The Study of Insanity

Extract

When the doctrine of Insanity emerged from its primitive condition of a belief in demoniacal possession, a belief highly spiritualistic in form, and highly materialistic in fact, it became re-moulded in the current forms of thought, and assumed a shape much like that which now obtains among the uninstructed. The concept of mind having attained to but a low degree of differentiation, and the boundaries between mental and material processes being but vaguely defined, alienism in its early stages could not but reflect the imperfections of the knowledge upon which it was compelled to rest. The alienist, observing that his own actions were preceded or accompanied by mental processes, that the more pronounced his actions the more vivid the feeling which accompanied them, that from each action he could trace backward the line of thought which prompted it; and being generally impressed with the close interconnection between his mental states and his conduct; looked at them as in the relation of cause and effect, and shared the then prevailing doctrine that the Mind, by means of that portion or faculty called the Will, directly produced the bodily actions, much as the force stored in the mainspring of a watch produces the movements of the hands.