738 Dynamic Theory. 



the motor nerves is suspended. Some of these cases are referable to 

 hysterical paralysis in which the trouble is in the belief in the ability to 

 make the effort. Others which show the same practical results are 

 caused by the failure of the cells concerned in the chain of the trans- 

 mission of the motor impulse. In each of the cases the failure is due 

 to a deficiency of the blood supply to some particular set of the cells 

 concerned in the complicated process of forming and carrying out a will. 

 This might result from embolism or from tempora^ paralysis or con- 

 traction of the blood vessels. In one case the capacity of the artery sup- 

 plying the diseased part was contracted in size by a morbid deposit on 

 its lining membrane. 



Maudsley observes that in cases of acute mania the patient is often 

 seen struggling to prevent the manifestation of his insane impulse. It 

 is said he has greater " control of himself " when he is watched or re- 

 monstrated with, which means that the watching, &c. , contributes a re- 

 inforcement to the conservative elements in his internal senses which 

 restrain the insane impulse. An insane impulse is often largely a reflex 

 or consensual impulse ; that is, it is instigated directly by some object 

 in the environment, and if the patient is kept away from the object he 

 will not experience the impulse. If his impulse is to jump out of the 

 second story window, make him live in a one story cottage, &c. In 

 such cases the sensible idea suggested by the object is not overruled by 

 the restraining action of the internal senses. It is these internal senses 

 which regulate and moderate the energy of the lower ganglia. A fish 

 destitute of internal sense organs, will under the merely reflex stimulus 

 of the water swim on and on for no object, till exhausted. 



What Maudsley calls congenital defects of the will would be more 

 properly named the inheritance of defective organs of internal sense ; that 

 is defective organization of the cerebrum, either in the cells relating to the 

 memory or in the nervous connection between those cells, whereby they 

 are co-ordinated and made to modify each other. Children are sometimes 

 born having an incorrigibly, vicious and anti-social nature and totally 

 without conscience. They are almost always descended from an ancestry 

 tainted with some form of nervous or brain deficiency, epileps} r , insanity', 

 &c. In a large proportion of such cases, the functions lost or aborted are 

 those related to the social development of the race and which in the order 

 of evolution have been the last to make their appearance. It has been re- 

 peatedly observed that the latest accession of bodily differentiations and 

 functions is less firmly fixed than those of older habit, and in the case of 

 atrophy the most apt to suffer. There are great differences in different 

 stirps and families in regard to the particular line upon which their latest 

 differentiations have run. Thus while some exposed for generations to 

 the influence of social and reciprocal intercourse have become considerate, 



