Chapter IV: , under the general heading, "Psychic states and Diverse (5)

The essential feature of this case, for our purpose, is that we have in this woman a paranoid psychosis of a definitely dementia praecox type which after ten years has shown only suggestive signs of deterioration in her lack of purpose in work, and her dulling in emotional response. This failure to deteriorate seems to stand in definite relationship to her system of ideas. That these have a constructive tendency is shown by the translation of her cruder thoughts into the setting of the occult with the suggestion of propaganda and in their pragmatic value. With her "new religion" she has provided herself with an argument in favor of a life of desultory prostitution and general vagabondage. She was advised to go to a hospital but refused, though she will certainly be committed soon, as it is inevitable that she will run counter to society in some way.

Such cases as these first two are familiar to you all and these have been chosen for this paper practically at random. Any large hospital will provide dozens of similar history whose clinical pictures would serve as well as what we have given. The next two cases represent two special types of psychoses: one a chronic manic and the other a definite praecox with recurrent attacks. Any institutional physician is familiar with the chronically elated patient, who has become a hospital character-- a good worker often who seems to be sufficiently repaid for his toil by the privilege of stopping the passerby to expound his ideas. Such a case is usually diagnosed as a chronic manic or a dementia praecox, according to the taste of the examiner.

Numerous works have demonstrated how the symbolism of the modern fraternal organization has grown out of alchemy, mysticism and rosicrucianism. Some centuries ago these symbols were charged with a literal meaning. If a man, however, in the 20th century attaches a similar significance to these symbols he is rightly adjudged insane. For instance, no one in a modern civilization can retain his mental balance and believe in a literal, physical rebirth. The patient whose case we shall now briefly recite had done this. He was observed at only one set interview because it was found that a few questions, apparently innocent, led to the awakening of some cruder ideas to which he reacted rather strongly with the statement that the physician was accusing him of harboring murderous designs which were, as a matter of fact, not even remotely suggested. The patient C. G., is a Hebrew, married, age sixty-one. When forty he had an attack of excitement lasting a few weeks. He was admitted to the Manhattan State Hospital in October 1899 and remained till April 14, 1900 with a similar attack. He was readmitted in April 1901 again in an excitement and has remained there ever since. It is claimed that these attacks were all preceded by a spree. The records of these admissions state that he was excited for some years, apparently with exacerbations, during which he is frequently noted as being delusional and hallucinating. No content is noted so that we cannot give the development of his ideas. He does not hallucinate now. All we know is that for five or six years he was a rather intractable patient, who worked intermittently but that of more recent years he has sufficiently adapted himself to the hospital environment to be granted ground parole which he uses largely to do a considerable amount of quite useful work. Any one who has once talked to him is saluted from a distance with the words--"Pleased to meet you, Doctor!" "Five fingers up!" or "Da liegt der schwarze Hund begraben!" All this is followed by an elated volubility. When asked what "Pleased to meet you!" meant, he said that was the password for entrance to the "Fellowship Lodge" of a certain fraternal order. He produced a match box with the insignia on it of a Grade in the Lodge. With this match box, once off Ward's Island, he insisted that it could get him his bread all the world over and hundreds of friends. He would never have been committed had he not been drunk and forgotten to make use of his signs. The world belongs to the Fellowship of Men. He spoke of his wife's ill treatment of him and then went on to "I am married to the American flag and it will go to the grave with me." This referred, he explained, to joining the red, white and blue lodge. "Five fingers up!" was shaking hands, the clasped hands on his match box. These hands, he said, were those of Moses and the Lord, for Moses was a "Fellowman," which is like the Fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. However, he went on to say that Moses, the Trinity and God were all a dream; Israel and the High Grade are real--the High Grade is the Lord. G. stands for God and he belongs to the G Lodge, therefore he belongs to God's Lodge. But he has a uniform of the High Grade at home, so he must be the High Grade himself. By using the symbols of his order in this way he disposes of his wife who has not treated him well, identifies himself with God (while he abolishes the regular God) and endows himself with the supremest power in a Lodge which he regards as omnipotent in the world. Another group of his ideas refer to his race. He has been put on Ward's Island as a result of the great struggle between Christians and Israel. But Israelites are the head of the Fellowship Lodge, so all Christians must follow him, the patient.

This is the explanation of "Da liegt der schwarze Hund begraben!" He is like a dog in the house and he is considered to be nobody, a corpse on the floor. But he really lies here buried--the missing man of the tribe. Once off Ward's Island, therefore, he will come to life as head of Israel, and head of the omnipotent Lodge. Patiently, hopefully, he awaits rebirth. The egoism of these ideas is obvious. Wherein do the constructive factors lie? Simply in this: this expansiveness could easily be formulated directly. But he does not do so. His ideas include two objective and potentially altruistic interests his lodge and his race. He is interested in them; in fact one can probably say that it is just in so far as he is insane that the selfish determination for these interests become manifest.

We have also studied two cases of recurring excitements in patients one of whom was an evident praecox, the other of doubtful classification. Both showed queer behavior during their intervals with mild indications of their ideas which gained freer expression in their attacks. These episodes showed, of course, markedly a typical feature in a tremendous amount of queer behavior and more excitement than true elation. As there was nothing in their ideas essentially different in principle from the cases already quoted, they need not be further detailed.

The last case, R. E. O'M., is one of no less interest from a formal standpoint than from a psychological one, while the trend presented is so copious that it can well serve as a resume of the cases we have just recited. He is now an unmarried man of thirty-three, and although he was diagnosed dementia praecox ten years ago is now earning $1200 year as a stenographer in the government service. His father was an Irishman banished from Great Britain because of his political agitations. His mother was a French woman of Huguenot extraction who died of cancer before the patient reached his teens but to whom he was greatly attached. He has a sister two years older than himself, given to hysteric attacks, for whom his love is "Platonic," to use his own term. Although of more than normal intellectual vigor, judging by his success in school work, he probably always had a psychotic tendency. At seven or eight he saw a vision of God in the clouds; at puberty he masturbated considerably and used to stand before the mirror and "hypnotize" himself. In the fall of 1903 (then twenty-one) he was staying at a summer hotel where he met a girl who made love to him, when he began to have frequent emissions. Being caught together out in a storm, in an effort to protect her his hand found its way to her hair. He was greatly upset. On returning to the hotel he endeavored to avoid her, and, his father being slightly ill, he became convinced he was going to die. A month or so later he moved from Baltimore, which had been his home, and began employment with the government in Washington. He had more emissions and immediately developed hysterical heart trouble, and from his retrospective account also had ideas of people influencing him. A year later (June 1905) a frank psychosis with considerable manic flavor developed. Secretary of State Hay had died, and peace negotiations between Russia and Japan were in progress. He got the idea that he was to succeed Hay (whose face he saw in the clouds) and that he would make peace between the nations. The accompanying excitement was so intense that when he came to see his father in Baltimore the latter had him committed to the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital.[3] He remained there for one year and eight months, during which time his mood showed great variability. At times he would be elated, again depressed or anxious, often silly with irrelevant laughter. Towards the end of his admission he had quite long intervals when he appeared normal. Eight months after his discharge he began to have monthly attacks lasting from one to two weeks. At the beginning of 1911 he came under the observation of one of us at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Dispensary. His case was followed minutely for some months when the following extraordinary clinical picture was seen to develop with regular periodicity. His interest would gradually withdraw from his work and an abstracted, "dim" look come into his eyes. He ceased to sleep either day or night. Ideas, in the intervals latent, would become more insistent, and he talked of them in a distracted way with occasional silly laughter and some scattering. At the same time he would show considerable physical unrest: rocking in his chair, nodding his head, sucking with his lips, and making occasional grimaces. A sharp word would, however, bring him to reality and normal behavior and speech, or the same result could be obtained by his own volition. In fact sufficient effort from either without or within could, it was several times demonstrated, postpone the further development of these symptoms for several days. Inevitably, however, control over his psychosis was lost. He became more excited; was assaultive till chastised by his father, after which that symptom no longer appeared; he would give none but irrelevant answers to questions; he masturbated openly. In the next phase he refused to answer questions altogether, sat in a chair by the window, rocking and tapping the floor or wall with his feet; reading a paper in a whisper or tearing it into scraps; spitting on the floor, his clothes or the window pane and then drawing pictures with his finger on the wet glass; intermittently chanting the same air over and over again with words, totally indistinguishable, except for the name "Jesus Christ" apparently interpolated irregularly in the course of the song. All this time he wore a silly smile occasionally breaking into a low chuckling laugh devoid of real emotion. In a short time his clothes and his immediate surroundings were in a state of horrid filth from his saliva and the torn papers. Towards the end of the attack he ceased making any sounds, simply rocked, spat and grinned. He would often pass twenty-four hours without emptying his bladder, though he never wet nor soiled himself. Few psychiatrists would have required more than a casual examination to give a diagnosis of hopeless deterioration, if they saw the patient only in the latter stage of one of these attacks. Yet in from seven to fourteen days after the first onset he would go to bed, sleep well, and in the morning appear perfectly normal and resume his efficient work. And this story had been repeated regularly once a month for four years! When normal his memory was hazy for the external events occurring during his attack, corresponding with his objective lack of contact with his environment, but the recollections of his ideas showed that he had been living in a perfect riot of fancies. The inference from this is inevitable that what we regard as a "Trendless praecox" or a taciturn dement may simply be one who does not choose to talk and not necessarily a vegetative wreck with neither delusions nor hallucinations.

[3] For the privilege of using observations made on this patient at the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, we wish most heartily to thank the Superintendent, Dr. Edward N. Brush.

His ideas were found to be no less interesting than his formal picture. In fact, if the theory we are now advancing be correct and we had had it then, we believe it would have been possible to state at the time of his first attack that his psychosis would not show rapid deterioration; we might even have gone further and predicted that he would reach some such stage of relative sanity as he now enjoys. He has presented three types of ideas. The first is crude expressions of bald sexual fancies; the second is transitional in that--as many praecox patients do--he gave these ideas a religious or philosophical setting, but in the hallucinations and delusions embodying them, still retained his personal connection with the fancies. For instance, he identified himself with Christ, or he suffered from psychological influences exerted by others on him. These two types occurred only during attacks. The third type represented the real constructive tendency, during his "normal" intervals when he objectivized these ideas in the form of speculations as to the origin of life, the laws of society, religion, etc. The second type--the transitional--represented reciprocally two tendencies: in the psychosis it showed his constructive, healing capacity, while the development of such fancies, as allied himself directly with his speculations when "normal," was invariably the signal for another attack, the severity of which was in direct proportion to the crudity which his formulations reached. The complexity and number of his theories when going about his work was tremendous, which could be partially accounted for by his omnivorous reading. He read all sorts of historical, occult, scientific and philosophical works, the material of which he absorbed only in so far as he could weave it into the fabric of his depraved speculations. This colored his transitional ideas as well, for in each attack he would have a new dramatization of his fancies determined by what he had just been reading. To present these ideas with anything like completeness would take hours. We must be content, therefore, with a few fragmentary examples.

The more important of his crude ideas were: His trouble was caused by loss of semen (his attacks were always ushered in by emissions), to prevent which he sometimes put rubber bands around his penis; numerous homosexual fancies, he was a woman, he had a vagina, there was a maiden head in his forehead which was operated on to cause him to lose semen; different people made immoral proposals or had designs on his virginity. These people he all identified directly or indirectly with his father. Finally there was an idea that his mother's marriage with his father was not right, that he was not his father's son, and that his father was inimical to him. He talked of killing different persons whom at other times he identified plainly with his father. During an attack he assaulted his father; not infrequently he would take his father's picture from the wall and spit on it. The relations between his father and mother were adulterous, he claimed.

If we now take the crude homosexual fancies and study their first elaboration we find that he had many ideas about eunuchs. They worked on him by psychological influence. The eunuchs, who could control sun and moon, influenced him through them. Once he had a vision of the sun approaching him with which he was physically connected; the vision would disappear if he lost his virginity. These influences when referred to himself were agencies causing loss of semen, so that he would become a eunuch himself. At the time of his heart attack and later he thought there was a snake around his heart. This was a man who had turned himself into a snake in order to incorporate himself into the patient's body. His religious fancies apparently began with his delusion that he was Christ and in connection with this we find he had the theory that Christ was a virgin. One setting of his "psychological influence" experience, when he was in bed in one room and eunuchs were influencing from the next. he duplicated by saying he was Jesus Christ in one room and God was in the next. He explained after one of his attacks that his attention was fixed on the windowpane on which he spat because there was a flower there. During an attack he was heard to say something about the struggle of men against being raped by ions and flowers. In these primitive elaborations we find an effort at distortion, a getting away from the absolutely crude and that the added elements which cause this distortion are in the form of ideas which imply a certain degree of philosophizing. The truly constructive delusions appear when he has ceased to dramatize these theories with himself as the hero and treats them objectively. We then find that eunuchs are very important people in his philosophy (the medium of their power we shall see shortly). All women are eunuchs because they have no testicles. There is no difference between men and women; if a woman is stronger than her husband, he takes on her qualities. In India men suckle the children. He says that this is a well-known fact. A person could change himself into a cancer and so get into another's body. This is perhaps an echo of something he had read of Ribbert's theory of neoplasms. Another pseudoscientific theory concerns a method of reproduction which could be developed, he thought. If a beautiful, strong man reaches his normal growth, all life above that is moulded by his ideals. He can develop within himself another personality which may be divorced from his body. Immaculate Conception takes place this way. An argument he had in favor of this view was prenatal influence and the strong influence a woman's belief is supposed to have on pregnancy. Eunuchs control the sun and moon. The Jews have a secret process of eunuchry; they have a way of inserting an instrument (a drawing of which he made, showing distinctly phallic features) by psychological means into the glands or bodies of men, thus cleaning them out. The eunuchs of the Romans used to cure their fellow countrymen of snakes growing around the heart by ingratiating themselves into persons, thus displacing the snakes and killing them. The government has many eunuchs in their employ. The influences of these men are malign or beneficial. They can injure enemies of the government or the government can incorporate them into bodies of other men to save the latter. All cardinals, most diplomats and many missionaries are eunuchs. The psychological influence exerted by such individuals may cause a loss of blood to their victims or they may use this power beneficially. The Romans, for instance, put blood of crucified people into the hands of eunuchs, who impregnated it by psychological influence into others. This would save their lives and eventually save the nation.

The ideas we have mentioned showing rivalry with his father, apparently in relation to his mother, were largely elaborated in political and religious disguises in their transition states, which in turn led to an objective interest in politics and religions. He spoke of killing the President which may be taken as a disguise for killing his father since he often claimed that his father was this or that ruler. He also spoke of killing one of his employers. He was prone to speak of his father as Edward VII. His envy of this situation of authority was shown when he once told the physician that his face was suspended in the face of the physician who was a King of England. But not the real King, he added, Edward VII was the real King. Again he said that he was Robert Emmet and the physician was Lord Norbury, the judge who convicted Robert Emmet, after whom the patient was named. In that role the physician told him it was all up, that there was no more Irish race. (It must be remembered that his father was a Fenian.) A fruitful source of speculations about international politics was found in the transitional ideas he expressed about the extraction of his parents. Beginning with his cogitations about the friction which actually existed between his parents, he ascribed this to their differing nationalities and religions. This led in turn to his fancying that on both sides his blood was drawn from many sources. He was particularly fond, for instance, of identifying his father with Hebrews, or Chinese; his mother with Romans, Italians or Spaniards. His original interest in the union (or disharmony) of his parents was easily transferred to this international setting and most of his attacks were heralded by dramatizations of political ar international situations with which he was intimately connected. This was true of his first attack when he had an idea that he was to succeed Secretary Hay and make peace between Russia and Japan (his mother and father). On recovery these fancies were objectivized into a most intense interest in diplomacy. He knew the history and achievement of every diplomatist in Europe, though of course his data were always being distorted to fit with his insane theories. Intermarriage, for example, was the cause of political trouble. He developed the ideas as follows: When an Irishman marries one of another race a confusion of races results; this was what took place in the tower of Babel; this is what causes disunion between states. He elaborated, too, on popular associations of certain customs with certain peoples. Gypsies, it is popularly supposed, frequently abduct children. With the patient this became an elaborate theory about an Egyptian custom or Egyptian influence. The Egyptians, he said abducted children and brought them up as their own acquiring a sinister influence over them because of the belief the children had that these adults who were their guardians were their real parents. In one attack he spoke of his father as "An Egyptian influence." This is plainly the same idea as he put into another form when he remarked that he would be all right if he could become English. When in his free intervals, he made it a practice sedulously to cultivate English people.

This undercurrent of rivalry with the father came out in a religious disguise as well. His first attack when he was for many months interned he described as a religious mania. By means of identifying himself with Christ he dramatized both his subjugation and defiance. He went through many crucifixion experiences; said he was commanded by God. On the other hand he said Christ was a virgin and retained his virginity in order that he might discover the secrets of the elders. For this reason he was crucified. The crudest expression he gave of defiance in a religious form was when he said "I was two persons in one--God and Jesus Christ. God was damned." The more constructive tendency was shown by his fasting. This was due to an experience of some duration when he was translated back to the first century, was in a convent (sic!) and was tempted by the devil to eat. His fasting, he claimed, saved the other patients. His most constructive delusion was that all the churches would come together and then there would be only one church. During his first attack this was his "prophecy," during his saner intervals there were endless ramifications of this idea which are too tedious to recite. It is important to note as evidence of the purely psychotic character of his ideas that he has never been either religious in his spirit or in action a propagandist.

Perhaps the most luxurious fancies this patient evolved were around the theme of semen. We have seen that his emissions were his constant worry, an increase in their frequency heralded an attack and he was convinced that if he could but retain this secretion he would be permanently cured; nay more, if he could retain enough he would grow to be like the giants of old. Whenever he had an emission he felt on waking a pain in his head and could never get totally rid of the idea that this was cancer. In his attacks the cancer was the result of a homosexual assault and in his intervals he elaborated theories as to the origin of cancer; it came from friction, therefore coitus could produce it, it might be the result of adultery or cancer of the breast could come from a man rubbing his penis on the breasts of a woman; the cancer germs might come from semen if one believed in cancer and in germs. Life both as vital force and in the biological sense he identified with semen. Psychic activities too had the same origin which he explained thus: food taken into the mouth goes into the stomach and becomes chyle, chyle passes to the scrotum, thence to the spine and brain. Brain power is in direct proportion to the amount of semen retained. We see now why eunuchs had such power according to his philosophy. By childish reasoning, since they could not have emissions, their semen must be retained. He spoke of psychological influence in these terms: "It is the transformation from the moisture state of the life principle to the moist electric state of warmth and its transference from the central ducts and glands to the head and being thrown out of the head in waves from the top of the head and eyes. It redounds to the other person's good. Have an eunuch near you--it tends to make semen go to the head and gives the mental mouth something to think of. It could be used in a baleful way if one had will power over another person like hypnotism--(Svengali and Trilby)--In hypnotism the will goes on the same lines as psychological influence." The Jews, he said, lay around temples so much that their life had to go into sensuality or wisdom and it mostly went into wisdom. Continual seminal losses, he claimed, would lead to a change in personality. "Life," he said, permeated nature, it could not be lost. Wind was thus identified with it: "life" goes on a sheet (from an emission), the sheet is washed and the "life" passes to the water, then is taken up by the air and breathed. Thus he suffered both immediate and remote effects from emissions. The first result was to make him incapable of work; by breathing in the "life" later on he became a degenerate. Wind or the spiral movements of air was another origin of life. Wind is a spirit, in defence of which he quoted the Greek pneuma. The words wind and word are the same, the former being derived from the latter through wird. (Cf. "In the beginning was the word," or "The word was made flesh"). A cyclone is an effort hampered by civilization of what the world was originally. Life began as a spiral movement of air. Wind as the origin of life could be duplicated by mechanical methods or eunuchry. The sun he claimed was an accident. Men lived for centuries without it, till an accident, internally, led to vital forces being emanated and that was the origin of sun. The accident was the cutting of some man's testicles.

Now what was his further course? We have seen that in his attacks he expressed resentment against his father's domination. At the beginning of one of them, for instance, which he said was brought on by "Egyptian influence," he had a dream of an old Hebrew play of father and son. In this play they were trying to make him return to the old situation of bondage to his father. This bondage was an actuality. Owing to his monthly attacks he could hold no regular position and so worked for his father. The latter gave him no money except occasional small silver but bought for him clothes or anything else he might need. A psychotic man of nearly thirty, with a feminine character, he was hopelessly dependent on his father. It is small wonder that he sought relief in recurring psychotic episodes. But a change came. On May 12, 1911, his father died suddenly of heart trouble. The patient was beginning to go into an attack at the time but pulled himself together, managed the funeral three days later, got his sister home, who had a hysterical attack at the grave, and then proceeded to indulge in his postponed attack. The sister was unable to care for him so he was sent again to the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital. In a few days he recovered. He was then talked to, told that this baleful relationship was over and that there was no longer any reason for his having attacks. With the exception of one attack at the beginning of 1912 he has had none, and seems to be able to maintain the mental equilibrium that previously characterized his intervals. For two and a half years he has been employed in the Customs House, Baltimore, a position which he secured by competitive examination, and has received an advance in salary from $900 to $1200 a year. He was recently written to and replied in exceptional literary form detailing more of his ideas. They seem to be essentially similar to those held four years ago. One may be quoted. A favorite "scientific" method with him has always been (from boyhood, he said) to divide up or distort words so as to get at their true meaning. This is now his explanation of the word "cancer."

"You may remember the origin of the word 'cancer' was once the topic of our meeting and strangely this matter has kept revolving itself in my mind ever since. My new solution is 'Kahns' and 'Ur.' You know there are a good many people named 'Kahn' and as probably you have noted in the Bible allusion to the ancient race of the name 'Ur.' Now, you can place what construction you will on the combination. There are several; here is one: I have heard it stated that the word 'Ur' originally meant 'wife' hence, from our point of view the solution is easy, Kahn's Ur or Kahn's wife, but what has puzzled me is what she is doing in so many people.

"Here's another: Signifying the overcoming of the Jew by Ur or Kahn by Ur (Kahn by 'er) much on the same principle as the words 'Spanish-American' and 'Graeco-Roman' are used with reference to the late 'unpleasantness' and the ancient one.

"Here's another: Simply meaning that Kahn is not a Jew at all but simply an Ur.

"So you see I have not altogether forgotten some of the topics of our meeting."

If our claims be allowed we should be able to make some deductions of value to psychiatric theory. The first is an explanation of scattering of thought. We find that, in all our cases showing constructive delusions, the utterance of these highly elaborated fancies is not accompanied by scattering. On the other hand it is an every day experience that a dementia praecox patient may show no scattering when conversing on indifferent subjects but that his train of thought loses logical sequence when he launches into his ideas. These findings may be reconciled by studying the reaction with types of ideas such as the last patient showed. In his intervals he was (and is) continually busy with delusional thoughts but of a constructive character, but was never scattered as long as these were alone present. As soon, however, as an attack commenced and cruder ideas appeared he became scattered. Where were these crude ideas in the intervals? They were represented in his constructive delusions it is true, but in their native form they did not appear. The cruder fancies must therefore have been in the unconscious during his intervals. Now actual verbatim records show with him that these crude ideas did not come to expression in logical sequence but that each appeared in response to an idea previously in his consciousness which was a distorted formulation of the crude fancy next to appear. His utterances during these attacks would have a logical sequence if they were translated into terms of the underlying crude ideas. The scattering, therefore, was due to the fact that his utterances were a mixture of crude and elaborated fancies. Had they been entirely one or the other there would have been no scattering. During his intervals he dealt with objective fancies and was logical. As these fancies, however, could be easily demonstrated to be derived from the unconscious crude ones, which appeared during his attacks, we are safe in assuming that one factor at least in the production of an attack was the lifting of some inhibition which kept the cruder ideas from entering consciousness except in a form in which they could be objectively viewed and so logically arranged. Scattering of thought therefore arises from the intermittent action of this censor or from an incomplete abolition of the inhibition allowing varying formulations of the crude ideas to gain expression which have no logic surface connection. If entirely done away with, of course, the latent ideas appearing in perfect crudity would have a logical connection. The content of consciousness is what is within the sphere of introspection. We can therefore say that the praecox who is scattered really does not know his own ideas. This is, of course, an every day experience for those who examine such patients. A suitable case left to himself will give expression to a limited number of delusions which he does not correlate. A few suggestive questions, however, will educe a mass of delusions, which when pieced together demonstrate the logical unconscious ideas that give rise to them. If such a patient be asked "What are your ideas?" he can give no reply. Ask him, however, if any one is mistreating him and you will start a train of thought in which one fancied insult leads to another or to delusions which do not represent mistreatment at all. On the other hand approach a patient with constructive delusions with the same question as to his ideas and he will produce a theory of the universe, often with a chronological account of how these ideas developed. He is insane in that his fancies do not reach an outlet in action being an end in themselves; but he is sane in so far as he keeps his ideas within the range of introspection and has not allowed them to become autonomous. The inferences from this to the laws of normal association are obvious.

The second point is really a historical one. Psychiatrists are often asked, "Was Joan of Arc crazy?" "Was Saint Louis a dementia praecox?" In an endeavor to answer such questions wise books have been written detailing the "psychoses" of historic or religious leaders. There is probably not a single delusion expressed by any one of the patients whose cases have just been recited that is not duplicated or paralleled by the belief of savants of a few centuries ago or the uneducated of to-day. The last patient said "All nature is artificial, man made it all. All the world would disappear, if man lost the power of reproducing. The reproduction of nature by man is founded on faith--constant reiteration and association with a thing will produce that thing." Is this not analogous to the working hypothesis of the alchemists? The more sincere among them sought salvation for their souls. To gain this they worked with metals to which they ascribed abstract or moral qualities. Their metallurgy was primarily symbolic, yet they seriously hoped for results by working with symbols. And to what extent of absurdity and crudity did they go? Many of their metallurgic terms were sexual processes. Their "prima materia" was called by the name of many of the secretions or excretions of the body. A whole school--the Seminalists--adhered to the view that the great original substance was semen. Other thought it was hermaphroditic. Paraceleus spoke of the birth of monsters as a result of sodomy. A natural history[4] written three centuries ago tells of semen being carried by wind. Notoriously there was no limit either to the absurdity or crudity of these conceptions. Were these men--the wisest of their time--insane? Here again we may quote the last patient--"Insanity," he says, "is the elemental human mind left to itself, unimproved by other minds." The last is the important phrase. What minds were there to improve those of the alchemists? What critic was there to tell Joan of Arc that visions and voices were pathological? That was the regulation form of inspiration in her day. Comparative mythology like a comparison of mysticism, alchemy, rosicrucianism and masonry shows that the human mind left to itself will formulate similar ideas. These ideas, however, are modified by the advance of learning as time goes on. The individual whose critical faculty allows him to maintain an idea incompatible with the knowledge of his age and his fellows is insane.

[4] The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes, by Edward Topsell, London, 1607.

Our last point is a corollary to the claim we have just made. It has been the sport of iconoclasts for many years to discount all religious beliefs as psychopathic. This is not the forum where the problem of science versus religion may be discussed but these cases have certain features which should warn us to be wary of such generalizations. We have seen that religious formulations have been used to embody crude fancies. That does not preclude the possibility of the formulations having an actual basis. A flag may gain its importance to a given individual because it symbolizes for him his native land but that does not prove that the flag has not an existence of itself. This, however, is a matter of logic and not of psychiatry. Let us now grant that all religious formulations have an unconscious origin. But there still remains a wide gulf between patients such as we have been describing and the devout church-goers. The former show in their productions how their religious ideas arise, their egocentric quality is patent, they manifestly are but thin cloaks for selfish wishes. The latter, however, never in consciousness connect their religious formulations with their subjective creations. To the true believer his God is as objective a reality as is the electron of the physicist. Finally, real religious faith has a pragmatic value. Granting it be only a theory it nevertheless produces results in conduct. This is in sharpest contrast to religious delusions. They never lead to sustained effort, they bring with them no social potentiality. They exist for the comfort of the patient alone.

To sum up: We have endeavored to establish the claim that delusions in dementia praecox which takes the form of objective speculations rather than subjective experiences are an evidence of a milder psychotic reaction and hence warrant a prognosis of chronicity rather than deterioration. From the cases presented we argue that scattering of thought arises from a failure to formulate underlying fancies in an objective way; that the insanity of ideas depends not on themselves but on the critical judgment of the age which produces them, and lastly that there are essential psychological differences between creeds and religious delusions.

SOCRATES IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

BY MORRIS J. KARPAS, M. D.

Assistant Resident Alienist, Psychopathic Department of Bellevue Hospital of New York

(Read before the Vidonian Club, New York, October 16, 1914.)

"CONSCIOUSNESS had reached this point in Greece, when in Athens, the great forum of Socrates, in whom subjectivity of thought was brought to consciousness in a more definite and more thorough manner, now appeared. But Socrates did not grow like a mushroom out of the earth, for he extends in continuity with his time, and this is not only a most important figure in the history of philosophy--but perhaps also a world famed personage." Hegel.

"When Columbus set sail across the untraversed western sea, his purpose was to reach by a new path, a portion of the old, known world, and he lived and died in the belief that he had done so. He never knew that he had discovered a new world. So it was with Socrates. When he launched his spiritual bark upon the pathless ocean of reflected thought, his object was to discover a new way to the old world of little commonwealths and narrow interests, and he probably died thinking he had succeeded. He did not dream that he had discovered a new world--the world of humanity and universal interests. But so it was; and tho mankind are still very far from having made themselves at home in that world, and from having availed themselves of its boundless spiritual treasures, it can never be withdrawn from their sight, or, the conquest of it cease to be the object of their highest aspirations." Thomas Davidson.