1. The cause is in some event of a man’s previous life _of which he retains the recollection_. For example: A man walking on a terrace on the top of his house failed to perceive that the balustrade was missing at one spot; he was walking backwards, and would have fallen over the edge had he not been stopped; he contracted permanent agoraphobia.[137] A morbid fear of railways is frequently found in overworked engineers, and especially in men who have narrowly escaped with their lives in a railway accident. The well-known case of Pascal seeing an abyss at his left side, which prevented him from walking forward unless some one held him by the hand, or a chair was placed for him to lean on, was a consequence of his accident at the bridge of Neuilly. It is also said that Peter the Great, having been nearly drowned when a child, felt, on passing a bridge, a fear which he had some difficulty in overcoming. ----- Footnote 137: Gélineau, _Des peurs maladives_, p. 34; see also pp. 18, 109, 126, 169, etc. ----- We can easily see that many _phobias_ come under this category. Now, the cause here is only the exaggeration of a normal fact. Every serious accident leaves behind it a recollection, which, for some, is merely a bald record of the event and the circumstances (intellectual memory), for others, a revival in some degree of the fear formerly experienced (emotional memory); for “phobic” subjects it is (at least potentially) a permanent state, ready to arise when suggested by some association.[138] ----- Footnote 138: Many “phobias” seem to me fresh proofs in favour of the existence of a true emotional memory. -----