then discover them to be merely indirect expressions, or perhaps attempts at rationalisation, of underlying processes which in themselves might be perfectly reasonable and coherent.
The hypothesis that the insane mind is not the chaos which a superficial observer imagines it to be, but that the appearance of disorder is due only to our ignorance of the deeper mental processes which link up the disjointed symptoms into a coherent whole, is at any rate suggestive and stimulating. Subsequent chapters will show, as a matter of fact, that recent psychological researches justify and confirm it to a very large extent. We shall hope to demonstrate that the thoughts and actions of the insane are not a meaningless and inscrutable medley, but that cause and effect play as considerable a part in the mind of the apparently incomprehensible lunatic as in that of the normal man. We shall find reason to believe, moreover, that not only are the mental processes of the insane explicable by psychological laws, but that these laws are identical with those governing the minds of the sane, that the lunatic is battling with the same troubles which beset us all, and that he is endeavouring to express ideas, desires, and ambitions, with which we are all acquainted.
