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The writer will agree with the Freudians that there must be a cause for the appearance of these tics. This cause existed in the past. It has in the course of time been forgotten, but still exists somewhere in the subconsciousness or memory. This forgetting has been brought about by a process of dissociation from the original exciting cause.
The lack of self-assertion, of confidence in himself, and the feeling of inferiority and insufficiency are natural consequences of the general picture. The inhibition of even, unhampered self-expression is always observed. In tics, it must be noted, there is regression to more inefficient and inferior methods of response and adaptation, the types of activity being of a somatic and psychic nature.
But as a rule we react by both physical and psychic means, the manner and degree of our conduct being determined, as above mentioned, by our stage in evolution and development. How does all this preliminary and general discussion apply to the problem of the tics? The relation seems to me to be most intimate and most important.
It would have been pleasant and interesting to watch their tics and foibles and little vices swelling and burgeoning and blossoming into enormous and fantastic flowers of cruelty and pride and lewdness and avarice. The Caesarean environment makes the Caesar, as the special food and the queenly cell make the queen bee.
Tic is a sign of degeneration, in the biological and evolutionary sense, a degenerative neuropathic and psychopathic basis, as mentioned previously, being present, although often latent. The maladie des tics is but the extreme form. The onset is as a rule insidious, with a tendency to spread.
These smaller muscles for finer movements come into function later and are chiefly associated with psychic activity, which plays upon them by incessantly changing their tensions, if not causing actual movement. It is these that are so liable to disorder in the many automatisms and choreic tics we see in school children, especially if excited or fatigued.
Is it not plain that an understanding of the genesis and meaning of tics opens the gateway to the elucidation of the origin and significance of the psychoneuroses and functional psychoses of reaction types of various kinds? It is a rare and pleasant experience to meet a book on such a general topic as delinquency, which has not as its raison d'etre the exploitation of some over-worked hypothesis.
Tics, as mentioned earlier in this paper, are thus pathological habits. Tics may also be but the symbol for a vague feeling of tension, irritation or stimulation, which seeks relief or expression by the performance of the tic. Emotional stress and strain, fright, fear, excitement and mental shock can arouse a tic.
In fact it must be said that tics are reactions of the organism, of the organic make-up, the psychophysical personality, as a response to irritation, excitation or stimulation, sensory, nervous or psychic! It is a means of relief of tension, of organic reaction or adaptation, not necessarily conscious but frequently unconscious and automatic, as in fear. Starting in this way it may persist.
Though more successful than Grant in ordinary life, he was never regarded as a national figure in law or poli tics till he had passed his fiftieth year.
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