T4 



PERSONALITY 



I'KKSI'KCTIVK 



ca*e> of mental disorder, in which the sense of 

 nenonal identity i* curiously interfered with. 

 CMC* are, of coune, nf constant occurrence in 

 which tli* patient mentally affected conceives him 

 M-H to be MOM one eUe (e.g. Napoleon or a Scrip- 

 ture characters). Other* conceive that part* or pro- 

 pert if* of their frame Wong to another person, or 

 that they are inhabited and ruled by a -pirit or 

 rntitv acting in opposition to their will and inter- 



iilii-ni, Kgtuii. are possessed hy the idea that 

 thev are two penni> at once, or rather that their 

 Ul'y i the *eat of two l*-ings who are often in 

 tiiir with one another, one being generally identi- 

 fied limn- strictly witli tin- self, and the other U-ing 

 regarded an a hostile |Hwer and a HIHHI-HIS ttiiet 

 who prompts the IH-II<-I self !<> evil courses. 'I lie 

 struggle between the two persons of this duality 

 often take* Utility slm|>e, ami the patient maltreat* 

 lib own body under the impression that he is 

 caatigating the vicious 'other one' who haunts 

 him. Thin alienation or extrusion of jwirt of the 

 individual's ex|>criciice from the inner circle of the 

 jtenumalitv may IK- due, it him Keen suggested, to a 

 morbid alteration in the co-na-sthesis or organic 

 s.-nsjiiion* which represent in consciousness the 

 Mat* of the body as a whole. Any part of the 

 l"ly in whirh tlib common sensibility is wanting 

 i disturU-d is regarded by the patient a- no longer 

 M part of himself, and even ait belonging to some 

 hostile beiti*;. It even happens in extreme cases 

 of such somatic insensibility that the individual 

 doiiMs or ilenies his own existence, as in the case 

 of a patient cited by RiUtt. who declared that he 

 had been dead two yearn, though (according to lib 

 >wn account ) he still continued to exist in a 

 m.s-lmmcnl fashion in whirh he was not consciously 

 interested. 



Thene manifestation*, however, are not what b 

 meant by doulile consciousness in the strict sense 

 ol the term. Double consciousness does not necen- 

 -.inly imply the presence of any insane delusion as 

 to the patient's present existence and surroundings, 

 but conninUi in the fact that a certain portion of 

 hi* pal life in tem|torarily withdrawn altogether 

 from his ronnoiotm memory, to reappear, however, 

 at a later iieriod, when he will have as completely 

 forgotten liis present experiences and the whole 

 ~-<-iion of his life c-oiinected with them. In the 

 normal human being the memory is unitary, and 

 tonwqiieiitly tin- life e\|M-ijciires cif the individual 

 . felt and recalled an purls of one whole. In 



norbid raws, on the contrary, tin- conscious 

 life wwnu, a* it were, U> IK- cut into sections or 

 length* which are entirely dissevered, and retained, 

 ' io -peak, in separate memories. These mutually 

 exrhuire (action* are remembered by the indiyidual 

 int.-niiiM.-ni I \ in miecem>ive periods, generally 

 eparaled from one another by a swoon, a fit, o'r 



Sow, M II I- "Ml 



memory of pnt e\|H-iienccs tlmt may Iw said to 

 form the anchor of pctsmial identity, it follows 

 that in neb caw* we shall have, in greater or lew 

 ompletenrm, the extraordinary phenomenon of two 

 fpparaU) and inde|>cndent trains ( ,f thought con- 

 M><|upntly two M-pnrate perwinalitieK in the same 

 phviral individual. 



|Vrh|~ the most clearly defined and cnniplcte 

 in.Uuice on record i that of the young Aim-iicim 

 woman reported by Macnudi in lib /V<iA/<A.v "/ 

 /.- ..'.,..., 



found Rlerii liwtinK w>veral hnurs iH-vond the usual 

 term. Before her Wp hc wan well informed and 

 an excellent memory. 'On waking she 

 >eml to have loM everj- trace of acnuired 

 knowMge. It wan found necnwarv for her to 

 learn everything again. She eren acqiiiml by new 

 the art of |>elling, reading, writing, and 

 l. and Kraduallv became ao|iiainU-<l with 



the persons and objects around, like a being for 

 the lirst time brought into the world. In these 

 exercises she made considerable proficiency. Hut 

 after a few months another fit of somnolency in 

 vaded her. On rousing from it fthe found herself 

 restored to the state sne was in before the I'n-t 

 paroxN sin. but was wholly ignorant of every event 

 and circumstance that hail In-fallen her afterward. 

 She is as unconscious of her double character as 

 two persons are of their respective natures. 1 <>i 

 example, in her old state she possesses all tin- 

 original knowledge, in her new state only what 

 she acquired since. In the old state she possesses 

 line poweis of penmanship, while in the new -In- 

 wilti-s a poor, awkward hand, having not had 

 time or means to become an expert.' A similar 

 experience is observable in the case of somnam 

 bulists, who are totally ignorant, in the waking 

 state, of their somnambulistic experience, but 

 when again in the somnambulistic state recall what 

 happened in the previous crisis. Lost objects have 

 been recovered, and even crimes brought to lij;ht 

 by taking advantage of this peculiarity. The same 

 phenomenon is also said to have been observed in 

 cases of intoxication, what is done in one fit of 

 drunkenness being remembered in the next, but 

 forgotten in the sober interval. Instances of double 

 consciousness, however, are not always of the 

 precise type mentioned by Macnish. Thus, in one 

 of the most interesting of recent cases (that of 

 Kelida X., reported by Dr A/am i, the woman was 

 conscious during the second state of her whole 

 life-experience, but during the first or original 

 state knew nothing of anything that had happened 

 in the second. The alternations began in this 

 case in 185G, and continued for upwards of thirty 

 years, ami it is remarkable that the second state, 

 which at first appeared only in short dream-like 

 periods, has gradually supplanted the first state, 

 which now recurs only at long intervals, and for a 

 few hours. The second state is physically and 

 mentally superior to the first, and the patient 

 herself speaks of the first as flat bate. A si ill more 

 extraordinary case, reported from Paris, is that of 

 Louis V., a young man of epileptic and hysterical 

 temperament and criminal tendencies (born 1863), 

 where the medical record signalises not two, lint 

 six states which are mutually exclusive, hut which, 

 taken together, embrace his whole past life. These 

 and other cases are commented upon by Ribot in 

 his />,.,. n.srv of Memory and his Maladies de la 

 J'ernoiiniiliti', and by Mr F. W. Myers in an article 

 on 'Multiplex Personality" (Nineteenth I'aiftiry, 

 Nnvcmlx-r 1886). The phenomena of double con- 

 sciousness have also been aptlv descril>ed as periodic 

 amnesia. They evidently depend upon morbid 

 action of the brain it lias been suggested, upon 

 an abnormal severance and consequent independent 

 iii-lioii of the two hemispheres but. the physi.. 

 logical conditions are still full of obscurity. An 

 ingenious literary use of the notion of double 

 personality, on completely different planes of 

 morality, is seen in Mr R. L. Stevenson's creation 

 of Dr.lckyllandMrHyde. 



IVr.onally. a|l the property which, when a 

 man dies, goes to his executor or administrator, as 

 distinguished from the realty, which goes to his 

 heii at law. Personalty consists of money, furni- 

 ture, stock in the funds; while really consists of 

 ficehold land and lights connected with land. See 



iNTKSTACY, KlN (NEXT OF), REALTY. In Scot 



law, the corresponding phrase is Movables ; see 

 HERITABLE AND MOVADLK. 



( Lat. perspicio, 'I look through') 

 b the art of representing natural objects upon a 

 plane surface in such a manner that the represen- 

 tation shall affect the eye in the same way as the 



