ychological forces. It is probable that the superior phenomena exact
under a form of concentration, of particular tension, much more power
than acts of an inferior order, although the latter seem more violent
and more noisy. "When the force primitively destined to be spent for the
production of a certain superior phenomenon has become impossible,
derivations happen, that is to say, that this force is spent in
producing other useless and especially inferior phenomena."[17]

A very great number of phenomena observed in neuroses and psychoses are
in connection with depression and agitation. Convulsive attacks, diverse
fits of agitation, prove to us that before the fit there existed
disproportion between the quantity and the tension of the psychological
forces, and that the spending of forces during the fit re-establishes
the equilibrium. But at the same time, after this spending, one observes
a notable lowering of the mental level, a real psycholepsy. It is very
likely that studies of this kind will produce some day the key of the
epilepsy problem, for vertigos and certain epileptic fits are certainly
phenomena of relaxation, the meaning of which we do not comprehend
because we do not study sufficiently the state of psychological tension
before and after the accidents.

The difficulty of accomplishing superior acts, the exhaustion resulting
from their accomplishment, renders them fearful to the patient who has
the fear, the phobia of these acts, just as he has the terror of that
depression which gives the feeling of the diminution of life. The
shrinking of activity and conscience, phobias, negativisms, generally
take their starting point in this fear of exhaustion caused by some
difficult action. In other cases the patient feels incapable of
accomplishing correctly the reflected acts necessary to social and moral
life, and feeling no longer protected by reflection, he is afraid of
willing or believing something, as one is afraid of walking in a
dangerous path, when one cannot see. The vertigo of life produces itself
like the vertigo of heights, when one is not sure of oneself.

Depressed patients have felt, wrongly or rightly, a certain excitation
after a certain action. Through some curious mechanism, certain acts,
instead of exhausting them, have raised their psychological tension. The
need, the desire to raise themselves inspires them with the wish to
renew such acts, and we behold the impulsions to absorb poisons,
im