mind to be conserved in the unconscious, as a complex of chastity scruples, and there undergo incubation and further development. Later he had had spells of jealousy during his married life but no true imperative ideas until he broke down in health, and then, as he himself expressed it, “the devil got the upper hand and said, ‘I’ve got you now.’” The devil was the complex organized twenty-two years previously with the emotion of jealousy[142] centered about the idea of his wife and the whole neurographically conserved. The impulsive force of the emotion was constantly striving to awaken and give expression to the unconscious complex. He was able to hold it in check, to repress it, by the conflicting force of other sentiments until these became weakened by the development of the psychasthenic state. Then these latter controlling elements of personality were repressed in turn whenever the more powerful jealousy complex was awakened. The whole mechanism was undoubtedly more complicated than this, in that the jealousy complex had a setting in certain unsophisticated and puritanical ideas of conduct (brought to light in the analysis) which gave a peculiar meaning (for him) to his wife’s actions. So long as this setting persisted it would be next to impossible to modify the jealousy complex. Whatever the mechanism, ideas with strong emotional tones (particularly fear, anger, jealousy, and disgust), no matter how absurd or repellent, or unjustified, and whether acceptable or unacceptable, tend to become organized and welded into a complex which is thereby conserved. The impulsive force of the incorporated emotion tends to awaken and give expression to the complex whenever stimulated. The recurrence of such an organized complex so far as it is reproduction is, of course, in principle, memory, and an imperative memory or _fixed idea_. Whether the complex shall be awakened as such a recurrent memory, or shall function as a dissociated subconscious process, producing other disturbances, or remain quiescent in the unconscious, depends upon other factors which we need not now consider. 3. Clinically the _periodic recurrence_ of such complexes is an _obsession_. An obsession _as met with_ is most likely to be characterized by fear not only because the instinct of fear is the most painful of the emotions, but for another reason. Although biologically fear is useful as a defense for the preservation of the individual, when perverted by useless associations it becomes harmful, in that it is not only painful but prevents the adjustment of the individual to his environment and thereby takes on a pathological taint. Complexes with other emotions are less likely to be harmful and therefore less frequently apply for relief. Yet imperative ideas with jealousy, anger, hatred, love, disgust, etc., centered about an object are exceedingly common though their possessors less often resort to a physician.