Front matter (continued 6)

A somewhat similar case is on record in which an insane person, during that stage of typhus fever in which sane persons are apt to become delirious, became perfectly sane and reasonable, his insanity returning with returning health. Persons of strongest mind in health are often delirious for a short time before death. Since, then, the idiot in the same stage of approaching dissolution may become intelligent, while the insane may become sane under the conditions which make the sane become delirious, we recognise a relationship between the mental and bodily states which might be of considerable use in the treatment of mental diseases. It may well be that conditions of the nervous system which are to be avoided by persons of normal mental qualities may be advantageously superinduced in the case of those of abnormally weak or abnormally violent mind. It is noteworthy that different conditions would seem to be necessary for the idiotic and for the insane, if the cases cited sufficed to afford basis for generalisation. For the idiot of Miss Martineau's story became intelligent during the intense depression of the bodily powers immediately preceding dissolution, whereas the insane person became sane during that height of fever when delirium commonly makes its appearance.

Sir H. Holland mentions a case which shows that great bodily depression may affect a person of ordinary clear and powerful mind. 'I descended on one and the same day,' he says, 'two very deep mines in the Hartz Mountains, remaining some hours under ground in each. While in the second mine, and exhausted both from fatigue and inanition, I felt the utter impossibility of talking longer with the German Inspector who accompanied me. Every German word and phrase deserted my recollection; and it was not until I had taken food and wine, and been some time at rest, that I regained them again.'

A change in the mental condition is sometimes a sign of approaching serious illness, and is felt to be so by the person experiencing it. An American writer, Mr. Butterworth, quotes the following description given by a near relative of his who was suffering from extreme nervous debility. 'I am in constant fear of insanity,' she said, 'and I wish I could be moved to some retreat for the insane. I understand my condition perfectly; my reason does not seem to be impaired; but I can think of two things at the same time. This is an indication of mental unsoundness, and is a terror to me. I do not seem to have slept at all for the last six months. If I sleep, it must be in a succession of vivid dreams that destroy all impression of somnolence. Since I have been in this condition I seem to have a very vivid impression of what happens to my children who are away from home, and I am often startled to hear that these impressions are correct. I seem to have also a certain power of anticipating what one is about to say, and to read the motives of others. I take no pleasure in this strange increase of mental power; it is all unnatural. I cannot live in this state long, and I often wish I were dead.'

It must, however, be remembered that persons who are in a state of extreme nervous debility, not only possess at times abnormal mental qualities, but are also affected morally. As Huxley has well remarked of some stories bearing on spiritualism, they come from persons who can hardly be trusted even according to their own account of themselves. Mr. Butterworth's relation described a mental condition which, even if quite correctly pictured as she understood it, may yet be explained without believing that any very marvellous increase had taken place in her mental powers. Among the vivid impressions which she constantly had of what might be happening to her children away from home, it would have been strange if some had not been correct. The power of anticipating what others were about to say is one which many imagine they have, mistaking the occasional coincidence between their guesses and what has been next said, for indications of a power which in reality they do not possess. And so also with regard to the motives of others. Many are apt, especially when out of health, to guess at others' motives, sometimes rightly, but oftener very wrongly, yet always rightly in their own belief, no matter what evidence may presently appear to the contrary.

The case cited by Mr. Butterworth affords evidence rather of the unhealthy condition of the patient's mind than of abnormal powers, except as regards the power of thinking of two things at the same time, which we may fairly assume was not ordinarily possessed by its relative. It is rather difficult to define such a power, however. Several persons have apparently possessed the power, showing it by doing two things at the same time which both appear to require thought, and even close attention. Julius Cæsar, for example, could write on one subject and dictate on another simultaneously. But in reality, even in cases such as these, the mind does not think of two things at once. It simply takes them in turn, doing enough with each, in a short time, a mere instant, perhaps, to give work to the pen or to the voice, as the case may be, for a longer time. When Cæsar was writing a sentence, he was not necessarily thinking of what he was writing. He had done the thinking part of the work before; and was free, while continuing the mere mechanical process of writing, to think of matter for dictation to his secretary. So also while he was speaking he was free to think of matter for writing. If, indeed, the thought for each sentence of either kind had occupied an appreciable time, there would have been interruptions of his writing, if not of his dictation (dictation is not commonly a continuous process under any circumstances, even when shorthand writers take down the words). But a practised writer or speaker can in a moment form a sentence which shall occupy a minute in writing and several seconds in speaking.

I certainly do not myself claim the power of thinking of two things at once,—nay, I believe that no one ever had or could have such a power: yet I find it perfectly easy, when lecturing, to arrange the plan for the next ten minutes' exposition of a scientific subject, and to adopt the words themselves for the next twenty seconds or so, while continuing to speak without the least interruption. I can also work out a calculation on the black-board while continuing to speak of matters outside the subject of the calculation. It is more a matter of habit than an indication of any mental power, natural or acquired, to speak or write sentences; even of considerable length, after the mind has passed on to other matters. In a similar way some persons can write different words with the right and left hands, and this, too, while speaking of other matters. (I have seen this done by Professor Morse, the American naturalist, whose two hands added words to the diagrams he had drawn while his voice dealt with other parts of the drawing: to add to the wonder, too, he wrote the words indifferently from right to left or from left to right.) In reality the person who thus does two things at once is no more thinking of two things at once than a clock is, when the striking and the working machinery are both in action at the same time.[20]

As an illustration of special mental power shown in health, by a person whose mental condition in illness we shall consider afterwards, Sir Walter Scott may be mentioned. The account given by his amanuensis has seemed surprising to many, unfamiliar with the nature of literary composition (at least after long practice), but is in reality such as anyone who writes much can quite readily understand, or might even have known must necessarily be correct. 'His thoughts,' says the secretary to whom Scott dictated his Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, 'flowed easily and felicitously, without any difficulty to lay hold of them or to find appropriate language' (which, by the way, is more than all would say who had read Scott's Life of Buonaparte, and certainly more than can be said of his secretary, unless it really was a familiar experience with him to be unable to lay hold of his thoughts). 'This was evident by the absence of all solicitude (miseria cogitandi) from his countenance. He sat in his chair, from which he rose now and then, took a volume from the book-case, consulted it, and restored it to the shelf—all without intermission in the current of ideas, which continued to be delivered with no less readiness than if his mind had been wholly occupied with the words he was uttering. It soon became apparent to me, however, that he was carrying on two distinct trains of thought, one of which was already arranged and in the act of being spoken, while at the same time he was in advance, considering what was afterwards to be said. This I discovered' (he should rather have said, 'this I was led to infer') 'by his sometimes introducing a word which was wholly out of place—entertained instead of denied, for example—but which I presently found to belong to the next sentence, perhaps four or five lines further on, which he had been preparing at the very moment when he gave me the words of the one that preceded it.' In the same way I have often unconsciously substituted one word for another in lecturing, the word used always belonging to a later sentence than the word intended to be used. I have noticed also this peculiarity, that when a substitution of this kind has been once made, an effort is required to avoid repeating the mistake, even if it be not repeated quite unconsciously to the end of the discourse. In this way, for example, I once throughout an entire lecture used the word 'heavens' for the word 'screen' (the screen on which lantern pictures were shown). A similar peculiarity may be noticed with written errors. Thus in my treatise on a scientific subject, in which the utmost care had been given to minute points of detail, I once wrote 'seconds' for 'minutes' throughout several pages—in fact, from the place where first the error was made, to the end of the chapter. (See the first edition of my Transits of Venus, pp. 131-136, noting as an additional peculiarity that the whole object of the chapter in which this mistake was made was to show how many minutes of difference existed between the occurrence of certain events.)

An even more curious instance of a mistake arising from doing one thing while thinking of another occurred to me fourteen years ago. I was correcting the proof-sheets of an astronomical treatise in which occurred these words: 'Calling the mean distance of the earth 1, Saturn's mean distance is 9·539; again, calling the earth's period 1, Saturn's mean period is 29·457:—now what relation exists between these numbers 9·539 and 29·457 and their powers? The first is less than the second, but the square of the first is plainly greater than the second; we must therefore try higher powers, &c. &c.' The passage was quite correct as it stood, and if the two processes by which I was correcting verbal errors and following the sense of the passage had been really continuous processes of thought, unquestionably the passage would have been left alone. If the passage had been erroneous and had been simply left in that condition the case would have been one only too familiar to those who have had occasion to correct proofs. But what I actually did was deliberately to make nonsense of the passage while improving the sound of the second sentence. I made it run, 'the first is less than the second, but the square of the first is plainly greater than the square of the second,' the absurdity of which statement a child would detect. If the first proof in its correct form, with the incorrect correction carefully written down in the margin, had not existed when, several months later, the error was pointed out in the Quarterly Journal of Science, I should have felt sure that I had written the words wrongly at the outset. For blunders such as this are common enough. But that I should deliberately have taken a correctly worded sentence and altered it into utter absurdity I could not, but for the evidence, have believed to be possible. The case plainly shows that not only may two things be done at once when the mind, nevertheless, is thinking only of one, but that something may be done which suggests deliberate reflection when in reality the mind is elsewhere or not occupied at all. For in this case both the processes on which I was engaged were manifestly carried on without thought, one being purely mechanical and the other, though requiring thought if properly attended to, being so imperfectly effected as to show that no thought was given to it.

To return to Sir Walter Scott. It is known but too well that during the later years of his life there came with bodily prostration a great but not constant failure of his mental powers. Some of the phenomena presented during this part of his career are strikingly illustrative of abnormal mental action occurring even at times when the mental power is on the whole much weakened. The Bride of Lammermoor, though not one of the best of Scott's novels, is certainly far above such works as Count Robert of Paris, The Betrothed, and Castle Dangerous. Its popularity may perhaps be attributed chiefly to the deep interest of the 'ower true tale' on which it is founded: but some of the characters are painted with exceeding skill. Lucy herself is almost a nonentity, and Edgar is little more than a gloomy, unpleasant man, made interesting only by the troubles which fall on him. But Caleb Balderstone and Ailsie Gourlay stand out from the canvas as if alive; they are as lifelike and natural, yet as thoroughly individualised as Edie Ochiltree and Meg Merrilies. The novel neither suggested when it first appeared, nor has been regarded even after the facts became known, as suggesting that Scott, when he wrote it, was in bad health. Yet it was produced under pressure of severe illness, and when Scott was at least in this sense unconscious, that nothing of what he said and did in connection with the work was remembered when he recovered. 'The book,' says James Ballantyne, 'was not only written, but published, before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his bed; and he assured me that when it was first put into his hands in a complete shape, he did not recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained! He did not desire me to understand, nor did I understand, that his illness had erased from his memory the original incidents of the story, with which he had been acquainted from his boyhood. These remained rooted where they had ever been; or, to speak more explicitly, he remembered the general facts of the existence of the father and mother, of the son and daughter, of the rival lovers, of the compulsory marriage, and the attack made by the bride upon the hapless bridegroom, with the general catastrophe of the whole. All these things he recollected, just as he did before he took to his bed; but he literally recollected nothing else—not a single character woven by the romancer, not one of the many scenes and points of humour, not anything with which he was himself connected, as the writer of the work.

Later, when Scott was breaking down under severe and long-continued labour, and first felt the approach of the illness which ultimately ended in death, he experienced strange mental phenomena. In his diary for February 17, 1829, he notes that on the preceding day, at dinner, though in company with two or three old friends, he was haunted by 'a sense of pre-existence,' a confused idea that nothing that passed was said for the first time; that the same topics had been discussed, and that the same persons had expressed the same opinions before. 'There was a vile sense of a want of reality in all that I did or said.'

Dr. Reynolds related to Dr. Carpenter a case in which a Dissenting minister, who was in apparently sound health, was rendered apprehensive of brain-disease—though, as it seemed, without occasion—by a lapse of memory similar to that experienced by Sir Walter Scott. He 'went through an entire pulpit service on a certain Sunday morning with the most perfect consistency—his choice of hymns and lessons, and his extempore prayer being all related to the subject of his sermon. On the following Sunday morning he went through the introductory part of the service in precisely the same manner—giving out the same hymns, reading the same lessons, and directing the extempore prayer in the same channel. He then gave out the same text and preached the very same sermon as he had done on the previous Sunday. When he came down from the pulpit, it was found that he had not the smallest remembrance of having gone through precisely the same service on the previous Sunday; and when he was assured of it, he felt considerable uneasiness lest his lapse of memory should indicate some impending attack of illness. None such, however, supervened; and no rationale can be given of this curious occurrence, the subject of it not being liable to fits of "absence of mind" and not having had his thoughts engrossed at the time by any other special pre-occupation.' It is possible that the explanation here is the simple one of mere coincidence. Whether this explanation is available or not would depend entirely on the question whether the preacher's memory was ordinarily trustworthy or not, whether in fact he would remember the arrangements, prayers, sermon, &c., he had given on any occasion. These matters becoming, after long habit, almost automatic, it might very well happen that the person going through such duties would remember them no longer and no better than one who had been present when they were performed, and who had not paid special attention to them. That if he had thus unconsciously carried out his duties on one Sunday he should (being to this degree forgetful) conduct them in precisely the same way on the next Sunday, would rather tend to show that his mental faculties were in excellent working order than the reverse. Wendell Holmes tells a story which effectively illustrates my meaning; and he tells it so pleasantly (as usual) that I shall quote it unaltered. 'Sometimes, but rarely,' he says, 'one may be caught making the same speech twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus a certain lecturer' (Holmes himself, doubtless), 'after performing in an inland city, where dwells a littératrice of note, was invited to meet her and others over the social tea-cup. She pleasantly referred to his many wanderings in his new occupation. "Yes," he replied, "I am like the huma, the bird that never lights, being always in the cars, as he is always on the wing." Years elapsed. The lecturer visited the same place once more for the same purpose. Another social cup after the lecture, and a second meeting with the distinguished lady. "You are constantly going from place to place," she said. "Yes," he answered, "I am like the huma," and finished the sentence as before. What horror when it flashed over him that he had made this fine speech, word for word, twice over! Yet it was not true, as the lady might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had embellished his conversation with the huma daily during that whole interval of years. On the contrary, he had never once thought of the odious fowl until the recurrence of precisely the same circumstances brought up precisely the same idea.' He was not in the slightest degree afraid of brain-disease. On the contrary, he considered the circumstance indicative of good order in the mental mechanism. 'He ought to have been proud,' says Holmes, speaking for him, and meaning no doubt that he was proud, 'of the accuracy of his mental adjustments. Given certain factors, and a sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the certainty of Babbage's calculating machine.'

Somewhat akin to the unconscious recurrence of mental processes after considerable intervals of time is the tendency to imitate the actions of others as though sharing in their thoughts, and according to many because mind acts upon mind. This tendency, though not always associated with disease, is usually a sign of bodily illness. Dr. Carpenter mentions the following singular case, but rather as illustrating generally the influence of suggestions derived from external sources in determining the current of thought, than as showing how prone the thoughts are to run in undesirable currents when the body is out of health:—'During an epidemic of fever, in which an active delirium had been a common symptom, it was observed that many of the patients of one particular physician were possessed by a strong tendency to throw themselves out of the window, whilst no such tendency presented itself in unusual frequency in the practice of others. The author's informant, Dr. C., himself a distinguished professor in the university, explained the tendency of what had occurred within his own knowledge; he having been himself attacked by the fever, and having been under the care of this physician, his friend and colleague, Dr. A. Another of Dr. A.'s patients whom we shall call Mr. B., seems to have been the first to make the attempt in question; and impressed with the necessity of taking due precautions, Dr. A. then visited Dr. C., in whose hearing he gave directions to have the windows properly secured, as Mr. B. had attempted to throw himself out. Now Dr. C. distinctly remembers, that although he had not previously experienced any such desire, it came upon him with great urgency as soon as ever the idea was thus suggested to him; his mind being just in that state of incipient delirium which is marked by the temporary dominance of some one idea, and by the want of volitional power to withdraw the attention from it. And he deemed it probable that, as Dr. A. went on to Mr. D., Mr. E., &c., and gave similar directions, a like desire would be excited in the minds of all those who might happen to be in the same impressible condition.' The case is not only interesting as showing how the mind in disease receives certain impressions more strongly than in health, and in a sense may thus be said to possess for the time an abnormal power, but it affords a useful hint to doctors and nurses, who do not always (the latter indeed scarcely ever) consider the necessity of extreme caution when speaking about their patients and in their presence. It is probable that a considerable proportion of the accidents, fatal and otherwise, which have befallen delirious patients might be traced to incautious remarks made in their hearing by foolish nurses or forgetful doctors.

In some cases doctors have had to excite a strong antagonistic feeling against tendencies of this kind. Thus Zerffi relates that an English physician was once consulted by the mistress of a ladies' school where many girls had become liable to fits of hysterics. He tried several remedies, but in vain. At last, justly regarding the epidemic as arising from the influence of imagination on the weaker girls (one hysterical girl having infected the others), he determined to exert a stronger antagonistic influence on the weak minds of his patients. He therefore remarked casually to the mistress of the school, in the hearing of the girls, that he had now tried all methods but one, which he would try, as a last resource, when next he called—'the application of a red-hot iron to the spine of the patients so as to quiet their nervously-excited systems.' 'Strange to say,' remarks Zerffi—meaning, no doubt, 'it is hardly necessary to say that'—'the red-hot iron was never applied, for the hysterical attacks ceased as if by magic.'

In another case mentioned by Zerffi, a revival mania in a large school near Cologne was similarly brought to an abrupt end. The Government sent an inspector. He found that the boys had visions of Christ, the Virgin, and departed saints. He threatened to close the school if these visions continued, and thus to exclude the students from all the prospects which their studies afforded them. 'The effect was as magical as the red-hot iron remedy—the revivals ceased as if by magic.'

The following singular cases are related in Zimmermann's Solitude:—A nun, in a very large convent in France, began to mew like a cat. At last all the nuns began to mew together every day at a certain time, and continued mewing for several hours together. This daily cat-concert continued, until the nuns were informed that a company of soldiers was placed by the police before the entrance to the convent, and that the soldiers were provided with rods with which they would whip the nuns until they promised not to mew any more,' ... 'In the fifteenth century, a nun in a German convent fell to biting her companions. In the course of a short time all the nuns of this convent began biting each other. The news of this infatuation among the nuns soon spread, and excited the same elsewhere; the biting mania passing from convent to convent through a great part of Germany. It afterwards visited the nunneries of Holland, and even spread as far as Rome.' No suggestion of bodily disease is made in either case. But anyone who considers how utterly unnatural is the manner of life in monastic communities will not need the evidence derived from the spread of such preposterous habits to be assured that in convents the perfectly sane mind in a perfectly healthy body must be the exception rather than the rule.

The dancing mania, which spread through a large part of Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although it eventually attacked persons who were seemingly in robust health, yet had its origin in disease. Dr. Hecker, who has given the most complete account we have of this strange mania, in his Epidemics of the Middle Ages, says that when the disease was completely developed the attack commenced with epileptic convulsions. 'Those affected fell to the ground senseless, panting and labouring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and suddenly springing up began their dance amidst strange contortions. They formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to have lost all control over their senses continued dancing, regardless of the bystanders, for hours together, in wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed in clothes bound tightly round their waists; upon which they again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the next attack.... While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses; but they were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits, whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high. Others during the paroxysm saw the heavens open, and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the religious notions of the age were strangely and variously reflected in their imaginations.' The epidemic attacked people of all stations, but especially those who led a sedentary life, such as shoemakers and tailors; yet even the most robust peasants finally yielded to it. They 'abandoned their labours in the fields as if they were possessed by evil spirits, and those affected were seen assembling indiscriminately from time to time, at certain appointed places, and unless prevented by the lookers-on, continued to dance without intermission, until their very last breath was expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour so completely deprived them of their senses, that many of them dashed their brains out against the walls and corners of buildings, or rushed headlong in rapid rivers, where they found a watery grave. Roaring and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by placing benches and chairs in their way, so that by the high leaps they were thus tempted to take, their strength might be exhausted. As soon as this was the case they fell, as it were, lifeless to the ground, and by very slow degrees recovered their strength. Many there were who even with all this exertion had not expended the violence of the tempest which raged within them; but awoke with newly revived powers, and again and again mixed with the crowd of dancers; until at length the violent excitement of their disordered nerves was allayed by the great involuntary exertion of their limbs, and the mental disorder was calmed by the exhaustion of the body. The cure effected by these stormy attacks was in many cases so perfect, that some patients returned to the factory or plough, as if nothing had happened. Others, on the contrary, paid the penalty of their folly by so total a loss of power, that they could not regain their former health, even by the employment of the most strengthening remedies.'

It may be doubted, perhaps, by some whether such instances as these illustrate so much the state to which the mind is reduced when the body is diseased, as the state to which the body is reduced when the mind is diseased, though, as we have seen, the dancing mania when fully developed followed always on bodily illness. In the cases we now have to deal with, the diseased condition of the body was unmistakable.

Mrs. Hemans on her deathbed said that it was impossible for imagination to picture or pen to describe the delightful visions which passed before her mind. They made her waking hours more delightful than those passed in sleep. It is evident that these visions had their origin in the processes of change affecting the substance of the brain as the disease of the body progressed. But it does not follow that the substance of the brain was undergoing changes necessarily tending to its ultimate decay and dissolution. Quite possibly the changes were such as might occur under the influence of suitable medicinal or stimulant substances, and without any subsequent ill effects. Dr. Richardson, in an interesting article on ether-drinking and extra-alcoholic intoxication (Gentleman's Magazine for October), makes a remark which suggests that the medical men of our day look forward to the discovery of means for obtaining some such influence over the action of the brain. After describing the action of methylic and ethylic ethers in his own case, he says: 'They who have felt this condition, who have lived as it were in another life, however transitorily, are easily led to declare with Davy that "nothing exists but thoughts! the universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures, and pains!" I believe it is so, and that we might by scientific art, and there is such an art, learn to live altogether in a new sphere of impressions, ideas, pleasures, and pains.' But stay,' he adds, as if he had said too much, 'I am anticipating, unconsciously, something else that is in my mind. The rest is silence; I must return to the world in which we now live, and which all know.'

Mr. Butterworth mentions the case of the Rev. William Tennent, of Freehold, New Jersey, as illustrative of strange mental faculties possessed during disease. Tennent was supposed to be far gone in consumption. At last, after a protracted illness, he seemingly died, and preparations were made for his funeral. Not only were his friends deceived, but he was deceived himself, for he thought he was dead, and that his spirit had entered Paradise. 'His soul, as he thought, was borne aloft to celestial altitudes, and was enraptured by visions of God and all the hosts of Heaven. He seemed to dwell in an enchanted region of limitless light and inconceivable splendour. At last an angel came to him and told him that he must go back. Darkness, like an overawing shadow, shut out the celestial glories; and, full of sudden horror, he uttered a deep groan. This dismal utterance was heard by those around him, and prevented him from being buried alive, after all the preparations had been made for the removal of the body.'

We must not fall into the mistake of supposing, however, as many seem to do, that the visions seen under such conditions, or by ecstatics, really present truths of which the usual mental faculties could not become cognisant. We have heard such cases as the deathbed visions of Mrs. Hemans, and the trance visions of Tennent, urged as evidence in favour of special forms of doctrine. We have no thought of attacking these, but assuredly they derive no support from evidence of this sort. The dying Hindoo has visions which the Christian would certainly not regard as heaven-born. The Mahomedan sees the plains of Paradise, peopled by the houris of his heaven, but we do not on that account accept the Koran as the sole guide to religious truth. The fact is, that the visions pictured by the mind during the disease of the body, or in the ecstatic condition, have their birth in the mind itself, and take their form from the teachings with which that mind has been imbued. They may, indeed, seem utterly unlike those we should expect from the known character of the visionary, just as the thoughts of a dying man may be, and often are, very far removed from the objects which had occupied all his attention during the later years of his life. But if the history of the childhood and youth of an ecstatic could be fully known, or if (which is exceedingly unlikely) we could obtain a strictly truthful account of such matters from himself, we should find nearly every circumstance of his visions explained, or at least an explanation suggested. For, after all, much which would be necessary to exactly show the origin of all he saw, would be lost, since the brain retains impressions of many things of which the conscious memory has entirely passed away.

The vivid picturing of forgotten events of life is a familiar experience of the opium-eater. Thus De Quincey says: 'The minutest incidents of childhood or forgotten scenes of later years, were often revived. I could not be said to recollect them, for if I had been told of them when waking, I should not have been able to acknowledge them as part of my past experience. But placed as they were before me in dreams like intuitions, and clothed in all their evanescent circumstances and accompanying feelings, I recognised them instantaneously.' A similar return of long-forgotten scenes and incidents to the mind may be noticed, though not to the same degree, when wine has been taken in moderate quantity after a long fast.

The effects of hachisch are specially interesting in this connection, because, unless a very powerful dose has been taken, the hachischin does not wholly lose the power of introspection, so that he is able afterwards to recall what has passed through his mind when he was under the influence of the drug. Now Moreau, in his interesting Etudes Psychologiques (Du Hachich et d'Aliénation Mentale), says that the first result of a dose sufficient to produce the hachisch fantasia is a feeling of intense happiness. 'It is really happiness which is produced by the hachisch; and by this simply an enjoyment entirely moral, and by no means sensual as we might be induced to suppose. This is surely a very curious circumstance; and some remarkable inferences might be drawn from it; this, for instance, among others—that every feeling of joy and gladness, even when the cause of it is exclusively moral—that those enjoyments which are least connected with material objects, the most spiritual, the most ideal, may be nothing else than sensations purely physical, developed in the interior of the system, as are those procured by hachisch. At least so far as relates to that of which we are internally conscious, there is no distinction between these two orders of sensations, in spite of the diversity in the causes to which they are due; for the hachisch-eater is happy, not like the gourmand or the famished man when satisfying his appetite, or the voluptuary in gratifying his amative desires, but like him who hears tidings which fill him with joy, like the miser counting his treasures, the gambler who is successful at play, or the ambitious man who is intoxicated with success.'

My special object, however, in noting the effects of opium and hachisch, is rather to note how the mental processes or faculties observed during certain states of disease may be produced artificially, than to enter into the considerations discussed by Dr. Moreau. It is singular that while the Mohamedan order of Hachischin (or Assassins) bring about by the use of their favourite drug such visions as accompany the progress of certain forms of disease, the Hindoo devotees called the Yogi are able to produce artificially the state of mind and body recognised in cataleptic patients. The less-advanced Yogi can only enter the state of abstraction called reverie; but the higher orders can simulate absolute inanition, the heart apparently ceasing to beat, the lungs to act, and the nerves to convey impressions to the brain, even though the body be subjected to processes which would cause extreme torture under ordinary conditions. 'When in this state,' says Carpenter, 'the Yogi are supposed to be completely possessed by Brahma, "the supreme soul," and to be incapable of sin in thought, word, or deed.' It has been supposed that this was the state into which those entered who in old times were resorted to as oracles. But it has happened that in certain stages of disease the power of assuming the death-like state has been possessed for a time. Thus Colonel Townsend, who died in 1797, we read, had in his last sickness the extraordinary power of apparently dying and returning to life again at will. 'I found his pulse sink gradually,' says Dr. Cheyne, who attended him, 'so that I could not feel it by the most exact or nice touch. Dr. Raymond could not detect the least motion of the heart, nor Dr. Skrine the least soil of the breath upon the bright mirror held to the mouth. We began to fear he was actually dead. He then began to breathe softly.' Colonel Townsend repeated the experiment several times during his illness, and could always render himself insensible at will.

Lastly, I may mention a case, which, however, though illustrating in some degree the influence of bodily illness on the mind, shows still more strikingly how the mind may influence the body—that of Louise Lateau, the Belgian peasant. This girl had been prostrated by a long and exhausting illness, from which she recovered rapidly after receiving the sacrament. This circumstance made a strong impression on her mind. Her thoughts dwelt constantly on the circumstances attending the death of Christ. At length she noticed that, on every Friday, blood came from a spot in her left side. 'In the course of a few months similar bleeding spots established themselves on the front and back of each hand, and on the upper surface of each foot, while a circle of small spots formed in the forehead, and the hæmorrhage from these recurred every Friday, sometimes to a considerable amount. About the same time, fits of ecstasy began to occur, commencing every Friday between eight and nine in the morning, and ending about six in the evening; interrupting her in conversation, in prayer, or in manual occupations. This state,' says Dr. Carpenter, 'appears to have been intermediate between that of the biologised and that of the hypnotised subject; for whilst as unconscious as the latter of all sense-impressions, she retained, like the former, a recollection of all that had passed through her mind during the ecstasy. She described herself as suddenly plunged into a vast flood of bright light, from which more or less distinct forms began to evolve themselves; and she then witnessed the several scenes of the Passion successively passing before her. She minutely described the cross and the vestments, the wounds, the crown of thorns about the head of the Saviour, and gave various details regarding the persons about the cross, the disciples, holy women, Jews and Roman soldiers. And the progress of her vision might be traced by the succession of actions she performed at various stages of it: most of these movements were expressive of her own emotions, whilst regularly about three in the afternoon she extended her limbs in the form of a cross. The fit terminated with a state of extreme physical prostration; the pulse being scarcely perceptible, the breathing slow and feeble, and the whole surface bedewed with a cold perspiration. After this state had continued for about ten minutes, a return to the normal condition rapidly took place.'

There seems no reason for supposing that there was any deceit on the part of Louise Lateau herself, though that she was self-deceived no one can reasonably doubt. Of course many in Belgium, especially the more ignorant and superstitious (including large numbers of the clergy and of religious orders of men and women), believed that her ecstasies were miraculous, and no doubt she believed so herself. But none of the circumstances observed in her case, or related by her, were such as the physiologist would find any difficulty in accepting or explaining. Her visions were such as might have been expected in a person of her peculiar nervous organisation, weakened as her body had been by long illness, and her mind affected by what she regarded as her miraculous recovery. As to the transudation of blood from the skin, Dr. Tuke, in his 'Illustrations of the Influence of the Mind upon the Body in Health and Disease' (p. 267), shows the phenomenon to be explicable naturally. It is a well-authenticated fact, that under strong emotional excitement blood escapes through the perspiratory ducts, apparently through the rupture of the walls of the capillary passages of the skin.

We see, then, in Louise Lateau's case, how the mind affected by disease may acquire faculties not possessed during health, and how in turn the mind thus affected may influence the body so strangely as to suggest to ignorant or foolish persons the operation of supernatural agencies.

The general conclusion to which we seem led by the observed peculiarities in the mental faculties during disease is, that the mind depends greatly on the state of the body for the co-ordination of its various powers. In health, these are related in what may be called the normal manner. Faculties capable of great development under other conditions exist in moderate degree only, while probably, either consciously or unconsciously, certain faculties are held in control by others. But during illness, faculties not ordinarily used suddenly or very rapidly acquire undue predominance, and controlling faculties usually effective are greatly weakened. Then for a while the mental capacity seems entirely changed. Powers supposed not to exist at all (for of mental faculties, as of certain other qualities, de non existentibus et de non apparentibus eadem est ratio) seem suddenly created, as if by a miracle. Faculties ordinarily so strong as to be considered characteristic seem suddenly destroyed, since they no longer produce any perceptible effect. Or, as Brown-Sequard says, summing up the results of a number of illustrative cases described in a course of lectures delivered in Boston: 'It would seem that the mind is largely dependent on physical conditions for the exercise of its faculties, and that its strength and most remarkable powers, as well as its apparent weakness, are often most clearly shown and recognised by some inequality of action in periods of disturbed and greatly impaired health.'

FOOTNOTES:

DUAL CONSCIOUSNESS.

Rather more than two years ago I considered in the pages of 'Science Byways' the theory originally propounded by Sir Henry Holland, but then recently advocated by Dr. Brown-Sequard, of New York, that we have two brains, each perfectly sufficient for the full performance of mental functions. I did not for my own part either advocate or oppose that theory, but simply considered the facts which had been urged in support of it, or which then occurred to me as bearing upon it, whether for or against. I showed, however, that some classes of phenomena which had been quoted in support of the theory seemed in reality opposed to it, when all the circumstances were considered. For example, Brown-Sequard had referred to some of those well-known cases in which during severe illness a language forgotten in the patient's ordinary condition had been recalled, the recollection of the language enduring only while the illness lasted. I pointed to a case in which there had not been two mental conditions only, as indicated by the language of the patient, but three; the person in question having in the beginning of his illness spoken English only, in the middle of his illness French only, and on the day of his death Italian only (the language of his childhood). The interpretation of that case, and of others of a similar kind, must, I remarked, be very different from that which Brown-Sequard assigned, perhaps correctly, 'to cases of twofold mental life.' A case of the last-named kind has recently been discussed in scientific circles, which seems to me to bear very forcibly on the question whether Holland's theory of a dual brain is correct. I propose briefly to describe and examine this case, and some others belonging to the same class, two of which were touched upon in my former essay, but slightly only, as forming but a small part of the evidence dealt with by Brown-Sequard, whose arguments I was then considering. I wish now to deal, not with the question of the duality of the brain, but with the more general question of dual or intermittent consciousness.

Among the cases dealt with by Brown-Sequard was that of a boy at Notting Hill, who had two mental lives. Neither life presented anything specially remarkable in itself. The boy was a well-mannered lad in his abnormal as well as in his normal condition,—or one might almost say (as will appear more clearly after other cases have been considered) that the two boys were quiet and well-behaved. But the two mental lives were entirely distinct. In his normal condition the boy remembered nothing which had happened in his abnormal condition; and vice versâ, in his abnormal condition he remembered nothing which had happened in his normal condition. He changed from either condition to the other in the same manner. 'The head was seen to fall suddenly, and his eyes closed, but he remained erect if standing at the time, or if sitting he remained in that position (if talking, he stopped for a while, and if moving, he stopped moving); and after a minute or two his head rose, he started up, opened his eyes, and was wide awake again.' While the head was drooped he appeared as if either sleeping or falling asleep. He remained in the abnormal state for a period which varied between one hour and three hours; it appears that every day, or nearly every day, he fell once into his abnormal condition.

This case need not detain us long; but there are some points in it which deserve more attention than they seem to have received from Dr. Brown-Sequard. It is clear that if the normal and abnormal mental lives of this boy had been entirely distinct, then in the abnormal condition he would have been ignorant and—in those points in which manners depend on training—ill-mannered. He would have known only, in this condition, what he had learned in this condition; and as only about a tenth part of his life was passed in the abnormal condition, and presumably that portion of his life not usually selected as a suitable time for teaching him, the abnormal boy would of necessity have been much more backward in all things which the young are taught than the normal boy. As nothing of this kind was noted, it would appear probable that the boy's earlier years were common to both lives, and that his unconsciousness of his ordinary life during the abnormal condition extended only to those parts of his ordinary life which had passed since these seizures began. Unfortunately, Brown-Sequard's account does not mention when this had happened.

It does not appear that the dual brain theory is required so far as this case is concerned. The phenomena seem rather to suggest a peculiarity in the circulation of the brain corresponding in some degree to the condition probably prevailing during somnambulism or hypnotism, though with characteristic differences. It may at least be said that no more valid reason exists for regarding this boy's case as illustrating the distinctive duality of the brain than for so regarding some of the more remarkable cases of somnambulism; for though these differ in certain respects from the boy's case, they resemble it in the circumstances on which Brown Sequard's argument is founded. Speaking generally of hypnotism,—that is, of somnambulism artificially produced,—Dr. Carpenter says, 'In hypnotism, as in ordinary somnambulism, no remembrance whatever is preserved, in the waking state, of anything that may have occurred during its continuance; although the previous train of thought may be taken up and continued uninterruptedly on the next occasion when hypnotism is induced.' In these respects the phenomena of hypnotism precisely resemble those of dual consciousness as observed in the boy's case. In what follows, we observe features of divergence. Thus 'when the mind is not excited to activity by the stimulus of external impressions, the hypnotised subject appears to be profoundly asleep; a state of complete torpor, in fact, being usually the first result of the process just described, and any subsequent manifestation of activity being procurable only by the prompting of the operator. The hypnotised subject, too, rarely opens his eyes; his bodily movements are usually slow; his mental operations require a considerable time for their performance; and there is altogether an appearance of heaviness about him which contrasts strongly with the comparatively wide-awake air of him who has not passed beyond the ordinary biological state.'

It would not be easy to find an exact parallel to the case of the two-lived boy in any recorded instance of somnambulism. In fact, it is to be remembered that recorded instances of mental phenomena are all selected for the very reason that they are exceptional, so that it would be unreasonable to expect them closely to resemble each other. One case, however, may be cited, which in certain points resembles the case of Dr. Brown-Sequard's patient. It occurred within Dr. Carpenter's own experience. A young lady of highly nervous temperament suffered from a long and severe illness, characterised by all the most marked forms of hysterical disorder. In the course of this illness came a time when she had a succession of somnambulistic seizures. 'The state of somnambulism usually supervened in this case in the waking state, instead of arising, as it more commonly does, out of the conditions of ordinary sleep. In this condition her ideas were at first entirely fixed upon one subject—the death of her only brother, which had occurred some years previously. To this brother she had been very strongly attached; she had nursed him in his last illness; and it was perhaps the return of the anniversary of his death, about the time when the somnambulism first occurred, that gave to her thoughts that particular direction. She talked constantly of him, retraced all the circumstances of his illness, and was unconscious of anything that was said to her which had not reference to this subject.... Although her eyes were open, she recognised no one in this state,—not even her own sister, who, it should be mentioned, had not been at home at the time of her brother's last illness.' (It will presently appear, however, that she was able to recognise those who were about her during these attacks, since she retained ill-feeling against one of them; moreover, the sentences which immediately follow suggest that the sense of sight was not dormant.) 'It happened on one occasion, that when she passed into this condition, her sister, who was present, was wearing a locket containing some of their deceased brother's hair. As soon as she perceived this locket she made a violent snatch at it, and would not be satisfied until she had got it into her possession, when she began to talk to it in the most endearing and even extravagant terms. Her feelings were so strongly excited on this subject, that it was deemed prudent to check them; and as she was inaccessible to all entreaties for the relinquishment of the locket, force was employed to obtain it from her. She was so determined, however, not to give it up, and was so angry at the gentle violence used, that it was found necessary to abandon the attempt, and having become calmer after a time, she passed off into ordinary sleep. Before going to sleep, however, she placed the locket under her pillow, remarking, "Now I have hid it safely, and they shall not take it from me." On awaking in the morning she had not the slightest consciousness of what had passed; but the impression of the excited feelings still remained, for she remarked to her sister, 'I cannot tell what it is that makes me feel so, but every time that S. comes near me I have a kind of shuddering sensation;' the individual named being a servant, whose constant attention to her had given rise to a feeling of strong attachment on the side of the invalid, but who had been the chief actor in the scene of the previous evening. This feeling wore off in the course of a day or two. A few days afterwards the somnambulism again returned; and the patient being upon her bed at the time, immediately began to search for the locket under her pillow.' As it had been removed in the interval, 'she was unable to find it, at which she expressed great disappointment, and continued searching for it, with the remark, "It must be there—I put it there myself a few minutes ago, and no one can have taken it away." In this state the presence of S. renewed her previous feelings of anger; and it was only by sending S. out of the room that she could be calmed and induced to sleep. The patient was the subject of many subsequent attacks, in every one of which the anger against S. revived, until the current of thought changed, no longer running exclusively upon what related to her brother, but becoming capable of direction by suggestions of various kinds presented to her mind, either in conversation, or, more directly, through the several organs of sense.'

I have been particular in quoting the above account, because it appears to me to illustrate well, not only the relation between the phenomena of dual consciousness and somnambulism, but the dependence of either class of phenomena on the physical condition. If it should appear that dual consciousness is invariably associated with some disorder either of the nervous system or of the circulation, it would be impossible, or at least very difficult, to maintain Brown-Sequard's explanation of the boy's case. For one can hardly imagine it possible that a disorder of the sort should be localised so far as the brain is concerned, while in other respects affecting the body generally. It so chances that the remarkable case recently dealt with by French men of science forms a sort of connecting link between the boy's case and the case just cited. It closely resembles the former in certain characteristic features, while it resembles the latter in the evidence which it affords of the influence of the physical condition on the phenomena of double consciousness. The original narrative by M. Azam is exceedingly prolix; but it has been skilfully condensed by Mr. H.J. Slack, in the pages of a quarterly journal of science. I follow his version in the main.

The subject of the disorder, Felida X., was born in Bordeaux in 1843. Until the age of thirteen she differed in no respect from other girls. But about that time symptoms of hysterical disorder presented themselves, and although she was free from lung-disease, she was troubled with frequent spitting of blood. After this had continued about a year, she for the first time manifested the phenomena of double consciousness. Sharp pains attacked both temples, and in a few moments she became unconscious. This lasted ten minutes, after which she opened her eyes, and entered into what M. Azam calls her second state, in which she remained for an hour or two, after which the pains and unconsciousness came on again, and she returned to her ordinary condition. At intervals of about five or six days, such attacks were repeated; and her relations noticed that her character and conduct during her abnormal state were changed. Finding also that in her usual condition she remembered nothing which had passed when she was in the other state, they thought she was becoming idiotic; and presently called in M. Azam, who was connected with a lunatic asylum. Fortunately, he was not so enthusiastic a student of mental aberration as to recognise a case for the lunatic asylum in every instance of phenomenal mental action. He found Felida intelligent, but melancholy, morose, and taciturn, very industrious, and with a strong will. She was very anxious about her bodily health. At this time the mental changes occurred more frequently than before. Nearly every day, as she sat with her work on her knees, a violent pain shot suddenly through her temples, her head dropped upon her breast, her arms fell by her side, and she passed into a sort of sleep, from which neither noises, pinches, nor pricks could awaken her. This condition lasted now only two or three minutes. 'She woke up in quite another state, smiling gaily, speaking briskly, and trilling (fredonnant) over her work, which she recommenced at the point where she left it. She would get up, walk actively, and scarcely complained of any of the pains she had suffered from so severely a few minutes before. She busied herself about the house, paid calls, and behaved like a healthy young girl of her age. In this state she remembered perfectly all that had happened in her two conditions.' (In this respect her case is distinct from both the former, and is quite exceptional. In fact, the inclusion of the consciousness of both conditions during the continuance of one condition only, renders her case not, strictly speaking, one of double consciousness, the two conditions not being perfectly distinct from each other.) 'In this second life, as in the other, her moral and intellectual faculties, though different, were incontestably sound. After a time (which in 1858 lasted three or four hours), her gaiety disappeared, the torpor suddenly ensued, and in two or three minutes she opened her eyes and re-entered her ordinary life, resuming any work she was engaged in just where she left off. In this state she bemoaned her condition, and was quite unconscious of what had passed in the previous state. If asked to continue a ballad she had been singing, she knew nothing about it, and if she had received a visitor, she believed she had seen no one. The forgetfulness extended to everything which happened during her second state, and not to any ideas or information acquired before her illness.' Thus her early life was held in remembrance during both her conditions, her consciousness in these two conditions being in this respect single; in her second or less usual condition she remembered also all the events of her life, including what had passed since these seizures began; and it was only in her more usual condition that a portion of her life was lost to her—that, namely, which had passed during her second condition. In 1858 a new phenomenon was noticed as occasionally occurring—she would sometimes wake from her second condition in a fit of terror, recognising no one but her husband. The terror did not last long, however; and during sixteen years of her married life, her husband only noticed this terror on thirty occasions.

A painful circumstance preceding her marriage somewhat forcibly exhibited the distinction between her two states of consciousness. Rigid in morality during her usual condition, she was shocked by the insults of a brutal neighbour, who told her of a confession made to M. Azam during her second condition, and accused her of shamming innocence. The attack—unfortunately, but too well founded as far as facts were concerned—brought on violent convulsions, which required medical attendance during two or three hours. It is important to notice the difference thus indicated between the character of the personalities corresponding to her two conditions. 'Her moral faculties,' says M. Azam, 'were incontestably sound in her second life, though different,'—by which, be it understood, he means simply that her sense of right and wrong was just during her second condition, not, of course, that her conduct was irreproachable. She was in this condition, as in the other, altogether responsible for her actions. But her power of self-control, or rather perhaps the relative power of her will as compared with tendencies to wrong-doing, was manifestly weaker during her second condition. In fact, in one condition she was oppressed and saddened by pain and anxiety, whereas in the other she was almost free from pain, gay, light-hearted, and hopeful. Now I cannot altogether agree with Mr. Slack's remark, that if, during her second state, 'she had committed a robbery or an assassination, no moral responsibility could have been assumed to rest upon her with any certainty, by any one acquainted with her history,' for her moral faculties in her second condition being incontestably sound, she was clearly responsible for her actions while in that condition. But certainly, the question of punishment for such an offence would be not a little complicated by her twofold personality. To the woman in her ordinary condition, remembering nothing of the crime committed (on the supposition we are dealing with), in her abnormal condition, punishment for that crime would certainly seem unjust, seeing that her liability to enter into that condition had not in any degree depended on her own will. The drunkard who, waking in the morning with no recollection of the events of the past night, finds himself in gaol for some crime committed during that time, although he may think the punishment he has to endure severe measure for a crime of which in his ordinary condition he is incapable, knows at least that he is responsible for placing himself under that influence which made the crime possible. Supposing even he had not had sufficient experience of his own character when under the influence of liquor, to have reason to fear he might be guilty of the offence, he yet perceives that to make intoxication under any circumstances an excuse for crime would be most dangerous to the community, and that he suffers punishment justly. But the case of dual consciousness is altogether different, and certainly where responsibility exists under both conditions, while yet impulse and the restraining power of will are differently related in one and the other condition, the problem of satisfying justice is a most perplexing one. Here are in effect two different persons residing in one body, and it is impossible to punish one without punishing the other also. Supposing justice waited until the abnormal condition was resumed, then the offender would probably recognise the justice of punishment; but if the effects of the punishment continued until the usual condition returned, a person would suffer who was conscious of no crime. If the offence were murder, and if capital punishment were inflicted, the ordinary individuality, innocent entirely of murder, would be extinguished along with the first, a manifest injustice. As Huxley says of a similar case, 'the problem of responsibility is here as complicated as that of the prince-bishop, who swore as a prince and not as a bishop. 'But, your highness, if the prince is damned, what will become of the bishop?' said the peasant.'[21]

It does not appear to me that there is in the case of Felida X. any valid reason for regarding the theory of two brains as the only available explanation. It is a noteworthy circumstance, that the pains preceding each change of condition affected both sides of the head. Some modification of the circulation seems suggested as the true explanation of the changes in condition, though the precise nature of such modification, or how it may have been brought about, would probably be very difficult to determine. The state of health, however, on which the attacks depended seems to have affected the whole body of the patient, and the case presents no features suggesting any lateral localisation of the cerebral changes.

On the other hand, the case of Sergeant F. (a few of the circumstances of which were mentioned in my essay entitled 'Have we two Brains?'), seems to correspond with Dr. Holland's theory, though that theory is far from explaining all the circumstances. The man was wounded by a bullet which fractured his left parietal bone, and his right arm and leg were almost immediately paralysed. When he recovered consciousness three weeks later, the right side of the body was completely paralysed, and remained so for a year. These circumstances indicate that the cause of the mischief still existing lay in the shock which the left side of the brain received when the man was wounded. The right side may have learned (as it were) to exercise the functions formerly belonging to the left side, and thus the paralysis affecting the right side until this had happened may have passed away. These points are discussed in the essay above named, however, and need not here detain us. Others which were not then dealt with may now be noted with advantage. We would specially note some which render it doubtful whether in the abnormal condition the man's brain acts at all, whether in fact his condition, so far as consciousness was concerned, is not similar to that of a frog deprived of its brain in a certain well-known experiment. (This appears to be the opinion to which Professor Huxley inclines, though, with proper scientific caution, he seems disposed to suspend his judgment.) The facts are very singular, whatever the explanation may be.

In the normal condition, the man is what he was before he was wounded—an intelligent, kindly fellow, performing satisfactorily the duties of a hospital attendant. The abnormal state is ushered in by pains in the forehead, as if caused by the constriction of a band of iron. In this state the eyes are open and the pupils dilated. (The reader will remember Charles Reade's description of David Dodd's eyes, 'like those of a seal.') The eyeballs work incessantly, and the jaws maintain a chewing motion. If the man is en pays de connaissance, he walks about as usual; but in a new place, or if obstacles are set in his way, he stumbles, feels about with his hands, and so finds his way. He offers no resistance to any forces which may act upon him, and shows no signs of pain if pins are thrust into his body by kindly experimenters. No noise affects him. He eats and drinks apparently without tasting or smelling his food, accepting assafœtida or vinegar as readily as the finest claret. He is sensible to light only under certain conditions. But the sense of touch is strangely exalted (in all respects apparently except as to sensations of pain or pleasure), taking in fact the place of all the other senses. I say the sense of touch, but it is not clear whether there is any real sensation at all. The man appears in the abnormal condition to be a mere machine. This is strikingly exemplified in the following case, which I translate directly from Dr. Mesnet's account:—'He was walking in the garden under a group of trees, and his stick, which he had dropped a few minutes before, was placed in his hands. He feels it, moves his hand several times along the bent handle of the stick, becomes watchful, seems to listen, suddenly he calls out, "Henry!" then, "There they are! there are at least a score of them! join us two, we shall manage it." And then putting his hand behind his back as if to take a cartridge, he goes through the movement of loading his weapon, lays himself flat on the grass, his head concealed by a tree, in the posture of a sharpshooter, and with shouldered weapon follows all the movements of the enemy whom he fancies he sees at a short distance.' This, however, is an assumption: the man cannot in this state fancy he sees, unless he has at least a recollection of the sensation of sight, and this would imply cerebral activity. Huxley, more cautious, says justly that the question arises 'whether the series of actions constituting this singular pantomime was accompanied by the ordinary states of consciousness or not? Did the man dream that he was skirmishing? or was he in the condition of one of Vaucanson's automata—a mechanism worked by molecular changes in his nervous system? The analogy of the frog shows that the latter assumption is perfectly justifiable.'

The pantomimic actions just related corresponded to what probably happened a few moments before the man was wounded; but this human automaton (so to call him, without theorising as to his actual condition) goes through other performances. He has a good voice, and was at one time a singer in a café. 'In one of his abnormal states he was observed to begin humming a tune. He then went to his room, dressed himself carefully, and took up some parts of a periodical novel which lay on his bed, as if he were trying to find something. Dr. Mesnet, suspecting that he was seeking his music, made up one of these into a roll and put it into his hand. He appeared satisfied, took up his cane and went downstairs to the door. Here Dr. Mesnet, turned him round, and he walked quite contentedly in the opposite direction, towards the room of the concierge. The light of the sun shining through a window now happened to fall upon him, and seemed to suggest the footlights of the stage on which he was accustomed to make his appearance. He stopped, opened his roll of imaginary music, put himself into the attitude of a singer, and sung, with perfect execution, three songs, one after the other. After which he wiped his face with his handkerchief and drank, without a grimace, a tumbler of strong vinegar and water which was put into his hand.'

But the most remarkable part of the whole story is that which follows. 'Sitting at a table in one of his abnormal states, Sergeant F. took up a pen, felt for paper and ink, and began to write a letter to his general, in which he recommended himself for a medal on account of his good conduct and courage.' (Rather a strange thing, by the way, for a mere automaton to do.) 'It occurred to Dr. Mesnet to ascertain experimentally how far vision was concerned in this act of writing. He therefore interposed a screen between the man's eyes and his hands; under these circumstances, F. went on writing for a short time, but the words became illegible, and he finally stopped, without manifesting any discontent. On the withdrawal of the screen, he began to write again where he had left off. The substitution of water for ink in the inkstand had a similar result. He stopped, looked at his pen, wiped it on his coat, dipped it in the water, and began again with a similar result. On another occasion, he began to write upon the topmost of ten superimposed sheets of paper. After he had written a line or two, this sheet was suddenly drawn away. There was a slight expression of surprise, but he continued his letter on the second sheet exactly as if it had been the first. This operation was repeated five times, so that the fifth sheet contained nothing but the writer's signature at the bottom of the page. Nevertheless, when the signature was finished, his eyes turned to the top of the blank sheet, and he went through the form of reading what he had written—a movement of the lips accompanying each word; moreover, with his pen, he put in such corrections as were needed, in that part of the blank page which corresponded with the position of the words which required correction in the sheets which had been taken away. If the five sheets had been transparent, therefore, they would, when superposed, have formed a properly written and corrected letter. Immediately after he had written his letter, F. got up, walked down to the garden, made himself a cigarette, lighted and smoked it. He was about to prepare another, but sought in vain for his tobacco-pouch, which had been purposely taken away. The pouch was now thrust before his eyes and put under his nose, but he neither saw nor smelt it; when, however, it was placed in his hand, he at once seized it, made a fresh cigarette, and ignited a match to light the latter. The match was blown out, and another lighted match placed close before his eyes, but he made no attempt to take it; and if his cigarette was lighted for him, he made no attempt to smoke. All this time his eyes were vacant, and neither winked nor exhibited any contraction of the pupil.'

These and other similar experiments are explained by Dr. Mesnet (and Professor Huxley appears to agree with him) by the theory that F. 'sees some things and not others; that the sense of sight is accessible to all things which are brought into relation with him by the sense of touch, and, on the contrary, insensible to all things which lie outside this relation.' It seems to me that the evidence scarcely supports this conclusion. In every case where F. appears to see, it is quite possible that in reality he is guided entirely by the sense of touch. All the circumstances accord much better with this explanation than with the theory that the sense of sight was in any way affected. Thus the sunlight shining through the window must have affected the sense of touch, and in a manner similar to what F. had experienced when before the footlights of the stage, where he was accustomed to appear as a singer. In this respect there was a much closer resemblance between the effect of sunlight and that of the light from footlights, than in the circumstances under which both sources of light affect the sense of sight. For in one case the light came from above, in the other from below; the heat would in neither case be sensibly localised. Again, when a screen was interposed between his eyes and the paper on which he was writing, he probably became conscious of its presence in the same way that a blind man is conscious of the presence of objects near him, even (in some cases) of objects quite remote, by some subtle effects discernible by the sense of touch excited to abnormal relative activity in the absence of impressions derived from the sense of sight. It is true that one might have expected him to continue writing legibly, notwithstanding the interposed screen; but the consciousness of the existence of what in his normal condition would effectually have prevented his writing legibly, would be sufficient to explain his failure. If, while in full possession of all our senses, the expectation of failure quite commonly causes failure, how much more likely would this be to happen to a man in F.'s unfortunate abnormal condition. The sense of touch again would suffice to indicate the presence of water instead of ink in his pen when he was writing. I question whether the difference might not be recognised by any person of sensitive touch after a little practice; but certainly a blind man, whose sense of touch was abnormally developed, would recognise the difference, as we know from experiments which have indicated even greater delicacy of perception than would be required for this purpose. The experiment with superposed sheets of paper is more remarkable than any of the others, but certainly does not suggest that light makes any impression upon Sergeant F. It proves, in fact, so far as any experiment could prove such a point, that the sense of touch alone regulates the man's movements. Unconscious of any change (because, after the momentary surprise produced by the withdrawal of the paper, he still found he had paper to write on), he continued writing. He certainly did not in this case, as Dr. Mesnet suggests, see all things which are brought into relation with him by the sense of touch; for if he had, he would not have continued to write when he found the words already written no longer discernible.

On the whole, it appears reasonable to conclude, as Professor Huxley does, that though F. may be conscious in his abnormal state, he may also be a mere automaton for the time being. The only circumstance which seems to oppose itself very markedly to the latter view is the letter-writing. Everything else that this man did was what he had already done prior to the accident. If it could be shown that the letters written in his abnormal state were transcripts, not merely verbatim et literatim, but exact in every point, of some which he had written before he was wounded, then a strong case would be made out for the automaton theory. Certainly, few instances have come under the experience of scientific men where a human being has so closely resembled a mere machine as this man appears to do in his abnormal condition.

The moral nature of F. in his abnormal condition is for this reason a matter of less interest than it would be, did he show more of the semblance of conscious humanity. Still it is worthy of notice, that, whereas in his normal condition he is a perfectly honest man, in his abnormal state 'he is an inveterate thief, stealing and hiding away whatever he can lay hands on with much dexterity, and with an absolutely absurd indifference as to whether the property is his own or not.'

It will be observed that the cases of dual consciousness thus far considered, though alike in some respects, present characteristic divergences. In that of the boy at Norwood, the two characters were very similar, so far as can be judged, and each life was distinct from the other. The next case was only introduced to illustrate the resemblance in certain respects between the phenomena of somnambulism and those of double or rather alternating consciousness. The woman Felida X. changed markedly in character when she passed from one state to the other. Her case was also distinguished from that of the boy by the circumstance that in one state she was conscious of what had passed in the other, but while in this other state was unconscious of what had passed in the former. Lastly, in Sergeant F.'s case we have to deal with the effect of an injury to the brain, and find a much greater difference between the two conditions than in the other cases. Not only does the man change in character, but it may justly be said that he is little more than an animal, even if he can be regarded as more than a mere automaton while in the abnormal condition. We find that a similar variety characterises other stories of double consciousness. Not only are no two cases closely alike, but no case has been noted which has not been distinguished by some very marked feature from all others.

Thus, although in certain respects the case we have next to consider resembles very significantly the case of Sergeant F., it also has a special significance of its own, and may help us to interpret the general problem presented to us by the phenomena of dual consciousness. I abridge, and in some respects simplify, the account given by Dr. Carpenter in his interesting treatise on Mental Physiology. Comments of my own are distinguished from the abridged narrative by being placed within brackets:—

A young woman of robust constitution had narrowly escaped drowning. She was insensible for six hours, and continued unwell after being restored to animation. Ten days later she was seized with a fit of complete stupor, which lasted four hours; when she opened her eyes she seemed to recognise no one, and appeared to be utterly deprived of the senses of hearing, taste, and smell, as well as of the power of speech. Sight and touch remained, but though movements were excited and controlled by these senses, they seemed to arouse no ideas in her mind. In fact, her mental faculties seemed entirely suspended. Her vision at short distances was quick, and the least touch startled her; but unless she was touched or an object were placed where she could not help seeing it, she took no notice of what was passing around her. [It does not appear to me certain that at this stage of her illness she saw in the ordinary sense of the word; the sense of touch may alone have been affected, as it certainly is affected to some degree by any object so placed that it could not but be seen by a short-sighted person. But it is clear that later the sense of sight was restored, supposing, which is not perhaps probable, that it was ever lost in the early stage.] She did not even know her own mother, who attended constantly upon her. Wherever she was placed she remained. Her appetite was good, but [like F.] she ate indifferently whatever she was fed with, and took nauseous medicines as readily as agreeable food. Her movements were solely of the automatic kind. Thus, she swallowed food put into her mouth, but made no effort to feed herself. Yet when her mother had conveyed the spoon [in the patient's hand] a few times to her mouth, the patient continued the operation. It was necessary, however, to repeat this lesson every time she was fed, showing the complete absence of memory. 'The very limited nature of her faculties, and the automatic life she was leading, appear further evident from the following particulars. One of her first acts on recovering from the fit had been to busy herself in picking the bedclothes; and as soon as she was able to sit up and be dressed, she continued the habit by incessantly picking some portion of her dress. She seemed to want an occupation for her fingers, and accordingly part of an old straw bonnet was given to her, which she pulled into pieces with great minuteness; she was afterwards bountifully supplied with roses: she picked off the leaves, and then tore them up into the smallest particles imaginable. A few days subsequently, she began forming upon the table, out of those minute particles, rude figures of roses, and other common garden flowers; she had never received any instructions in drawing. Roses not being so plentiful in London, waste paper and a pair of scissors were put into her hand, and for some days she found an occupation in cutting the paper into shreds; after a time these cuttings assumed rude shapes and figures, and more particularly the shapes used in patchwork. At length she was supplied with proper materials for patchwork, and after some initiatory instruction, she took to her needle and to this employment in good earnest. She now laboured incessantly at patchwork from morning till night, and on Sundays and week-days, for she knew no difference of days; nor could she be made to comprehend the difference. She had no remembrance from day to day of what she had been doing on the previous day, and so every morning commenced de novo. Whatever she began, that she continued to work at while daylight lasted; manifesting no uneasiness for anything to eat or drink, taking not the slightest heed of anything which was going on around her, but intent only on her patchwork.' From this time she began to improve, learning like a child to register ideas. She presently learned worsted-work, and showed delight in the harmony of colours and considerable taste in selecting between good and bad patterns. After a while she began to devise patterns of her own. But she still had no memory from day to day of what she had done, and unless the unfinished work of one day was set before her on the next, she would begin something new.

And now, for the first time, ideas derived from her life before her illness seemed to be awakened within her. When pictures of flowers, trees, and animals were shown her, she was pleased; but when she was shown a landscape in which there was a river or a troubled sea, she became violently agitated, and a fit of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility immediately followed. The mere sight of water in motion made her shudder. Again, from an early stage of her illness she had derived pleasure from the proximity of a young man to whom she had been attached. At a time when she did not remember from one hour to another what she was doing, she would anxiously await his evening visit, and be fretful if he failed to pay it. When, during her removal to the country, she lost sight of him, she became unhappy and suffered from frequent fits; on the other hand, when he remained constantly near her, she improved in health, and early associations were gradually awakened.

At length a day came when she uttered her first word in this her second life. She had learned to take heed of objects and persons around her; and on one occasion, seeing her mother excessively agitated, she became excited herself, and suddenly, yet hesitatingly, exclaimed, 'What's the matter?' After this she began to articulate a few words. For a time she called every object and person 'this,' then gave their right names to wild flowers (of which she had been passionately fond when a child), and this 'at a time when she exhibited not the least recollection of the "old familiar friends and places" of her childhood.' The gradual expansion of her intellect was manifested chiefly at this time in signs of emotional excitement, frequently followed by attacks of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility.

It was through the emotions that the patient was restored to the consciousness of her former self. She became aware that her lover was paying attention to another woman, and the emotion of jealousy was so strongly excited, that she had a fit of insensibility which resembled her first attack in duration and severity. But it restored her to herself. 'When the insensibility passed off, she was no longer spell-bound. The veil of oblivion was withdrawn; and, as if awakening from a sleep of twelve months' duration, she found herself surrounded by her grandfather, grandmother, and their familiar friends and acquaintances. She awoke in the possession of her natural faculties and former knowledge; but without the slightest remembrance of anything which had taken place in the year's interval, from the invasion of the first fit to the [then] present time. She spoke, but she heard not; she was still deaf, but being able to read and write as formerly, she was no longer cut off from communication with others. From this time she rapidly improved, but for some time continued deaf. She soon perfectly understood by the motion of her lips what her mother said; they conversed with facility and quickness together, but she did not understand the language of the lips of a stranger. She was completely unaware of the change in her lover's affections which had taken place in her state of second consciousness; and a painful explanation was necessary. This, however, she bore very well; and she has since recovered her previous bodily and mental health.

There is little in this interesting narrative to suggest that the duality of consciousness in this case was in any way dependent on the duality of the brain. During the patient's abnormal condition, the functions of the brain [proper] would seem to have been for a time in complete abeyance, and then to have been gradually restored. One can perceive no reason for supposing that the shock she had sustained would affect one side rather than the other side of the brain, nor why her recovery should restore one side to activity and cause the side which (on the dual brain hypothesis) had been active during her second condition to resume its original activity. The phenomena appear to suggest that in some way the molecular arrangement of the brain matter became modified during her second condition; and that when the original arrangement was restored all recognisable traces of impressions received while the abnormal arrangement lasted were obliterated. As Mr. Slack presents one form of this idea, 'the grey matter of the brain may have its molecules arranged in patterns somewhat analogous to those of steel filings under the influence of a magnet, but in some way the direction of the forces—or vibrations—may be changed in them. The pattern will then be different.' We know certainly that thought and sensation depend on material processes,—chemical reactions between the blood and the muscular tissues. Without the free circulation of blood in the brain, there can be neither clear thought nor ready sensation. With changes in the nature of the circulation come changes in the quality of thought and the nature of sensation, and with them the emotions are changed also. Such changes affect all of us to some degree. It may well be that such cases as we have been dealing with are simply instances of the exaggerated operation of causes with which we are all familiar; and it may also be that in the exaggeration itself of these causes of change lies the explanation of the characteristic peculiarity of cases of dual consciousness,—the circumstances, namely, that either the two states of consciousness are absolutely distinct one from the other, or that in one state only are events remembered which happened in the other, no recollection whatever remaining in this latter state of what happened in the other, or, lastly, that only faint impressions excited by some intense emotion experienced in one state remain in the other state.

It seems possible, also, that some cases of another kind may find their explanation in this direction, as, for instance, cases in which, through some strange sympathy, the brain of one person so responds to the thoughts of another that for the time being the personality of the person thus influenced may be regarded as in effect changed into that of the person producing the influence. Thus, in one singular case cited by Dr. Carpenter, a lady was 'metamorphosed into the worthy clergyman on whose ministry she attended, and with whom she was personally intimate. I shall never forget,' he says, 'the intensity of the lackadaisical tone in which she replied to the matrimonial counsels of the physician to whom he (she) had been led to give a long detail of his (her) hypochondriacal symptoms: "A wife for a dying man, doctor." No intentional simulation could have approached the exactness of the imitation alike in tone, manners, and language, which spontaneously proceeded from the idea with which the fair subject was possessed, that she herself experienced all the discomforts whose detail she had doubtless frequently heard from the real sufferer.' The same lady, at Dr. Carpenter's request, mentally 'ascended in a balloon and proceded to the North Pole in search of Sir John Franklin, whom she found alive, and her description of his appearance and that of his companions was given with an inimitable expression of sorrow and pity.'

It appears to us that very great interest attaches to the researches made by Prof. Barrett into cases of this kind, and that it is in this direction we are to look for the explanation of many mysterious phenomena formerly regarded as supernatural, but probably all admitting (at least all that have been properly authenticated) of being interpreted so soon as the circumstances on which consciousness depends shall have been determined. Thus the following account of experiments made at the village school in Westmeath seem especially suggestive: 'Selecting some of the village children, and placing them in a quiet room, giving each some small object to look at steadily, he found one amongst the number who readily passed into a state of reverie. In that state the subject could be made to believe the most extravagant statements, such as that the table was a mountain, a chair a pony, a mark on the floor, an insuperable obstacle. The girl thus mesmerised passed on the second occasion into a state of deeper sleep or trance, wherein no sensation whatever was experienced, unless accompanied by pressure on the eyebrows of the subject. When the pressure of the fingers was removed, the girl fell back in her chair utterly unconscious of all around, and had lost all control over her voluntary muscles. On reapplying the pressure, though her eyes remained closed, she sat up and answered questions readily, but the manner in which she answered them, her acts and expressions, were capable of wonderful diversity, by merely altering the place on the head where the pressure was applied. So sudden and marked were the changes produced by a movement of the fingers, that the operation seemed very like playing on some musical instrument. On a third occasion the subject, after passing through these, which have been termed the biological and phrenological states, became at length keenly and wonderfully sensitive to the voice and acts of the operator. It was impossible for the latter to call the girl by her name, however faintly and inaudibly to those around, without at once eliciting a prompt response. If the operator tasted, smelt, or touched anything, or experienced any sudden sensation of warmth or cold, a corresponding effect was produced on the subject, though nothing was said, nor could the subject have seen what had occurred to the operator. To be assured of this he bandaged the girl's eyes with great care, and the operator having gone behind the girl to the other end of the room, he watched him and the girl, and repeatedly assured himself of this fact.' Thus far, Professor Barrett's observations, depending in part on what the operator experienced, may be open to just so much doubt as may affect our opinion of the veracity of a person unknown; but in what follows we have his own experience alone to consider. 'Having mesmerised the girl himself, he took a card at random from a pack which was in a drawer in another room. Glancing at the card to see what it was, he placed it within a book, and in that state brought it to the girl. Giving her the closed book, he asked her to tell him what he had put within its leaves. She held the book close to the side of her head, and said, 'I see something inside with red spots on it; and she afterwards said there were five red spots on it. The card was the five of diamonds. The same result occurred with another card; and when an Irish bank-note was substituted for the card, she said, 'Oh, now I see a number of heads—so many that I cannot count them.' He found that she sometimes failed to guess correctly, asserting that the things were dim; and she could give no information of what was within the book unless he had previously known what it was himself. More remarkable still, he asked her to go in imagination to Regent Street, in London, and tell him what shops she had seen. The girl had never been out of her remote village, but she correctly described to him Mr. Ladd's shop, of which he happened to be thinking, and mentioned the large clock that overhangs the entrance to Beak Street. In many other cases he convinced himself that the existence of a distinct idea in his own mind gave rise to an image of the idea (that is, to a corresponding image) on the mind of the subject; not always a clear image, but one that could not fail to be recognised as a more or less distorted reflection of his own thought.' It is important to notice the limit which a scientific observer thus recognised in the range of the subjects' perception. It has been stated that subjects in this condition have been able to describe occurrences not known to any person, which yet have been subsequently verified. Although some narratives of the kind have come from persons not likely to relate what they knew to be untrue, the possibility of error outweighs the probability that such narratives can really be true. There is a form of unconscious cerebration by which untruthful narratives come to be concocted in the mind. For instance, Dr. Carpenter heard a scrupulously conscientious lady asseverate that a table 'rapped' when nobody was within a yard of it; but the story was disproved by the lady herself, who found from her note-book, recording what really took place, that the hands of six persons rested on the table when it rapped. And apart from the unconscious fiction-producing power of the mind, there is always the possibility, nay, often the extreme probability, that the facts of a case may be misunderstood. Persons may be supposed to know nothing about an event who have been conscious of its every detail; nay, a person may himself be unconscious of his having known, and in fact of his really knowing, of a particular event. Dual consciousness in this particular sense is a quite common experience, as, for instance, when a story is told us which we receive at first as new, until gradually the recollection dawns upon us and becomes momentarily clearer and clearer, not only that we have heard it before, but of the circumstances under which we heard it, and even of details which the narrator from whom a few moments before we receive it as a new story has omitted to mention.[22]