special attention. The first 170 pp. have little direct connection with the emotions. They deal with the special effects on the organism of such influences as the air, temperature, amount of sensorial stimulation, fatigue, shocks, exhaustion, etc. M. Féré's observations on the dynamogenic effects of sense-stimulation in hysterics and other enfeebled subjects are well known. The muscular contractions become stronger under the influence of light, etc. He now shows us the counterpart of this fact in the "nocturnal paralysis" which he has observed in a number of enfeebled subjects. The light withdrawn, they lapse into excessive muscular weakness, which sometimes departs only after some hours of exposure to the sun.
M. Féré suggests that the morning languor of which so many neurasthenics complain is of this sort. – He finds that, when a finger, e.g., has been exhausted by repeated muscular contractions, its vigor returns again the moment the muscles of the opposite arm or of the leg are voluntarily set in motion at the same time (p. 105).[1] – He gives many reaction-time measurements. Peripheric excitations, other than the expected signal, so far from always distracting the attention, often act as "condiments" thereto (p. 111) and shorten the reaction-time. Many persons react more slowly with closed eyes. A general state of muscular tension favors both the rapidity and the strength of a reaction. The recumbent attitude, e.g., lengthens the time (p. 115). – Stammering is often due to mere debility of innervation of the tongue. By gymnastic exercise à la Demosthenes (giving the tongue an ivory ball to play with for a certain time each day) M. Féré has cured a case. – Hysteria has many analogies with fatigue – motor weakness is the original sin of hysterics (pp. 158-164). – The current stories about patients charged with electricity, emitting sparks, etc., may be true. One such case was observed by M. Féré, and the condition found to be due to abnormal degrees of the skin (p. 188).
With Chapter V the emotions come upon the scene, but M. Féré has no general philosophy of them. He does not even consider the psychological question which has been discussed of late, as to whether all emotional feeling be reducible to peripheral sensation, though in several places this would seem to be his view. He lays great stress on the division into sthenic and asthenic emotions,
- ↑ His comments on the perception of resistance, à propos to these experiments (p. 106), are too laconic and obscure for my comprehension. Other subjects (p. 127) show an opposite law.
