Although mental culture subdues fear to a large extent, fear reveals itself more or less strongly from time to time, and it is on such occasions that we may find in the human being psychological relics of his ancestors. An analysis of fear is of special interest. The first result of the emotion of fear is flight. Consciousness of danger sets our limbs in motion, and our instinctive desire to escape displays itself even when flight is more dangerous than what we wish to avoid. At the first alarm of fire in a public building, people rush towards the exits and in so doing often perish from their wish to escape. Even in the extreme of terror, the desire of flight is one of the earliest impulses. Mosso, a well-known Italian physiologist, in a monograph on fear, relates that when a Calabrian brigand was sentenced to death “he uttered a sharp cry, heart-rending and terrible, looked around him as if he were eagerly seeking for something, and then stepped backwards as if to fly, and threw himself against the wall of the court, writhing, with arms outstretched, scratching at the wall as if he were trying to break through it.” Although in such a case it was futile and often is harmful, the instinct of flight from danger is inherited from ancestors from a time when it served to save life. Attempts to escape are not the only signs of fear. There is often a trembling fit which would make flight impossible. In Mosso’s case of the Calabrian brigand, “after his struggles, cries and contortions, he fell on the ground in a motionless heap, like a wet rag; he became pale and trembled more than I have seen any other person tremble; his muscles seemed changed into a soft and quivering jelly.” This condition of trembling inertia is another legacy from animals. Quivering of the muscles often manifests itself in terrified animals. Darwin[158] wrote of it, “trembling is of no service, often of much disservice, and cannot at first have been acquired through the will, and then rendered habitual in association with any emotion.” The phenomenon seemed to him obscure and difficult to explain, a view shared by Mosso. The trembling of the musculature of the body is a generalised and exaggerated form of the movements of the cutaneous muscles in the condition known popularly as “goose-skin.” The latter, however, is a relic of an adaptation useful to some animals. The hedgehog rarely takes to flight at the approach of danger, but stands still, and using strongly developed muscles, rolls itself into a ball. In birds and many mammals, the muscles of the skin cause erection of the feathers or hairs. These movements often are performed during fright, and according to Darwin, serve not only to warm the skin, but sometimes to make the animal appear larger and more terrifying to enemies.