CURIOUS MENTAL RELATIONS OF SELF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 571, 21 August 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

CURIOUS MENTAL RELATIONS OF SELF CONSCIOUSNESS.

What constitutes individuality or personal ity has long been one of tho hardest nuts for metaphysicians to crack. There wax a famous|inatance in the early part of the seventeenth century, on which both Dascer'es and Spinoza sharpened their wits. A Spani-ih nobleman received a blow on the head, from which ho apparently recovered completely, but with total forgetf illness of everything and overybody that h-e knew previous to his injury. He was obliged to learn the language anew, and could not bo brought into any mental relation with his former self, though in other ways ijnite sane. Spinoza does not hositate to say that he was a different person than before, another individual. His argumont ia subtle ; in a modern version it may be stated thus: as we reco :nise personality to continue, although all the matter of which the body is composed changes every few years, or, as some say, every few months, the element of personality must rest in the continuity of physical impressions ; when this is absolutely dissevered then personality ceases; otherwise, if wo maintain that ijb does not, because the body remains, wo are in the position of tho man who claimed his knifo was the same after he had got a now handle to the blade and a new blade to the handle ! Physiology comes to the aid of metaphysics by defining the sense of personality as one of thoceronralforeesdcpendentonnervousaetion at once continuous and related. There are examples whore it is continuous, but not related. A famous example occurred in the Franco-Gorman war. A soldier wounded in the head recovered with the odd sequel of a double mental life ; for several weeks he would live one life, then pass into another, with no lecollection of the former one, but with its own independent sories of acquisitions and impressions; then he would revert to bis first life again without a shadow of memory of his intermediate exiatinoe, and so on alternately. This duplicate existence ia quite common in epileptics, and tho clinical records of that malady offer a number of carefully recorded cases. In a less degree it may bo said to be tho case in dreams. It is explainable on tho supposition that oertaiu portions of the brain are active at one time, dormant at another ; or that during one period one half of the brain is at work while the other half is not ; and that when this condition is reversed, total forgetfulness of the intervening pes iod ensues. Several recent cases have been recorded in tho medical journals analogous) t« those we h»vu r; f -jrred to. In one, a man of about with some money, well dressed, and wuh a traveling ba<r, found himself in a small city in Ohio, without any knowledge of who he himself was, whither he was goiny or whence he was from. On other subjects he was perfectly sane, proving quick at figures an an expert penman, of good eduction an'l polished manners, altogether a competent man of business, except this oneextraordinary and remarkable trick of memorv. What is unusual and a little susr>icioun was th* fnct that nowwhere about hirn wns an old letter note book, mark on his linen or clothing anywhere, which bore a name, initials, or monogram. It looked as if ho had prepared himsalf to lose himself, ft were well, if this thing grown common, for every prudent man to have a lino in his pooketbook to this effect ' Mem. : I am John Smith, of Smitbville,' so that when he forgets who ho is, he can remind himself of the fnct. In one of the recent numbors of ' Lippincott's Magazine' is a case, probably an imaginary one, but quite consistant with facts, where a man believes he has lived two distinct lives, remembering each with equal certainty ; one as a wll-to-do lawyer, the other as a needy New England farmer. As he was in truth the latter the ' remcmlieriii" happier thing*' was constansly to him, as the poet cays, 'a sorrow's crown of sorrows,' In certain forms of progressive paralysis, the 'iliri' th-A ijrmnlri/r.i,' analogous condition, is witnessed. The confident belief expressed, and no doubt entertained, by Mahomet, Swedenliorg, and other myutics, that a larg« part of their lives was spent in heaven, or in delightful converse with heavenly visitors, is a closely ailicd delusion. The common mcnUl trick of almost unconsciously doing an action or keeping up a formal conversation while the intellect is delighting itself in wholly remote fields of thought or imagination, so beautifully described in Xavier de M-'istre'B ' Voyage autour de ma CJhainbie,' uuder the ligureaof \v},:'■!<■ ,>t rumr, illustrates how closely the ordinary processes of tho mind may parallel these extraordinary vagaries. -* Medical and Surgical .Reporter.

The wind always finds something to blow about, even if it only blows about one's ears. There are two classes who do not bear prosperity—one of them being those who do not get a chance to bear it. The httest novelty is the ' barometer handkerchief :' your wife cau tell by the perfume df the article, whether you were at the bar or fot.

'lathis Adam's house?' asked a stran er of a Bestonia". ' Yes,' was the reply ; ' it's Adam's houuse till you get to the roof—then its eaves.' 'ls there ir.uch water in the cistern, Biddy ? ' inquired a gentleman of his Irish servant. 'lt is full on the bottom, sir, but there'B none on the top,' said Biddy. Whenever a doctor makes his appearance in a new settlement in the far West, the inhabitants know that it is about time to pick ot' f * location for a cemetery.

Longfellow's eon is exhibiting in Boston an allegorical painting called ' The Choice of Youth.' It is not said whether it represents a velocipede or a five-cent cigar. She banged her hair in the latest style,, ;.:-.-: And wore a dress of black ; •" . And a pair of light ten-bnttonedkids,' And a long blrck sealskin sacque. * ' •' Her face was rougned, her eyes were blue," ' Yefc she stood as staid as a mummy ; But this was in front of a dry goods store. In fact, ahe was only a 'dummy.'

'Kind words nevei die.' How bitterly does a man realise that truth when he sees all the kindest words he ever saw in his life glaring at him from his published letters in a breach of promise suit. Brother Gardner (coloured) has a very slight opinion of human nature. He says in effect that you can't tell what a man is until you have gone over a mill-dam in the same boat with him, and even then it is better to keep the store-room door bolted. Josh Billings, in his last oozing out of philosophy, says:—' One ov the lazyest things a man kan dew is to eat soup with a fork. One ov the longest things a man can dew is to long for perfekt happiness. Anger alwus hurts us 110 more than it does the phellow which we git mad at. vVhenaman ain't good for ennything else he is just right to sett on a jury. And this is what I may shortly cum to.' In a" Connecticut district school a little boy. six year# old was seen to Vhisper, but denied doing so when re roved by the - • teiicher. He was told to remain after school when the teacher, trying to impress upon his .youtlifui mind the sinfulness of not . speaking the truth, asked him if they did not tell him in Sunday school where bad boys went who told falsehoods. Choking with sobs; lie said—'Yes, marm ; it's a place where there is a tire, but I don't remember the name of the town.'

'Do you think I'm a fool?' asked a violent fellow of a doctor. ' Beally,' replied the doctor, ' I would not. venture to make the assertion, but now that you ask vay opinion, 1 must say that 1 am not prepared to deny it.'

Traveller—'Here, waiter, take this steak away, and give it to the poor. It's as tough as ' Waiter (blandly)—'We never'ed no complaints, sir.' Traveller 'No; because that wretched old cow had '"em all.' Two Quakers were recently married" at Albany, after a courtship of fifty years, which the ' New York Commercial Advertiser ' calls slow work-, but still thinks it not best for people to rnarry before they know their own minds. They were looking at the hippopotamus. Said she, ' Augustus dear, did you*say that was a horse?' .'Yes, my love, I Sid;—a riverhorse.' -'Well, isn't:'he made up wrongjvor deformed, or something of that, sort?' Qh, ne. Jhe only model of blood .stock 'they havein Africa. He isn't very pretty, is he V ' Well, not verj ; but you know, he reminds me- of you sometimes, Augustus dear,' ' How, dear: when he shuts his eye s and drifts into those delicious phases" of reverie T '.No, love; it's when : he yawns