Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/110

 96 CRITICAL NOTICES : motor expression of intellect or feeling. Physiological motions thus become an expression of idea-systems, and these in turn guide further inferences to physiological motions, the psychical, as a rule, far out-running the physical in definiteness. The present work, the second volume being produced con- jointly with Prof. Raymond consists of a series of detailed studies along the lines already made familiar to us. In passing, one must note the same pellucid arrangement, the same clean-cut style, the same critical selection, as in the former book. Here as there, "manufactured personalities" are an affair of every day; but Leonie I., II., and III., and Eose I. -IV., are seen to have been but giants in a very populous kingdom. And here, too, the phenomena are correlated by reference to the fundamental problem of the relation between " neuroses " and "fixed ideas ". " Psychological Automatism," in the advanced sense given to it by Dr. Janet subconscious action of formerly conscious centres is still everywhere assumed ; but attention is concentrated on the production, analysis and dispersal of fixed ideas. And the " fixed ideas " chosen are principally, almost entirely, those of " hysterical subjects ". This vague term Prof. Janet, in his former studies, has done much to define. He means by it, quite definitely, Charcot's " major hysteria," where certain stigmata anaesthesia, amnesia, etc. are present. Why choose these subjects ? Not certainly because other forms of mental alienation do not afford abundant materials for the study of fixed ideas ; they afford rather too much, but, then, they are less available for functional analysis. In hysteria, the " crisis " is frequently repeated ; the conditions of disaggregation, anaesthesia, are fre- quently evanescent, or capable of temporary restoration ; sugges- tibility is frequently great ; somnambulism is sometimes spon- taneous, or easily induced by hypnotism. Consequently, selected hysterical subjects offer a continuous series of reproducible experiments in mental transformation, and the minute study of hysteria thus becomes at once a fruitful source of psychological material and a positive introduction to insanity proper. Next, what is a " fixed idea" ? The term " fixed idea " is taken in its most comprehensive sense. " II ne s'agit pas uniquement d'idees obsedantes d'ordre intellectuel, mais d'etats emotifs per- sistants, d'etats de la personnalite qui restent immuables, en un mot, d'etats psychologiques qui une fois constitues persistent indfiniment et ne se modifient plus suffisamment pour s'adapter aux conditions variables du milieu environnant " (i., p. 2). For practical purposes, this definition must serve. The elements in it are persistence in or out of relation to its apperception (or context), and invariability in a new context or under new stimulus. The two points mark the difference between permanent mental posses- sions and fixed. But in any case, the illustrations are better than any definition. The concrete case must be explained and the presence of fixed systems of ideas is only too easily established.