— 128 — 



taken possession of it, and was constraining it to displays of Func- 

 tion more than natural; but now that the mental functions are 

 known to be inseparably connected with their nervous substrata, 

 and that these are disposed and united in the brain in the most 

 orderly fashionsuperordinate, cor-ordinate, and subordinatefor- 

 ming in the sum a complex aggregate or confederation of nerve - 

 functions and nerve-tracts, each of which is capable of more or 

 less independent action, it is probable that the extraordinary states 

 of apparent mental disintegration are owing to the separate and 

 irregulär funetion of certain mental nerve-tracts or combinations 

 of nerve-tracts, and to the coincident Suspension of the functions 

 of all the rest — a sort of bloeking of all junetions during its ex- 

 press activity. The supernatrural powers which were thought to 

 possess and constrain the mind are in that case plainly no more 

 than its natural nervous substrata engaged in disordinate, abnormal, 

 or so to speak, unnatural funetion. Thus it comes to pass that 

 the stränge nervous seizures with their peculiar mental concomi- 

 tants, instead of being outside the ränge of positive research, are 

 most interesting events within it; they are useful natural experi- 

 ments which throw light upon the intricate functions of the most 

 complex organ in the world — the human brain. The painstaking 

 researches of pathology tend steadily to supersede an awestricken 

 and impotent admiration of the supernatural in this its last and 

 most obscure retreat; for they prove that in the extremest eestasies 

 there is neither theolepsy nor diabolepsy, nor any other lepsy in 

 the sense of possession of the individual by an external power. 

 What there truly is is a psycholepsy. (Maudsley.) 



Unter den „intellectuellen Phänomenen'" findet sich der „Ver- 

 zückungszustand" (im Spiritismus): „Das Medium scheint von einem 

 anderen Wesen in Besitz genommen, es spricht, fühlt und es han- 

 delt nach dem Charakter desselben in der bewunderungswürdigsten 

 Weise, in manchen Fallen redete es fremde Sprache" unter den 



