596 FR,EUD's PSYCHO-PATIIOLOCWCAL TH l-:(JKIi:s. 



the word in the list and the response of the subject by calHng 

 out the word sngo^ested. It is found that the interval is longer 

 than the average when the word in the list evokes some associa- 

 tion of an emotional character. In this way the wrong acts of 

 persons, especially young persons, have been detected by the 

 record of the fact that the intervals of responses are longer in 

 the case of words in the list which are associated with the circum- 

 stances of the wrong act. Such words touch a com]>lex of the 

 subject ; and no doubt the same result would be ol)tained when 

 the com])lex was of a more permanent description, such as an 

 old grief or disappointment, or pleasure associated with a hobby. 



A complex forming in the mind of an individual may be 

 one that his better nature condemns. A j^er^on mav have a 

 passion for something that is forbidden, a weakness of which he 

 or she is ashamed. Then arises a state of tension, a conflict 

 between the complex and the higher social tendencies. In the 

 mind of the better sort, the complex will have the worst of the 

 conflict, and the result will be its repression. The repressed 

 complex, on tlie other liand, need not necessaril\- l)e bad from 

 a moral point of view. It may be innocent in itself, but opposed 

 to conventional views, or even merelv condemned by j^rejudice. 

 The idea of a mental conflict is one of the salient features of 

 Freud's system. 



\Mien the complex is thus repressed, whether by the will or 

 external forces, it is not necessarily eliminated from the mind. 

 Driven as it were from tlic surface, it begins its underground 

 working. Banished from consciousness, it still operates in the 

 unconscious mind, and yet keeps striving to manifest itself in 

 consciousness. It will seize an opportunity to do so when the 

 repressing forces are not on the alert, when the mind of its 

 victim is exhausted by illness or exertion, when he is dreaming 

 or dav-dreaming, when he is under some relaxing influence, stich 

 as alcohol or a drug. And in order to evade the vigilance of the 

 higher feelings, it makes use of all sorts of disguises. Thus the 

 delusions and hallucinations that show themselves in the mind 

 of the insane and hysterical may have no a])i)arent connection 

 with the repressed tendency or complex. For instance, a wonian 

 whose insanity resulted from a disappointment in love had a 

 hallucination in the form of a constant smell of burnt pudding. 

 It was afterwards discovered that she had been making a pud- 

 ding at the time of a crisis in her experience. In the same way 

 the imagery of a dream may have little superficial resemblance 

 to the tendency that was suppressed by the dreamer in his 

 waking hours. Freud, who has written a work on the subject 

 of dreams, describes their imagery as being symbolical of the 

 repressed complex. He regards even the apparently meaningless 

 symptoms of the hysterical person, such as repeated objectless 

 movements, incapacity to stir a hand or a foot, loss of the power 

 to exercise one of the senses — even these he regards as an 

 attempt of the complex to express itself. Mistakes in speaking 



