“When, in the constitution of society, an association is dissolved, a law of finality is broken and the elements (the human beings who formed the association) are restored to individual life. They then enter upon new forms of social activity. If, for example, a factory is closed, the men and women who worked there and were united by a systematic association, go to work again, each on his or her own account, either separately, or in new associations, in which some of them may chance to meet again. The same thing takes place with the psychic elements, wherever, from one cause or another, the bond which united them is broken; they enter into new associations where they work, each on its own account, at the risk of producing nothing but incoherence. This isolated activity of the elements is met with in a striking manner in mental disease. “The pun is a form of this disorder. On analyzing it, we find that it consists essentially in this: A sound employed in a particular complexus (consisting of the sound, the ideas, and the systematized images constituting the signification of the sound), itself forming part of a more complex system, separates itself at least partially from these two systems, and becomes associated with other systems of ideas and images. The association through a resemblance between certain parts of the words--for example, by means of rhyme--is an essentially analogous fact. Here it is a sound which, systematically associated with other sounds, allies itself at the same time with different sounds, in order to form simultaneously, or at short intervals, systems which do not harmonise together. Among the latter class may be reckoned the greater number of _lapsus linguæ_ and _lapsus calami_. “Examples of this abound. M. Regnard has cited several pieces of verse written by madmen, which show in a high degree the mode of elementary systematic association. Sometimes one observes a remnant of intellectual co-ordination, as in the following lines, in which, however, incoherence is also abundantly manifested:-- “‘_J’aime le feu de la fougère_ _Ne durant pas, mais pétillant;_ _La fumée est âcre de goût._ _Mais des cendres de: là Fou j’erre_ _On peut tirer en s’amusant_ _Deux sous d’un sel qui lave tout,_ _De soude, un sel qui lave tout._’[307] At other times sense disappears altogether, as in these lines, also quoted by M. Regnard, and composed by a patient whose mania was that of self-conceit, and who had been insane for twenty-five years:-- “‘_Magnan! à mon souhait, médecin_ Magnan _ime,_ _Adore de mon sort la force qui ... t’anime_. * * * * * _Admirant son beau crâne ... autre remord de Phèdre,_ _Nargue Legrand du Saulle et sois un Grand du Cèdre._’[308]