Second, it is not quite clear that the state of fatigue itself is inevitably accompanied by a diminished sensitivity to movement.
Third, it has to be remembered that the part played by sensation arising from movement in reference to such problems as those of spatial perception, of determination of identity, of the apprehension of causal relations, and of what is called consciousness of self, though undoubtedly important, has often been exaggerated. Hermant certainly shares this tendency towards exaggeration.
Fourth, a case might at least be made out for maintaining that the very same general conditions which lead to diminished motor sensibility, also tend to lessen the liability to strong emotional response. But the theory requires that all emotional elements should continue to function with undiminished vigour.
Fifth, it is maintained that gesture and particularly speech, both of which are clearly and distinctly instances of motor expression, are peculiarly persistent. The connexion of gesture and speech with emotion is hardly adequate to account for this.
Finally, even supposing that diminution of kinaesthetic sensibility occurs, and that it can do all that is here claimed, yet, even so, only a part of the field of the folk story is explained. Hermant indeed recognises this in a second and extremely interesting article to which I shall refer later.
We turn now to certain of those developments of Freudian psychology which I have already mentioned, for these also in the main tend to treat the folk story from the standpoint of individual expression. The general setting of all these theories is very well described in a monograph by Dr. Otto Rank, called The Myth of the Birth of the Hero.[1] Comparative mythology has, he points out, discovered
- ↑ English Translation published by the Nervous and Mental Diseases Publishing Co., New York, 1914.
