we state

THE FIRST GREAT PRINCIPLE OF FEAR-CONQUEST.

Timidity, apprehension, fear, alarm, fright, consternation, terror, panic, desperation, are all false imitations of reason's interpretation of the warning signals of Nature, to be displaced by reason itself, which may then determine whether the occasion be real or unreal, and always to be disregarded and overcome if evidently refering to causes which do not actually exist.

This principle is adduced in the interest of three things: peace, health, power. You are invited to note how vital these interests really are.

The truest peace, of which courage is a sublime bloom, is a growth solely of honorable living and robust self-respect.

Health is of the following realities: body, mind, soul--the deeper self. Health is soundness. A sound human is a triune wholeness. Physical soundness with weak intellect is often the athletic field of superstitions innumerable. Intellectual greed in an unsound body may breed the direst fears of life. A decayed soul is always a House of Fear. The ideal of human existence is--The white life in the sound mind in the vibrantly whole body.

It is because there are so many people who are in some sense sick, that fears abound in every direction. But--it is because so many fears are permitted and actually nursed as boons that so many sick people abound in every direction. If all our fears could be removed absolutely, we should no longer require physicians. This world would be a paradise in every respect. I do not know anything wrong with it that cannot be traced to a fear.

The causes of fear are weak reason, uncontrolled imagination, want of self-control, and ill-health. And the first three items are really phases of the last.

The ability to master and destroy fear depends, it would now seem, upon the following factors of our life:

The General Tone of the Individual; The Soul's Power of Will; The Development and Balance of the Reason.

Reason is demanded to distinguish between right and wrong causes for personal effort in self-protection, and to utterly ignore all wrong causes.

Will-power is demanded to banish fears and to utilize reason's dictates.

But the sway of reason and the force of action are always immensely assisted by a vigorous general tone of the personal life. Now appear, in view of these considerations,

THREE GREAT LAWS.

FIRST LAW: The warnings of reason are based in the nature of things within us, and are universal benefactors.

SECOND LAW: Fear is contrary to the ground-plan of life. It is no primary part of the nature of things; it is an alien in the world- system.

THIRD LAW: The destruction of fear always follows the growth of general courage in the individual. The fear-brood will not depart until the soul has acquired a fixed habit of courage. Whatever establishes that habit, or spirit, secures the service of reason- instinct, and so undermines and finally destroys the power of every variety of fear. These laws formulate a great

PRIMARY INJUNCTION.

Let your soul be saturated, with the sure conviction that fear is an alien in the world-system of life, having no proper place nor legitimate rights therein, and meanwhile resolutely set about the task of cultivating in every possible way the permanent habit- spirit of courageous living.

This book was written for the sole purpose of suggesting definite methods by which such courage-habit may be developed. In order that our practical methods may be understood, it is now necessary to analyze the subject of fear in its general outlines.

It is important to remember that the warnings of reason, sometimes called normal fears, may have actual causes outside the mind and are rightly proportioned thereto and to possible consequences, while real fear is due to causes not based in reality, or, if so based, is permitted to agitate the mind in a way not warranted by possible consequences viewed by a rational, well-balanced life. Our analysis, then, exhibits fear where reason ought to appear, in

A GENERAL ENUMERATION OF FEAR-CAUSES.

Fear of hurt of self by self (fear of self): substitute reason, thus--just estimate; no cause; cause magnified.

Fear of hurt of self by outer things (fear for self): substitute reason, thus--just estimate; no cause; cause magnified.

Fear of threat by things: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no cause; cause magnified.

Threat by others: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no cause; cause magnified.

Threat to others: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no cause; cause magnified.

Threat by events: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no cause; cause magnified.

Threat by the future: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no cause; cause magnified.

You are invited to work out the particulars of this analysis, and to examine them with reference to your self and life. You will make some important discoveries. One of the many questions suggested is this: Is the cause of anticipated possible consequences justly estimated in your thought--is it a right cause--is it really as you suppose? The idea is that you think of any one of your fears and then ask the question in the form just indicated. Thus we may have the following statement of

KINDS OF FEARS.

Fear of Self: timidity, lack of confidence, possible unaccountable states.

Fear for Self: weakness, anticipated failure, imagined disgrace.

Fear of Things: animals, inanimate objects, physical forces.

Fear of Others: human beings, apparitions, devils, Deity.

Fear for Others: children, parents, husband, wife, relatives, friends, strangers.

Fear of Events: present, future, imaginary, possible, probable, contingent.

Fear of the Future: in life; beyond the present life.

Instinct and reason strive to place us in right relations with all these causes. The existence in us of fear shows that we already are, either in mind or in fact, in wrong relations therewith.

The mastery of fear involves the discovery of right relations, mental or concrete, and the placing of self in those right conditions which are determined and provided for by the ground- plan of our nature.

And the first thing thus provided for is health. All treatment for the conquest of our universal enemy must begin with development of individual tone: tone of body, tone of mind, tone of the deeper self.

I am not writing for those who are constitutionally fearless, but I have in mind all who do yield to the feeling of fear. Our ideal, however, is not a mere animal courage, not the courage of insensibility. It is rather the courage of the whole man or woman making for the WHITE LIFE. If you are only partially yourself, you cannot possess the highest courage. Such courage may be yours, infallibly, if you will but resolve for the goal and go on into the great ideals of the harmonic personality. This you can do-- anyone can do. And to come thereto is the greatest thing in the world.

You are invited, then, to begin by substituting in your thought the idea of self-preserving reason for any kind of fear (even the so-called normal) as your perpetual guard and guide. Make it a profound conviction of your deepest self that no real harm can come to that self because you have entered the highway of the WHITE LIFE--THE LIFE OF PURITY, REASON, HONOR, GOOD-WILL, AND CONFIDENT ASSURANCE. Swing your life into the unfolding and infolding of the Infinite White Life of Worlds. Courage will become to you the very breath of your lungs.

I send you this sure message: Fear is dead In all the pure, by reason's wisdom led, Who wear white honor and evince good-will, And trust the self to Love's unfailing skill. I send you this sure message: Courage lives When man to Courage all assurance gives.

THE SOUL OF THE CELL.

This crystal of Quartz,--the queen of its tribe, Amethyst, Onyx, Chalcedony, Heliotrope, Agate,-- Some toiler of old Japan, the Artist fantastic, Has polished to likeness of ice, Ruining form to reveal it Fleche d'Amour That the marvelous, delicate, hairlike inclosures Of crystallizations foreign might please the beholder. Herein worked the Infinite well, And, let us say, too, the artisan patient, To one limit--significant boundary! HEALTH!

I request you to define it--configure the wonder Of this dust-common, beneficent Gift. Who lacks it, he knows quite precisely his want; Who has it divulges precisely the thing. Yet never man--scientist, poet, physician-- In words can portray it--the Soul of the Cell,

THAT lurks only in spheres of the Substance of Life; Fares past the quartz and hides in the throat of the wearer. Shuns diamond glory for greater of flesh; Builds higher and higher to balance unstable In beauty of male and in exquisite female, And sends through the intricate meshwork of cells-- Sheer matter, kin of this quartz-- Its evidence: light-hue, radiance crimson, Eye-gleam, pulse-throb, vigor and nerve-thrill Of just that common, miraculous Gift, HEALTH of a body wherein dwells soul.

THERE, say I, the Infinite worked well! Come now to YOU the artisan's skill for this marvel, Physical man: to refine and ennoble; To reveal the inclosure of spirit unmarred, And grow in the mobile, responsive flesh Mind perfect, held fast in OUR Crystal superb, The Universe complete. --THE AUTHOR.