From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



only incoherence, but more frequently some idea, some 

 feeling, some elementary psychic grouping, is formed 

 and tends to become permanent, producing fixed ideas 

 and systematic delirium. 



The mental disharmony is not an isolated symptom, 

 but by reason of the fundamental solidarity of the con- 

 stituent principles, it is always accompanied by a total 

 want of equilibrium of the individual grouping. Mania 

 may be ascending or descending, it may arise in the 

 mentality or it may end there. Very often it is started 

 by some toxic, infectious, or reflex trouble attacking 

 the brain. In these cases the symptoms are often mental 

 confusion, maniacal excitement, or melancholia, some- 

 times alternating with circular delirium. The frequent 

 inheritance of insanity proves the importance of the 

 physical factor in its genesis. 



In other cases the origin may be purely mental, 

 and when that is so the insanity is generally partial 

 only; a certain amount of control by the Self persists; 

 not sufficient to arrest the tendency to delirium and the 

 abnormal grouping round a predominant idea, but 

 enough to leave some appearance of reason and to permit 

 the continuance of psychic function. 



There are many degrees in the insanity which has 

 a mental origin and we find every grade between mere 

 mental instability and complete dementia. There are 

 not only the half-mad, but ' quarter and one-tenth mad.' 



The control of the Self over the mentality at the 

 actual evolutionary level that humanity has reached is 

 so imperfect that it is seldom perfectly regular; and in 

 this sense there is no man who is completely free from 

 some mental disequilibrium. Some mental irregularity 

 is almost the rule, perfect psychic health the exception. 



Whether the exciting cause be of organic or of 

 mental origin, essential insanity is not strictly speaking 

 a disease of the brain. It is simply the partial or complete 

 absence of the control of the Self over its mentality. 



253 



