The dominant emotions which we have been considering as characteristically expressed in the sympathetic division of the autonomic system are fear and rage. These two emotions are not unlike. As James[217] has indicated, “Fear is a reaction aroused by the same objects that arouse ferocity.... We both fear and wish to kill anything that may kill us; and the question which of the two impulses we shall follow is usually decided by some one of those _collateral circumstances_ of the particular case, to be moved by which is the mark of superior mental natures.” The cornering of an animal when in the headlong flight of fear may suddenly turn the fear to fury and the flight to a fighting in which all the strength of desperation is displayed. Furthermore, these dominant emotions are states into which many other commonly milder affective states may be suddenly transformed. As McDougall[218] has pointed out, all instinctive impulses when met with opposition or obstruction give place to, or are complicated by, the pugnacious or combative impulse directed against the source of the obstruction. A dog will bristle at any attempt to take away his food, males will fight furiously when provoked by interference with the satisfaction of the sexual impulse, a man will forget the conventions and turn hot for combat when there is imputation against his honor, and a mother all gentle with maternal devotion is stung to quick resentment and will make a fierce display of her combative resources, if anyone intentionally injures her child. In these instances of thwarted or disturbed instinctive acts the emotional accompaniments--such as the satisfaction of food and of sexual affection, the feeling of self-pride, and the tender love of a parent--are whirled suddenly into anger. And anger in one is likely to provoke anger or fear in the other who for the moment is the object of the strong feeling of antagonism. Anger is the emotion preëminently serviceable for the display of power, and fear is often its counterpart. The visceral changes which accompany fear and rage are the result of discharges by way of sympathetic neurones. It will be recalled that these neurones are arranged for diffuse rather than for narrowly directed effects. So far as these two quite different emotions are concerned, present physiological evidence indicates that differences in visceral accompaniments[*] are not noteworthy--for example, either fear or rage stops gastric secretion (see pp. 10, 11). There is, indeed, obvious reason why the visceral changes in fear and rage should not be _different_, but rather, why they should be _alike_. As already pointed out, these emotions accompany organic preparations for action, and just because the conditions which evoke them are likely to result in flight or conflict (either one requiring perhaps the utmost struggle), the bodily needs in either response are precisely the same.