Part 22

We may begin by citing a case which seems exceedingly significant. Miss H. Martineau relates that a congenital idiot, who had lost his mother when he was less than two years old, when dying, 'suddenly turned his head, looked bright and sensible, and exclaimed, in a tone never heard from him before, "Oh my mother! how beautiful!" and sank down again--dead.' Dr. Carpenter cites this as a case of abnormal memory, illustrating his thesis that the basis of recollection 'may be laid at a very early period of life.' But the story seems to contain a deeper meaning. The poor idiot not only recalled a long-past time, a face that he had not seen for years except in dreams, but he gained for a moment a degree of intelligence which he had not possessed when in health. The quality of his brain was such, it appears, that with the ordinary activity of the circulation, the ordinary vitality of the organ, mental action was uncertain and feeble; but when the circulation had all but ceased, when the nervous powers were all but prostrate, the feeble brain, though it may have become no stronger actually, became relatively stronger, in such sort that for the time specified, a mere moment before dissolution, the idiot became an intelligent being.

A somewhat similar case is on record in which an insane person, during that stage of typhus fever in which sane persons are apt to become delirious, became perfectly sane and reasonable, his insanity returning with returning health. Persons of strongest mind in health are often delirious for a short time before death. Since, then, the idiot in the same stage of approaching dissolution may become intelligent, while the insane may become sane under the conditions which make the sane become delirious, we recognise a relationship between the mental and bodily states which might be of considerable use in the treatment of mental diseases. It may well be that conditions of the nervous system which are to be avoided by persons of normal mental qualities may be advantageously superinduced in the case of those of abnormally weak or abnormally violent mind. It is noteworthy that different conditions would seem to be necessary for the idiotic and for the insane, if the cases cited sufficed to afford basis for generalisation. For the idiot of Miss Martineau's story became intelligent during the intense depression of the bodily powers immediately preceding dissolution, whereas the insane person became sane during that height of fever when delirium commonly makes its appearance.

Sir H. Holland mentions a case which shows that great bodily depression may affect a person of ordinary clear and powerful mind. 'I descended on one and the same day,' he says, 'two very deep mines in the Hartz Mountains, remaining some hours under ground in each. While in the second mine, and exhausted both from fatigue and inanition, I felt the utter impossibility of talking longer with the German Inspector who accompanied me. Every German word and phrase deserted my recollection; and it was not until I had taken food and wine, and been some time at rest, that I regained them again.'

A change in the mental condition is sometimes a sign of approaching serious illness, and is felt to be so by the person experiencing it. An American writer, Mr. Butterworth, quotes the following description given by a near relative of his who was suffering from extreme nervous debility. 'I am in constant fear of insanity,' she said, 'and I wish I could be moved to some retreat for the insane. I understand my condition perfectly; my reason does not seem to be impaired; but I can think of _two things at the same time_. This is an indication of mental unsoundness, and is a terror to me. I do not seem to have slept at all for the last six months. If I sleep, it must be in a succession of vivid dreams that destroy all impression of somnolence. Since I have been in this condition I seem to have a very vivid impression of what happens to my children who are away from home, and I am often startled to hear that these impressions are correct. I seem to have also a certain power of anticipating what one is about to say, and to read the motives of others. I take no pleasure in this strange increase of mental power; it is all unnatural. I cannot live in this state long, and I often wish I were dead.'

It must, however, be remembered that persons who are in a state of extreme nervous debility, not only possess at times abnormal mental qualities, but are also affected morally. As Huxley has well remarked of some stories bearing on spiritualism, they come from persons who can hardly be trusted even according to their own account of themselves. Mr. Butterworth's relation described a mental condition which, even if quite correctly pictured as she understood it, may yet be explained without believing that any very marvellous increase had taken place in her mental powers. Among the vivid impressions which she constantly had of what might be happening to her children away from home, it would have been strange if some had not been correct. The power of anticipating what others were about to say is one which many imagine they have, mistaking the occasional coincidence between their guesses and what has been next said, for indications of a power which in reality they do not possess. And so also with regard to the motives of others. Many are apt, especially when out of health, to guess at others' motives, sometimes rightly, but oftener very wrongly, yet always rightly in their own belief, no matter what evidence may presently appear to the contrary.

The case cited by Mr. Butterworth affords evidence rather of the unhealthy condition of the patient's mind than of abnormal powers, except as regards the power of thinking of two things at the same time, which we may fairly assume was not ordinarily possessed by its relative. It is rather difficult to define such a power, however. Several persons have apparently possessed the power, showing it by doing two things at the same time which both appear to require thought, and even close attention. Julius Cæsar, for example, could write on one subject and dictate on another simultaneously. But in reality, even in cases such as these, the mind does not think of two things at once. It simply takes them in turn, doing enough with each, in a short time, a mere instant, perhaps, to give work to the pen or to the voice, as the case may be, for a longer time. When Cæsar was writing a sentence, he was not necessarily thinking of what he was writing. He had done the thinking part of the work before; and was free, while continuing the mere mechanical process of writing, to think of matter for dictation to his secretary. So also while he was speaking he was free to think of matter for writing. If, indeed, the thought for each sentence of either kind had occupied an appreciable time, there would have been interruptions of his writing, if not of his dictation (dictation is not commonly a continuous process under any circumstances, even when shorthand writers take down the words). But a practised writer or speaker can in a moment form a sentence which shall occupy a minute in writing and several seconds in speaking.

I certainly do not myself claim the power of thinking of two things at once,--nay, I believe that no one ever had or could have such a power: yet I find it perfectly easy, when lecturing, to arrange the plan for the next ten minutes' exposition of a scientific subject, and to adopt the words themselves for the next twenty seconds or so, while continuing to speak without the least interruption. I can also work out a calculation on the black-board while continuing to speak of matters outside the subject of the calculation. It is more a matter of habit than an indication of any mental power, natural or acquired, to speak or write sentences; even of considerable length, after the mind has passed on to other matters. In a similar way some persons can write different words with the right and left hands, and this, too, while speaking of other matters. (I have seen this done by Professor Morse, the American naturalist, whose two hands added words to the diagrams he had drawn while his voice dealt with other parts of the drawing: to add to the wonder, too, he wrote the words indifferently from right to left or from left to right.) In reality the person who thus does two things at once is no more thinking of two things at once than a clock is, when the striking and the working machinery are both in action at the same time.[20]

As an illustration of special mental power shown in health, by a person whose mental condition in illness we shall consider afterwards, Sir Walter Scott may be mentioned. The account given by his amanuensis has seemed surprising to many, unfamiliar with the nature of literary composition (at least after long practice), but is in reality such as anyone who writes much can quite readily understand, or might even have known must necessarily be correct. 'His thoughts,' says the secretary to whom Scott dictated his _Life of Napoleon Buonaparte_, 'flowed easily and felicitously, without any difficulty to lay hold of them or to find appropriate language' (which, by the way, is more than all would say who had read Scott's _Life of Buonaparte_, and certainly more than can be said of his secretary, unless it really was a familiar experience with him to be unable to lay hold of his thoughts). 'This was evident by the absence of all solicitude (_miseria cogitandi_) from his countenance. He sat in his chair, from which he rose now and then, took a volume from the book-case, consulted it, and restored it to the shelf--all without intermission in the current of ideas, which continued to be delivered with no less readiness than if his mind had been wholly occupied with the words he was uttering. It soon became apparent to me, however, that he was carrying on two distinct trains of thought, one of which was already arranged and in the act of being spoken, while at the same time he was in advance, considering what was afterwards to be said. This I discovered' (he should rather have said, 'this I was led to infer') 'by his sometimes introducing a word which was wholly out of place--_entertained_ instead of _denied_, for example--but which I presently found to belong to the next sentence, perhaps four or five lines further on, which he had been preparing at the very moment when he gave me the words of the one that preceded it.' In the same way I have often unconsciously substituted one word for another in lecturing, the word used always belonging to a later sentence than the word intended to be used. I have noticed also this peculiarity, that when a substitution of this kind has been once made, an effort is required to avoid repeating the mistake, even if it be not repeated quite unconsciously to the end of the discourse. In this way, for example, I once throughout an entire lecture used the word 'heavens' for the word 'screen' (the screen on which lantern pictures were shown). A similar peculiarity may be noticed with written errors. Thus in my treatise on a scientific subject, in which the utmost care had been given to minute points of detail, I once wrote 'seconds' for 'minutes' throughout several pages--in fact, from the place where first the error was made, to the end of the chapter. (See the _first_ edition of my _Transits of Venus_, pp. 131-136, noting as an additional peculiarity that the whole object of the chapter in which this mistake was made was to show how many minutes of difference existed between the occurrence of certain events.)

An even more curious instance of a mistake arising from doing one thing while thinking of another occurred to me fourteen years ago. I was correcting the proof-sheets of an astronomical treatise in which occurred these words: 'Calling the mean distance of the earth 1, Saturn's mean distance is 9·539; again, calling the earth's period 1, Saturn's mean period is 29·457:--now what relation exists between these numbers 9·539 and 29·457 and their powers? The first is less than the second, but the square of the first is plainly greater than the second; we must therefore try higher powers, &c. &c.' The passage was quite correct as it stood, and if the two processes by which I was correcting verbal errors and following the sense of the passage had been really continuous processes of thought, unquestionably the passage would have been left alone. If the passage had been erroneous and had been simply left in that condition the case would have been one only too familiar to those who have had occasion to correct proofs. But what I actually did was deliberately to make nonsense of the passage while improving the sound of the second sentence. I made it run, 'the first is less than the second, but the square of the first is plainly greater than the square of the second,' the absurdity of which statement a child would detect. If the first proof in its correct form, with the incorrect correction carefully written down in the margin, had not existed when, several months later, the error was pointed out in the _Quarterly Journal of Science_, I should have felt sure that I had written the words wrongly at the outset. For blunders such as this are common enough. But that I should deliberately have taken a correctly worded sentence and altered it into utter absurdity I could not, but for the evidence, have believed to be possible. The case plainly shows that not only may two things be done at once when the mind, nevertheless, is thinking only of one, but that something may be done which suggests deliberate reflection when in reality the mind is elsewhere or not occupied at all. For in this case both the processes on which I was engaged were manifestly carried on without thought, one being purely mechanical and the other, though requiring thought if properly attended to, being so imperfectly effected as to show that no thought was given to it.

To return to Sir Walter Scott. It is known but too well that during the later years of his life there came with bodily prostration a great but not constant failure of his mental powers. Some of the phenomena presented during this part of his career are strikingly illustrative of abnormal mental action occurring even at times when the mental power is on the whole much weakened. _The Bride of Lammermoor_, though not one of the best of Scott's novels, is certainly far above such works as _Count Robert of Paris_, _The Betrothed_, and _Castle Dangerous_. Its popularity may perhaps be attributed chiefly to the deep interest of the 'ower true tale' on which it is founded: but some of the characters are painted with exceeding skill. Lucy herself is almost a nonentity, and Edgar is little more than a gloomy, unpleasant man, made interesting only by the troubles which fall on him. But Caleb Balderstone and Ailsie Gourlay stand out from the canvas as if alive; they are as lifelike and natural, yet as thoroughly individualised as Edie Ochiltree and Meg Merrilies. The novel neither suggested when it first appeared, nor has been regarded even after the facts became known, as suggesting that Scott, when he wrote it, was in bad health. Yet it was produced under pressure of severe illness, and when Scott was at least in this sense unconscious, that nothing of what he said and did in connection with the work was remembered when he recovered. 'The book,' says James Ballantyne, 'was not only written, but published, before Mr. Scott was able to rise from his bed; and he assured me that when it was first put into his hands in a complete shape, _he did not recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained_! He did not desire me to understand, nor did I understand, that his illness had erased from his memory the original incidents of the story, with which he had been acquainted from his boyhood. These remained rooted where they had ever been; or, to speak more explicitly, he remembered the general facts of the existence of the father and mother, of the son and daughter, of the rival lovers, of the compulsory marriage, and the attack made by the bride upon the hapless bridegroom, with the general catastrophe of the whole. _All these things he recollected_, just as he did before he took to his bed; _but he literally recollected nothing else_--not a single character woven by the romancer, not one of the many scenes and points of humour, not _anything with which he was himself connected_, as the writer of the work.

Later, when Scott was breaking down under severe and long-continued labour, and first felt the approach of the illness which ultimately ended in death, he experienced strange mental phenomena. In his diary for February 17, 1829, he notes that on the preceding day, at dinner, though in company with two or three old friends, he was haunted by 'a sense of pre-existence,' a confused idea that nothing that passed was said for the first time; that the same topics had been discussed, and that the same persons had expressed the same opinions before. 'There was a vile sense of a want of reality in all that I did or said.'

Dr. Reynolds related to Dr. Carpenter a case in which a Dissenting minister, who was in apparently sound health, was rendered apprehensive of brain-disease--though, as it seemed, without occasion--by a lapse of memory similar to that experienced by Sir Walter Scott. He 'went through an entire pulpit service on a certain Sunday morning with the most perfect consistency--his choice of hymns and lessons, and his _extempore_ prayer being all related to the subject of his sermon. On the following Sunday morning he went through the introductory part of the service in precisely the same manner--giving out the same hymns, reading the same lessons, and directing the _extempore_ prayer in the same channel. He then gave out the same text and preached the very same sermon as he had done on the previous Sunday. When he came down from the pulpit, it was found that he had not the smallest remembrance of having gone through precisely the same service on the previous Sunday; and when he was assured of it, he felt considerable uneasiness lest his lapse of memory should indicate some impending attack of illness. None such, however, supervened; and no _rationale_ can be given of this curious occurrence, the subject of it not being liable to fits of "absence of mind" and not having had his thoughts engrossed at the time by any other special pre-occupation.' It is possible that the explanation here is the simple one of mere coincidence. Whether this explanation is available or not would depend entirely on the question whether the preacher's memory was ordinarily trustworthy or not, whether in fact he would remember the arrangements, prayers, sermon, &c., he had given on any occasion. These matters becoming, after long habit, almost automatic, it might very well happen that the person going through such duties would remember them no longer and no better than one who had been present when they were performed, and who had not paid special attention to them. That if he had thus unconsciously carried out his duties on one Sunday he should (being to this degree forgetful) conduct them in precisely the same way on the next Sunday, would rather tend to show that his mental faculties were in excellent working order than the reverse. Wendell Holmes tells a story which effectively illustrates my meaning; and he tells it so pleasantly (as usual) that I shall quote it unaltered. 'Sometimes, but rarely,' he says, 'one may be caught making the same speech twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus a certain lecturer' (Holmes himself, doubtless), 'after performing in an inland city, where dwells a _littératrice_ of note, was invited to meet her and others over the social tea-cup. She pleasantly referred to his many wanderings in his new occupation. "Yes," he replied, "I am like the huma, the bird that never lights, being always in the cars, as he is always on the wing." Years elapsed. The lecturer visited the same place once more for the same purpose. Another social cup after the lecture, and a second meeting with the distinguished lady. "You are constantly going from place to place," she said. "Yes," he answered, "I am like the huma," and finished the sentence as before. What horror when it flashed over him that he had made this fine speech, word for word, twice over! Yet it was not true, as the lady might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had embellished his conversation with the huma daily during that whole interval of years. On the contrary, he had never once thought of the odious fowl until the recurrence of precisely the same circumstances brought up precisely the same idea.' He was not in the slightest degree afraid of brain-disease. On the contrary, he considered the circumstance indicative of good order in the mental mechanism. 'He ought to have been proud,' says Holmes, speaking for him, and meaning no doubt that he _was_ proud, 'of the accuracy of his mental adjustments. _Given certain factors, and a sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the certainty of Babbage's calculating machine._'