172 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



Pathology. When the Mind is affected by certain 

 diseases, its progress downward can often be fol- 

 lowed step by step. It does not tumble down in 

 a moment into chaos like a house of cards, but in 

 a definite order, stone by stone, or storey by 

 storey. Now the striking thing about that order 

 is, that it is the probable order in which the 

 building has gone up. The order of descent, in 

 short, is the inverse of the order of ascent. The 

 first faculty to go, in many cases of insanity, is 

 the last faculty which arrived ; the next faculty is 

 affected next ; the whole spring uncoiling as it 

 were in thq order and direction in which, presum- 

 ably, it had been wound up. Sometimes even in 

 the phenomenon of old age the cycle may be 

 clearly traced. " Just as consciousness is slowly 

 evolved out of vegetative life, so is it, through 

 the infirmities of old age, the gradual approach of 

 death, and in advanced mental disease, again re- 

 solved into it. The highest, most differentiated 

 phenomena of consciousness are the first to give 

 way ; impulse, instinct, and reflex movements 

 become again predominant. The phrase ' to grow 

 childish ' expresses the resemblance between the 

 first stage and the stage of dissolution."^ 



That the highest part of man should totter first 

 * Hoffding, Psychology^ p. 92. 



