Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/65

Rh fear if it observes a dog even at a distance. People who have received a painful message will thereafter open all their mail with apprehension, etc. These complex effects, which under certain conditions will extend over long periods, leads us to the consideration of the

There are two kinds to be differentiated:

1. There is a complex-action which extends over a very long period and which is often evoked by a single affect.

2. There are special chronic effects which become lasting because the affect is always in a continuous state of provocation.

The first group is best illustrated by the legend of Raymundus Lullus, who, as a gallant adventurer, was for a long time enthusiastically courting a lady. Finally the longed for billet arrived inviting him for a nocturnal rendezvous. Lullus, full of expectation, arrived at the appointed place and as he approached the lady who was there awaiting him she suddenly parted her apparel and uncovered her bosom eaten away with cancer. This event made such an impression on Lullus that henceforth he devoted his life to pious asceticism.

There are impressions which last a lifetime. Indeed the lasting effects of strong religious impressions or shocking incidents are well known. The effects in youth are particularly strong. Education, to be sure, is based on this; that is, to impart lasting complexes to the child. The durability of the complex is guaranteed by a constantly active feeling-tone. If the feeling-tone becomes extinguished the complex, too, becomes extinguished. The persistent existence of a complex with feeling-tone has naturally the same constellating effect on the other psychical activities as an acute affect. Whatever suits the complex is taken up, everything else is excluded or at least inhibited. The best examples can be found in religious convictions. There is no argument, no matter how threadbare, that is not advanced if it is pro, on the other hand the strongest and most plausible arguments contra do not thrive; they simply glide by, because emotional inhibitions are more powerful than all logic. Even among people of intelligence who have great education and experience at their command, one sometimes observes a real blindness, a true systematic anæsthesia when an attempt is made to convince them of the