948 . The Relations of Mind and Matter. [October, 
extreme case the mind is partially active. Some oxygen visits the 
brain. The wasted nerve tissue is being reproduced. Conditions 
arise in which oxygenation feebly takes place, and the free energy 
of the nerve cell is given off. These conditions may arise under the 
influence of some impressions upon the nerves of sense, or under 
that of some intimate connection between a locality of the mind 
and a reorganized region of the brain. In either case a slight 
degree of energy flows into the mind, so slight that only a very 
limited field of thought becomes active. The results are very 
striking. These few active thoughts form our whole mental 
world. There is no force of exterior sensation or of interior 
judgment to control them. The most absurd conceptions seem 
to us to be actual facts. Its most vivid perceptions are in every 
case facts to the mind. Ordinarily these are sensations of out- 
ward objects. But where sensation is at rest the dominant idea 
assumes the appearance of an external reality. And where judg- 
ment is at rest the incongruity of an idea with actual facts may 
remain unperceived, though even in dreams absurdity becomes 
apparent, as though the judgment were partly aroused. 
There are other characteristics of the mental organism which 
aid in assimilating it to physical organisms. It impresses us as if 
subject to variations of temperature. Its emotional states lead to 
the conception of hot or cold states, and the effects which they 
produce are very interesting. Thus fear or terror impresses us 
as a chill of the mental organism. And its effects are singularly 
like those of cold on the body. The latter when chilled becomes 
sluggish, dull, torpid, strongly predisposed to sleep. Intense fear 
_ in animals yields similar effects. They grow paralyzed, as it were, 
torpid or inactive in condition, and probably with dulled sensibil- 
ity to pain and a general inactivity of consciousness. The condi- 
tion of the seemingly charmed bird is probably of this character.’ 
On the other hand passion is a state of heat. Its effect is to in- 
‘stigate excessive activity, violent movements, vivid consciousness. 
_ 1 Fear, alarm, terror, horror, in their major degrees at least, frequently paralyze 
: all power of self-preservative action, creating a dangerous immobility o of body, with 
3 ar may beget stupidity or mental 
n leading Seon or useless action. ” Lindsay’s Mind in the Lower 
mals, 11, 235- ' 
