138

AN ILLUSTRATIVE CASE.

North. By the story of an insane patient in the Infirmary of Edinburgh, who, though all his meals consisted of porridge, believed that he had every day a dinner of three regular courses and a dessert-and yet confessed that, somehow or other, everything he ate tasted of porridge! The case, says Sir Walter, is obvious-the disease lay in the extreme vivacity of the patient's imagination, deluded in other instances, but not absolutely powerful enough to contend with the honest evidence of his stomach and palate. Here, therefore, Sir Walter adds, "is one instance of actual insanity, in which the sense of taste controlled and attempted to restrain the ideal hypothesis adopted by a deranged imagination." But who knows that all this insane patient's senses were not diseased? He acted as if they were so-though his palate was still sensible to the porridge taste. They might, or they might not, be diseased-but Sir Walter's conclusion is most illogical. The "sense of taste controlling and attempting to restrain an ideal hypothesis," is language altogether new in mental philosophy.

Shepherd. Sae muckle the better.

North. No-so much the worse.

Shepherd. Oh, sir! but ye're dictatorial the nicht!

North. Hitherto Sir Walter, though not happy in his illustrations, is yet intelligible, and not absolutely self-inconsistent. But by-and-by he falls into sad self-contradiction.

Shepherd. It's wonnerfu', sir, hoo common that is. I really maun publish ma "Logic." Do you think the bairds o' eisters pushionish?1

North. "The disorder to which I previously alluded is entirely of a bodily character, and consists, principally, in a disease of the visual organs, which present to the patient a set of spectres, or appearances, which have no actual existence. It is a disease of the same nature which renders many men incapable of distinguishing colours, only the patients go a step farther, and pervert the external form of objects. In this case, therefore, contrary to that of the maniac, it is not the mind, or rather the imagination, which imposes upon, and overpowers the evidence of the senses, but the sense of seeing or hearing, which betrays its duty, and conveys false ideas to a sane intellect.

1 Poisonous.

SIR WALTER CONTRADICTS HIMSELF.

139

Shepherd. Weel, then, isna a' that intelligible aneuch ? North. Perfectly so-but wait, James, for the illustrations. Shepherd. I'm quite wullin to wait for the illustrations, sir, as lang's there's a Pandoor on the brodd.

North. Meanwhile, how could Sir Walter say that the disease of the visual organs, which presents to the patient a set of spectres or appearances which have no existence, is a disease of the same nature with that which renders many men incapable of distinguishing colours? The latter is but a defect-the other is indeed a disease; but I suppose Sir Walter merely means that they both belong to the eye.

Shepherd. Aiblins.

North. There is something to my mind not a little ludicrous in Sir Walter's simplicity, when he says, "only the patients go a step farther, and pervert the external form of objects."

Shepherd. An' a patient gangs yet anither step farther when he dees-that is his last step-for after it, he's carried.

North. The two cases, James, which Sir Walter proposes, are essentially distinct and different.

Shepherd. They are sae-but noo for your objections to Sir Walter's illustrations.

North. Sir Walter has been at great pains to tell us, that "this disease is entirely of a bodily character"—“it is not the mind, or rather the imagination, which imposes".

Shepherd. I ken a' that-gang on.

North. You may ken a' that, James; but Sir Walter, in the very next page, has forgotten it, and with difficulty could I believe my eyes, James, when in the paragraph immediately following, I read-" The most frequent source of the malady is in the dissipated and intemperate habits of those who, by a continued series of intoxication, become subject to what is popularly called the Blue Devils, instances of WHICH MENTAL DISORDER (!!) may be known to most who have lived in society where hard drinking was a common vice." Here Sir Walter not only loses sight of his own distinction, which he had so pompously laid down, but he dishes it at one blow. This disease, which he told us before was "entirely of a bodily character," is now, it seems, a 66 mental disorder."

Shepherd. It's a pity to see folk writin on soobjecks they

140

SIR WALTER ON DREAMING.

haena considered, and therefore canna understaun. cut-throat o' a contradiction.

It's a

North. Sir Walter then goes on to illustrate "this disease, which is entirely of a bodily character," and thereby distinguishable from insanity, and yet is at the same time “ a mental disorder," by the case of a young gentleman, one of whose principal complaints was the frequent presence of a set of apparitions resembling a band of figures dressed in green. Sir Walter then tells us, with astounding forgetfulness of his own theory, that the whole " corps de ballet existed only in the patient's imagination." If they did, then the disease was of the imagination, and not of the sense; but the story is told to show that the disease was one of the sense, and not of the imagination.

Shepherd. Eh? Eh? That is really stoopit in Sir Walter. North. Sir Walter again speaks of the patient's depraved imagination—and adds a word or two about association, which, if they have any meaning at all, must likewise refer to a mental, and not to a bodily disease. But it was of a bodily disease, and not of a mental disorder, that he formally announced his ambition to speak, and to illustrate it by a tale! Shepherd. The Baronet has wrote that before he had been fairly waukened out o' a soun' sleep, and had got a' his wanderin wuts colleckit.

North. Just so.

bath.

I beg leave to recommend the shower

Shepherd. Or the plunge.

North. One other sample of confusion of ideas, James, and I have done with Demonology. Sir Walter wishes to explain and illustrate the effect sometimes produced on the mind in sleep, by the dreamer touching with his hand some other part of his own person.

Shepherd. I ken about that. He's right there.

North. No. He is wrong. The dreamer, says Sir Walter, is clearly in this case "both the actor and patient, both the proprietor of the member touching, and of that which is touched; while to increase the complication, the mind is both toucher of the limb on which it rests, and receives an impression of touch from it; and the same is the case with the limb, which at one and the same time receives an impression from

SIR WALTER'S METAPHYSICS AT FAULT.

141

the hand, and conveys to the mind a report respecting the size, substance, and the like, of the member touching."

Shepherd. That's geyan kittle.'

North. It is so only because badly expressed-and indeed the last part of the sentence does not contain the meaning which the Baronet supposes or intends-but let that pass

Shepherd. You're no lettin't pass, you savage.

North. But hark what follows. "Now, as during sleep the patient is unconscious," quoth Sir Walter, "that both limbs are his own identical property, his mind is apt to be much disturbed by the complication of sensations arising from two parts of his person being at once acted upon, and from their reciprocal action; and false impressions are thus received, which, accurately inquired into, would afford a clue to many puzzling phenomena in the theory of dreams."

Shepherd. What! is a patient in sleep unconscious that baith limbs are his ain identical property?—I canna swallow that.

North. But suppose we do swallow it, James, and then consequences the very reverse of those Sir Walter mentions must ensue. For by this unconsciousness, all the complication of sensations which Sir Walter so clumsily explains the cause of, is prevented from taking place. It becomes impossible.

Shepherd. Sae it does, sir. I never observed that afore, till you pointed it out. 'Tis anither cut-throat contradiction.

North. But, countryman, lend me your ears. As an illustration of the effect of this complication of sensations that may be produced in a dream, Sir Walter tells us a story of a nobleman, who once awoke in horror, still feeling the cold dead grasp of a corpse's hand on his right wrist. It was a minute before he discovered that his own left hand was in a state of numbness, and with it he had accidentally encircled his right arm. Now, James, this story, which Sir Walter tells to illustrate how the "patient's mind was disturbed by the complication of sensations arising from two parts of his person,' illustrates the very reverse, namely, how the patient's mind was disturbed, but by one simple sensation, that of a corpse's hand, his own hand being perfectly numb, that is, without sensation at all, and acting therefore precisely as a corpse's 1 Geyan kittle-rather difficult-to follow.

142

ENTER ST AMBROSE AND HIS MONKS.

hand, or a piece of lead. So much for Sir Walter's metaphysics.

Shepherd. Hurraw-Hurraw!-Hollo! Gurney!

[The time-piece strikes Twelve-and enter St Ambrose and his Monks with a roasted goose, son of the celebrated prize-goose who won the stubble-sweepstakes in 1829; and ditto hare, the identical animal killed by Lord Eglinton's goshawk, by which he won the cup at the last meeting of the Ardrossan Coursing Club. GURNEY emerges from the ear of Dionysius, and the Noctes closes.