It has, however, gradually come to be used in the army as a means of expressing fear in one or other of its forms, an expression by means of which a soldier will talk about fear without explicitly acknowledging the presence of this emotion. I propose here to use the word as a definite expression for fear.
Fear is the emotional or affective aspect of the instinctive process called into activity by danger.
It is the modification of consciousness which accompanies certain instinctive forms of action in response to danger, and especially the response by flight. It is especially intense when there is interference with this or any other form of reaction to danger. It is only in Man that we are able to study by means of introspection the various forms of fear. The first distinction to be made is between the emotional state or states accompanying the actual presence of danger and the various forms of fear which arise when there is only the prospect of danger, while in pathological states a large group of fears or states allied to fear occur independently of either actual or prospective danger. Reaction to actual danger .