542 PSYCHOLOGY. 



Disorderly and impulsive couduct may, on the other 

 hand, come about where the neural tissues preserve their 

 proper inward tone, and where the inhibitory power is nor- 

 mal or even unusually great. In such cases the strength of 

 the impulsive idea is preternaturally exalted, and what would 

 be for most people the passing suggestion of a possibility 

 becomes a gnawing, craving urgency to act. Works on in- 

 sanity are full of examples of these morbid insistent ideas, 

 in obstinately struggling against which the unfortunate 

 victim's soul often sweats with agony, ere at last it gets 

 swept away. One instance will stand for many ; M. Ribot 

 quotes it from Calmeil : * 



" Glenadal, having lost his father in infancy, was brought up by his 

 mother, whom he adored. At sixteen, his character, till then good 

 and docile, changed. He became gloomy and taciturn. Pressed with 

 questions by his mother, he decided at last to make a confession. ' To 

 you,' said he, 'I owe everything ; I love you with all my soul ; yet for 

 some time past an incessant idea drives me to kill you. Prevent so 

 terrible a misfortune fi'om happening, in case some day the temptation 

 should overpower me : allow me to enlist.' Notwithstanding pressing 

 solicitations, he was firm in his resolve, went off, and was a good soldier. 

 Still a secret impulse stimulated him without cessation to desert in 

 order to come home and kill his mother. At the end of his term of 

 service the idea was as strong as on the first day. He enlisted for 

 another term. The murderous instinct persisted, but substituted 

 another victim. He no longer thought of killing his mother — the hor- 

 rible impulse pointed day and night towards his sister-in-law. In order 

 to resist the second impulse, he condemned himself to perpetual exile. 

 At this time one of his old neighbors arrived in the regiment. Glena- 

 dal confesses all his trouble. ' Be at rest,' said the other. ' Your crime 

 is impossible; your sister-in-law has just died.' At these words Glena- 

 dal rises like a delivered captive. Joy fills his heart. He travels to the 

 home of his childhood, unvisited for so many years. But as he arrives 

 he sees his sister-in-law living. He gives a cry, and the terrible impulse 

 seizes him again as a prey. That very evening he makes his brother 

 tie him fast. ' Take a solid rope, bmd me like a wolf in the barn, and 

 go and tell Dr. Calmeil. . . .' From him he got admission to an insane 

 asylum. The evening before his entrance he wrote to the director of 

 the establishment: 'Sir, I am to become an inmate of your house. I 

 shall behave there as if I were in the regiment. You will think me 

 ■cured. At moments perhaps I shall pretend to be so. Never believe 

 me. Never let me out on any pretext. If I beg to be released, double 



* In bis Maladies de la Volonte, p. 77. 



