752 ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 



pears in all depressions, and which, on reappearing in the subse- 

 quent excitations, gives rise to feelings of joy and gladness. 



Below these highest functions are to be placed those mental 

 operations which occur when present reality is to a certain extent 

 ignored, and the present reaction consists in an automatic repe- 

 tition of the past. "I must not pay attention; my work will not 

 proceed satisfactorily if I become absorbed in it." Still lower down 

 we must place the abstract mental operations; these have to do 

 solely with few and non-complex images, nor are they concerned 

 with new adaptations. It is a mistake to suppose that abstract rea- 

 soning, imagining, and remembering are the highest mental opera- 

 tions. These are of value only when they are engaged upon the 

 (concrete) present; so soon as they become abstract, they cease 

 to be difficult, and prove to be most commonplace achievements. 

 A high degree of development of purely representative memory is 

 frequently attained by savages, by children, by the feeble-minded, 

 and by the insane. Still lower down, we would have uncoordinated 

 visceral excitation, such as is present in the emotions, in the un- 

 coordinated motor agitations, in tics, and in convulsions. 



In short, the mental functions disappear more readily in pro- 

 portion as their coefficient of reality is higher, and persist longer 

 in proportion as their coefficient of reality is lower. Thus from 

 the point of view of knowledge and of action, or of their corre- 

 spondence with each other (Spencer), the mental functions con- 

 stitute a series of decreasing difficulty, according as their relation 

 to reality diminishes. If we consider these conceptions in connection 

 with the philosophical views of Spencer, Hoffding, Ribot, andBergson, 

 they throw light upon many of the observations and experiments 

 of pathological psychology. 



, If this is true, one can understand that there are degrees of psych- 

 ical tension, and that to these different degrees there correspond 

 modifications not only in the intensity, but also most interesting 

 modifications in the quality or nature of phenomena. The degree 

 of psychical tension or of elevation of mental level is indicated by the 

 place in the hierarchy which is occupied by the highest phenomena to 

 which the subject can attain. Confidence, perception of reality, and 

 reaction upon reality, require the highest degree of tension; these 

 are phenomena of high tension. Reverie, motor agitation, and 

 visceral agitation require much lesser degrees of tension; these 

 may be regarded as phenomena of low tension, corresponding to a 

 lower mental level. 1 The changes in psychical function which we 

 have observed may then be summarized by the conception of a 

 definite lowering or elevation of psychical tension, by the conception 

 of an oscillation of mental level. 



1 Obsessions et psychasthenie, 1903, i, pp. 499 ff. 



