112 THE FEEBLY INHIBITED. 



felt impelled to murder her only child or herself. She told her husband 

 of the impulse, and begged him to have her sent to an asylum "before 

 something terrible would happen." One night her husband woke up 

 and found his wife making a noise in the darkness by fumbling in a 

 drawer which contained knives, spoons, etc. She was then, at her own 

 request, and by the advice of her medical attendant, sent to an asylum ; 

 from which, after a residence of 6 months, she was discharged, improved, 

 to the care of her friends. 



In these cases a vivid idea, perhaps frequently if not usually, of the 

 nature of an hallucination appears, and, in the absence of inhibitions, 

 such a presentation is reacted to, again without reference to the instinct 

 of self-preservation; for this instinct is chiefly an inhibitory instinct, 

 and it is, by hypothesis, not operative. If the impulsive idea and the 

 condition of feeble inhibition coincide in time self-destruction will 

 follow, as in the propositus of No. 1 1, but if the idea is presented while 

 inhibitions are active, as in his sister, suicide will not actually occur. 



In this same group belong certain, if not most, cases of threats of 

 suicide. The strong emotion is present; it is accompanied by violent 

 action, emphatic language is used, furniture is perhaps destroyed, and 

 the pati nt threatens to take the life of various convenient persons, 

 including his own — as the extremest motor representation of his 

 emotion — but, actually, the inhibitions are usually too strong and the 

 homicide and suicide exist only as threats. In family history No. 12 

 the propositus illustrates this pretty well. She was a continual talker; 

 "talked all from her nerves;" became, under a certain stress, violent, 

 restless, and noisy ; developed delusions and hallucinations ; threatened 

 suicide, but never made the attempt. 



In some cases it is less in anger or great excitement than in a con- 

 dition of extreme vanity or amour propre which has been wounded by 

 some slight that the threat is made and sometimes carried out. A 

 physical attack may be fully reacted to by a show of force; but an 

 injury to one's pride is to be repaired by forcing an apology from the 

 insultor, and as this is not practicable directly for the young or subor- 

 dinate person, the instinct is to do something that will make the other 

 regret his insult, and the worse that thing the better. Suicide in con- 

 sequence of the insult readily occurs to one as the limit, and the feeble 

 inhibition interposes no sufficient obstacle to carrying out the sugges- 

 tion. Here seem to belong the suicides of adolescence. The immediate 

 ' ' cause ' ' is often given as ' ' fear " of an impending punishment (properly 

 the idea of putting the punisher in the wrong) ; disappointments in 

 love (to put the rejector in the wrong) ; low school-report or failure to 

 be promoted, and so on. Insult, blame, shame, reclamation directed 

 toward the patient are once and for all wiped out or fully avoided by 

 his suicide and the tables are turned on the offender or threatened 

 offender, who is filled with regret, remorse, and self -accusation. Ado- 



