CONSCIENCE 147 



restrain, but to conceal, even from themselves. 

 In such a case the satisfaction of the will is a poor 

 recompense for the denial of the stronger instinct : 

 the baffled impulse becomes an obsession, at 

 some times shaking the mind with fits of nervous 

 excitement and depression, at other times en- 

 gulfing it in the prof oundest religious melancholy, 

 occasionally even sweeping it away into the 

 whirlpool of insanity. No one whose ears have 

 not been filled with the rushing of these waters, 

 whose hands have not been thrown up in the help- 

 lessness of despair, can realize the words of the 

 Psalmist " Out of the depths have I called upon 

 Thee, O God." 



The instinctive origin of this melancholy may 

 be traced in the symptoms that are manifested 

 in its extremest cases. Insanity that has devel- 

 oped out of profound depression is commonly 

 marked by a most surprising display of elemental 

 instinct. Patients exhibit impulses and know- 

 ledge which are in the most violent disaccord 

 with their former dispositions : their characters 

 appear to have been completely changed by their 

 disorder, indeed, they may seem to be possessed 

 by a diabolic spirit. In fact, the restraints of 

 consciousness having been withdrawn, instincts 

 have been freed which had been straitly confined 

 by the will. They may have been penned alto- 

 gether within the domain of subconciousness, so 

 that their existence was not apparent to the victim 

 whom they tortured. But they fed upon his 

 vitals, and distracted his moods, with the swayings 

 of a violent internal struggle. 



Release from such an obsession will rarely be 

 obtained by any striving of the conscious will. 

 Instinct must be countered by instinct : depres- 

 sion will vanish before the impulses of hunting, 

 fighting, or drinking. But the completest and 



