Lecture II

Indeed not. Particularly with the so-called mental illnesses it is absolutely clear that in every case one can indicate where the diminished organization of some organ resides. An individual who truly wishes to know the nature of melancholia or hypochondria driven to the point of mental illness must not wade around in the soul element; he should rather attempt to determine, from the condition of the abdominal organs of the person in question, how the diminished organization is influencing the person's abdominal organization. He should attempt to determine how a force of organization that works less strongly than normal allows something to precipitate out, so to speak—just as in chemistry one precipitates something out of a solution so that a sediment occurs—how a diminished force of organization in the physical-bodily element, which would otherwise be permeated by the force of organization, precipitates something out and how this precipitate is then present in the organism as something physical-bodily, how it is deposited in what takes place in the liver, gall, stomach, heart, and lungs. These processes are not so accessible to investigation as one would like nowadays, when people prefer to stick to the crude aspects—for histology also remains at the crude level. Psychology is necessary to such an investigation, but in every case it is necessary to lead the study of so-called mental illnesses back to the bodily condition.