nce ideas. Generally she names all her
friends anew; often her tone of voice is a little altered; sometimes she
introduces with particular combinations of letters some odd inflection,
which she maintains rigorously and cannot unlearn.

Keeping before him this conception, the reader will comprehend the
following sketch of a case of double consciousness, communicated by Dr
George Barlow. To one reading them without preparation, the details,
which are very graphic and instructive, would appear mere confusion:--

"This young lady has two states of existence. During the time that the
fit is on her, which varies from a few hours to three days, she is
occasionally merry and in spirits; occasionally she appears in pain and
rolls about in uneasiness; but in general she seems so much herself,
that a stranger entering the room would not remark any thing
extraordinary; she amuses herself with reading or working, sometimes
plays on the piano and better than at other times, knows every body, and
converses rationally, and makes very accurate observations on what she
has seen and read. The fit leaves her suddenly, and she then forgets
every thing that has passed during it, and imagines that she has been
asleep, and sometimes that she has dreamed of any circumstance that has
made a vivid impression upon her. During one of these fits she was
reading Miss Edgeworth's tales, and had in the morning been reading a
part of one of them to her mother, when she went for a few minutes to
the window, and suddenly exclaimed, 'Mamma, I am quite well, my headach
is gone.' Returning to the table, she took up the open volume, which she
had been reading five minutes before, and said, 'What book is this?' she
turned over the leaves, looked at the frontispiece, and replaced it on
the table. Seven or eight hours afterwards, when the fit returned, she
asked for the book, went on at the very paragraph where she had left
off, and remembered every circumstance of the narrative. And so it
always is; as she reads one set of books during one state, and another
during the other. She seems to be conscious of her state; for she said
one day, 'Mamma, this is a novel, but I may safely read it; it will not
hurt my morals, for, when I am well, I shall not remember a word of
it.'"

This state of double consciousness forms the basis of the psychical
phenomena observed in the extraordinary cases which have been
occasionally described under the general name of catalepsy.