126 P8TCR0L0QT. 



principles exactly like those wliich I am bringing forward 

 here. The ' loss of consciousness ' in epilepsy is due to tlie 

 most highly organized brain-processes being exhausted 

 and thrown out of gear. The less organized (more instinc- 

 tive) processes, ordinarily inhibited by the others, are then 

 exalted, so that we get as a mere consequence of relief from 

 the inhibition, the meaningless or maniacal action which 

 so often follows the attack. * 



Similarly the subsuUits tendinorum or jerking of the 

 muscles which so often startles us when we are on the point 



*For a full account of Jackson's theories, see his ' Croonian Lectures ' 

 published in the Brit. Med. Jouin. for 1884. Cf. also his remarks in the 

 Discussion of Dr. Mercier's paper on Inhibition in ' Brain,' xi. 361. 



The loss of vivacity in the images in the process of waking, as well as 

 the gain of it in falling asleep, are both well described by M. Taine, who 

 writes (on Intelligence, i. 50. 58) that often in the daytime, -when fatigued 

 and seated in a chair, it is sufficient for him to close one eye with a hand- 

 kerchief, when, "by degrees, the sight of the other eye becomes vague, 

 and it closes. All external sensations are gradually effaced, or cease, at all 

 events, to be remarked ; the internal images, on the other hand, feeble and 

 rapid during the state of complete wakefulness, become intense, distinct, 

 colored, steady, and lasting : there is a sort of ecstasy, accompanied by a 

 ieeling of expansion and of comfort. Warned by frequent experience, I 

 know that sleep is coming on, and that I must not disturb the rising 

 vision ; 1 remain passive, and in a few minutes it is complete. Architecture, 

 landscapes, moving figures, pass slowly by, and sometimes remain, with 

 incomparable clearness of form and fulness of being ; sleep comes on, and 

 I know no more of the real world I am in. Many times, like M. Maury, 

 I have caused myself to be gently roused at different moments of this state, 

 and have thus been able to mark its characters.— The intense image which 

 seems an external object is but a more forcible continuation of the feeble 

 image which an instant before I recognized as internal ; some scrap of a 

 forest, some house, some person which I vaguely imagined on closing my 

 eyes, has in a minute become present to me with full bodily details, so as to 

 change into a complete hallucination. Then, waking up on a hand touch- 

 ing me, I feel the figure decay, lose color, and evaporate ; what had ap- 

 peared a substance is reduced to a shadow. . . . In such a case, I have of ten 

 .seen, for a passing moment, the image grow pale, waste away, and evapo- 

 Tate ; sometimes, on opening the eyes, a fragment of landscape or the skirt 

 of a dress appears still to float over the fire-irons or on the black hearth." 

 This persistence of dream-objects for a few moments after the eyes are 

 opened seems to be no extremely rare experience. Many cases of it have 

 been reported to me directly. Compare MUller's Physiology, Baly's tr., 

 p. 945. 



