THE COJSSCIOUSNESS OF SELF. 379 



A case witli which. I am acquainted through Dr. C, J. 

 Fisher of Tewksburj has possibly its origin in this way. 

 The woman, Bridget F., 



" has been many years insane, and always speaks of her supposed self 

 as ' the rat,' asking me to 'bury the little rat,' etc. Her real self she 

 speaks of in the third person as ' the good woman,' saying, 'The good 

 woman knew Dr. F. and used to work for him,' etc. Sometimes she 

 sadly asks: 'Do you think the good woman will ever come back ?' She 

 works at needlework, knitting, laundry, etc., and shows her work, say- 

 ing, ' Isn't that good for only a rat?" She has, during periods of depres- 

 sion, hid herself under buildings, and crawled into holes and under 

 boxes. ' She was only a rat, and wants to die,' she would say when we 

 found her." 



2. The phenomenon of alternating personality in its sim- 

 plest phases seems based on laj)ses of memory. Any man 

 becomes, as we say, inconsistent with himself if he forgets his 

 engagements, pledges, knowledges, and habits ; and it is 

 ?nerely a question of degree at what point we shall say 

 that his personality is changed. In the pathological cases 

 known as those of double or alternate jDersonalit}^ the lapse 

 of memory is abrupt, and is usually preceded by a period 

 of unconsciousness or syncojje lasting a variable length of 

 time. In the hypnotic trance we can easily produce an 

 alteration of the personality, either by telling the subject to 

 forget all that has happened to him since such or such a date, 

 in which case he becomes (it may be) a child again, or by 

 telling him he is another altogether imaginary personage, in 

 which case all facts about himself seem for the time being 

 to lapse from out his mind, and he throws himself into the 

 new character with a vivacity proportionate to the amount 

 of histrionic imagination which he possesses.* But in the 

 pathological cases the transformation is spontaneous. The 

 most famous case, perhaps, on record is that of Fe'lid? X., 



between all past habits, whether of an active or a passive kind, and the 

 exigencies and possibilities of the new situation, that the individual may 

 find no medium of continuity or association to carry him over from tlie one 

 phase to the other of his life. Under these conditions mental derangement 

 is no unfreqiient result. 



* The number of subjects who can do this with any fertility and exu 

 berance is relatively quite small. 



