ERRONEOUSLY CARRIED-OUT ACTIONS

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I shall give another passage from the above-mentioned work of Meringer and Mayer (p. 98): “Lapses in speech do not stand entirely alone. They resemble the errors which often occur in our other activities and are quite foolishly termed ‘forgetfulness.’” I am therefore in no way the first to presume that there is a sense and purpose behind the slight functional disturbances of the daily life of healthy people. If the lapse in speech, which is without doubt a motor function, admits of such a conception, it is quite natural to transfer to the lapses of our other motor functions the same expectation. I have here formed two groups of cases; all these cases in which the faulty effect seems to be the essential element—that is, the deviation from the intention—I denote as erroneously carried-out actions (Vergreifen); the others, in which the entire action appears rather inexpedient, I call “symptomatic and chance actions.” But no distinct line of demarcation can be formed; indeed, we are forced to conclude that all divisions used in this treatise are of only descriptive significance and contradict the inner unity of the sphere of manifestation.