the
human personality. The so-called "mania of doubt" is one of the most
frequent phases in the degenerative forms of psychopathy, and
sometimes precedes certain obsessions, which urge the sufferer on
irresistibly to the commission of immoral or harmful acts. But there
may also be a mania of doubt simple and genuine, which is confined to
the impossibility of taking a decision, and which produces a serious
state of distress, though it induces no moral lapses, and may even
arise from a moral scruple. In a hospital for nervous disorders I once
encountered a characteristic case of the "mania of doubt" which had a
moral basis. The patient was a man whose business it was to go round
to houses collecting refuse; he was seized with misgivings lest some
useful object should have accidentally fallen into the rubbish-baskets,
and that he would be suspected of appropriating it. Hereupon the
unhappy man, just when he was about to go off with his load, climbed
all the stairs again, and knocked again at all the doors, asking
whether something valuable might not perhaps have chanced to be in the
baskets. Going away after assurances to the contrary, he would return
and knock again, and so on. In vain he applied to the doctor for some
means of strengthening his will. We told him repeatedly that there was
nothing of any value in the baskets, that he might be quite easy on
this point, and carry on his business without any preoccupations. Then
a gleam of hope shone in his eyes. "I may be quite easy!" he repeated,
going away. In a minute he was back again. "Then I may really be
easy?" In vain we reassured him. "Yes, indeed, quite easy." His wife
led him away, but from the window we saw the man stop at a certain
point in the street, struggle with her, and come back in great
agitation. Once more he appeared at the door to ask: "I may be quite
easy then?"

But how often normal persons harbor in their minds the germs of such a
mania! Here, for instance, is a person who is going out; he locks the
door and shakes it; but when he has gone a few steps he is assailed by
doubt: did he fasten the door? He knows that he did, he perfectly
remembers having shaken it, but an irresistible impulse makes him go
back to see if the door is really fastened. There are children who,
before getting into bed at night, always look under it to see if there
are any animals there--cats, for instance; they see there are none,
and quite understand there are none. Neverth