Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/581

Rh It is quite probable, too, that there is a mere disintegration of the personality without its destruction by an organized trend; such a one is certainly impossible to demonstrate in many cases.

Here, too, it is easier to observe than to measure, and there is no telling now if the degree of personal integration for very complicated reactions will ever be brought under experimental control; for the lower psychomotor levels of reaction, however, there is considerably better hope.

I will quote two instances of the way in which this disintegration of personality is spoken of by the cases themselves. It is not often clearly expressed, dementia præcox cases being commonly inaccessible. First in the case of a young woman of twenty-five, with nothing very definite appearing in the previous history. At various times in the psychosis she makes such utterances as these:

And a young man of about thirty, of shut-in personality, and of somewhat coarser mental fiber than the previous case, expresses himself in this way, with more delusional coloring, the disconnected fragments of his own personality being rationalized as "spirits."

My life is apparently in the hands of others the way I am now situated. . . . It seems as though the air about me were made thicker; it is condensed about me so that it gives the spirits some support, foundation, to act and carry on. . . . It is a peculiar trick for strangers to use other strangers in that light. . . . I feel as if I was supporting this column of spirit realm, as you might say, and I was wondering whether if hundreds of other spirits came into it if I could stand the tension. . . . The more persons that enter, the greater the tension, and in the last analysis I don't like any such existence. I am a human being the same as any one else, and I want my freedom and independence. . . . The spirits show themselves through voices, forms and various practises; they are very clever about some of their practises and cover them up. Any spirit that enters this realm can gauge the clearness and distinctness of the form—they can make