Pathology of Mind (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ...know nothing of what is going on in the intimate and inaccessible workings of nerve element. Doubtless, their day will come a long time hence; in the meantime we may pass them by as persons whose eager aspirations have outrun practical needs, and whose enthusiasm oftentimes forestalls observation. The commonly received classification is the least ambitious, since it is founded upon the recognition of the obvious differences of the mental features--that is to say, is entirely symptomatological; it is simply a convenient scheme for grouping together into some sort of provisional order phenomena which resemble one another, without regard to their real nature, their origin, and their essential relations, concerning all which it gives no information. We group together under the name of Melancholia a number of cases in which the symptoms are those of great depression, and under the name of Mania other cases in which the symptoms are those of exaltation and excitement, notwithstanding that what seems to be the same cause may produce the depressed form in one person and the excited form in another, and that the disease may go through both forms in the same person before it has run its natural course. Clearly such a classification of symptoms must be looked upon as provisional; but for the present it is convenient, and in truth necessary. Were there no methodical classification of symptoms, an author would be compelled on each occasion, when describing a variety of mental derangement, to set forth the symptoms in detail instead of denoting them by the general name of the class, and there would be no end of his labour. This necessity of calling up by a general term the conception of a certain coexistence and sequence of symptoms is a reason why the old classification...