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CHAPTER X

THE PROCESS OF DEGENERATION

            EACH stimulation leaves after it some moment-disaggregation, a condition that makes further disaggregation more difficult. The more intense the stimulation is, the more extensive and deeper is the disaggregation, and hence the more difficult further disaggregation becomes. If the stimulation is continued or made highly intense, a point is soon reached beyond which no stimulation can pass without giving rise to disaggregation, having as its manifestation the different forms of pathological mental dissociation. The pathological process, underlying the phenomena of abnormal mental life, is not essentially different from the one taking place in normal states. If difference there be, it is not certainly one of a quality, but of degree.

            The more intense a stimulation is, the more extensive is the process of disaggregation, the higher mounts the moment-threshold, giving rise to the different phenomenon of psycho-physiological and psychomotor dissociation. As expressed in a former work: “The process of disaggregation, setting in under the action of strong and hurtful stimuli, is not something new and different in kind from the usual; it is a continuation of the process of association and dissociation normally going on within the function and structure of higher constellations. The one process gradually passes into the other with the intensity of duration of the stimulus.”

            The process of disaggregation is a descending one, it proceeds from constellations to groups. Under the influence of strong stimulation, such as mechanical and chemical agencies, and psychic affections, such as intense emotions of fear, and their derivatives, the degenerative process of disaggregation sets in, affecting first the higher aggregates, and then with the continuity and intensity of the stimulations the process descends deeper and deeper, affecting less complex aggregates, finally reaching the simplest aggregates of moments. The higher types of moments degenerate and fall to lower and lower stages of consciousness.

            The law of moment disaggregation as that of degeneration is from the complex to the simple. The lower moments, on account of the simplicity of their organization, are more stable than the more complex and higher moment, and are in a better condition to resist the disaggregating action of hurtful stimulations.

            Furthermore, the lower and simpler an aggregate of moments is, the older it is, either phylogenetically or ontogenetically, and therefore, its stability is more firmly assured by selection and adaptation. In the course of the life-existence of the individual and the species lower types of moments have come more often into activity, since the higher an aggregate is, the later does it rise in the history of evolution. Hence moments that are not working smoothly, are continually weeded out.

            This same process is going on not only in the history of the species by the eliminating action of natural selection, but also by the special adaptations brought about in the life experience of the individual. In phylo-genesis the best and most firmly organized instincts survive, while in ontogenesis those habits are consciously or unconsciously selected which are most firmly established and are best adapted to the given end. At the same time the older a reaction is, the more thoroughly organized it becomes, the more is it enabled to withstand the onslaught of external hurtful stimuli. The same holds true in the case of habits. A habit of long standing is well organized, and it is often extremely difficult, if not impossible, to control.

            Food reactions, sex reactions, social reactions, and personal moral life form an ascending series both as to time of appearance in the history of the species as well as complexity of structure and function. Food instincts in time and simplicity precede sex instincts, and sex instincts in their turn precede social instincts which antecede personal, moral life. Now we find that the instability is in the same ascending line. Food reactions are more stable than sex reactions, sex reactions are more stable than social reactions which are more firmly organized than a highly unified personal life, guided by a moral ideal. The structure and functions of the system of alimentation remain unchanged for ages; the sex reactions may become slightly modified for some period of time; the functions relating to social life vary from generation to generation, while moral life, guided by moral ideal is highly individualized and personal.

            In the downward course of mental disease-processes the degeneration is from the complex to the simple, from the stable to the instable, from the highly organized to the lowly organized. In the different forms of mental diseases first moral life, then social reactions are affected, the patient loses all regard for others, becomes careless, wasteful and negligent of his vocations, life-work, and duties.

            In certain forms of mental alienation, such as melancholia and paranoia, the patient becomes suspicious of others, of his near and dear ones, becomes cruel and revengeful, sometimes ending by attacking his own friends and near relatives by committing homicide. When the deterioration of personal moral life and social reactions is well under way, degeneration of other functions sets in,—the patient gives himself over to excesses, to all kinds of debauches, and indulges in the different forms of abnormal sexual practices. Only very late in the course of the disease are the food reactions in any way affected.

            The phenomena manifested under the action of narcosis go further to confirm the same point of view. Moral, personal life is the first to succumb, other activities follow in the order of their complexity and duration of function. In other words, the law of disaggregation or that of degeneration is from the complex to the simple, from the highly organized to the lowly organized, from the least stable to the most stable. This stability is proportionate to the complexity of moment aggregates, and to the frequency and duration of their associative activity.

            In habits, formed within the life time of the individual, the same law holds true. Old habits are inveterate, habits formed in childhood and perpetuated can hardly be eradicated, while those that are formed later in life become more easily dissolved. Complex habits, formed in late life, relating to moral life and social intercourse, become dissolved at the first onset of the process of mental degeneration, while habits formed early in life, such as handling spoons, fork, and plate or dressing and buttoning the coat long resist the degenerative process. Paretics and patients of secondary dementia, though far advanced on the downward path of degeneration, are still for some time able to attend to the simpler functions of life, such as dressing and feeding. Once more we are confronted with facts pointing to the same law that the process of degeneration of which disaggregation constitutes a stage is from the highly to the lowly organized, from the complex to the simple, from the rational to the automatic.

            Even in the lighter forms of psychic degenerative forms that lie on the borderland of mental alienation, such, for instance, as are present in the various forms of psychopathic maladies we still find that the same relation holds good. Moral, personal, rational life is the first to be affected.   Social activities follow, while disturbances of sex and food reactions set in late in the course of the pathological process of disaggregation and degeneration.

            In psychopathic cases of advanced standing the process of degeneration brings about a simplification of life. The complicated systems of mental and moral life are dissociated, disaggregated, and disorganized. Like in a flood, the rich soil deposits are swept away and the primitive bed rock is left exposed to view, in the case of psychopathic patients all higher structures and functions are temporarily suspended, the most primitive impulses and instincts, serving the preservation and protection of the individual, remain,—the impulse of self-preservation with its accompanying instinct of the fear instinct reigns supreme. Fear rooted in the primitive impulse of self-preservation forms the pathology of psychopathic diseases.

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