The health of the mind properly consists in perfect recollection. Of
course this is not to be understood as meaning that our memory preserves
everything. For the past course of our life shrinks up in time, as the
path of the wanderer looking back shrinks up in space: sometimes it is
difficult for us to distinguish the particular years; the days have for
the most part become unrecognisable. Really, however, only the exactly
similar events, recurring an innumerable number of times, so that their
images, as it were, conceal each other, ought so to run together in the
memory that they are individually unrecognisable; on the other hand, every
event in any way peculiar or significant we must be able to find again in
memory, if the intellect is normal, vigorous, and quite healthy. In the
text I have explained _madness_ as the _broken thread_ of this memory,
which still runs on regularly, although in constantly decreasing fulness
and distinctness. The following considerations may serve to confirm this.
The memory of a healthy man affords a certainty as to an event he has
witnessed, which is regarded as just as firm and sure as his present
apprehension of things; therefore, if sworn to by him, this event is
thereby established in a court of law. On the other hand, the mere
suspicion of madness will at once weaken the testimony of a witness. Here,
then, lies the criterion between the healthy mind and insanity. Whenever I
doubt whether an event which I remember really took place, I throw upon
myself the suspicion of madness: unless it is that I am uncertain whether
it was not a mere dream. If another doubts the reality of an event,
related by me as an eye‐witness, without mistrusting my honesty, then he
regards me as insane. Whoever comes at last, through constantly recounting
an event which originally was fabricated by him, to believe in it himself
is, in this one point, really insane. We may ascribe to an insane person
flashes of wit, single clever thoughts, even correct judgments, but his
testimony as to past events no man will consider valid. In the Lalita‐
vistara, well known to be the history of Buddha Sakya‐Muni, it is related
that at the moment of his birth all the sick became well, all the blind
saw, all the deaf heard, and all mad people “recovered their memory.” This
last is mentioned in two passages.(15)
My own experience of many years has led me to the opinion that madness
occurs proportionally most frequently among actors. But what a misuse they
make of their memory! Daily they have to learn a new part or refresh an
old one; but these parts are entirely without connection, nay, are in
contradiction and contrast with each other, and every evening the actor
strives to forget himself entirely and be some quite different person.
This kind of thing paves the way for madness.
The exposition of the origin of madness given in the text will become more
comprehensible if it is remembered how unwillingly we think of things
which powerfully injure our interests, wound our pride, or interfere with
our wishes; with what difficulty do we determine to lay such things before
our own intellect for careful and serious investigation; how easily, on
the other hand, we unconsciously break away or sneak off from them again;
how, on the contrary, agreeable events come into our minds of their own
accord, and, if driven away, constantly creep in again, so that we dwell
on them for hours together. In that resistance of the will to allowing
what is contrary to it to come under the examination of the intellect lies
the place at which madness can break in upon the mind. Each new adverse
event must be assimilated by the intellect, _i.e._, it must receive a
place in the system of the truths connected with our will and its
interests, whatever it may have to displace that is more satisfactory.
Whenever this has taken place, it already pains us much less; but this
operation itself is often very painful, and also, in general, only takes
place slowly and with resistance. However, the health of the mind can only
continue so long as this is in each case properly carried out. If, on the
contrary, in some particular case, the resistance and struggles of the
will against the apprehension of some knowledge reaches such a degree that
that operation is not performed in its integrity, then certain events or
circumstances become for the intellect completely suppressed, because the
will cannot endure the sight of them, and then, for the sake of the
necessary connection, the gaps that thus arise are filled up at pleasure;
thus madness appears. For the intellect has given up its nature to please
the will: the man now imagines what does not exist. Yet the madness which
has thus arisen is now the lethe of unendurable suffering; it was the last
remedy of harassed nature, _i.e._, of the will.
Let me mention here in passing a proof of my view which is worth noticing.
Carlo Gozzi, in the “_Monstro turchino_,” act i. scene 2, presents to us a
person who has drunk a magic potion which produces forgetfulness, and this
person appears exactly like a madman.
In accordance with the above exposition one may thus regard the origin of
madness as a violent “casting out of the mind” of anything, which,
however, is only possible by “taking into the head” something else. The
converse process is more rare, that the “taking into the head” comes
first, and the “casting out of the mind” second. It takes place, however,
in those cases in which the occasion of insanity is kept constantly
present to the mind and cannot be escaped from; thus, for example, in the
case of many who have gone mad from love, erotomaniacs, where the occasion
of their madness is constantly longed after; also in the case of madness
which has resulted from the fright of some sudden horrible occurrence.
Such patients cling, as it were, convulsively to the thought they have
grasped, so that no other, or at least none opposed to it, can arise. In
both processes, however, what is essential to madness remains the same,
the impossibility of a uniformly connected recollection, such as is the
basis of our healthy and rational reflection. Perhaps the contrast of the
ways in which they arise, set forth here, might, if applied with judgment,
afford a sharp and profound principle of division of delusions proper.
For the rest, I have only considered the physical origin of madness, thus
what is introduced by external, objective occasions. More frequently,
however, it depends upon purely physical causes, upon malformations or
partial disorganisation of the brain or its membranes, also upon the
influence which other parts affected with disease exercise upon the brain.
Principally in the latter kind of madness false sense‐perceptions,
hallucinations, may arise. Yet the two causes of madness will generally
partake of each other, particularly the psychical of the physical. It is
the same as with suicide, which is rarely brought about by an external
occasion alone, but a certain physical discomfort lies at its foundation;
and according to the degree which this attains to a greater or less
external occasion is required; only in the case of the very highest degree
is no external occasion at all required. Therefore there is no misfortune
so great that it would influence every one to suicide, and none so small
that one like it has not already led to it. I have shown the psychical
origin of madness as, at least according to all appearance, it is brought
about in the healthy mind by a great misfortune. In the case of those who
are already strongly disposed to madness physically a very small
disappointment will be sufficient to induce it. For example, I remember a
man in a madhouse who had been a soldier, and had gone out of his mind
because his officer had addressed him as _Er_.(16) In the case of decided
physical disposition no occasion at all is required when this has come to
maturity. The madness which has sprung from purely psychical causes may,
perhaps, by the violent perversion of the course of thought which has
produced it, also introduce a kind of paralysis or other depravity of some
part of the brain, which, if not soon done away with, becomes permanent.
Therefore madness is only curable at first, and not after a longer time.
Pinel taught that there is a _mania sine delirio_, frenzy without
insanity. This was controverted by Esquirol, and since then much has been
said for and against it. The question can only be decided empirically. But
if such a state really does occur, then it is to be explained from the
fact that here the will periodically entirely withdraws itself from the
government and guidance of the intellect, and consequently of motives, and
thus it then appears as a blind, impetuous, destructive force of nature,
and accordingly manifests itself as the desire to annihilate everything
that comes in its way. The will thus let loose is like the stream which
has broken through the dam, the horse that has thrown his rider, or a
clock out of which the regulating screws have been taken. Yet only the
reason, thus _reflective_ knowledge, is included in that suspension, not
_intuitive_ knowledge also; otherwise the will would remain entirely
without guidance, and consequently the man would be immovable. But, on the
contrary, the man in a frenzy apprehends objects, for he breaks out upon
them; thus he has also consciousness of his present action, and afterwards
remembrance of it. But he is entirely without reflection, thus without any
guidance of the reason, consequently quite incapable of any consideration
or regard for the present, the past, or the future. When the attack is
over, and the reason has regained its command, its function is correct,
because here its proper activity has not been perverted or destroyed, but
only the will has found the means to withdraw itself from it entirely for
a while.