41 



vividly are they portrayed in the vast picture gallery of 

 the braiu. The molecules change in substance and pos- 

 sibly in contour, as do the otlier parts of our ])liysical 

 system. Every impression, mental or physical, makes a 

 fixed change in the ultimate elements. From this store- 

 house, at will or by association, the past is brought up 

 to mental view with all its varied experiences. The in- 

 strument is ever changing in essence and capability 

 during revolving years, but consciousness remains true 

 to its impressions in spite of these disturbing transi- 

 tions, and even of much organic lesion. What h^-poth- 

 esis can consistently explain this, if our consciousness 

 were only a function or a secretion ? No wonder that 

 Maudsley t^kes every opportunity to have a tilt at it, 

 and calls it only an "indicator" to tell what the molec- 

 ular agent is doing, for if it be a facult;y trking cogniz- 

 ance of the conditions and acts of the ego, or rather 

 the ego itself, acting such a living fact, would strike a 

 fatal blow at the substratum on which is built the doc- 

 trines of the school of Comte. 



These puzzling problems might be extended indefi- 

 nitely, based upon the experiences of asylum life, and 

 no satisfactory solution can be given, unless we take 

 for granted that a large part of the cortical and medul- 

 lary substance is only a depository of psychic energy, 

 and that when disease attacks these non-vital parts, or 

 traumatic injury impairs their receptive powers, the 

 mental force is often not weakened to an appreciable 

 extent, because the conducting ca])acity of the abnor- 

 mal parts may not be impaired to any extent. A shock 

 or the sudden crushing of a small portion of nerve tis- 

 sue, or pressure from slight effusion may be productive 

 of danger, or even destroy life, from the sudden inva- 

 sion of a powerful eccentric influence into the life cen- 

 ter, but the gradual slicing away of the surface of the 



