SECT. XXXI V.i. DISEASES OF VOLITION. 



love, reverence. For fublime ideas are mixed with 

 admiration, beautiful ones with love, new ones with 

 lurprife ; and thefe exertions of our ideas prevent 

 the aclion of laughter from being neceflary to re- 

 lieve the painful pleafure above defcribed. Whence 

 laughable wit confifts of frivolous ideas, without con- 

 nections of any confequence, fuch as puns on words, 

 or on phrafes, incongruous junctions of ideas; on 

 which account laughter is fo frequent in children. 



Unmixed pleafure lefs than that, which taufes 

 laughter, caufes fleep, as in linging children to fleep, 

 or in flight intoxication from wine or food. See Se&. 

 XVIII. 12. 



5. If the pains, or difagreeable fenfations, above 

 defcribed, do not obtain a temporary relief from 

 thefe convulfive exertions of the mufcles, thofe con- 

 vuliive exertions continue without remiilion,and one 

 kind of catalepfy is produced. Thus when a nerve 

 or tendon produces great pain by its being inflamed 

 or wounded, the patient fets his teeth firmly toge- 

 ther, and grins violently, to diminilh the pain ; and 

 if the pain is not relieved by this exertion, no relax- 

 ation of the maxillary mufcles takes place, as in the 

 convulfions above defcribed, but the jaws remain 

 firmly fixed together. This locked jaw is the mofl 

 frequent inftance of cataleptic fpafm, becaufe we are 

 more inclined to exert the mufcles fubfervient to 

 maftication from their early obedience to violent 

 efforts of volition. 



But in the cafe related in Se&. XIX. on Reverie, 

 the cataleptic lady had pain in her upper teeth ; and 

 preffing one of her hands vehemently again ft her 

 cheek-bone to diminifh this pain, it remained in that 

 attitude for about half an hour twice a day, till the 

 painful paroxyfm was over. 



I have this very day feen a young lady in this 

 difeafe, (with which me has frequently been affiift- 

 ed,) Ibe began to-day with violent pain mooting from 



one 



