tible persons through the mere view of them; nay, they can even become complete epidemics of a sect or a tribe. Since in all these cases it is no material influence which forms the bridge, it can only be the idea of these movements which is so vividly excited by the spectacle that it rouses the unconscious will to execute them. Inasmuch as this process takes place within a nerve-centre, and the last effective act of will probably also becomes conscious in this centre, it comes under the notion reflex movement. The next group contains the influence of conscious representation on the vegetative functions. The influence of the most dissimilar emotions on the functions of secretion are well known (e.g., vexation and anger on bile and milk, terror on urine or stool, voluptuous pictures on the semen, &c.) The idea of having taken medicaments (e.g., laxatives) often acts just as well as the medicaments themselves. The imagination of having been poisoned may actually produce the symptoms of poisoning. Many Christian enthusiasts in the days of the martyrs really felt the martyrs' pains, as hypochondriacs really feel the diseases which they fancy themselves to have, and as young doctors sometimes think they have all possible diseases of which they hear. (There is a remarkable story told of one of Boerhave's pupils, who was obliged to give up the study on this account.) The surest way to be taken with an infectious disease is to be afraid of it, whilst the physician under like circumstances is very rarely attacked. Lively fear and the thought of sickness is of itself sufficient to cause the same, without any infection, especially if it be heightened by the terror of incurring risk. Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages there occur reports of wounds and bleedings in ascetic enthusiasts, and we have no reason to refuse credence to these accounts, when German, Belgian, and Italian physicians of the present century attest as eye-witnesses1 spontaneous bleeding at 1 See Salzburg Medical Journal of 1814, i. 145-158, and ii. 17-26: "Account of an Unusual Phenomenon in the Case of an Old Patient," certain times. Why should not blood-vessels, if they permit blushing and occasionally allow blood-perspiration, so far dilate as to allow of bleeding through the skin? Similar cases occur even in secular life. Ennemoser relates as a well-attested story a case where the strokes of a soldier condemned to run the gauntlet are said to have afflicted the body of his sister with like pains and external cutaneous marks. The much-doubted fright of the pregnant likewise belongs here. Most physiologists reject the facts without more ado because they cannot explain them. Burdach, Baer (who relates the case of his own sister), Budge, Bergmann, Hagen (the two latter in Wagner's" Handwörterbuch ") thoroughly admit the facts; Valentin, at any rate, does not dispute their possibility in general. J. Müller admits the fright of the pregnant in so far as it is said only to produce arrest of formation, but not as respects the effecting of changes at particular parts of the body. But now, on the one hand, almost every arrested formation is a merely partial one, and, on the other hand, we have so many examples, both of the inheritance of quite partial marks, moles, as well as of partial changes in our own body (as fancied effect of poisons or drugs, wounds of stigmatics), that there is no reason to doubt such partial influence of the maternal mind on the soul of the foetus, the latter being still in process of organic formation. Whilst I thus recognise the fact of the "fright" of the pregnant, I by no means doubt that nine-tenths of such stories are nonsense, but in strictness very few wellattested cases would be sufficient. A great number of sympathetic or miraculous cures are allied to the occurrence of signs of poisoning after imaginary poisoning, and to the effects of drugs without any having been taken. As in those cases the idea of the effect evokes the unconscious will to procure the means, and by Medical Counsellor and Professor v. Druffel at Münster. Further: "Louise Lateau, sa Vie, ses Extases, ses Stigmates." Medical study by Dr. F. Lefebvre, Professeur de thereby the effect itself, so also here. What is peculiar to the case is the question in what way the unconscious willing of the means is produced through the idea of the effect. The conscious willing of the effect does not seem essential, for in the case of the fright of the pregnant, and in the occurrence of effects which are even dreaded, the conscious will can only be contrary, not favourable, and yet the unconscious will and the effect make their appearance. On the other hand, another factor is indispensable in that part of the phenomena which proceeds from the personal will of the individual, and not (as with mother and foetus) magically through another will, namely, the belief in the occurrence of the effect; for, as Paracelsus finely says, 'Faith it is which locks the will." Where, therefore, the conscious will makes a show of opposition with the belief in its own power of resistance, there faith calls up an unconscious will which hinders the effect of the first idea. The question is only, which faith is stronger, that in the occurrence of the effect, or that in one's own power of resistance, according as the unconscious will inclines. to the one or the other side? The art in such cures is then only this to inspire the belief in success, and because men do not perceive this connection, perhaps also such rational belief would be too weak to be effective, over-faith must procure faith, and for that purpose all sorts of hocus-pocus are employed. Of the unconscious. will the word holds literally true: "The more will, the more power;" and this is the key to magic. VIII. THE PLASTIC ENERGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS. IN the preceding sections we have not altogether been able to avoid anticipating the theme of the present chapter. This was owing to the intimate connection of the subjects successively treated with the principle of organic formation, being indeed at bottom illustrations of the same, so that the attempt to make any sharp division would only have resulted in the omission of some very remarkable phenomena. We have seen that the term which covers the larger number of facts is that of Instinct; but one may almost as easily include the phenomena under the notion. of Reflex Action, for an external stimulus must always be present, upon which action almost of necessity follows, although the reflexes may be of a considerable degree of complexity. Equally well, however, may all the phenomena in dispute be regarded as effects of Natural Therapeutics, for only when the external stimulus is some extraneous opposing substance can it act as a stimulus, otherwise it is uninfluential. The subduing of the material is, however, an act of the vis medicatrix. The special character of the formative principle would then have to be referred to the realisation of the IDEA of the species at the appropriate stage of life, whilst Nature's remedial power would consist in the conservation of the realised IDEA. It is obvious, however, that, on the one hand, the warding off of a disturbance is only possible by means of new formations, i.e., that the realised IDEA cannot maintain itself except by development, by the realisation, that is, of a new stage of the IDEA; and, on the other hand, that the realisation of a new stage of the IDEA involves a series of struggles and self-preserving acts. This is so because all points of the organism are threatened with disturbance at every moment; and therefore, in the third place, the moulding and constructive instincts, no less than the plastic energy within the body, work according to fixed ideas, which must be unreservedly looked upon as integral elements of the Idea of the class. Nay, in the wider sense, all other instincts must be conceived as realisations of special aspects. of the type; for the typical idea of the nightingale would be incomplete if the particular note were omitted, as that of the ox without butting, or that of the wild boar without the gnashing of the tusks, or of the swallow without the semi-annual migration. It accordingly only remains for us, in the first place, to make a few remarks with respect to the appropriateness of the organising impulse, and, secondly, to show how the instances of the plastic energy shade imperceptibly into the previously considered manifestations of the Unconscious. As concerns the adaptations of organic life, on the one hand, goodly volumes might be written on this point alone, and, on the other, the greatest caution is required with respect to teleological considerations in detail, teleology having already fallen somewhat into discredit, owing to the numerous ends that have been foisted on Nature by self-conceited minds, which not seldom verge on the ridiculous and absurd. We can therefore only here throw out some brief hints, which the rather suffice for our purpose as at the present day the knowledge of every educated person is sufficient for their elaboration. I start from this-that the raising of consciousness presents itself as the purpose of the animal kingdom. Whether one seeks the end of this clearer consciousness |