xxxviii Journal of Comparative Neurology, 



ing is said in this connection of the role of emotion. In my own ex- 

 perience this seems to be the dominant factor, as regards the lasting 

 qualities, at least ; for my earliest memories all lead back to moments 

 of strong feeling. 



The sections on Conception and Reasoning would have been 

 clarified, it seems to me, by applying to the child the distinction be- 

 tween perceptual and conceptual processes, or 'intelligence' and 'rea- 

 son,' as used by Professor Morgan in his Animal Life and Intel- 

 ligence. 



The chapter on Language is probably the most valuable in the 

 book and should prove of interest to the philologists. 



Finally, it should be added that the style is easy and free from 

 technicalities so that any intelligent person may avail himself of the 

 facts presented without special psychological training. 



C. J. H. 



lutellectual States in Melancholia.^ 



This is a study of the associations of ideas in melancholia. Of 

 the four types of the disease — melancholia with consciousness, depres- 

 sive melancholia, anxious melancholia, and melancholia with stupor — 

 the first two only were studied. 



Cases of melancholia are in general tracable to two causes, — first 

 and most frequently to a general (but unknown) somatic condition 

 which manifests itself as an affective state in consciousness and about 

 which the ideas are associated in a secondary way, and second and 

 less often to a fixed idea, or obsession, which occasions the affective 

 state, about which in turn the other intellectual states are secondarily 

 associated. 



Both in melancholia and in abulia these associated ideas obey al- 

 ways one law, the laiv of synthesis. The patient being unable to give 

 a valid account for his depression, which is nevertheless a fact of real 

 experience, finds himself under the necessity of inventing reasons 

 for it. ft is this which shapes the whole mental life of the patient. 



Looking for the cause of melancholia to profound and wide- 

 spread organic changes, we find here an explanation for the general 

 psychic relaxation so characteristic of melancholia. The increase of 

 the inhibitory phenomena and the resultant abulia may be traced to 

 the same cause. The invasion of consciousness affects all of the men- 



^DuMAS, Georges. Les etats intellectuels dans la melancolie. Farts, Felix 

 Alcan, 1895. 



