A textbook of mental diseases.

  • Lewis, W. Bevan.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A textbook of mental diseases. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    207/749 (page 149)
    it may fairly enough be objected that in melancholia there is also a state of irritation. * . , , ^ r u 1 Had he asserted that both conditions co-existed, a state of cerebral torpor in the physical substrata of object-COnSCiOUSneSS, and a state of cerebral irritation in the substrata of subject-consciousness, he would, we think, have faithfully recorded the morbid phenomena. The normal variations in these antithetic halves of consciousness, with which reverie and dreamy states render us familiar, have been thus lucidly expressed by Herbert Spencer, when in reference to the vivid and faint aggregates of consciousness he says :— Though entire unconsciousness of things around us is rarely if ever reached, yet the consciousness of them may become very imperfect; and this imperfect consciousness, observe, results from the independence of the faint series becoming for the time so marked that very little of it clings to the vivid series. t Decline in Object-consciousness.—The various states of con- sciousness and the changes from one to the other constitute collectively the sole elements of mind; and our considerations, therefore, apply to feelings and the relations between feelings. First, let us note that the variations from the normal state embrace a quantitative and a quali- tative change. Feelings may succeed each other in rapid order, or in slow, monotonous file; they may arise in serial order, or numbers of disconnected states may simultaneously thrust themselves into the field of consciousness, producing turmoil and indefinite vague emotion and thought. On the other hand, mental phenomena may exhibit a qualitative alteration, such as, e.g., is shown in degrees of intensity of feeling, or again, of definiteness as due to the more or less relational character of the product. The decline in object-consciousness which occurs in states of pathological depression, such as we are now dealing with, presents us with the following features;— {a) Enfeebled representativeness : (6) a lessened seriality of thought (weakened attention) : (c) diminution or failure in the muscular element of thought. The last appears to us so important a factor in these morbid states, as to demand here somewhat careful and detailed consideration. Failure in the Muscular Element of Thought.—The constant accompaniment of depressed mental states is a diminished range of perception; and, since every perception is a complex phenomenon of composite states of consciousness—if one or other of the essential elements of an idea or of a presented object be wanting—the definite realisation of such object or idea is defective. The loss may be in the more sensuous element of the perception—in those qualities, in fact, of body which are categorised as dynamic (primordial), e.g., colour, * Mental Diseases, 8yd. Soc, p. 210. t Principles of Psychology, vol. ii., p. 459. 10