Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/752

732 "audists"—those whose memories were of things heard, whose auditory sense was paramount; and "motors"—whose powers were greatest in acts of expression, whose memory depended upon writing a thing down, whose talents lay in action. One can easily determine to which class one belongs by ascertaining in any act of memory whether he sees or hears or feels the thing remembered most easily, and by watching one's habitual references to memory. It may be remarked that such a discussion as that concerning universals in logic, in which the logicians ranged themselves in the rival camps of nominalists, realists, and conceptualists, probably had its origin in the various methods of habitual thinking in different minds. And in view of the facts of localization already described, it may be asserted that these inherent differences of thinking depend on various degrees of development of various districts of the brain cortex, or of the association fibers in these districts.

Fourthly: From this type of mental development—presenting an excess in one direction, with or without defects in other directions we will pass to another type of defective mind which has of late been most carefully studied, especially by M. Magnin, of Paris, the foremost French alienist.

There are certain persons in the community, usually the children of nervous or alcoholic parents, who present mental peculiarities which force upon us the conviction that there is a lack of equilibrium in their mental acts. They are not defective in faculties of sensation, memory, reasoning power, or action. They are often persons of brilliant qualities in certain directions, and perhaps have attained distinction in art or in the professions. But they may be the victims of sudden, unreasoning impulses, desires, doubts, or fears, which so dominate for the time their thought and acts as to lead one to the conclusion that their minds are not well balanced, though it can not be said that they are insane.

Let me give some examples from my own experience. A nervous woman began to notice her breathing, and for three months was beset with the fear that it would cease to continue if she did not watch it. She moved one of her fingers synchronously with her respiration; or else rocked in a chair, keeping time with the act of breathing. It was impossible to take her mind off of it. If she talked of something else, she was thinking of it all the