nd defend him against himself by special means which it is useless
to apply to other men; we are obliged to modify legal conduct toward
him. All disorders of the mind oblige us to modify our social conduct
toward the patient, but only in a few cases are we obliged to modify at
the same time our legal conduct; and these are the sort of cases that
constitute lunacy.

This important difference in the police point of view is of no great
importance in the psychological point of view nor in the medical point
of view, for the danger created by the patient is extremely varied. It
is impossible to say that such or such a disorder defined by medicine
leaves always the patient inoffensive and that such another always
renders him dangerous. There are melancholies, general paralytics,
insane who are inoffensive, and whom one should not call lunatics; there
are impulsive psychasthenics who are dangerous and whom one shall have
to call lunatics. The danger created by a patient depends a great deal
more upon the social circumstances in which he lives than upon the
nature of his psychological disorders. If he is rich, if he has no need
to earn his living, if he is surrounded by devoted watchfulness, if he
lives in the country, if his surroundings are simple, the very serious
mental disorders he may have do not constitute a danger. If he is poor,
if he has to earn his living, if he lives alone in a large town and his
position is delicate and complex, the same mental disorders, exactly at
the same degree, will soon constitute a danger, and the physician will
be forced to place him in an asylum with a good certificate. This is a
practical distinction, necessary for order in towns, which has no
importance in the point of view of medical science.[15] If we put these
accidental and slightly important differences on one side, we certainly
see a common ground in neuroses and psychoses. The question is always an
alteration in the conduct, and, above all, in the social conduct, an
alteration which tends, if I am not mistaken, toward the same part of
the conduct.

The conduct of living beings is a special form of reaction by which the
living being adapts himself to the society to which he belongs. The
primitive adaptations of life are characterized by the organization of
internal physiological functions. Later on they consist in external
reactions, in displacements, in uniform movements of the body which
either keep him from or draw him near to t