566 PSYCHOLOGY. 



other to arouse an obstructed will. The exhausted sailoi 

 on a wreck has a will which is obstructed. Que of his 

 ideas is that of his sore hands, of the nameless exhaustion 

 of his whole frame which the act of farther pumping in- 

 volves, and of the deliciousness of sinking into sleep. The 

 other is that of the hungiy sea ingulfing him. " Eathei 

 the aching toil !" he says ; and it becomes reality then, in 

 spite of the inhibiting influence of the relatively luxurious 

 sensations which he gets from lying still. But exactly 

 similar in form would be his consent to lie and sleep. Often 

 it is the thought of sleep and what leads to it which is the 

 hard one to keep before the mind. If a patient afflicted 

 with insomnia can only control the whirling chase of his 

 thoughts so far as to think of nothing at all (which can be 

 done), or so far as to imagine one letter after another of a 

 verse of scripture or poetry spelt slowly and monotonously 

 out, it is almost certain that here, too, specific bodily efi^ects 

 will follow, and that sleep will come. The trouble is to keep 

 the mind upon a train of objects naturally so insipid. To 

 sustain a representation, to think, is, in short, the only moral 

 act, for the impulsive and the obstructed, for sane and 

 lunatics alike. Most maniacs know their thoughts to be 

 crazy, but find them too pressing to be withstood. Com- 

 pared with them the sane truths are so deadly sober, so 

 cadaverous, that the lunatic cannot bear to look them in 

 the face and say, "Let these alone be my reality!" But 

 with sufficient effort, as Dr. Wigan says, 



" Such a man can for a time wind himself up, as it were, and deter- 

 mine that the notions of the disordered brain shall not be manifested. 

 Many instances are on record similar to that told by Pinel, where an 

 inmate of the Bicetre, having stood a long cross-examination, and 

 given every mark of restored reason, signed his name to the paper 

 authorizing his discharge 'Jesus Christ,' and then went off into all the 

 vagaries connected with that delusion. In the phraseology of the 

 gentleman whose case is related in an early part of this [Wigan's] work 

 he had ' held himself tight ' during the examination in order to attain 

 his object; this once accomplished he ' let himself down' again, and, 

 if even conscious of his delusion, could not control it. I have observed 

 with such persons that it requires a considerable time to wind them- 

 selves up to the pitch of complete self-control, that the effort is a pain- 

 ful tension of the mind. . . . "When thrown off their guard by any 

 accidental remark or worn out by the length of the examination, they 



