“The man is insensible to sensory impressions made through the ear, the nose, the tongue, and, to a great extent, the eye; nor is he susceptible to pain from causes operating during his abnormal state. Nevertheless it is possible so to act upon his tactile apparatus as to give rise to those molecular changes in his sensorium which are ordinarily the causes of associated trains of ideas. I give a striking example of this process in Dr. Mesmet’s words: ‘Il se promenait dans le jardin, on lui remet sa canne qu’il avait laissé tomber. Il la palpe, promène à plusieurs reprises la main sur la poignée coudée de sa canne—devient attentif—semble prêter l’oreille—et tout à coup appelle, “Henri! les voilà!” Et alors portant la main derrière son dos comme pour prendre une cartouche, il fait le mouvement de charger son arme, se couche dans l’herbe à plat ventre dans la position d’un tirailleur, et suit avec l’arme épaulée tous les mouvements de l’ennemi qu’il croit voir à courte distance.’ In a subsequent abnormal period Dr. Mesmet caused the patient to repeat this scene by placing him in the same conditions. Now in this case the question arises whether the series of actions constituting this singular pantomime was accompanied by the ordinary states of consciousness, the appropriate trains of ideas, or not? Did the man dream that he was skirmishing? or was he in the condition of one of Vaucanson’s automata—a mechanism worked by molecular changes in the nervous system? The analogy of the frog shows that the latter assumption is perfectly justifiable.”
90. Before criticising this conclusion let me adduce other illustrations of this dreamlike activity. “A gentleman whom I attended in a state of perfect apoplexy,” says Abercrombie, “was frequently observed to adjust his nightcap with the utmost care when it got into an uncomfortable state: first pulling it down over his eyes, and then turning up the front of it in the most exact manner.” According to the current teaching, these actions, which seem like evidence of sensation, are nothing of the kind, because—the patient was “unconscious”; that is to say, because he did not exhibit one complex kind of Sensibility, it is denied that he exhibited another kind! he did not feel discomfort, nor feel the movements by which it was rectified—because he could not speak, discuss impersonal questions, nor attend to what was said to him! Abercrombie cites other cases: “A gentleman who was lying in a state of perfect insensibility from disease of the brain” (note the phrase, which really only expresses the fact that external stimuli did not create their normal reactions) “was frequently observed even the day before his death to take down a repeating watch from a little bag at the head of his bed, put it close to his ear and make it strike the hour, and then replace it in the bag with the greatest precision. Another whom I saw in a state of profound apoplexy, from which he recovered, had a perfect recollection of what took place during the attack, and mentioned many things which had been said in his hearing when he was supposed to be in a state of perfect unconsciousness.” Dr. Wigan also tells of a lady whom he knew, and who was actually put in a coffin, under the belief that she was dead when in a trance. Her sense of hearing was then preternaturally acute. In her second-floor bedroom she heard what the servants said in her kitchen. When her brother came to see her and he declared she should not be buried until putrefaction set in, she felt intense gratitude and a gush of tenderness, but was unable to move even an eyelid as a manifestation of her feeling. Suddenly all her faculties returned. Dr. Wigan adds that he visited the Countess Escalante, one of the Spanish refugees, who remained in a similar state for a short period, during which she saw her husband and children, and was quite conscious of all they did and said—but did not recognize them as her own. She was absolutely without the power of moving a finger or of opening her mouth. Dr. Neil Arnott told me of a similar case in his practice. In these last cases we learn that consciousness—in its ordinary acceptation—was present, though bystanders could see no trace of it. And very often in cases where Consciousness, or at any rate Sensibility, is clearly manifested, its presence is denied, because the patient on recovering his normal condition is quite unable to remember anything that he felt and did. Under anæsthetics patients manifest sensation, but on awaking they declare that they felt nothing—of what value is their declaration? M. Despine tells us of a patient who under chloroform struggled, swore, and cried out, “Mon Dieu! que je souffre!” yet when the operation was over, and he emerged from the effects of the chloroform, he remembered nothing of what he had felt.[227]
91. Returning now to Dr. Mesmet’s soldier, and to the conclusion that his dreamlike acts were no more than the actions of one of Vaucanson’s automata, surely we are justified in concluding, first, that these actions were not of the same kind as those of an automaton, since they were those of a living organism; secondly, that they present all the evidence positive and inferential which Sensibility can present in the actions we observe in another, and do not feel in ourselves; and thirdly, if with physiologists we agree that the mechanism of these actions is “worked by molecular changes in the nervous system,” there is some difficulty in understanding how Consciousness, which is said to be caused by such changes, could have been absent—how the cause could operate yet no effect be produced.
92. What automata can be made to perform is surprising enough, but they can never be made to display the fluctuations of sense-guided actions, such as we see in the report of Dr. Mesmet’s soldier:—
“The ex-sergeant has a good voice, and had at one time been employed as a singer at a café. In one of his abnormal states he was observed to begin humming a tune. He then went to his room, dressed himself carefully, and took up some parts of a periodical novel which lay on the bed, as if he were trying to find something. Dr. Mesmet, suspecting that he was seeking his music, made up one of these into a roll and put it into his hand. He appeared satisfied, took up his cane, and went down stairs to the door. Here Dr. Mesmet turned him round, and he walked quite contentedly in the opposite direction. The light of the sun shining through a window happened to fall upon him, and seemed to suggest the footlights of the stage on which he was accustomed to make his appearance. He stopped, opened his roll of imaginary music, put himself in the attitude of a singer, and sang with perfect execution three songs one after the other. After which he wiped his face with his handkerchief and drank without a grimace a tumbler of strong vinegar-and-water.”
93. Epileptic patients have frequently been observed going through similar dreamlike actions in which only those external stimuli which have a relation to the dream seem to take effect.[228] We interpret these as phenomena of disordered mental action, the burden of proof lies on him who says they are phenomena of pure mechanism. A mail-coach does not suddenly cease to be a mail-coach and become a wheelbarrow because the coachman is drunk, or has fallen from the box. The horses, no longer guided by the reins, may dash off the highroad into gardens or ditches; but it is their muscular exertions which still move the coach.
Can any one conceive an automaton acting as the sergeant is described to be in the following passage?—
“Sitting at a table he took up a pen, felt for paper and ink, and began to write a letter to his general, in which he recommended himself for a medal on account of his good conduct and courage. It occurred to Dr. Mesmet to ascertain experimentally how far vision was concerned in this act of writing. He therefore interposed a screen between the man’s eyes and his hands; under these circumstances he went on writing for a short time, but the words became illegible, and he finally stopped. On the withdrawal of the screen, he began to write again where he had left off. The substitution of water for ink in the inkstand had a similar result. He stopped, looked at his pen, wiped it on his coat, dipped it in the water, and began again, with the same effect. On one occasion he began to write upon the topmost of ten superposed sheets of paper. After he had written a line or two, this sheet was suddenly drawn away. There was a slight expression of surprise, but he continued his letter on the second sheet exactly as if it had been the first. This operation was repeated five times, so that the fifth sheet contained nothing but the writer’s signature at the bottom of the page. Nevertheless, when the signature was finished, his eyes turned to the top of the blank sheet, and he went through the form of reading over what he had written, a movement of the lips accompanying each word; moreover, with his pen he put in such corrections as were needed.”
94. Dr. Mesmet concludes that “his patient sees some things and not others; that the sense of sight is accessible to all things which are brought into relation with him by the sense of touch, and, on the contrary, is insensible to things which lie outside this relation.” In other words, the sensitive mechanism acts, but acts abnormally. This is precisely what is observed in somnambulists. Yet Professor Huxley, who makes the comparison, appears to regard both states as those in which the organism is reduced to a mere mechanism, because on recovering their normal state the patients are unconscious of what has passed; and because the frog, without its brain, also manifests analogous phenomena. Neither premise warrants the conclusion. I have already touched on the unconsciousness of past actions; let me add the case of Faraday, who was assuredly not an automaton when he prepared and delivered a course of lectures which were nevertheless so entirely obliterated from his memory that the next year he prepared and delivered the same course once more, without a suspicion that it was not a new one. As to the frog, I must leave that case till I come to examine the evidence on which the hypothesis of the purely mechanical nature of spinal action rests.
95. The point never to be left out of sight is that actions which are known to be preceded and accompanied by sensations do not lose their special character of Sentience, as actions of a sentient mechanism, because they are not also preceded and accompanied by that peculiar state which is specially called Consciousness, i. e. attention to the passing changes (comp. p. 403). When we see a man playing the piano, and at the same time talking of something far removed from the music, we say his fingers move unconsciously; but we do not conclude that he is a musical machine—muscular sensations and musical sensations regulate every movement of his fingers; and if he strikes a false note, or if one of the notes jangles, he is instantly conscious of the fact. Either we must admit that his brain is an essential part of the mechanism by which the piano was played, and its function an essential agent in the playing; or else we must admit that the brain and its function were not essential, and therefore the playing would continue if the brain were removed. In the latter case, we should have a musical automaton. That a particular group of sensations, such as musical tones, will set going a particular group of muscular movements, without the intervention of any conscious effort, is not more to be interpreted on purely mechanical principles, than that a particular phrase will cause a story-teller to repeat a familiar anecdote, or an old soldier “to fight his battles o’er again.”