IX.] ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 231 



way of his jump, at the same time that isolated visual 

 impressions take no effect upon him. 1 



As I have pointed out, it is impossible to prove 



that F is absolutely unconscious in his abnormal 



state, but it is no less impossible to prove the con- 

 trary; and the case of the frog goes a long way to 

 justify the assumption that, in the abnormal state, 

 the man is a mere insensible machine. 



If such facts as these had come under the know- 

 ledge of Descartes, would they not have formed an 



1 Those who have had occasion to become acquainted with the 

 phenomena of somnambulism and of mesmerism, will be struck with 

 the close parallel which they present to the proceedings of F. in his 

 abnormal state. But the great value of Dr. Mesnet's observations lies 

 in the fact that the abnormal condition is traceable to a definite injury 

 to the brain, and that the circumstances are such as to keep us clear of 

 the cloud of voluntary and involuntary fictions in which the truth is 

 too often smothered in such cases. In the unfortunate subjects of 

 such abnormal conditions of the brain, the disturbance of the sensory 

 and intellectual faculties is not unfrequently accompanied by a perturb- 

 ation of the moral nature, which may manifest itself in a most 

 astonishing love of lying for its own sake. And, in this respect, also, 

 F.'s case is singularly instructive, for though, in his normal state, he is 

 a perfectly honest man, in his abnormal condition he is an inveterate 

 thief, stealing and hiding away whatever he can lay hands on, with 

 much dexterity, and with an absurd indifference as to whether the 

 property is his own or not. Hoffman's terrible conception of the 

 " Doppelt-ganger " is realised by men in this state who live two lives, 

 in the one of which they may be guilty of the most criminal acts, 

 while, in the other, they are eminently virtuous and respectable. 

 Neither life knows anything of the other. Dr. Mesnet states that he 

 has watched a man in his abnormal state elaborately prepare to hang 

 himself, and has let him go on until asphyxia set in, when he cut him 

 down. But on passing into the normal state the would-be suicide 

 was wholly ignorant of what had happened. The problem of respon- 

 sibility is here as complicated as that of the prince-bishop, who swore 

 as a prince and not as a bishop. " But, highness, if the prince is 

 damned, what will become of the bishop ? " said the peasant. 



