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I lack the necessary material to sustain these explanations from observation. On the other hand, the pediatrists seem to lack the point of view which alone makes comprehensible the whole series of phenomena, on the somatic as well as on the psychic side. To illustrate by a comical example how one wearing the blinders of medical mythology may miss the understanding of such cases I will relate a case which I found in a thesis on pavor nocturnus by Debacker, 1881. A thirteen-year-old boy of delicate health began to become anxious and dreamy; his sleep became restless, and about once a week it was interrupted by an acute attack of anxiety with hallucinations. The memory of these dreams was invariably very distinct. Thus, he related that the devil shouted at him: "Now we have you, now we have you," and this was followed by an odor of sulphur; the fire burned his skin. This dream aroused him, terror-stricken. He was unable to scream at first; then his voice returned, and he was heard to say distinctly: "No, no, not me; why, I have done nothing," or, "Please don't, I shall never do it again." Occasionally, also, he said: "Albert has not done that." Later he avoided undressing, because, as he said, the fire attacked him only when he was undressed. From amid these evil dreams, which menaced his health, he was sent into the country, where he recovered within a year and a half, but at the age of fifteen he once confessed: "Je n'osais pas l'avouer, mais j'éprouvais continuellement des picotements et des surexcitations aux parties;
Royston shook his head impatiently; he was too proud to save his credit by dissembling a defeat; and his reply was quick and decisive. "Vous me flattez, M. le Vicomte. Quand on perd, on doit, au moins l'avouer loyalement, et payer l'en jeu. Cette fois j'ai tant perdu, que je ne prendrai pas la revanche."
On one occasion when the Marquis de Bouillé pointed out to him the danger of some of his plans as placing the higher class at the mercy of the mob, "dirigé par les deux passions les plus actives du coeur humain, l'intérêt et l'amour propre, ... il me répondit froidement, en levant les yeux au ciel, qu'il fallait bien compter sur les vertus morales des hommes." Mémoires de M. de Bouillé, p. 70; and Madame de Staël admits of her father that he was "se fiant trop, il faut l'avouer,
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