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Page 28
The conduct of living beings is a special form of reaction by which the
living being adapts himself to the society to which he belongs. The
primitive adaptations of life are characterized by the organization of
internal physiological functions. Later on they consist in external
reactions, in displacements, in uniform movements of the body which
either keep him from or draw him near to the surrounding bodies. The
first of these movements are the reflex movements, then are developed
those combinations of movements which we called perceptive or suspensive
actions in keeping with perceptions. Later came the social acts, the
elementary intellectual acts which gave birth to language, the primitive
voluntary acts, the immediate beliefs, then the reflected acts, the
rational acts, experimental, etc. As I said formerly, there is, in each
function, quite a superior part which consists in its adaptation to the
particular circumstance existing at the present moment. The function of
alimentation, for instance, has to exercise itself at this moment when I
am to take aliments on this table in the midst of new people, that is to
say, among whom I have not yet found myself in this circumstance,
wearing a special dress and submitting my body and my mind to very
particular social rites. In reality it is nevertheless the function of
alimentation, but it must be noted that the act of dining, when wearing
a dress suit and talking to a neighbor, is not quite the same
physiological phenomenon as the simple secretion of the pancreas.
Certain patients lose only the superior part of this function of
alimentation which consists in eating in society, in eating in new and
complex circumstances, in eating while being conscious of what one is
doing, and in submitting to rules. Although the physiologist does not
imagine that these functions are connected with the exercise of sexual
functions in humanity, there is a pathology of the betrothal and of the
wedding-tour.
It is just on this superior part of the functions, on their adaptation
to present circumstances, that the disorders of conduct
(self-government) which occupy us to-day bear. If one is willing to
understand by the word "evolution" the fact that a living being is
continually transforming himself to adapt himself to new circumstances,
neuroses and psychoses are disorders or halts in the evolution of
functions, in the development of their highest and latest part.[16]
This halt in evolution can be connected with different physiological
causes, hereditary weaknesses of origin, infections, intoxications,
disorders of internal secretions, disorders of the sympathetic system.
These diverse etiologies will most likely be of use later to distinguish
between forms of these diseases; but to-day the common character of
neuroses and psychoses is that this diminution of vitality bears upon
the highest functions of self-government.
Whatever be the disorders you may consider, aboulias, hysterical
accidents, psychasthenic obsessions, periodical depressions,
melancholics, systematized deliriums, asthenic insanity, you will always
find a number of facts resulting from this general perturbation.
In plenty of cases, the acts, far from being diminished, appear
exaggerated; the patient moves about a great deal, he accomplishes acts
of defense, of escape, of attack, he speaks enormously, he seems to
evoke many remembrances and combine all sorts of stories during
interminable reveries. But pray examine the value and the level of all
these acts; they are mere gestures, shocks of limbs, laughter, sobs,
reactions simply reflex or perceptive, in connection with immediate
stimulation, with inhibition, without choice, without adaptation by
reflection. The thoughts that fill these ruminations are childish and
stupid, just as the acts are vulgar and awkward; there is a manifest
return to childhood and barbarism. The behavior of the agitated
individual is well below that which he should show normally. It is easy
to explain these facts in the language we have adopted. The agitation
consists in an activity, more less complete, in inferior tendencies very
much below those the subject should normally utilize.
It is that in reality the agitation never exists alone, it is
accompanied by another very important phenomenon which it dissimulates
sometimes, I mean the depression characterized by the diminution or the
disappearance of superior actions, appertaining to the highest level of
our hierarchy. It is always observed that with these patients certain
actions have disappeared, that certain acts executed formerly with
rapidity and facility can no longer be accomplished. The patients seem
to have lost their delicacy of feeling, their altruism, their
intelligent critique. The stopping of tendencies by stimulation, the
transformation of tendencies into ideas, the deliberation, the endeavor,
the reflection; in one word, both the moral effort and the call upon
reserves for executing painful acts are suppressed. There exists visibly
a lowering of level, and it is right to say that these patients are
below themselves.
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