THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JOKING. 



33» 



should begin the new stage of the inquiry with the quasi-healthy feel- 

 ing of " reminiscence," clearly an element in a mental diplopia. For 

 my task would be an endeavor to show that all morbid mental states 

 are departures from normal (stereoscopic) mental states in particular 

 ways — that, for example, the process of mentation in the maniac is but 

 a caricature of stereoscopic and diplopic mentation in healthy people. 

 Thus, the reminiscence, although it is almost pedantic to call it mor- 

 bid, is really a link between perfectly normal and decidedly abnormal 

 mentation. For reminiscence occurs in slight attacks of a certain va- 

 riety of epilepsy, as do other voluminous mental states (" intellectual 

 aura3 ") : I call thera all " dreamy states." These cases I should take 

 next. There is clearly in thera morbid mental diplopia, and yet this 

 is traceably only a gross caricature of normal mental diplopia, being 

 linked on to it by the reminiscence occurring in people we call healthy. 

 And I think we may show that it has the same mechanism that puns 

 have. Next, taking these miniature and transient cases of insanity, 

 and other cases commonly called insanity, I should try to show that 

 the comparison of mentation with vision is of direct value. In the 

 symptomatology of a patient who has paralysis of an ocular muscle 

 there are many elements. There is morbid visual diplopia ; in in- 

 sanity there is morbid mental diplopia. The ophthalmologist's "true" 

 and " false " images have their analogues in the "true" and "false" 

 mental states in the cases of epilepsy mentioned. In the former, 

 when the divergence of the eyes is slight, there is more visual con- 

 fusion ; in the latter, when the dissolution of the highest centers 

 is shallow, there is more mental confusion. In the former, when 

 the divergence is great, diplopia ceases (the patient, the ophthalmolo- 

 gist says, " neglects " the false image) ; in cases of epilepsy, upon 

 deeper dissolution than that with which there is the " dreamy state," 

 the actions are considerably coherent. The " erroneous projections " 

 of the former have their clear analogues in the hallucinations of many 

 cases of insanity. Believing that all diseases are to be looked on as 

 flaws in different parts of one evolutionary system, I urge the " Com- 

 parative Study of Diseases of the Nervous System." I submit that, 

 recognizing the enormous difference between insanity and ocular paral- 

 ysis, a profitable comparison and contrast may, nevertheless, be made, 

 which will further a better knowledge of both. I do not mean simply 

 that ocular paralysis may be taken as an illustration to simplify ex- 

 planation of a case of insanity, but also that, both being examples of 

 dissolution, the very same principles are displayed in each. — Lancet. 



The Bishop of Manchester preached recently that the criticisms of men of 

 science had induced Christians to modify some of their old views derived from 

 the Bible. A closer stndy of the book showed that there had been evolution in 

 religion — a gradual and orderly development by which people were led to the 

 truth as they could bear it. 



