Like  Janet,  we  must  analyze  the  psychology  of  our  patient,
classify  the  phenomena,  stating  precisely  the  symptoms  of  the
neurasthenic,  hysteric,  and  psychasthenic  conditions.  Without
forgetting  the  physical  causes,  we  must  look  for  the  influence
of  mental  illusions  in  the  development  of  hypochondria,  of
melancholia,  and  of  more  serious  psychoses,  such  as  systema-
tized delirium.  Far  from  being  ready  for  the  harvest,  the  field
has  scarcely  been  sown.  Happily,  in  medicine,  practise  in  its
gropings  often  gets  ahead  of  theory,  which  is  always  somewhat
elusive.
In  spite  of  the  obscurity  which  still  dominates  this  subject
of  psychopathy,  it  is  averred  that  a  psychotherapeutic  treat-
ment, based  on  the  rational  education  of  the  mind,  in  the  ethical
sense,  is  capable  not  only  of  suppressing  the  accidents  of  path-


INTRODUCTION  xiii

ology,  but  also  of  reforming  to  a  large  extent  the  primitive
mentality,  which  is  the  constitutional  cause  of  a  breakdown
aggravated  by  specific  developments.
To-day  Bernheim  and  his  pupils,  who  formerly  cured  so
many  ills  by  suggestion,  declare  that  the  different  forms  of
neurasthenia  are  not  amenable  to  psychotherapeutics,  which
depends  on  the  amount  of  autosuggestion  it  comprises.1

This  lack  of  success  on  the  part  of  suggestive  therapeutics,
erroneously  termed  psychotherapeutics,  does  not  astonish  me  at
all.  It  is  hysteria,  which  is  entirely  a  product  of  autosugges-
tion, and  yields  the  most  readily  to  brutal  force,  to  that  per-
verted psychical  influence  which  is  called  suggestion.  Neu-
rasthenia requires  an  altogether  different  kind  of  psychothera-
peutic  treatment,  a  moral  education  which  does  not  attempt  -
to  spirit  away  fatigue,  but  makes  it  disappear  little  by  little  by
suppressing  the  primary  cause,  emotionalism.
