Page:Principles of Psychology (1890) v1.djvu/222

202 202 PSYCHOLOGY. say, of late months, they have been reinforced by a lot of curious observations made on hysterical and hypnotic subjects, which prove the existence of a highly developed consciousness in places where it has hitherto not been sus- pected at all. These observations throw such a novel light upon human nature that I must give them in some detail. That at least four different and in a certain sense rival ob- servers should agree in the same conclusion justifies us in accepting the conclusion as true. One of the most constant symptoms in persons suffer- ing from hysteric disease in its extreme forms consists in alterations of the natural sensibility of various parts and organs of the body. Usually the alteration is in the direc- tion of defect, or anaesthesia. One or both eyes are blind, or color-blind, or there is hemianopsia (blindness to one half the field of view), or the field is contracted. Hearing, taste, smell may similarly disappear, in part or in totality. Still more striking are the cutaneous anaesthesias. The old witch-finders looking for the ' devil's seals ' learned well the existence of those insensible patches on the skin of their victims, to which the minute physical examinations of recent medicine have but recently attracted attention again. They may be scattered anywhere, but are very apt to affect one side of the body. Not infrequently they affect an entire lateral half, from head to foot ; and the insensible skin of, say, the left side will then be found separated from the naturally sensitive skin of the right by a perfectly sharp line of demarcation down the middle of the front and back. Sometimes, most remarkable of all, the entire skin, hands, feet, face, everything, and the mucous membranes, muscles and joints so far as they can be ex- rationalis, § 59; Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaph., lecture xvir; J. Bascom, Science of Mind, § 13; Th. Jouffroy, Melanges Phil os., 'du Sommeil'; H. Holland, Chapters on Mental Physiol., p. 80; B. Brodie, Psychol. Researches, p. 147; E. M. Chesley, Journ. of Spec. Phil., vol. xi. p. 73; Th. Ribot, Maladies de la Personnalite, pp. 8-10; H. Lotze, Meta- physics, § 533.
 * Unconsciousness ' in Hysterics.