The diseases of personality / by Th. Ribot ; tr. from the French by J. Fitzgerald.
- Théodule-Armand Ribot
- Date:
- 1887
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The diseases of personality / by Th. Ribot ; tr. from the French by J. Fitzgerald. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![tinually with a problem, or intent on working out an invention, or bending his energies toward the production of some original work in any field, his entire men- tal resources, his whole personality, are drawn upon for the beneht of one idea. In such cases, a man is overmastered by his dominant idea, that is, he is an automaton ; he is in an abnormal state ; there is a disturbance of equilibrium. Of this we have proof in the innumerable anecdotes that are current the world over about inventors, whether well balanced or half-crazed. And it may be remarked in passing that a fixed idea is a fixed senti- ment, or a fixed passion. The fixed idea gets its intensity, its stability, its tenacity from some longing, some emotion of love or hatred, some consideration of gain. Ideas are ever servitors of the passions, but they are like those masters who al- ways obey the while they think they command. So far we have no change of personal- ity, but only simple deviation from the normal type, or better, the schematic type, where ex itypothcsi the organic, the af- fective, and, the intellective elements pro- duce a perfect co7isensus. There is hy- pertrophy at one point, atrophy at other points, conformably to the law of com- pensation. Let us consider morbid cases. Outside of the artificial alterations pro- duced during hypnotism it is difficult to find any great number of cases in which the starting-point is indisputably an idea. But I think I am justified in classing among changes of personality having their source in the intellect the phenom- ena of lycanthropy and of zoanthropy; once so common, now rare. At all events, in every instance of which we have authentic record * the mental debil- ity in the lycanthrope is so great, and so near akin 'to stupidity, that one is dis- posed to see here a case of reversion, of return to the purely animal individuality. We may add that as these cases are com- plicated with disorders of the viscera, and with hallucinations of touch {cutattces) and of sight, it is not easy to decide whether they are the effects of a precon- ceived idea, or whether they themselves produce it. Still it must be remembered that lycanthropy has sometimes been epidemic, that is, it must have begun, at least among the imitators, with a fixed * See Calmeil, De la Folie Consideree sous le Point de I'ue Pathologique^ Philosophique^ His- toriqtcc, et Judiciaire, vol. i, book 3, chap. 2, and book 4, chap. 2. idea. Finally, this particular malady dis- appeared when men had ceased to be- lieve in It—when the thought that he was a wolf could no longer find a lodgment in a man's brain. The only perfect instances of trans- formation of the personality by ideas (iraHsforinatzon idealc) are those already mentioned, where men believe them- selves to be women, and vice versa, without presenting any sexual anomaly that could account for this metamor- phosis. The influence of an idea ap- pears also to be initiative or preponder- ant with the possessed, demoniacs. It often acts upon the exorcist by contagion. To cite one instance of this. Father Surin, so long mixed up with the well- known doings at the Loudun Ursuline nunnery, was convinced thiit he had two souls, and sometimes, as it would appear, even three.f In short, transformation of personality through the dominance of an idea are not very frequent, and this affords new proof of what we have again and again repeated: that personality comes from the more fundamental psychic elements. In the higher nerve centers it attains its unity and there does it come to full con- sciousness of itself, there it reaches per- fection. If by a mechanism acting in the reverse direction it proceeds from above downward, the result is superficial, pre- carious, momentary. Of this we have a demonstration when artificial personalities are produced in hypnotized subjects. The observations of Ch. Richet on this subject are full and conclusive.:]: I will sum them up briefly. t He has left us a detailed account of his mental state in his Hisiorie des Diables de Loudun, p. 297 et scq.: 1 cannot describe to you what passes within me during' this time [/. e., when the demon passes from the body of the possessed nun into his body] and how this spirit unites with mine, with- out depriving' me either of the cognition or of the liberty of my soul, nevertheless making himself like another jne, and as though I had two souls whereof one is dispossessed of its body and of the ^ use of its organs and stands aside, looking on while the intruder makes herself at home. The two spirits fight on one field, which is the body, and the soul is as it were divided in twain : in one part of her, she is the subject of the diabolic impres- sions : in the other, she is the subject of the mo- tions that are proper to her or that God gives her. When I would, by the motion of one of these two souls, make the sign of the cross upon my lips, the other turns my hand away very rapidly, and seizes my finger with the teeth to bite it in its rage. * * When I would speak my speech is checked ; at the mass I am stopped quite short ; at the table I cannot raise a morsel to my mouth ; at confession, I suddenly forget my sins, and I feel the devil go- ing and coming within me, as in his own house. X Revue Philosophique, March, 1883. He gives some later observations in his work, VHomme et f Intelligence. See also Carpenter, Mental Phys- iology.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21074409_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
