ABSTRACT
You will not be satisfied with my reply, but here it is—allow me to introduce you. First, to the objects which were so shadowy that it was not even possible to say they were man and woman. I pronounce no opinion on this. Let me introduce you now to two objects which the higher human authorities had no doubt whatever were man and woman; there was no dispute about the facts of anatomy and physiology. The man took the woman into the bushes, the woman showed no reluctance to go. There, the man who showed himself subsequently to be perfectly capable of the exercise of functions which we are used to regarding as those of reason, savaged the woman's breasts and genitalia with his teeth, devouring the flesh of both regions in a manner that would be comprehensible if he were a wild carnivore. The episode presents itself to us as a problem because he did not appear as a wild beast devouring his prey in a jungle. He appeared to be a man going out with a girl at a holiday resort. This pair were so unshadowy that it was impossible to disbelieve that they were a man and a woman. There are many similar instances, so common that it is not necessary to recount and document them. How 167immediately they have presented themselves to the senses of the reader of this book depends on a number of facts peculiar to the reader—his occupation, his life up to this time—it would take a long time to recite the facts. I shall abbreviate our labours by saying that they 'depend on the vertex'. Under one vertex I have known a man act as if he were having a vivid emotional experience familiar to me under the vertex, 'dream'. He was not dreaming; nor did he think he was. It may seem unnecessary to resort to the term, 'vertex', but it must suffice until we can find some more adequate shorthand for those states in which the individual has two or more sets of facts appropriate to the same emotional experience, but which are impossible to entertain together without feeling mad. This involves feeling sane enough to be afraid, and further, to respect his fear. He is afraid of his mind, and fears that his fear is worthy of respect.
