dream; it develops into a kind of secondary personality." We have already seen how naturally, under certain morbid conditions, alternating phases of the personality may be developed. When the organism is out of gear in respect of the harmonious working of the physical and spiritual qualities of man, by reason mayhap of some mental or bodily derangement, the controlling power of the spirit is at stake. The natural result of such a state of things is a feeling of doubt or helplessness: doubt is that condition in which the human mind is peculiarly open to suggestion; even in sane states, the rapid transition from extreme nervousness to desperate determination is of frequent occurrence; and, in insane states, we have no reason to be surprised at a derangement arising in trouble, weakness or doubt, hardening into fixed and insistent ideas, as Dr. Knapp (already quoted) observes, in discussing certain opinions that had been advanced, "Here again I believe that too sharp a distinction has been made, as the folie du doute and paranoia evidently blend"; and, after some further observations, he cites a case showing “clearly the mixture of insistent ideas and delusions, the combination between insanity of doubt and paranoia." To return now to the case of the young lady somnambulist, we have to account not only for the directing power of her unconscious movements, but for the fact that these movements were carried out in opposition to one of the primitive and intuitively-effective laws of our nature-that of self-conservation.s If the spirit, the true self, were controlling these movements, one would expect them to have been carried out in conformity with this law: that the movements have not been so carried out raises the presumption that the control, if not absolutely hostile, was at least not

1 Myers, Human Personality, Vol. I, 203, 40-68.

2 "Insanity of Doubt” (American Journal of Psychology, Vol. III, 15—18). 8 Bain, Mental and Moral Science, 79, 80.

intelligently and favourably disposed to the welfare of the organism. A reference to cases of induced somnambulism, in which the subject has put himself under the control of a hypnotist, will show how this may occur: we shall see in fact that “the spontaneous sleep-waking state itself is manifestly akin to hypnosis."1 The strength of the spirit is in the Faith with which it inspires the waking intelligence: when there is a rupture of the personality, as in sleep-waking states, spontaneous. or induced, the organism lies open to suggestion which may crystallise into fixed or insistent idea; so that the organism enthralled to the ideas suggested is impelled to action apart from knowledge and alien to conscious desires. In the integrate personality then the spirit, acting in conjunction with the soul, controls the organism through faith; but, when faith is weak, or when soul and body are unable to contend against distracting influences, "there may be a real break" in the personality. In the growth of insistent ideas, "we have to do with an instability of the conscious threshold ;" and, as "such changes are generally noxious," they may be regarded "as steps on the road-on one of the many roadsto mental overthrow." We are now in a better position to complete our inquiry into the case of the young lady somnambulist. The whole of the circumstances are amply explainable on the hypothesis of insistent ideas acting on a lower stratus than that of the supraliminal or conscious self.

The second case will carry us a step farther and will help us to complete our review of the situation. We have learnt from our inquiry so far, by comparing induced with spontaneous somnambulisms, that these present similar appearances, and are "sometimes actually interchangeable": we have learnt, further, that what may begin "as an exaggerated dream," or insistent idea, "may develop into a kind 1 Myers, Human Personality, Vol. I, 202-3, 217.

of secondary personality," and that the subject is then in a state out of control of his ordinary conscious self, and comes easily under the influence of any dream-like selfsuggestion, or into rapport with some alien intelligence. "It has now been actually proved . . . that the hypnotic trance can be induced from a distance so great and with precautions so complete that telepathy, or some similar supernormal influence, is the only efficient cause which can be conceived." It matters not whether it be by way of an insistent idea, self-suggested, by way of "effluence" from a hypnotiser, or by way of invasion from an extraneous source, the personality which has become thus disaggregated is possessed: "hypnotic trance has created for us . . . situations externally indistinguishable from what" may be regarded "as true possession."3

1

The second case, in illustration of disintegrated personality, is taken from an article by Mr. Harold Begbie "about insanity," published in the same Journal1 as the former case. Mr. Begbie, after lucidly remarking-"It is not a diseased brain or a small brain that is responsible in every case for the teasing mystery of insanity: some shadowy cause, as invisible and as intangible as the electron of the chemist, is responsible for this tangle in the affairs of men; and only the law is bold enough to pin a label to the phenomenon -relates a story told to him by one who had been "a charge attendant in one of the largest lunatic asylums in this country" for many years, and who had been so deeply affected by the spiritual mystery surrounding an incident. which had happened to him on a certain day that the impression had never deserted him. The attendant had been going his rounds at midnight: all was silent but the sound of his feet on the stone corridors and the muffled sighs and moans of the unfortunate paupers. "The attendant 1 Myers, Human Personality, Vol. I, 207. Ibid., Vol. II, 192, 193, 198; Vol. I, 65.

3 Ibid., Vol. II, 193.

4 "What Science does not know," Daily Mail, 10th May, 1904.

thought no more of those sounds than one thinks of the wind in the chimney or the groan of old furniture. But, as he approached one of the enormous wards, his thoughts did for a moment run on before him to a poor creature lying in that room, to whom he knew kind death was now beating its way through time. Would he find the madman dead, or would he find him babbling in feverish dreams of things and sights and thoughts of which our sanity has no cognisance? He entered the long ward. . . . He began his solitary tour of inspection. Down the centre of the sleeping ward he went slowly and perfunctorily. . . . looking at every huddled bed upon his right side before turning at the end to study those upon his left . . . . As he went forward, he heard a noise upon his left a little behind him, and turning round he beheld the poor dying lunatic rising out of bed. The sad and friendless madman. . . . brought his feet slowly to the floor and then stood up with white and strangely quiet face. The attendant thinking he was in delirium moved back to help him into bed. But, before he had taken a few paces, the dying lunatic, as though aware only of his own presence in the ward, kneeled solemnly down at the side of the bed, buried his face in his hands and began to pray aloud." "The attendant tells me," continues Mr. Begbie, "that never before and never since did his ears listen to prayers so fervent, so wonderful, so sublime. He asked for forgiveness and he made supplication for help. From the side of his pauper bed, in the midst of those sleep-breathing madmen, the hushed and fervent voice of this hitherto dumb soul climbed sacredly to the Almighty, asking the Eternal to forgive him the sins of which he had been guilty, and to bow down His Heaven and come and save him. There was no frenzy, no chaotic jumble of words, no aimless sentimentalism. As spirit to spirit, this once hopeless and dangerous lunatic prayed in that haunting scene for God's clemency and Heaven's help,

as though the illusions of madness had rolled suddenly away, and he was looking straight into the Holy of Holies and was unafraid . . . . And, when the prayer was finished, the man rose up from his knees, climbed into his bed, laid his head upon his pillow, and through the little wicket-gate of sleep presently entered the fields of eternity." Mr. Begbie adds that, since the publication of an article dealing with the problems of lunacy,1 there have been many other stories sent to him in which "there has been this same sudden sanity at the approach of death. . . . The problem in each case is the same-the sudden lull, the sudden ray of light, and then death."

Upon the facts in this and similar cases, for the existence. of such cases can scarcely be disputed, several observations. may be made. We observe a sudden return to sanity from an insane state-a divided or (it may be) an alternating personality in the one case, the spirit has lost control, the reason has temporarily vanished; in the other case, the spirit has regained control and reason is restored. There has been dispossession and there is repossession: whether the dispossession has been effected by an alien. power, or by an inferior and lower stratum of the self, the result is the same-it requires re-unification of the entire personality to bring back light and reason.?

XI.

We are now in a better position to distinguish evidences of insanity from those of mere depravity. Frequently, of course, the one will shade into the other; but, it is always liable to be forgotten that the question that has to be decided in the Courts is not that of insanity but of responsibility. One has, first of all, in such an inquiry to look for evidences of that change in the thoughts and habits 1 Which the present writer has not seen.

2 Myers, Human Personality, vol. I, 42. 217; vol. II, 190–2.