234: ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 



the patient to repeat this scene by placing him in the 

 same conditions. Now, in this case, the question arises 

 whether the series of actions constituting this singular 

 pantomime was accompanied by the ordinary states of 

 consciousness, the appropriate train of ideas, or not ? 

 Did the man dream that he was skirmishing? or was 

 he in the condition of one of Yaucauson's automata 

 a senseless mechanism worked by molecular changes in 

 his nervous system ? The analogy of the frog shows that 

 the latter assumption is perfectly justifiable. 



The ex-sergeant has a good voice, and had, at one 

 time, been employed as a singer at a cafe. In one of 

 his abnormal states he was observed to begin humming 

 a tune. He then went to his room, dressed himself care- 

 fully, and took up some parts of a periodical novel, which 

 lay on his bed, as if he were trying to find something. 

 Dr. Mesnet, suspecting that he was seeking his music, 

 made up one of these into a roll and put it into his hand. 

 He appeared satisfied, took up his cane and went down- 

 stairs to the door. Here Dr. Mesnet turned him round, 

 and he walked quite contentedly, in the opposite direc- 

 tion, towards the room of the concierge. The light of 

 the sun shining through a window now happened to fall 

 upon him, and seemed to suggest the footlights of the 

 stage on which he was accustomed to make his appear- 

 ance. He stopped, opened his roll of imaginary music, 

 put himself into the attitude of a singer, and sang, with 

 perfect execution, three songs, one after the other. After 

 which he wiped his face with his handkerchief and drank, 



