Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/247

233 SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES. 233 regards continuance of such exhibition we must remember that " the Ego can take the reins, at any time, when a series of ideas is in motion." Some pathological cases of extraordinary musical achieve- ment are explicable on the assumption that a reflex is released in sleep. Inclination to sing or speak in rhythm has been observed in somnambules, hypnotic subjects, and in cases of nervous fever (Perty: all women; cf. the fact that female idiots are more musical than male). Music plays a part in the therapeutics of insanity. In connection with extraordinary memorial achievements, we may note that a reflex-activity often gives us normally better results than conscious effort. When performance has become automatic by usage, the portions of the brain which correspond to its conscious execution are out of practice. Somnambulism shows us at times a combination of reflex muscular memory with (apparently) partial consciousness. (Jessen ; cf. Wal- laschek, Kieser.) When persons hear only 'through the medium of ' other persons, we have probably to do with a complete control of their memory ; the patients are tone-deaf, but able to follow music when their attention is directed to it. Echolalia may repre- sent simply a reversion to a primitive condition (cf. Wilkes for normal echolalia ; Jagor for morbid mania of imitation). The exaltation of phonetic faculty is not only observable in cases of insanity, hypnosis and hysteria ; alcohol, tea, coffee and tobacco are impressed into the same service. The achievements of memory are greatest in the opium or hashish crapula (G. Martius, Urquhart, Braid, Preyer). We have only to consider two effects of it ; the increase of auditory sensibility and the emotional processes set up (Moreau, Rohlfs). In hashish-in- toxication the subject is eminently suggestible (Schrenk-Notzing). The facts prove the associative emotional influence of music, an in- fluence dependent on the personality of the listener. Similarly in hypnosis : the patient is ' a kind of phonograph ' (Berger ; cf. Richer, Braid, Heidenhain, etc). The sense of hearing is the last to disappear, a fact turned to account in hypnotic therapeutics. The musical achievements of hypnotized subjects are to be ascribed, again, to the imitatory reflex, aroused by the com- plete isolation for a definite impression, and by concentration on it. Music has a very great associative influence on somnambules and cataleptic persons. (Cf. Moll.) Auditory hallucinations can be called up at will. Indeed, musical suggestion is analogous to the other suggestions. There is nothing in hypnosis which contradicts