Where No Fear Was | Page 9

the characteristics of the heron; it would simply die
for lack of food. It is rather that certain minute variations take place, for
unknown reasons, in every species; and the bird which happened to be
hatched out in a fenland with a rather sharper beak or rather longer legs
than his fellows, would have his power of obtaining food slightly
increased, and would thus be more likely to perpetuate in his offspring
that particular advantage of form. This principle working through
endless centuries would tend slowly to develop the stock that was

better equipped for life under such circumstances, and to eliminate
those less suited to the locality; and thus the fittest would tend to
survive. But it does not indicate any design on the part of the birds
themselves, nor any deliberate attempt to develop those characteristics;
it is rather that such characteristics, once started by natural variation,
tend to emphasize themselves in the lapse of time.
No doubt fear has played an enormous part in the progress of the
human race itself. The savage whose imagination was stronger than that
of other savages, and who could forecast the possibilities of disaster,
would wander through the forest with more precaution against wild
beasts, and would make his dwelling more secure against assault; so
that the more timid and imaginative type would tend to survive longest
and to multiply their stock. Man in his physical characteristics is a very
weak, frail, and helpless animal, exposed to all kinds of dangers; his
infancy is protracted and singularly defenceless; his pace is slow, his
strength is insignificant; it is his imagination that has put him at the top
of creation, and has enabled him both to evade dangers and to use
natural forces for his greater security. Though he is the youngest of all
created forms, and by no means the best equipped for life, he has been
able to go ahead in a way denied to all other animals; his inventiveness
has been largely developed by his terrors; and the result has been that
whereas all other animals still preserve, as a condition of life, their
ceaseless attitude of suspicion and fear, man has been enabled by
organisation to establish communities in which fear of disaster plays
but little part. If one watches a bird feeding on a lawn, it is strange to
observe its ceaseless vigilance. It takes a hurried mouthful, and then
looks round in an agitated manner to see that it is in no danger of attack.
Yet it is clear that the terror in which all wild animals seem to live, and
without which self-preservation would be impossible, does not in the
least militate against their physical welfare. A man who had to live his
life under the same sort of risks that a bird in a garden has to endure
from cats and other foes, would lose his senses from the awful pressure
of terror; he would lie under the constant shadow of assassination.
But the singular thing in Nature is that she preserves characteristics
long after they have ceased to be needed; and so, though a man in a
civilised community has very little to dread, he is still haunted by an
irrational sense of insecurity and precariousness. And thus many of our

fears arise from old inheritance, and represent nothing rational or real at
all, but only an old and savage need of vigilance and wariness.
One can see this exemplified in a curious way in level tracts of country.
Everyone who has traversed places like the plain of Worcestershire
must remember the irritating way in which the roads keep ascending
little eminences, instead of going round at the foot. Now these old
country roads no doubt represent very ancient tracks indeed, dating
from times when much of the land was uncultivated. They get
stereotyped, partly because they were tracks, and partly because for
convenience the first enclosures and tillages were made along the roads
for purposes of communication. But the perpetual tendency to ascend
little eminences no doubt dates from a time when it was safer to go up,
in order to look round and to see ahead, partly in order to be sure of
one's direction, and partly to beware of the manifold dangers of the
road.
And thus many of the fears by which one is haunted are these old
survivals, these inherited anxieties. Who does not know the frame of
mind when perhaps for a day, perhaps for days together, the mind is
oppressed and uneasy, scenting danger in the air, forecasting calamity,
recounting all the possible directions in which fate or malice may have
power to wound and hurt us? It is a melancholy inheritance, but it
cannot be combated by any reason. It is of no use then to imitate