brain is directly affected by the powerful emotion of fear and reacts
on the pupils; but Professor Donders informs me that this is an
extremely complicated subject. I may add, as possibly throwing light on
the subject, that Dr. Fyffe, of Netley Hospital, has observed in two
patients that the pupils were distinctly dilated during the cold stage
of an ague fit. Professor Donders has also often seen dilatation of the
pupils in incipient faintness.[1225]
_Horror_. The state of mind expressed by this term implies terror, and
is in some, cases almost synonymous with it. Many a man must have felt,
before the blessed discovery of chloroform, great horror at the thought
of an impending surgical operation. He who dreads, as well as hates a
man, will feel, as Milton uses the word, a horror of him. We feel
horror if we see any one, for instance a child, exposed to some instant
and crushing danger. Almost every one would experience the same feeling
in the highest degree in witnessing a man being tortured or going to be
tortured. In these cases there is no danger to ourselves; but from the
power of the imagination and of sympathy we put ourselves in the
position of the sufferer, and feel something akin to fear.
Horror and Agony. Fig. 21
Sir C. Bell remarks,[1226] that horror is full of energy; the body is
in the utmost tension, not unnerved by fear. It is, therefore,
probable that horror would generally be accompanied by the strong
contraction of the brows; but as fear is one of the elements, the eyes
and mouth would be opened, and the eyebrows would be raised, as far as
the antagonistic action of the corrugators permitted this movement.
Duchenne has given a photograph[1227] (fig. 21) of the same old man as
before, with his eyes somewhat staring, the eyebrows partially raised,
and at the same time strongly contracted, the mouth opened, and the
platysma in action, all effected by the means of galvanism. He
considers that the expression thus produced shows extreme terror with
horrible pain or torture. A tortured man, as long as his sufferings
allowed him to feel any dread for the future, would probably exhibit
horror in an extreme degree. I have shown the original of this
photograph to twenty-three persons of both sexes and various ages; and
thirteen immediately answered horror, great pain, torture, or agony;
201