Article on fear

Fear is one of the emotions which form the common human experience, and which rule the lives of men and higher animals. It is a sound natural instinct aimed at self-preservation, bordered on the one hand by rational prudence, and by lame cowardice on the othe; but since its roots lie in biological expediency, it cannot sensibly be ragarded as a purely moral subject. In its consequences fear is complex and often unpredictable for man and beast alike. It can stimulate the fleeing deer to extreme endeavour, and totally paralyse the snake's prey; evoke the courage of desperation, and stiffle the bold impulse that might save the day; protect when it is well-founded, and harm when it is illusory or excessive.
The most basic fear is that of immediate bodily harm, and it produces involuntary physical reactions which tend on the whole to be beneficial---the very act of feeling a pang of sudden fear is part and parcel of the body physiological preparation for a state of emergency. The natural instinct is a rough-and-ready programme for countering or avoiding danger. It works quite well, and it works on the balance of probabilities and must therefore occasionally fail.
Man, however, can think, and because thinking implies the ability to foresee, apprehend, imagine, to calculate the odds and to feel responsibility, he is in a position to modify (for better or to worse) his immediate natural reactions. This, together with the conventions of civilized life, has multiplied the sources of fear for man: he can, in fact, fear the wraths of dieties, mental distress and social disgrace as much as physical pain. Thus, Hamlet said, conscience and the pale cast of thought make cowards of us all, but they can equally well give us a strong motive for overcoming instinctive fear and taking the action which the moment seems to demand. With our intellect we can refine the instintive impulses of fear, but we cannot make them infallible.
And so, is fearless to be admired? Not when it stems from failure to assess dangers correctly. Should fear be used as a weapon? Yes and no, for it can correct the child and inhibit the law breaker as well as it can help the tyrant to subjugate a nation. Is fear to be feared? It should be allowed to warn, but not to incapacitate. Another question which often arises is whether there can be true courage without a sense of fear. Certainly a man is to be admired who surmounts his fear for a valid reason, but one can also admire in a different way the man whose temperament enables him to be aware of risks without fearing them.
Unlike the other primtive emotions of love and hate, joy and sorrow, fear cannot therefore be wholly welcomed or rejected. It is part of the natural order of things, like day and night, ease and adversity: we may suffer under it, but our lives would be poorer---and quite possibly shorter---if it were not there to challenge us and to be overcome.