BEAIN TROUBLES. 



299 



to him at this time, and how he tested his mental 

 condition by thinking of the principles of religion, 

 conscience, and the future life, finding to his relief 

 that these principles he found " equally correct and 

 fixed as before " (a degree of assurance which some 

 do not possess who are quite free from mental dis- 

 order). Passing over these matters, as not bearing 

 specially on our subject, we find that so soon as he 

 tested his power of expressing his ideas, either by 

 spoken or by written words, he found that for the 

 time being the power was lost. " I endeavoured to 

 speak, in order to discover whether I was capable of 

 saying anything that was connected ; but although I 

 made the greatest efforts of attention, and proceeded 

 with the utmost caution, I perceived that I uniformly 

 spoke other words than I intended. My soul was at 

 present as little master of the organs of speech as it 

 had been before of my hand in writing. Thank God, 

 this state did not continue very long, for in about 

 half an hour my head began to grow clearer, the 

 strange and tiresome ideas became less vivid and tur- 

 bulent, and I could command my own thoughts with 

 less interruption.-'' It is interesting to notice how the 

 loss of the power of expression was associated thus 

 with confusion of thought and inability to fix the 

 attention. " I now wished," proceeds the patient, 

 1 c to ring for my servant, and desired him to inform 

 my wife to come to me." (The power of correctly 

 expressing his ideas does not seem to have been 

 possessed in any very remarkable degree by this 



