fear

A state of agitation and anxiety prompted by the nearness or imagined nearness of danger or evil. A basic element of the instinct of self-preservation. Fear consists in capitulating to the human instinct of self-preservation. The bravest of men know what it is. It is not a ridiculous malady, nor one that a person need be ashamed of under ordinary circumstances. Everett v Paschall, 61 Wash 47 , 111 P 879. In robbery, the fear which moves the victim to part with his goods may be the apprehension of injury to his person, property or reputation. No matter how slight the cause creating the fear may be, nor by what other circumstances the taking may be accomplished, if the transaction be attended with such circumstances of terror, such threatening by word or gesture, as in common experience are likely to create an apprehension of danger, and to induce a man to part with his property for the safety of his person, he is put in fear. See 46 Am J1st Rob § 16. The fear of disease, which is sometimes an element in depriving a person of the comfortable enjoyment of his property, is real in that it affects the movements and conduct of men. Such fears are actual and must be recognized by the courts as other emotions of the human mind. Everett v Paschall, 61 Wash 47, 111 P 879. See fright.