DELUSIONS OF DOUBT. 789 



* God thirteen ! ' or else, ' Infinity thirteen ! eternity thirteen ! ' Yet 

 he was perfectly accountable, for he wrote to me himself that it was 

 absurd to figure God as thirteen for an instant, to prevent his ever 

 being it. But, pursued by this incessantly returning obsession, he 

 kept on repeating his mental prayer at every instant, and ended with 

 not being able to continue his studies, or to devote himself to any 

 serious occupation." 



We come now to the history of a patient whose case I have espe- 

 cially in view, who presents to us an example of the delirium in its 

 purest, most elevated, and most metaphysical form, and least compli- 

 cated with any foreign element. He is a young man of about twenty- 

 eight years, of an agreeable and intellectual appearance and a fine 

 physical development. He is the fifth son of his father, who is still 

 living, and has no other infirmity than a light trembling. No heredi- 

 tary vice exists in his family, but the patient had convulsions in his 

 infancy, the last of which occurred when he was eight years old ; 

 since then he has had no other sickness. The normal soundness of his 

 development is proved by the fact that he is now the support of his 

 family. He is employed in a bank, and his services are much appre- 

 ciated there. He is very intelligent, but has never received any but a 

 rudimentary education. He has never read Descartes nor the other 

 philosophers, and, when he involuntarily touches upon the most abstruse 

 questions, it may be said that he makes metaphysics without knowing 

 it. He was working diligently and regularly at his desk in the bank, 

 when, one morning in June, 1874, he observed a sudden and curious 

 change occur in the appearance of objects, concerning the nature of 

 which I can not give a clearer idea than by repeating his own descrip- 

 tion of his impressions : 



"In the month of June, 1874," he writes, "I felt quite suddenly, 

 without any pain or giddiness, a change in the aspect of my vision. 

 Everything seemed to me strange and queer, although the same forms 

 and colors were preserved. Under the mistaken thought that the dis- 

 agreeable sensation would pass away as it had come, I gave myself 

 no more -trouble about it, till a polypus made its appearance in my 

 left nostril. I then went to a doctor and had him remove the polypus, 

 without telling him anything about the new state of my vision. I 

 thought -the polypus was the cause of the strange appearance things 

 presented to me, and that, when it was taken away, I would be all 

 right again. But nothing of the kind came to pass. No remarkable 

 change occurred till December, 1880, more than five years afterward, 

 when I felt myself diminishing, and finally to disappear. Nothing was 

 left of me but an empty body. From that time my personality has 

 wholly vanished, and, in spite of all that I can do to get back that 

 self that has escaped, I can not. Everything around me has become 

 more and more strange ; and now, not only do I not know what I am, 

 but I can not give any account of what is called existence, reality. 



