1884.] Moral Epidemics and Contagions. 651 
one and the same cerebral movement, and consequently the 
physiological phenomena dependent thereon. 1 he author 
has left no obscurity in this demonstration, which is of a 
twofold nature, being founded firstly on direct observation 
and experiment, and secondly on careful studies made upon 
blind or deaf persons. 
6. Thanks to the facilities which Science now places at 
our disposal, we can follow the cerebral movement from 
stage to stage without losing sight of it for a moment, and 
can demonstrate its identity. 
7. Just like the nervous phenomena with which we have 
been occupied, intellectual and moral phenomena are only 
manifested at first by cerebral movements, the brain being 
the seat of all the psychic faculties ; this, being scientifically 
established, cannot be contested by anyone. Hence it fol- 
lows that the phenomena due to these faculties become 
contagious by the propagation of the movement which is 
peculiar to each of them, and which passes from brain 
without losing its nature. They all come consequently 
under the same law of propagation, whatever may be the 
difference of nature observed among them. 
8. We have seen that the cerebral movement is, as regards 
psychic operations, sometimes cause and sometimes effect. It is 
the cause when it is produced by an external movement. By 
adding on the psychic faculties it gives rise to sensation, 
perception, &c. It is effect when the Ego adds or readds, — 
when it thinks, loves, wills, &c.,— in a word, when it adds in 
any manner whatsoever. It produces then a cerebral move- 
ment which is propagated outwardly, and which reveals 
what is passing within. 
9. When the reproduction of the phenomena which occupy 
us takes place, as it is determined by the movement which 
passes from brain to brain, there is then a reflex action,— 
the movement from centripetal becomes centrifugal. It is 
therefore this direct action which is the immediate cause ot 
the contagion which we are studying. 
10. This reflex action is distinguished from every other 
because the origin of the physiological movement which 
gives rise to it is found in a foreign organism, whilst oidinaiy 
reflex action is produced by a centripetal movement having 
its physiological source in the same person in whom the 
a eft ion is manifested. This indirect reflex action — in Distans 
—is then very remarkable for the origin of the movement 
which determines it, and must be specially distinguished 
from every other. 
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