168 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



Funktionelle und organische Nervenkrank- 

 heiten, p. 83 ; Bessmer, Orundlagen der 

 Seelenstorungen, Freiburg i. B., 1906, p. 55, etc. 

 The sesthetical and ethical feelings and 

 connections are among the first to be affected 

 in Dementia paralytica, but this may be a 

 result of a previous morbid change in the 

 physiological centres of the sense feelings and 

 impulses. If the centres are weakened, an 

 undue ascendency is given to the peripheral 

 stimuli. The weakening of the memory and 

 of the power of attention (both being functions 

 of the nervous system) is easily explained 

 without assuming as Juliusburger seems to 

 do that the higher entity of the soul is in 

 a morbid state in softening of the brain. 

 Juliusburger s allusion to melancholia has 

 nothing to do with our present subject, for the 

 first and most decisive symptom of this con 

 dition is a morbid state of the feelings. These 

 are due to the body, and so melancholia is no 

 evidence of the existence of disease in the 

 higher intelligence. The action of the under 

 standing is only impeded or more or less 

 checked, because the patient s attention is 

 turned exclusively to gloomy ideas. In 

 this lies the psychical depression which 

 characterises melancholia, and it is prim 

 arily organic because of its original con 

 nection with the feelings. Krafft-Ebing 



