The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-02-21

rounding her the patient commences to curse,
to villify everything good, and to uphold
sentiments and practices Of the most often
sive and criminal character This newly. ar
river personality has a chain Of memories and
Individual history quite foreign and unknown
zto the primary self, but consistent with those
of the remote ancestor whom have con-
ysidered. In an hour or day the primary
consciousness has returned, but there is
not the slightest recollection OF the character
which she has represented In her second
Personality, and very likely the case is
diagnosed as temporary insanity; in a more
primitive age it -wenld have been called pos
session by an evil spirit.
1t was in reality the strongly impressed
characteristics of a distinct personality, which
had lain dormant in the sub-conscious self
for three generations, now coming to the sur
face temporarily under favoring circumstan-
ces in the fourth, In another generation it
actually appeared, an atayism. the primary
and usual personality. I'm like manner per-
sonality OF conspicuous goodness or talent
might pass over many generations of medic
Gritty or of evil-dOers, and appear a pleasant
atavism, after one or many generations had
interviewed. Less extreme personalities might
| be formed in like manner, and more than
one might be Impressed upon individuals in sue
cessive generations giving rise to the perplex-
ing and much debated condition of multiplex
personalities. Kraft-Ebing, we have seen
] found III his patient three physical existen-
ces," or personalities. Prof. Janet's patient
Madame B., possessed three widely different
ones, while one of my own cases presented
there and another two, alternating spon-
taneously at longer shorter intervals, not
including the case in which changes Of per-
sonality were brought about by hypnotism.
With this view of the origin and nature
of ordinary, as well as alternating personal
tiles, it is not difficult to determine the med
Ico-legal aspect from which these cases
should be viewed. It IS evident, first, that
the primary self must not be held responsible
fIr action. either good or bad. committed by
tne second or any succeeding personality,
since 1t Is absolutely ignorant of the doings
the oXiStanCp these
tiles. It would undoubtedly be just to re-
strain the Individual from violence or wrong
DOING during the presence Of the personality
committing the wrong, but no longer and it
would be abhorrent to all our ideas of Justice
to take the life of or even punish severely
the individual whose identity we have been
accustomed to associate with the ordinary
sell, on account Of the wrong doing COM
united by any succeeding personality while
the ordinary self was wholly unconscious
IN certain degree, Mr.. Mason's assertions
regarding reincarnation. While the individ-
ual in real life Is not the exact prototype,
IL Is held, of a remote. ancestor, the char
acteristics Of that ancestor exist in the form
of this second half of the dual personality
Inc theosophist claims that the strange i'm
pulses foreign to the nature of a person are
merely reawakened memories. This is also
neid 10 be true of the occasional realization,
When visiting strange place, that some
tune, and under other conditions, it has been
seen before This is practically what DR..
mason investigations and deductions sig
nlfy, only he shows that 1t is not a rein
carnatlon, but the transmission Of certain
qualities and ideas that have lain dormant
Ior century or more to a person whose
predominating self is far apart from them.
1t Will readily be seen that there is sufl-
clent room for argument in the interesting
anu S'artEng statements of DR.. Mason to &C.
cupy a regiment of debaters. 1t is one Of
those medical revelations which not only in
terest the scientist and the student of human
nature. but the entire world.