Williams James gives a central role to phobias, “pathological” or “morbid fears,” and other “unmotived emotions,” in his theory. In fact, phobias seem to make the core of James' theory of emotions. At least, they constitute the best testing ground:

“The best proof that the immediate cause of emotion is a physical effect on the nerves is furnished by those pathological cases in which the emotion is objectless. One of the chief merits, in fact, of the view which I propose seems to be that we can so easily formulate by its means pathological cases and normal cases under a common scheme. In every asylum, we find examples of absolutely unmotived fear, anger, melancholy, or conceit.” (Briefer Course, 377) 

Though James speaks of an “objectless emotion” (and we will see in what sense on the next page), there is no doubt, in the examples he gives, that he refers to what we would call “phobias.” Thus “certain kinds of 'vermin,' especially spiders and snakes, seem to excite a fear unusually difficult to overcome” (409). Or “high places cause fear of a particular sickening sort, though here again individuals differ enormously” (411). Or “again, take the strange symptom which has been described of late years by the rather absurd name of agoraphobia. The patient is seized with palpitations and terror at the sight of any open place or broad street which has to cross alone” (413-414).

At first sight, it is bizarre to devise a theory of emotions resting on one particular emotion, fear, and on instances of this emotion appearing to the subject who experiences them as aberrant. However, James suggests that the contemporary man might know no other fear than these phobias. He would learn what fear is through phobia:

“The progress from brute to man is characterized by nothing so much as by the decrease in frequency of proper occasions for fear. In civilized life in particular it has at last become possible for large number of people to pass from the cradle to the grave without ever having had a pang of genuine fear. Many of us need an attack of mental disease to teach us the meaning of the word.” (Briefer Course, 408)

James published his Principles of Psychology in 1890, and the abridged version to which I refer here, Psychology: A Briefer Course, in 1892. Some of his late students, some of his readers, will take part in WWI, and certainly know “genuine fear.” Nevertheless, life around Boston in these last days of the 19th century, seems to have been so civilized and sheltered, at least for the wealthy, that it could pass smoothly from beginning to end without ever running into the fearsome, except through an aberration sourced in the subject. For some, this protection was only an illusion, it was fragile, and their life would run into horror.

To some extent, this passage of James expresses a possibly shallow optimism. However, it also sheds light on the relationship between phobia and protection. Of course, it seems that one can only have phobias in a life that is relatively secure. In danger, one has “genuine fear.” But, conversely, as Freud stresses, phobias are also a way to protect oneself. For phobias crystalize fear. If you are above all afraid of “vermin,” you just need to avoid “vermin” so as not to feel fear. Which is relatively easy. That is why one clings to one's phobias. Phobias give to one's life an apparent security. Danger is reduced to one kind, which can be avoided, and which is known to be aberrant. There may be no other fear, there may be no fear, if one is careful to avoid the Thing. Thus the aberrant fear, the objectless emotion, becomes the one emotion of one's life, and possibly the main example for one's theory of emotions.