A good example of this phenomenon is afforded by the patient, observed by Trousseau, who wrote down more than five hundred pages of words connected with one another by assonance or sense: _Chat_, _chapeau_, _peau_, _manchon_, _main_, _manches_, _robe_, _rose_, _jupon_, _pompon_, _bouquet_, _bouquetière_, _cimetière_, _bière_, _&c._[309] “One need not be either insane or imbecile to make puns and associate words together on account of superficial resemblances. In this case, instead of being a permanent dissociation of the more complex systems, it is a momentary dissociation which gives rise to the phenomenon. Nothing is more natural--when one feels the need of unbending one’s mind--than to restore to themselves the psychic elements retained in complex systems not necessary to life, and to allow them a liberty which they sometimes abuse. To continue the above comparison--which may be carried a long way--the workmen in the factory are not always at work; they have their moments of rest and recreation, and then usually occupy themselves with less complex systems.”[310] Those most prone to these rhythmic manifestations are, in my opinion (which is borne out by Adriani and Toselli), chronic maniacs, alcoholic maniacs, and paralytics in the early stage--in whom, however, there is apt to be more rhyme than verse, and more verse than sense. Melancholy patients would take the next place, owing to the small number of these found in asylums; they seem to find in versification a relief from their habitual silence, or a defence against imaginary persecutions. This is a much more important fact than would appear at first sight, when connected with another, already well known, viz., that all great thinkers and poets are constitutionally inclined to melancholy. CHAPTER II. ART IN THE INSANE. Geographical distribution--Profession--Influence of the special form of alienation--Originality--Eccentricity--Symbolism--Obscenity--Criminality and moral insanity--Uselessness--Insanity as a subject--Absurdity--Uniformity--Summary--Music among the insane. Though the artistic tendency is very pronounced, and might almost be called a general characteristic, in some varieties of insanity, few authors have paid sufficient attention to it. The only exceptions are Tardieu, who, in his _Études Médico-Légales sur la folie_, remarks that the drawings of the insane are of great importance from the point of view of forensic medicine; Simon,[311] who, in speaking of drawing among megalomaniacs, observes that the imagination appears in them in inverse proportion to the intellect; and Frigerio, who some time later gave a survey of the subject in an excellent essay, published in the _Diario del Manicomio di Pesaro_.[312] Since then I have been able to make a completer examination of this subject, thanks to the curious documents supplied to me by MM. Riva, Toselli, Lolli, Frigerio, Tamburini, Maragliano, and Maxime du Camp.