decisions of volition and action are not accompanied by the same feeling as under normal conditions, but, for example, by "sentiments d'incomplétude": "The subject feels that the action is not completely finished, that something is lacking."[1] Or every decision of volition is accompanied by a "sentiment d'incapacité": "These persons from the beginning experience painful feelings in the thought that it is necessary to act; they fear action above all things. Their dream, as they all say, is of a life where there will be nothing more to do."[2] A most important abnormity of the feeling of activity in dementia præcox is the "sentiment d'automatisme."[3] A patient expresses himself about it as follows: "I am unable to give an account of what I really do, everything is mechanical in me and is done unconsciously, I am only a machine."[4]
Closely related to it is the "sentiment de domination."[5] A patient describes this feeling as follows: "For four months I have had queer ideas; it seems to me that I am obliged to think and say them; someone makes me speak, someone suggests to me coarse words and it is not my fault if my mouth works in spite of me."
A precocious dement might talk in a similar manner. Hence one may be allowed to question whether we are not here dealing with dementia præcox. I carefully examined the lectures of Janet[6] in order to see whether or not among his pathological material there were cases of dementia præcox. This might be quite possible in the works of French authors. But I found nothing that would point to the fact that the above cited patient was a case of dementia præcox. Moreover, we frequently hear such utterances from hysterics and somnambulists, and finally we hear similar expressions among many normal persons who are under the domination of an unusually strong complex, like poets and artists (see for example what Nietzsche says about the origin of Zarathustra).[7] A good example of disturbance of
