of intellect, will then coolly demand the pre-existence of intellect,
as the cause and ground-work of organization. There is in truth but
one state to which this theory applies at all, namely, that of complete
light-headedness; and even to this it applies but partially, because the
will and reason are perhaps never wholly suspended.
A case of this kind occurred in a Roman Catholic town in Germany a year
or two before my arrival at Goettingen, and had not then ceased to be
a frequent subject of conversation. A young woman of four or five and
twenty, who could neither read, nor write, was seized with a nervous
fever; during which, according to the asseverations of all the priests
and monks of the neighbourhood, she became possessed, and, as it
appeared, by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones and with most distinct
enunciation. This possession was rendered more probable by the known
fact that she was or had been a heretic. Voltaire humorously advises the
devil to decline all acquaintance with medical men; and it would have
been more to his reputation, if he had taken this advice in the present
instance. The case had attracted the particular attention of a
young physician, and by his statement many eminent physiologists and
psychologists visited the town, and cross-examined the case on the spot.
Sheets full of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and
were found to consist of sentences, coherent and intelligible each for
itself, but with little or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew,
a small portion only could be traced to the Bible; the remainder seemed
to be in the Rabbinical dialect. All trick or conspiracy was out of
the question. Not only had the young woman ever been a harmless, simple
creature; but she was evidently labouring under a nervous fever. In
the town, in which she had been resident for many years as a servant in
different families, no solution presented itself. The young physician,
however, determined to trace her past life step by step; for the patient
herself was incapable of returning a rational answer. He at length
succeeded in discovering the place, where her parents had lived:
travelled thither, found them dead, but an uncle surviving; and from him
learned, that the patient had been charitably taken by an old Protestant
pastor at nine years old, and had remained with him some years, even
till the old man’s death. Of this pastor the uncle knew nothing, but
that he was a very good man. With great difficulty, and after much
search, our young medical philosopher discovered a niece of the
pastor’s, who had lived with him as his house-keeper, and had inherited
his effects. She remembered the girl; related, that her venerable uncle
had been too indulgent, and could not bear to hear the girl scolded;
that she was willing to have kept her, but that, after her patron’s
death, the girl herself refused to stay. Anxious inquiries were then,
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