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THE MENTALLY DISEASED
forms of insanity due to ageing or disorganisation of the
endocrine system, and morbid mental states known as
‘reactive psychoses’—hysteria, pathological jealousy,
psychogenous depressions, etc.—which are the result of the
individual’s breakdown under external stresses and strains.
The symptomatic psychoses are always associated with
disturbances of consciousness—hallucinations,
misconceptions, emotional aberrations, etc.—though sometimes these
symptoms are so slight that they are hardly noticed.
There are other ways of classifying the insanities, but the
one given is very generally accepted and is adequate for our
present purpose.
Religious Compulsions and Ideas of Sin
Religious brooding or speculation is a symptom found in
most forms of insanity. It is a form of perseveration or
compulsive thinking. Three main groups of compulsory ideas have
been distinguished: the intellectual form, the affective form and
the impulsive form.
In the intellectual form no strange or bizarre products of
thought are found. The process of thinking itself is disturbed,
with the result that the patient cannot complete a train of
thought. He suffers from an extremely anxious cautiousness
which interferes with the progress of mental activity, so that
despite painful inner struggles he cannot arrive at conclusions.
They seem to glide away from him as he approaches them.
In a typical case, the patient was in a state of extreme
sceptical uncertainty about everything. He could not reply with
assurance to the simplest questions. For example, when asked
whether he would wear a hat or a cap when taking a walk he
found it impossible to make a decision, until despair drove him
to tears and he asked that a physician be sent to help him. The
most casual associations of ideas would have a powerful
compulsory effect on him. At one time, he refused to eat peas,
eventually giving it as his reason that one of his brothers had
thrown a bowl of peas at a man, who had fallen down and
broken his leg. On another occasion, asked how he felt, he said
he did not know because he was probably dead. He had read in
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