On the question of morbid fears, now known by the name of _phobias_, there exists a great mass of observations, notes, and papers, which is increasing day by day, and contains far more enumerations and descriptions than attempts at explanation. J. Falret and Westphal (in his essay on agoraphobia, 1872) seem to be the first who have entered on this path. To Westphal’s fear of open spaces and Falret’s fear of contact may be added many others; and we pass through a first period, where we find a veritable deluge of _phobias_, each having its special name; one person fears needles, another glass, one low places, another high places, one water, another fire, etc. Every morbid manifestation of fear is immediately fitted with a Greek designation, or one so reputed, and we have aïcmophobia, belenophobia, thalassophobia, potamophobia, etc., even siderodromophobia (the fear of railways) and triakaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13!). The list of these _phobias_ would fill pages, and it is clear that there is no reason why it should ever stop; all the objects in creation might be included in it, if clothed in pseudo-Greek garb. Accordingly, a reaction has taken place. Instead of, as was at first done, considering each phobia separately, naming it after its object, and so losing one’s self in endless varieties, the tendency now is to regard them only as individual cases of a general morbid disposition, whose essential psychological characteristics are a fixed idea or obsession, and symptoms of fear sometimes reaching the dimensions of a paroxysm, and expressing themselves in convulsions and hysterical attacks. Several classifications have been proposed, with a view to introducing some order into this multiplicity. Some proceed subjectively, classifying according to the sensations, perceptions, images, ideas, or feelings which form the basis of the fear. Thus the fear of contact is connected with touch, agoraphobia with sight, and so on. Others proceed objectively; Régis proposes five groups: (1) the fear of inanimate objects; (2) of living beings (fear of crowds, solitude, inoffensive animals); (3) of spaces (agoraphobia, claustrophobia); (4) of meteorological phenomena; (5) of illness (nosophobia, with its very numerous varieties). To be accurate, these classifications, though they may be useful to the clinical lecturer, are of no great advantage to the psychology of fear; the interesting problem lies elsewhere. Before reaching this, let us remark that, apart from any particular fears, there exist some observations on a vague but permanent state of anxiety or terror, which has been called panphobia, or pantophobia (Beard). This is a state in which the patient fears everything or nothing, where anxiety, instead of being riveted on one object, floats as in a dream, and only becomes fixed for an instant at a time, passing from one object to another, as circumstances may determine.