st, show alterations in the immediate assent, in the
will, and the primitive belief and must be considered as psychoses.
Below could be placed the disorders of elementary intelligence, the
disorder of the perceptive and social functions which characterize the
mental deficiencies of imbeciles and idiots. One might also distinguish
these disorders according to the degree of depth the destruction of the
edifice has reached, according to the more or less distant state of
evolution to which the patient goes back. But these psychological
classifications are purely theoretical, and in practice many other
factors intervene which oblige us to consider such a patient as
incapable of doing any harm and such another as dangerous; this is the
only difference to-day between neuroses and psychoses. Later on, without
doubt, we shall be able to substitute for these simply symptomatical and
psychological diagnostics, some etiological and physiological
diagnostics. We shall be able from the very outset to recognize that a
disorder, in all appearance slight and which is not deeply set, presents
a bad prognosis, and we shall be able to foresee a serious and deep
psychosis in the future. To-day, without doubt, one can often
distinguish from the outset the future general paralytic from the simple
neurasthenic. But in the actual state of science this ability to
distinguish is not frequent and the future evolution of a depressed
state can scarcely be foreseen with precision.

Certain individuals pass in a few years from psychasthenic depression
with doubts and obsessions to psychasthenic deliriums with stubbornness
and negativism, then to asthenic insanity with irremediable and complete
want of power. Is it necessary to say that we made a mistake in our
diagnostic and that from the first demential psychosis should have been
recognized? I am not convinced of this: these diseases, excepting a few
cases with rapid evolution, are not characterized from the outset.
Without doubt we must note that these depressions which disturb the
reflective tendencies of young patients in full period of formation,
are dangerous and can bring on still deeper depressions of the
psychological tension. But that evolution is rarely fatal; it can very
often be checked, and it seems to me fair to preserve the distinction
between neuroses and psychoses considered as different degrees of
psychological decadence.

Neuroses are, therefore, the intermedium between the errors