Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/519

 506 H. MAUDSLEY I distractions so numerous and various in kind and degree as to prove that the conscious Ego has not real identity and unity, and that there would be no guarantee of personal identity were the affair an identity of consciousness alone. In the alternating and opposite phases of one variety of mental disorder, the so-called folie circulaire of French authors, the person is as unlike in thought, feeling and conduct as two persons of different character ; there is no continuity of consciousness between the one state and the other, but a complete break and transformation of it. Of the so-called mesmeric or hypnotic patient under the dominating influence of the operator it is impossible to say whether he is conscious or not : he is not absolutely uncon- scious, since he hears and does what the operator tells him, but he has certainly lost possession of himself and of the external world, and has consciousness only of the self which is possessed and governed and of the things in relation to which his executive machinery is set by the operator. So bound locally is his consciousness to the nerve-tracts which the operator selects and puts in action that it is possible sometimes to perform a severe surgical operation upon him without his feeling pain. His unity as a complete conscious individual is decomposed and destroyed. There are notoriously insane persons whose mental de- rangement appears to be very partial, perhaps limited to one class of relations only ; while their conversation and behaviour are perfectly rational in respect of most subjects, so that no one would suspect the least derangement, no sooner are the particular relations in respect of which they are deranged brought into play than they discover their unsoundness of mind. The eternal surprise then is that one can be so insane who appears generally to be so sane. But what just cause of surprise is there ? It is obvious that the morbid tract is inactive during the rational phase of the person's existence, its function dormant, and that the moment it is stirred into activity the discordant note is heard and the music of mind marred. The event is no more wonderful than the discord of a musical instrument, one string of which is damaged : if a tune could be played upon it which made no demand upon that string, there would be no discord, and no one would suspect the derangement ; but when it is necessary to strike the damaged note, instantly the discord is made manifest. In this instance the affected individual is himself unaware of his distracted identity, although it is patent enough to lookers-on ; but there are notably cases of commencing mental derangement in which the sufferer