2. Some morbid fears have their origin in occurrences of childhood _of which no recollection has been retained_. When appealing to the unconscious memory, we place ourselves in a fatally unfavourable position; we enter the domain of the obscure and hypothetical, and lay ourselves open to criticism of all sorts, all the more so as some writers have made an excessive use of the explanation by the unconscious. A minute inquiry into each particular case would be needed. If, however, this hypothesis is difficult to justify by means of positive proof, the part played by the unconscious in psychic life, and particularly with regard to the memory, is so incontestable that we may legitimately admit its sure though secret action. Perhaps those who are seized by strange fears might, if they questioned themselves, discover the cause in some past occurrence. Here, at least, is a case which I give as typical of this group. Mosso asked a soldier, aged seventy, what he had been most afraid of in his life, and the man’s reply was, “I have been face to face with death in many battles; but I am never so frightened as when I come across a lonely chapel in a remote part of the mountains; because, when quite a child, I once saw in such a place the corpse of a murdered man, and a maidservant wished to shut me up with it as a punishment.”[139] Supposing the conscious recollection to be gradually effaced with years, the impression might well remain indelible, though latent, becoming active under given circumstances. Is it rash to say that there are many cases of this kind, with this difference, that the traces leading back to the original cause have vanished? ----- Footnote 139: _Fear_, chap. xi. ----- Cases of strange and insurmountable fear or antipathy have been noticed in some celebrated men: Scaliger was seized with nervous trembling at the sight of water-cress, Bacon fainted during eclipses, Bayle at the sound of running water, James I. at the sight of a naked sword (Morel). Among average human beings many like cases occur, but never become known, for lack of biographers to record them. I am inclined to think that there lies at the root of them some impression of early childhood, embedded in the constitution of the individual, and originating a repulsive tendency which acts as though it were natural.