the word reaction: from physics to psychiatry · 2017. 12. 3. · only example by ducange (1734),...

Psychological Medicine 1977 7 373-386Printed in Great Britain

The word reaction from physics to psychiatryJEAN STAROBINSKI1

(Translated by Judith P Serafini-Sauli)

The editor is grateful for permission to reprint this articlewhich was first published in Diogenes no 93 Spring 1976

A LATE WORD

Reagere reactio does not belong to classicalLatin2 None the less antiquity was not unawareof the concept of reciprocal action where thepatient reacts in return on the agent3 TheAristotelian doctrine of antiperistasis occupiedphysicists up until the time of Galileo Allmovers as long as they move are at the sametime moved4 The Latin medieval authors dis-pense with reagere and reactio It is the vetbpatidesignating the passive state to which the prefixre is added in the aphorism attributed to theScholastics in the eighteenth-century dictionariesomnis agens agendo repatiturh In their concernfor good Latin the writers of the Renaissancemade an effort to avoid the words reagere andreactio Vossius allows them a little disdainfullyin the study programme of philosophers (inscholis philosophorum) for it is a term proper tothe object designated by the two words (voxidonea rei quern signant) But in all other cir-cumstances he prefers expressions such asvicissim agere resistere agenti in se6

In the philosophical language of the Renais-sance despite the opposition offered by thepurists the term is introduced and becomeswidespread Pomponazzi has written a De

1 Address for correspondence Professor Jean Staro-binski 12 Rue de Candolle Geneva Switzerland

bull The term is absent in Souter (1949) A Glossary of LaterLatin It is also absent in Blaise (1954) Dictionnaire latin-francais des auteurs chritiens

bull Sir Thomas Heath finds an anticipation of the Newtonianlaw of the equality of action and reaction even in AristotlesDe Motu Animalium (c i 698a) Cf Heath (1949) Mathe-matics in Aristotle pp 281-282

4 The formula which is traditional is here that of Bonamiciquoted by Koyre (1939) Etudes galiliennes vol I p 19

5 Quoted in the article reaction in the Dictionary ofChambers (1743) Dictionnaire de Trivoux VEncyclopidie

bull Vossius (1695) De vitiis sermonis iv 20 Quoted as theonly example by DuCange (1734) Glossarium ad scriptoresmediae et infimae latinitatis vol v article reaction

reactione (published after his death in 1525)The De Rebus Naturalibus of Zabarella (1589)contains a Liber de Reactione In his Lexiconphilosophicum (1613) Goclenius gives a definitionof reactio which is abstractly extended to allphysics Retributa seu reciprocata patientis actioquaedam qua resistit agenti et id commutat dumab eo commutatur

In the same period (beginning of the seven-teenth century) we find the generalized use of theequivalent term in the vernacular languages(French reagir reaction English to reactreaction Italian reattione etc) Let us venturea hypothesis here the term could only acquireall its importance in a cultural climate stronglymarked by the Stoic idea of the interdependenceof all things in the universe If all natural beingsare equal and interdependent no action canescape another action in return The universallaw of reaction or retroaction causes the oblitera-tion of the ontological privilege by which anagent is more noble than a patient All beingsare in turn active and passive in their reciprocalrelations And even when the idea8 of thequalitative superiority of the active being on thepassive being will be upheld this superiority willbe transient (or passing) ie communicatedfrom one to another in proportion as the move-

7 LittrS however in his Dictionnaire (1863-77) indicatesan older usage which has the notable advantage of revealingthe presence of the term in the vocabulary of alchemy

As fire acts in airThus air reacts on waterAnd water acts in airWhen fire wants to wage war

This text is at verses 460-467 of the Complainte de Nature aValchimiste errant The author of this text is most probablythe painter Jean Perreal (about 1460) We have been unableto find other examples of the verb reagir (to react) in Francebefore the Physique of Champeynac (1610) quoted byHuguet (1965)

8 Such as it is affirmed by Thomas Aquinas from Augus-tine and Aristotle in the Summa Theologica ia LXXIX 2 3

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374 Jean Starobinski

ment spreads The concept of reaction comes tothe aid of the passive object and confers uponhim the dignity possessed an instant before bythe agent who has made him submit to hisimpression upon him and who must in turnundergo an impression There is no fragment ofmatter in the universe that is not capable ofresistance At the dawn of modern times nocause (outside of God) is by essence superior toanother All preponderance is quantitative abody exerts more force than another because itsmass and velocity are greater Passivity for thesubject that undergoes is not the mark of anindelible inferiority it is a transitory situation inwhich the energies of the return action arealready gathered Thus the order of nature im-poses an identical law for all beings animate orinanimate The universe is a homogeneous spacein which the slightest alteration the slightestdisplacement reacts on the totality of beings

In some ways these ideas are common to theNeo-Stoics and to the Peripatetics of the Re-naissance and the seventeenth century They thusprepare the ground for modern mechanicswhich will give these intuitions their quantifiedexpression The article reaction of the Encyclo-pedie (translated literally from the Cyclopaedia ofChambers 1743) is very significant in this caseIt shows that Newton has formulated in thelanguage of quantitative equality and in the soledomain of movement of bodies what had beenpreviously described by means of words in thequalitative phenomena of nature

The peripatetics defined reaction the impression abody makes on that which has affected it an impres-sion exercised on the same part of the agent and atthe same time that the agent affects it like waterthrown on fire1 which extinguishes the fire while it isitself heated But one did not know that thereaction is always equal to the action It was MrNewton who first observed this

Thanks to the fame of Newton the conceptualpair actionreaction acquires undisputed author-ity in European thought of the eighteenthcentury Let us recall his third principle For allaction there is an equal reaction or thereciprocal actions of two bodies on each otherare always equal and directed in opposite direc-

1 The example of the water and fire is that proposed in 1644by Sir Kenelm Digby in his Natural Bodies (xvi 141) If firedoth heate water the water reacteth againe upon the fireand cooleth it (as quoted in OED article react) The exampleis derived from the medieval tradition

tions - a notion so famous that it has come to bea metaphoric model in many other domains

The use of the notion can thus return to beingan image and be no more rigorous than it was inthe language of the natural philosophies before themathematicization of their language none theless the terms by now bear the sign of theillustrious mathematician They are covered by aprestigious guarantee2

Even in theological language one evokes thereaction of the soul to the action God exerts onit That contributed to bring God closer to thecreature as the initiates of Pietism and Method-ism hoped3 God and internal sentiment canmeet on the same level just as an action en-counters a reaction Human love and divine loveare forces that can enter into agreement

It is to Newton or at least to a Stoic modelthat Montesquieu is beholden when he writesThe parts of a state are like the parts of thisuniverse eternally bound by the action of one andthe reaction of the other4 This is not the onlyexample of Montesquieus use of the lexical pairactionreaction Each time he applies it to therealm of political matters he never fails toindicate that he has borrowed it from thevocabulary of physics Montesquieu does notforget the original register from which heborrows this conceptual tool The comparisonserves him in making it understood that everyevent and every political decision cause effectswhich reflect back on the cause of these events oron the authors of these decisions If one dis-passionately examines history one can neverfail to observe the just return of things eachviolent movement arouses another no less violentmovement which replies to it and sometimesstops it The play of action and reaction inhistory ensures inevitable recurrences In thedynamics of history it represents what the playof weights and counterweights ensures in the

1 The dictionary of Feraud (1788) makes a state of a modereaction to react are used in writings on all sorts of mattersThe beguiling efficacy of the lexical pair aciionjreaction isnever felt more than in the cosmosophic speculations of theend of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nine-teenth century One need only name Goethe SchellingEdgar Poe (Eureka) Edgar Poes speculation will find a lateecho in the Art Poetique of Claudel (1907)

bull In 1771 the theologian Wesley evokes a continual actionof God upon the Soul and a re-action of the Soul upon God(Works 1872 vol v p 232) The example is quoted fromOED article reaction

1 Montesquieu (1743) Considerations sur les causes de lagrandeur des Remains et de leur decadence chap ix


The word reaction 375

domain of the statics of institutions To be morespecific if men do not succeed in preservingpolitical stability by the balance of internal forcesin the state violence will prevail under one formor another then by a law as compelling as thelaws of physics the violence exercised by oneparty or faction will arouse a reaction which willprevent the new power from prevailing perma-nently Sooner or later a new balance will beestablished to be broken once again In theevents that follow action and reaction come tore-establish violently a balance that men havenot been able to establish peaceably by thereciprocal limitation of powers Montesquieu isconvinced that there is always a price to pay forthe excess of power sometimes it is even a highprice For Montesquieu we see the image ofaction and reaction fill the operative role that weentrust (sometimes with less precision) to theconcept of dialectic1 or feedback

REACTION VS PROGRESS

The passage of the word reaction into the registerof political vocabulary is accompanied by amodification of its value

We know that Saussure calls the value2 of aword the resultant of the relations it maintainsin a given moment with all the other words of thelanguage According to a comparison proposedby the linguist of Geneva the value of a wordresembles that of a chess piece at the moment ofa game It derives from its place in the game itsposition in relation to all the other pieces andthe importance given it by pre-existing rulesAmong the components of this value we mustadd the greatest attention must be given toterms which enter into an antonymous relationwith the word considered The value of a wordin a given language context depends in large parton pairs it can form with opposite terms - bethey reciprocal or complementary

In the language of physical representation wehave seen that the word reaction appeared so asto constitute a pair of reciprocals with actionthus competing with the pair of opposites actionpassion Actionjreaction in the sense of Newton-

1 One grasps the passage from the concept of universalreciprocal action to that of dialectic in its essence in theAnti-Diihring of Engels (1878) (Introduction chap i)nature is the testing ground of dialectic

1 Saussure (1916) Cours de linguistiqtie generate secondpart chap iv

ian mechanics constitutes a compensated pairwhere the second term only increases the first byaffecting it with a prefix (re) one of whose effectsis to indicate reciprocity or inverse movementTo be sure reaction is always second and evenif one supposes it to appear instantaneously it isa response to an action that has come first Butreaction is not like passion the logical orontological opposite of action it is anotheraction equal in dignity of the same nature anddiffers only in its orientation in space

In the language of politics qualitative opposi-tion can insinuate itself again in the verbal pairactionreaction In fact as soon as the wordaction receives a laudatory distinction itbecomes inevitable that reaction will in returnfind itself with a negative and pejorative dis-tinction From then on it is no longer a comple-ment but an opposite This transformation isonly possible because to convey this new sensethe prefix r e also acquiesces to signifying back-ward movement in relation to an action whichitself advances in the right direction The ap-pearance of this new value of the word reactiongoes along with the attribution of greater im-portance to the perfecting which can developin the course of time From the end of theeighteenth century the approval given to acertain type of historic action defined as progressbrings with it the meaning of conduct hostile toprogress for the word reaction In a revolution-ary period this meaning is all the more im-periously insisted on as the happiness promisedis delayed in coming This delay must be ex-plained and above all a name must be given tothe forces to the ideas and to the men who areaccused of being responsible It is thus that thedecade 1790-1800 sees the birth of the pejorativepolitical acceptance of reaction and of theneologisms reactor (used notably by Babeuf tostigmatize the counter-revolutionaries) and re-actionary (formed on the model of revolution-ary)3 In the new conceptual pair actionreactionwhich was formed following the French Revo-lution the qualitative opposition prevails onceagain and it is linked to the representation of anantagonism developed in the space-time frame-work of history The presupposition of a truesense of history and of a true duty of man is

3 For these new meanings and these derived terms cfBrunot (1967) Histoire de la langue francaise des origines a1900 vol ix 2 p 837n and pp 843-844



posed beforehand by virtue of a prefix of direc-tion pro (in progress) and by its opposite re (inreaction) To be sure the dictionaries of theperiod defined reaction as the retort of anoppressed party that takes vengeance and actsin turn Reaction can come from the right asfrom the left if one believes in this neutralmeaning But very quickly even in prudentwriters the term reaction designates a returnbackwards a retrogradation a destruction ofhappy changes come about in the State

In his pamphlet entitled Des reactionspolitiques(1797) Benjamin Constant writes When arevolution that has been carried beyond itslimits stops one first restores it within its bound-aries But one is not content with restoring itwithin its boundaries it is pushed as far back-wards as it had advanced forward Moderationends and reactions begin These new meaningsand new linguistic values mark the growing roleplayed from the end of the eighteenth century(and up to our day) by the image of a socio-historical becoming bearer of beneficent changesfor all of humanity provided that men rise to thetask and fight against those among them whocreate an obstacle The stunning success of thescheme action (progress) vs reaction is due to thefact that it arouses hope and designates anadversary

VITAL REACTIONS

If one supposes that the consecration of a medicalnotion is to be measured by its presence in adictionary that records it we must then observethat the word reaction was recognized very latein medical nomenclature To my knowledge asfar as France is concerned no medical dictionarymentions the term reaction before the beginningof the nineteenth century There is no trace of theword in the Lexicon Medicum of B Castelli(last edition 1746) The Medical Dictionary ofRobert James (for which I have Diderotstranslation 1746-8) does not mention it eitherNeither the Cyclopaedia of Chambers (5thedition 1743) nor the Encyclopedic of Diderotand dAlembert give it any medical or physio-logical meaning

Even if reaction is not yet a concept worthy ofbeing catalogued in a medical lexicon thenaturalists and doctors of that century did notabstain from using the word it is an explanatory

auxiliary which translates the phenomena of lifeinto the language of general physics and ofphilosophy Those who have some familiaritywith the scientific literature of the eighteenthcentury know that the lexical pair actionreaction is often invoked in fact they haverecourse to it every time they want to give theapproximate formula of an interdependence anda vital faculty of response This is true for J TNeedham1 the vitalists of Montpellier WCullen and his pupils of Edinburgh and DDiderot in his meditations on life The pairactionreaction often covers confused intuitionswhich do not go beyond a pseudo-demonstrationof a totally verbal nature

Of course the mechanical image of action andreaction was able to lend itself to the still verygeneral statement of what will later be calledstimulus and response or reflex We note thatin this first theory of nervous functions reactionis conceived mechanically without anythingintervening to specify the real nature of thebiological act with regard to the externalstimulant A sequence is described where thereaction as a general rule is proportional to theaction the acting force and the reacting forceare held to be homogeneous and of the samenature Through the detour of chemical analogiesthey meanwhile begin to move toward the state-ment that in physiology will be expressed by thelaw of all-or-nothing Buffon says nothingunacceptable but neither does he say anythingvery rigorous when he writes in the Discours surla nature des animaux Objects act on an animalby means of the senses and the animal reacts onobjects by his exterior movements in generalaction is the cause and reaction is the effectBut he goes on

One might perhaps say at this point that the effect isnot at all proportional to the cause that in solidbodies which follow the laws of mechanics thereaction is always equal to the action but that inanimal bodies the external movement or the reactionis incomparably larger than the action But it iseasy to answer With a spark one sets fire to agunpowder magazine and makes a fortress explode Consequently it should not seem extraordinarythat a light impression on the senses can produce a

1 For Needham and his reference to the concept of actionand reaction see Roger (1963) Les Sciences de la vie dans lapensee francaise du XVIW siecle pp 504-520



violent reaction in an animals body which is mani-fested by external movements1

Very large use is made of the pair actionreactionat the end of the eighteenth century in all thetheories on the relationship of the physical andthe mental The lexical pair actreact permits thedescription of a double causality a circle ofcauses and effects where once sensitivity hasbeen placed as a general principle no factor canclaim absolute priority or preponderance Fromthe pen of Cabanis we read these most character-istic of all lines

One must not be surprised that the operationswhich grouped together bear the name of mental arein relation to those other operations which are morespecifically designated by the name of physical andthat they act and react on one another even if onewanted to consider the various organic functions asdetermined by two or more different principles

Organs are only able to enter into action andexecute certain movements in so far as they areendowed with life or are sensitive it is sensitivitythat animates them it is by virtue of its laws thatthey receive impressions or determine to move Theimpressions received by their sentient extremities aretransmitted to the centre of reaction and this partialor general centre sends to the corresponding organthe determinations which all together constitute theproper functions of this organ Whether theseimpressions have been received by external orinternal sentient extremities or whether their causehas acted at the seat of the cerebral pulp itself theyalways end up in a reaction centre that reflects themas determinations movements functions towardsthe parts to which each of these operations isattributed This action and reaction can often takeplace without the individual being aware of it2

The area thus covered by the notion of actionand reaction is remarkably vast As we have justseen it includes the unperceived phenomena ofthe autonomic nervous system the subconsciousof organic life It covers the whole domain ofresponses that the reaction centres bring to theperceptible stimulations coming from the outsideworld or internal organs It is also applied bothto the incitements emitted by the cerebral pulpand to those produced at the level of the organs

1 Buffbn (1836) Oeuvres completes vol iv pp 364-365For the role of the image of explosion in the formation of thenotion of reflex cf Canguilhem (1955) La formation duconcept de reflexe

1 Cabanis (1802) Rapports du physique et du moral deIhomme onzieme memoire chap I

themselves Let us underline here the use of theverb reflect used doubtless by virtue of theprefix re which brings it close to react In thework of Cabanis reflect is a multivalent termwhich designates by turns the return of a force inmovement (here sensation) to its source-reflected attention motor reflex (the inter-dependence of the physical and the mental) etcCabanis often refers to analysis but in resort-ing to the concept of action and reaction or tothat of reflected movement he employs aubiquitous metaphor which dispenses him frompushing his analyses beyond a certain pointbecause these terms lead to believe that theanalysis has been pushed back to the elementarybase It will be up to the following generation todismember the too vast territory of reaction soas to isolate with narrower but more specificconcepts the types of phenomena best suited toexperimental investigation

Around 1820 there are many who state thatthe concept of reaction has received such broadacceptance that it becomes applicable to allphenomena of life3 Now in the domain ofsciences too broad a concept is no longerfunctional

The concept of actionreaction was taken frommechanics and does not authorize the establish-ment of a difference in nature between the actingforce and the reacting force The cerebral centre of reaction is the place where sensationis modified into ideas volition attentionall that reflows or is reflected towards theperiphery at the level of the centre is alwaysnothing but sensation The same energy developsin the two directions - centripetal and centri-fugal Sensation which at first seems to haveflowed from the circumference to the centrereturns later from the centre to the circum-ference and in a word the nerves exert averitable reaction on themselves regarding feel-ing just as they exercise another reaction on the

3 Life is a series of impressions received and reactionsperformed by the different sensitive centres writes Delpit(1820) in the article reaction of the Dictionnaire des SciencesMedicates Just as we live ceaselessly under the influence ofphysical stimulations and mental affections it follows thatoutside the time of sleep we live under the rule of continualreaction states Bricheteau (1827) in the article reaction ofthe Encyclopedic Methodique (Medecine) vol xn Later on in1874 Bernheim recognizes that the word reaction has takenon such a large sense that is can no longer be defined thatit no longer bears a precise meaning (article reaction ofthe Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicates 3rdseries vol II)



muscular parts for movement The pair actionreaction in its mechanical meaning of reciprocalaction does not prefer any of its constituentterms it constitutes the model of functioningrequired by a materialist and monistic systemwhich intends to dispense with the Cartesianhypothesis of a non-material free self-willedsoul1 The idea of reaction therefore covers ahighly polemic idea since it is proposed as anexplanatory principle in place of the thinkingsubstance Thought itself is nothing but areaction among many2

However if the idea of reaction met withbrilliant success at the beginning of the nine-teenth century it is not in the meaning Cabanisgives it but rather in the sense that the vitalisttheory confers upon it The vitalists held to theidea of a vital principle irreducible to solephysico-chemical phenomena Now the charac-teristic of the vital principle is to harmonize thevarious functions of the organism and to defendit against the blows of harmful agents

It is here that the concept of reaction inter-venes in a new sense it is the original responsethat the organism opposes under the directionof the vital principle to all that endangers itssurvival When the word reaction made itsentrance into medical dictionaries at the be-ginning of the nineteenth century it was given astrictly vitalist significance Here is the definitiongiven by Capuron

A kind of movement which tends to prevent ordestroy the effects of all harmful powers applied tothe animal organism and that certain doctors haveattributed to what they call the medicating force

1 Cabanis (1802) Rapports du physique et du moral deIhomme deuxiime memoire Histoire physiologique dessensations paragraph vi A few lines later Cabanis goes on tosay that sensibility acts like a fluid whose total quantity isdetermined and which every time it casts itself in greaterabundance in one of its channels diminishes proportionatelyin the others On the role of this metaphor in the history ofpsychiatric thought and on the image Freud makes of it cfour study Sur les fluides imaginaires in La relation critiqueParis 1970 pp 196-213

This will be affirmed later by empiricists like Mach(1902) Die Analyse der Empfindungen pp 245-246 In theCahiers of Paul Valery (1973) we find the peremptoryaffirmation The notions of thought knowledge etc mustbe discarded Those of act and reaction must replace them(I 954) The psychology of Jean Piaget which insists onaction assimilation and accommodation seems aimed entirelyat resuming and surpassing in a decidedly active sense allthat the long dominant concept of reaction led to believeabout the necessary link between the individual and thesurrounding world knowledge is a constructed response

of nature vegetable principle soul organismetc3

The essential idea is thus that of resistance (onewill note the reappearance of the prefix re)whose secret belongs to living beings and tothem alone There exists therefore a kind ofreaction that is the privilege of life and evenmore is the very definition of life The openinglines of the famous book of Xavier Bichat shouldbe recalled here

One seeks the definition of life in abstract considera-tions it will be found I believe in this generalinsight life is that group of functions which resistdeath The mode of existence of living bodies is suchin effect that all which surrounds them tends todestroy them Inorganic bodies act incessantly onthem they themselves exert continuous action oneach other they would soon succumb if they did nothave a permanent principle of reaction within themthis is the principle of life unknown in its nature itcannot be appreciated except by its phenomenaNow the most general of these phenomena is thishabitual alternative of action on the part of exteriorbodies and of reaction on the part of living bodies analternative whose proportions vary depending on theage

There is a superabundance of life in a child becausereaction exceeds action The adult sees an equilib-rium develop between the two and because of thatthis vital excess disappears The reaction of theinternal principle diminishes in the old man whilethe action of external bodies remains the same thenlife languishes and goes imperceptibly towards itsnatural end which arrives when all proportionceases

The measure of life is therefore in general thedifference that exists between the effort of externalforces and that of internal resistance The excess ofthe former announces its weakness the predomi-nance of the latter is the sign of its strength4

We meet here with an agonistic definition of lifelife only exists as long as it can pursue thestruggle against the hostility of the non-livingworld If to live is to react one is tempted toconsider all reaction of whatever nature it maybe as a healthy effort of the organism There can

3 Capuron (1806) Nouveau dictionnaire de midecine dechirurgie de physique Capurons definition is repeatedunchanged by Hanin (1811) Vocabulaire medical and againin the first edition of Nysten (1814) Dictionnaire de medecineFor the spiritualism of Capuron (a former Oratorian) and thevitalism of Nysten (disciple of Bichat) cf Florkin (1954)Medecine et medecins au pays de Liege pp 169-190

4 Bichat (1800) Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et lamort first part article I



be nothing but good reactions And just asHippocratic medicine tended to favour themedicinal force of nature vitalist medicinewants to be nothing more than the art of provok-ing or favouring reaction to the point that onecan count on the presence of the principle ofresistance Should a fever arise one will see in itthe indication favourable in itself of a mobiliza-tion of defensive energies1

It is difficult to preserve such a generalprinciple pure and undivided After havingidentified reaction and life Bichat feels the needof subdivisions animal life and organic life areto be differentiated And the notion of reactionso important at first becomes slightly blurred inthe rest of the work By its very generality theconcept is not easily manageable by itself it doesnot permit the definition of the various func-tions

The authors who spoke of reaction around1820 proceeded in turn to some distinctions Inthis regard the articles of medical encyclopediasare of great interest Delpit2 separates physicaland mental reaction What is physical reactionIt is the defensive energy mentioned by Bichati t acts against all causes of destruction derivesits means in the more or less constituted ele-ments of the structure and is found essentiallybound to the vital properties which by presidingover all functions direct the acts of preservationof the individual or the species But physicalreaction consists also in the uninterrupted circleof reciprocal influences which links the opera-tions or functions of the different organs amongthemselves Can one assert that reaction alwaysinfallibly assures the defence of the individualDo we not observe the occurrence of harmfulreactions Delpit who does not exert himself torespect vitalist orthodoxy makes a point of

1 For another physiologist fifty years later the concept ofreaction intervenes once again in a fundamental definitionBut for Moritz Schiff it is no longer a question of defininglife in general it is a question of the speciality of animal lifeAnd reaction is no longer conceived as a response to anexternal environment it establishes the solidarity of the partsThere exists in the animal a reciprocal reaction of all theparts in which one can respond to the irritation of the otherThis reciprocal unity gives the animal a kind of individualitythat is lacking in plants Schiff (1894) Recueils des memoiresphysiologiques I p 464

Delpit (1820) Dictionnaire des sciences medicates vol47 article reaction This physician doctor at the Universityof Montpellier was the friend of Maine De Biran with whomhe founded the Medical Society of Bergerac in 1806 CfBiran (1954) Journal

25

aberrant reactions against which medicine mustintervene

This physical reaction cannot constantly be deter-mined by conservative views nor can it always beconfined within convenient limits Thus the reactionof the organs of generation when too stronglyexercised by the impression of stimulating sub-stances can reflect on the cerebral organ and deter-mine all the phenomena of sexual neuroses Thereaction of the blood system against obstacles placedin the way of circulation by defective formation or amomentary disturbance of the organs can determinethe rupture of the vessels or an equally dangerousoutpouring of blood Therefore the physical reactionof organs has its aberrations and its excesses to bebeneficial it must remain under the influence of care-ful medical care and with this help create a barrieragainst harmful deviations

In Delpits view then the reassuring teleology ofreaction allows some exceptions in these casestherapeutic measures must come to the rescueWithout going so far as to dispute the generallyfavourable nature of physical reactions Delpitadmits that on certain occasions they exceedlimits and must be contained It is what Bricheteauin another publication3 calls pathological re-action Nevertheless it is there that therapeuticintervention finds its model in arousing a newreaction a counter-reaction one can stop patho-logical phenomena

Let an organ like the stomach or the brain etc beseriously injured upset in its parts aside from thelocal injury as a result of a strong reaction mishapsoccur in a multitude of other organs a feverdevelops there is difficulty in breathing trouble inthe functioning of the liver the kidneys the intestinaltract etc Would you like to use this reaction to theadvantage of the entire organism Administer anemetic whose action will affect the brain or elseapply mustard plasters to the feet so as to obtain thesame result

The multiplied sympathies of organs sometimesyield to double reactions or reflected reactions

We can see that the concept of reaction isallowed to be used in all senses It dispenses withadducing a pathenogenic mechanism or a modeof action which might be specific or subtle Itassures the appearance of an explanation without

3 Bricheteau (1827) Encyclopedie Methodique Medecinevol xii article reaction Isidore Bricheteau (1789-1861)was doctor at the Necker hospital and member of theAcademy of Medicine

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having recourse to a cause or to means any morespecific than those designated by the all-purposeword of that same period sympathy1

MENTAL REACTIONThe dichotomy of the mental and the physicaloffers an ideal pair for the comings and goings ofaction and reaction If an organ is irritated it willreact on the brain The troubles of the spirit ofsomatic origin will be described as the effectsof a reaction Delpit does nothing more thantranscribe some very old affirmations wellformulated by Galen into a renewed languageHere the word reaction modernizes the tradi-tional statement

The exercise of physical reaction is not limited to thesystems or to the organs of which our body is com-posed in certain cases we see it affect the mind aswell Any alteration of an organ reacts with vehem-ence on the faculties of the spirit or the affections ofthe soul Thus the stomach excited by wine or otherliquors reacts on the mind which at that pointbecomes more lively sharper and more ready withwitty remarks Swelling of the liver and of the spleenbring sadness discouragement melancholy etc2

It goes without saying that the opposite is alsoconsidered true and that the mental is able toact on the physical Thus can Bricheteau write

As with the organs the body and mind of man con-sidered abstractly act on one another A man takenill will have difficulty recovering if he is dominatedby sad feelings and bitter grief in the same mannerit is unlikely that an ailing man can use his facultieswith success In the first case eliminate the mentalailment and you will react on the illness in thesecond make the suffering cease and you will re-establish the free exercise of the intellectual facultiesThis means that physical forces can be immediatelydebilitated or re-established by the influence of agreat and deep impression Joy and terror can bringdeath just as great excitement of another natureseems to mend the fabric of life or resuscitate theexercise of functions that seemed permanently

1 Among historians the term has led to confusion There isa great difference to be established between cosmic sym-pathies postulated by the paracelsian doctors of the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries and physiological sympathies forwhich the theory was developed in the eighteenth century bythe school of Montpellier and especially by P J Barthez Itcould be demonstrated that the system of sympathy developedconcurrently with the system of reaction and that both weresupplanted at the same time by the recognition of reflexmovements

2 Delpit (1820) Dictionnaire des sciences medicates vol 47article reaction

destroyed A mountaineer far from his native landfalls victim to nostalgia loses his strength and canbarely take a few steps in a hospital which seemsdestined to be his tomb Give him hope of seeing hismountains again and all is changed He recovers hisstrength his appetite and the use of his legs Do youwant to react on the mental state of an unhappy manwho is being secretly undermined by a deep griefcaused by reverses of fortune Instead of giving himdrugs imitate if you can the great practictioner ofthe last century who after having unsuccessfullytreated a businessman in difficulty with his businesscured him almost immediately by giving him a pre-scription of thirty thousand francs to be filled by hisnotary3

We must distinguish in this text between theaffirmation of principle and the illustrativeexamples In principle there is nothing against areactive theory of physical alterations due topassions and to disorders of the mind Thenotion of reaction can be perfectly applied towhat we call today - with a controversial term -the psychogenesis4 of somatic ailments or mentalillnesses

Bricheteau on the other hand scarcely dwellson this Does the idea of the mental cause of agreat number of physical ailments and mentaldisorders seem to be self evident It was certainlycommon currency and perhaps it seemed sounquestionable that nothing indicated the needfor calling upon the concept of reaction on itsbehalf

A mountaineer far from home is a potentialvictim for nostalgia financial troubles secretlyundermine the health of a businessman unhappyabout business this is considered undebatableevidence according to the tradition of a psycho-somatic doctrine already perfectly formulated byStoic philosophy and by Galen To express thepathogenic role of an idea or a passion it is theconcept of influence which is most frequentlyutilized Everything takes place as if one pre-ferred to keep the concept of reaction in reserveWhy For what purpose To give it a veryparticular role in the mechanism of spontaneousor induced recovery The word thus designates apromise of healing that the doctor hopes toencourage or arouse Here at the level of

Bricheteau (1827) Encyclopedie mithodique medecinevol xit article reaction

4 Cf Lewis (1972) Psychogenic a word and its muta-tions



psychotherapy the concept of reaction againtakes on the defensive value that Bichathad given it in the general order of vitalfaculties

In the examples proposed by Bricheteau asupplementary notion comes to connote re-action it is abruptness the sudden effect Fromthat point reaction appears as an instantaneousevent it achieves a brusque overturning itresuscitates Mental ailment is to be cured ororganic troubles caused by passion are to berelieved by producing an idea or emotion whichwill unleash the good reaction in a single strokeFor a long time doctors had imagined mentaldisturbance under the almost literal aspect of thebreakdown of a machine What resource shouldbe used to recover the harmonious arrangementof faculties First of all a shock physical shock(cold a blow whirling) and mental shock(fright surprise joy etc) One expected aneffect similar to that of a magic wand or moresimply like the jolt that sets a stopped watchworking What better scientific name to give itthen if not that of reaction

All the naive staging set up by the old medicineof the spirit and by the psychiatry of the nine-teenth century find their justification in the hopeof arousing the decisive reaction A phantasm ofimmediate recovery thus comes to inhabit theconcept of reaction To react is a phasic pheno-menon whose effects always manifest themselvesimmediately Thus the word reaction takes onhere a strong antonymous charge it is not onlythe contrary of some action come before whichhas endangered organic or psychic integrity Itimplies a marvellous rapidity which is opposed toall that is secret slow chronic in the process ofillness In the admirable Adieu of Balzac whenhe reconstructs the scene of the battle of Beresinaaround the mad young countess it is to make herre-live the initial moment of her madness afteryears of illness and to induce a kind of instan-taneous curative reaction This latter does notfail to occur but with such violence that theyoung woman once given consciousness cannotbear it and dies immediately

But Balzac who nevertheless knows the medi-cal vocabulary well does not speak expressly ofreaction What he mentions in his story is thesudden return of will in a being who had beenabandoned by that faculty Human will camewith its electric flow and revived this body from

which it had been absent so long1 Balzac hasnot strayed for all this from the doctrine ofreaction such as it was formulated in 1820 Inthis doctrine the restitution of voluntary energyis the final result of mental reaction This forDelpit is the complete achievement The mentalreaction has its source in courage in this strongdetermination of the soul which raises itselfabove all pains masters all impressions andsubstitutes for them acts of will2

The mental reaction can thence be defined asthe act of courage that yields will it is the eventby which the individual is brought back to thepossibility of being newly active and freeReaction takes on such a positive value socharged with combative energy that it becomes averitable action But have we not come fullcircle From the moment one supposes that thesource of reaction is courage has one not lost thematch As in all moralizing theories of psycho-logical recovery does one not assume preciselythe faculty that is lacking and that must berecovered For it is by a simple verbal artificethat Delpit distinguishes between the source ofreaction (courage) and its effects (the acts of willthat substitute impressions of pain) It must beadmitted that in many circumstances discourage-ment and as a consequence the impossibility ofreaction prevails The alleged source dries upDelpit does not formulate this objection but heanticipates it If courage fails the patient itshould not fail the doctor and thence all issaved the reaction will take place By now thegame is played in the doctor-patient rela-tion

The doctrine of mental reaction for todaysreader has all its interest in the role it makes thedoctor play Between the Hippocratic tradition(which insists on the virtues necessary for adoctor serenity temperance kindness)3 andcontemporary psychosomatic medicine whichinvites the consideration of transfer and thefunction of the doctor as a drug (Balint) onemust not fail to notice the reflection that

1 Balzac (1966) Adieu in La comedie humaine llntegralevol vn p 58 The principal text of Balzac is Louis Lambertthe theory of will as it is developed by the hero of this novelis a doctrine of action and reaction We have devoted morethorough attention to this in Starobinski (1975) La vie et lesaventures du mot reaction

2 Delpit (1820) Dictionnaire des sciences medicales3 Cf in particular the treatise Du Midecin and De la

Bienseance These two treaties are found in vol ix of theLittre edition

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develops in the romantic age around the conceptof reaction It is an essential link The figure ofthe doctor finds itself invested with a greaterauthority and social role A myth is constructedthat surrounds the doctor with an aura of powerand it is not incorrect to see in this the beginningof a new prestige attached to the medical pro-fession which had been relatively discredited upto the end of the eighteenth century Particularlyevident is a special attention still a bit vague andpompous devoted to the personal influence ofthe therapist As we know this interest willbecome more particularly explicit in the follow-ing decades of the nineteenth century at the timeof the debates on hypnosis suggestion andhysteria psychoanalysis is born in their exten-sion

In 1820 when the doctrine of mental reactionis pronounced the doctor appears as a possessorof energy and courage By a sort of contagion orfluidic influence he is capable of infusing thepatient with the mental resource of reactionDelpit avoids all allusion to animal magnestismbut others will be less reserved As soon as willand courage are represented as communicablesubstances there is a great temptation to takethe image literally and to imagine a kind ofenergetic transfusion between the doctor andthe patient We will cite a characteristic page ofDelpit We can measure how far from it we arebut in what he says of the assistance the doctoroffers in a healing reaction we will observe thathe did not fail to recognize the feelings of thepatient (his need to pour out his soul his needto be loved) nor the conditions of transfer(prefigured here by the more mild term ofconfidence)

Not all illnesses have as their basis the alteration oforgans or the disorder of their functions also not alldiseases respond to cathartics narcotics tonics orblood lettings The doctor who is obliged to offerresistance to the sad ravages of boredom of ambitionof grief of love needs a different medical backgroundthan that formed by potions and pills When courageis demolished by reverses of fortune the torment ofpassion a deep feeling of great grief the fear of apressing danger can the good doctor resort only to amaterial therapy Will he not have to rise to thehidden springs which move our passions which candevelop the courage of the spirit the source of somany heroic acts and such marvellous cures Willhe not in certain cases have to give a direction tocertain impressions of the soul which might then

react with success on physical impressions andmodify them completely

Joy hope all sweet and agreeable sentimentsfortify the soul and give it the means to react withsuccess on muscular forces and on organs whichperform vital functions All that elevates the soulstrengthens the body said Seneca but what senti-ment can raise the afflicted soul of one crushed bypain consumed by illness one whose structure isthreatened by complete dissolution Where will hederive the courage necessary to react on the materialcauses of destruction to stop or suspend its progress Oh if a means is still left to revive the hopes thateach instant seems to destroy this means will befound only in the confidence inspired by the doctorHow powerful this source is when handled by anable hand How many storms aroused by mentalemotions are calmed by the voice of the doctorwhose duty is mixed here with that of the mostdelicate friendship The unhappy patient needs topour forth his soul who better than the doctor isused to lending an attentive ear to the long list ofafflictions Also the patient has hope in him and thisconfidence is already a restorative balm a gentlestimulant to the whole organism In turn the doctormust neglect no means of inspiring or fortifying thisconfidence since it can so happily reinforce the actionof the medication and so effectively help the reactionof the mind on the body Calm and serene airaffectionate care language that is easy to under-stand promises stripped of exaggeration foreignluminaries called for consultation speech in whichscience discards all that is obscure and severe wherelanguage borrows the expression of the heart andinterest all this in the manner the words the actionsof the doctor must help to strengthen this confidencewhich contains a powerful means of arousing theentire being and of preparing favourable solutionsto the ailment

Further on Delpit adds More than anythingelse men need to be loved and this sentiment issweeter and more paternal for them when it isoffered by those whom they have alreadyentrusted with the care of their lives1

In the meaning that is specified here reactionis a curative process which is accomplishedthanks to the psychic energy of the doctor Thetherapist is considered the master of reactionsif he is intelligent he will know how to choosewords gestures at times even physical meanswhich infallibly determine the awakening of themental forces of the patient and the victory overhis illness He is a fighter who communicates his




vigour he gives the patient the faculty tobecome once again a voluntary agent hefrees him from the servitude of passion Nowthe ideal image of this liberation (as of allliberation - our political myths are proof of this)makes it happen in a rapid illumination wheresuddenly courage conscience and sanctitytriumph The immediate effect attributed toreaction will permit explaining naturally thatwhich popular belief retained a miracle Oncethe figure of the doctor has become that of thelay saint how can it help but inherit healingpowers which belonged to ancient religiousfigures

It is highly significant to see HippolyteBernheim in the article of the DictionnaireDechambre (1874) draw our attention to theeffects experienced from emotion and on thesudden healings of nervous ailments The interestis in hysteria

The doctor threatens a woman who has hystericconvulsions with showering or actual cautery andsucceeds with this intimidation in certain cases inpreventing the return of attacks He stops theepidemics of hysterical convulsions of demono-mania by suppressing the mental causes that haveproduced them and by impressing other emotions onbrains excited by unhealthy passions Some nervousailments in which the brain seems to take no part canbe cured rapidly under the influence of a strongemotion even when they have resisted all therapeuticagents The hysterical contraction of limbs afterhaving resisted all medication for months and yearsand when the medulla was believed sclerotic couldsometimes recover immediately under the influenceof an event that strongly strikes the imagination1

Bernheim calls Laycock and Charcot to witnessand quotes them at length Like them he appealsto these cures to combat the supernatural intherapeutics and the belief in miracles as mani-fested in the cult of relics or pilgrimages toLourdes At the time of this article Bernheimmakes no mention of suggestion of which atNancy he was to become an assiduous experi-menter and theoretician2 In the doctrine he willelaborate suggestion will become the effectiveagent of all instantaneous healing At that pointthe concept of reaction can pass to the second

1 Article rdaction of Bernheim (1874) Dictionnaireencyclopidique des sciences medicates vol 2

On his role on the scope of modern psychiatry cfEllenberger (1970) Discovery of the Unconscious pp 85-89et passim

state Vitalist teleology seemed untenable toBernheim

Those who would seriously like to admit a vitalprinciple stand guard over the organism like a vigilsentinel which discards all that is harmful those whoactually admit that all reaction is a healing effect ofthis vital principle make the best of a primitivedoctrine going back to the infancy of our scienceand revolt against all the progress of modernanatomy physiology and biology

Of course there are adapted reflex movementsbut is it necessary to invoke the existence of aspecial principle in charge of our defenceNot at all Biological laws obey their ownnecessity Bound to the properties and structureof our tissues reaction is produced withoutknowing if it will be useful harmful or indifferentto the organism the history of reactions is allof pathology If everything is reaction inpathology everything concerns reaction in thera-peutics To provoke or encourage usefulreactions to prevent or combat those that aredangerous that is the whole role of the doctor The whole art of healing is in the science ofreactions Reaction as an all-purpose conceptcovers too many phenomena to designate eachof them with sufficient precision By saying toomuch this word says nothing3 Only mentalreact ion -a particular case in the psycho-neurological domain - is delineated with greaterclarity Must one renounce recourse to thisterm

In fact it was destined to recover a newpertinence but in an entirely different moredetermined and more limited meaning At thesame time that the concept dissolves because itcan be evoked everywhere and at all levels - inthe regulations which maintain the constancy ofthe internal environment in the adaptation tothe external environment in each responsefollowing a stimulus observable by the psycho-logist - one reserves the need for a term whichamong the etiologies of diseases defines ingeneral those where neither an organic lesionnor the direct effect of an infection nor an

bull For Bernard (1865) the most superficial examination ofall that happens around us shows us that all natural pheno-mena come from the reactions of bodies upon each otherIntroduction a IEtude de la Midecine experimentale ll Ivn) Research will only become exact when it will apply itselfto intercepting the determinism that governs the reciprocaland simultaneous reactions of the internal environment onthe organs and of the organs on the internal environment(ii ii 3)



anomaly of functions due strictly to constitutionare present From then on the tendency will beto reserve the use ofreaction and reactionalto designate a particular type of causality ofillness all ailment that can be assimilated tobehaviour aroused by an external event isreactional

The appearance of the adjective reactionalin the French language dates back to 1869Littr6 who includes this word in his Diction-naire marks it as a neologism and defines itbroadly That which relates to an organicreaction The reactional power of an organagainst a disease bearing action But as generalas the definition may be one must not be contentwith seeing the persistence of the vitalist traditionin this term it is called into existence as much bythe need to thwart organicist imperialism whichhad long prevailed in the course of the centuryThe interpretation by lesion inflammation andneoformation would have to have triumphedanatomical documents in hand for the class ofailments sine materia to be defined regroupedand qualified by functional and reactionalwhere one could incriminate the failures of theregulating mechanisms This concept of re-actional is still the one we use today

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF REACTION

It will suffice that the notion of traumatismrenews the image - this time in the psychologicalorder-of a harmful external intervention forthe idea of reaction to regain all its validityThere is no lesion that is riot followed by aneffort at recovery - rehabilitating repairingreacting words linked by the same prefix ofreturn activity and which are imposed in-distinctly When in the word abreaction Freudand Breuer add a supplementary prefix theyperfect a scheme of opposition that urges animaginary representation at the same timedynamic and material1 While traumatism strikesthe subject from without the abreaction is amovement that departs from within If theword traumatism evokes the image of a woundcaused by a hard object abreaction is describedso as to make us imagine the fluid substance ofemotion drained towards the outside - liqui-dated Thus the pair traumatism-abreaction

1 Sludien uber Hysterie (1895)

constitutes a pair of notions that are symmetricinverse correlative

We must go further The abreaction is not onlydefined in relation to traumatism but is definedas one of the two opposite forms of the responseto traumatism On the level of reactive behaviouritself the abreaction is the opposite of reten-tion (or of repression of the affective stasis)The opposition between liquidated emotion and non-liquidated effect is considered radical it isthe criterion which allows us to decide betweennormal and pathological reaction Here thereinforcement of the antonymous function isconsiderable The abreaction is coupled withtraumatism which it follows but at the sametime it represents for the subject a choiceopposed to that of retention which generateshysterical symptoms Retention is given thename reactional illness since complete ab-reaction is the normal process

Lastly the reactional illness is defined (a) as aresponse to a traumatism and more generally toan action exercised from without (b) as whatprevails in case of failure or insufficiency of theabreaction On the lexical level we are here in thepresence of strongly marked values organizedaccording to a scheme simple enough to imposeitself rapidly and differentiated enough (sincethere is double discrimination) to welcome asubtle casuistry

Another observation must be made the clarityof the scheme we have just set out depends on thepunctual unique and singularized nature attri-buted to the traumatism In order to draw thepaths of reaction in such a precise manner onemust correlatively specify the event that pro-vokes it and give it an isolated circumscribedexistence limited in time Though in return thisevent might lose the kind of privilege that makesit stand out among all experiences though it maydissolve and become fluid to include the socialmilieu circumstances etc the reaction is nolonger expected to respect the alternative of theliquidation or the non-liquidation of an emotionThe more the acceptance given to the instigatingcircumstance is extended the more the list ofpossible variants of the reaction will in turn beextended This list as established by Jaspers2

goes from prison psychosis to nostalgia andpsychoses due to deafness It is enough for us to

bull Jaspers (1948) AUgemeine Psychopatlwlogie second partchap ii sect n I pp 319-327



establish a strict temporal relationship between aprovoking circumstance and a reactive state it isenough for us to establish a comprehensiblerelationship (em verstdndlicher Zusammenhang)between an experience lived and subsequentpathological behaviour

Does not the concept of reaction become toobroad once again One might have this fear Butit retains its operational usefulness in the lan-guage of psychiatry from the fact that it remainslinked to a system of conceptual oppositionsIt is found mingled in with antonymous pairsendogenexogen organicfunctional soma-togenicpsychogenic1 None the less we are onlytoo aware that these pairs of concepts are farfrom being interchangeable they can only bepartially superposed Reaction is neither acompletely exogenic phenomenon nor entirelya functional production The notion ofreaction cannot be reabsorbed in one of the pairswe have just mentioned It retains its ownlegitimacy in the vocabulary of theory because itinvolves still another value of opposition on thelevel of the very conception of illness It is in factopposed to a classifying nosology which takesinventory in a determining way of the generamorborum and according to which all patientsvirtually bear their diagnosis within themfrom the fact of the precise category of illnessinto which they fall Attention to the individualexperience is required each time for the ever newresponse to an ever new situation Adolf Meyerwas thus able to give the notion of reaction apolemic and critical value he hoped to loosenthe hold of the old psychology of facultiesescape from a pseudo-physiology that fancifullyinvoked the elements of psychic life Hedemonstrated the totally arbitrary nature ofcompartmentalization imposed by a nosologythat described mental ailments as invariableessences2 This happened at the beginning ofour century and this plea for a psychiatry ofreactions itself aroused critical responses

Once the notion of reaction and reactionalailment is granted against other etiologicalhypotheses the role of interpretation is stillconsiderable and the temptation of antinomies

1 Cf Lewis (1971) Endogenous and Exogenous auseful dichotomy

1 The principal articles of Adolf Meyer have been collectedin Lief (1948) The Commonsense Psychiatry of Dr AdolfMeyer See in particular pp 193-206

one last time returns to manifest itself with forceHowever sincere the desire may be in each caseto determine equitably the share of the subjectand the share of circumstance it is difficult notto burden one or the other to impute to one orthe other a fatal error At one of the extremesof interpretation the subject is put on trial heperforms his sickly reaction with all his beingOne can allege his constitutional deficienciesone will say he did not know how to dominatethe circumstance that he has reacted in shortcircuit that he has involved himself in anaberrational perlaboration At the other ex-treme the notion of reaction leads to incriminatethe environment society even the economicsystem to which the subject is unwillingly sub-mitted From then on reaction is no longerinterpreted as a loss of mastery but as theonly response possible in an intolerable situa-tion (And one does not wonder why despiteeverything psychotic reactions are so excep-tional that revolt itself can remain compatiblewith the criteria of psychiatric normality)3

In the psychological sense reaction is lived asan event it is the dramatic confrontation of anindividual and a surrounding reality The linkbetween the two actors is evident Now if helikes the interpreter can indefinitely play one ofthe terms against the other or at the very leastthrough accusatory thinking which enjoysestablishing responsibilities can designate theguilty But the task of true criticism is to avoid theeasy satisfactions of accusatory thinking such asit is notably expressed in the most naive tenden-cies of contemporary anti-psychiatry There isevery reason to believe that accusatory thoughtis evidence in those who practice it of a pro-pensity to the most summary of reactions Ifknowledge can be considered the extension ofthe first human reactions to the stimuli and perilsof the surrounding world it can be reduced nofurther To know the reaction to evaluate thephenomenon in its relation with the word thatdesignates it is to no longer be content with thesole dispensing of reactive energies4

3 On the precautions to take in the evaluation of the in-fluence of determinant factors cf Cooper amp Shepherd (1970)Life change stress and mental disorder the ecologicalapproach

4 This study is the completed and considerably revisedversion of what appeared on the same subject in Confronta-tions psychiatriques (Starobinski 1974)



REFERENCESAquinas T Summa TheologicaAristotle De Motu AnimaliumBalzac H de (1966) Adieu In La comedie humaine (ed du

Seuil) ParisBernard C (1865) Introduction a Vetude de la medecine

experimentale ParisBernheimH(1874) inDictionnaireencycbpedique des sciences

medicates (Dechambre) (3rd series) ParisBichat X (1800) Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la

mort ParisBiran M de (1954) Journal (3 vols) (ed Henri Gouhier)

NeuchatelBlaise A (1954) Dictionnaire latin-francais des auteurs

chretiens StrasbourgBricheteau I (1827) In Encyclopedic methodique medecine

Agasse ParisBrunot F (1967) Histoire de la langue francaise des origines

a 1900 ParisBuffon G L de (1836) Oeuvres completes Dum^nil ParisCabanis P-J G (1802) Rapports du physique et du moral de

Ihomme ParisCanguilhem G (1955) La formation du concept de reflexe

PUF ParisCapuron J (1806) Nouveau dictionnaire de medecine de

chirurgie de physique ParisCastelli B (1746) Lexicon Medicum Geneva (First edition

in Venice 1607)Chambers E (1743) Cyclopaedia (5th edn) LondonChampeynac (1610) PhysiqueClaudel P (1907) Art poetique ParisConstant B (1797) Des reactions politiques ParisCooper B amp Shepherd M (1970) Life change stress and

mental disorder the ecological approach In ModernTrends in Psychological Medicine (ed J-H Price) pp 102-130

Delpit J F (1820) Dictionnaire des sciences medicatesPanckoucke Paris

Diderot D amp dAlembert J L (1751-1780) Encyclopedic(35 vols) Paris

Digby K (1644) Natural BodiesDuCange C (1743) Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et

infimae latinitatis ParisEllenberger H F (1970) Discovery of the Unconscious

Basic Books New YorkEngels F (1878) Anti-Diihring LeipzigFeraud J-F (1788) Dictionnaire Marseille

Florkin M (1954) Medecine et medecins au pays de LiegeLiege

Freud S amp Breuer J (1895) Studien iiber Hysteric ViennaGoclenius R (1613) Lexicon philosophicum FrankfurtHanin M-L (1811) Vocabulaire medical ParisHeath T (1949) Mathematics in Aristotle OxfordHuguet E (1965) Dictionnaire de la langue francaise du

seizieme siicle vol 6 ParisJames R (1743-1745) The Medical Dictionary (3 vols)

LondonJaspers K (1948) Allgemeine Psychopathologie (5th edn)

Berlin and HeidelbergKoyrS A (1939) Etudes galileennes ParisLewis A (1971) Endogenous and Exogenous a useful

dichotomy Psychological Medicine 1 191-196Lewis A (1972) Psychogenic a word and its mutations

Psychological Medicine 2 209-215Lief A (1948) The Commonsense Psychiatry of Dr Adolf

Meyer New York Toronto and LondonLittre E (1863-1877) Dictionnaire de la langue francaise

ParisMach E (1902) Die Analyse der Emfindungen (3rd edn)

JenaMontesquieu Ch L de (1743) Considerations sur les causes

de la grandeur des romains et de leur decadence ParisNysten P-H (1814) Dictionnaire de medecine ParisOxford English Dictionary (1884-1928) (ed J A H Murray

et a) LondonPomponazzi P (1525) De reactione VeniceRoger J (1963) Les sciences de la vie dans la pensie francaise

du XVIII siecle ParisSaussure F de (1916) Cours de linguistique generate

GenevaSchiff M (1894) Recueils des memoires physiologiques

LausanneSouter A (1949) A Glossary of Later Latin OxfordStarobinski J (1970) Sur les fluides imaginaires La relation

critique pp 196-213 ParisStarobinski J (1974) Confrontations psychiatriques pp 19-

42 ParisStarobinski J (1975) La vie et les aventures du mot reaction

Modern Language Review 70 n4 pp xxi-xxxi(Trevoux) Dictionnaire de Trevoux (5th edn 1743)Valery P (1973) Cahiers (2 vols) ParisVossius G-J (1695) De vitiis sermonis In Aristarchus she

de Arte Grammatica AmsterdamWesley J (1872) WorksZabarella J (1589) De Rebus Naturalibus Padova



ment spreads The concept of reaction comes tothe aid of the passive object and confers uponhim the dignity possessed an instant before bythe agent who has made him submit to hisimpression upon him and who must in turnundergo an impression There is no fragment ofmatter in the universe that is not capable ofresistance At the dawn of modern times nocause (outside of God) is by essence superior toanother All preponderance is quantitative abody exerts more force than another because itsmass and velocity are greater Passivity for thesubject that undergoes is not the mark of anindelible inferiority it is a transitory situation inwhich the energies of the return action arealready gathered Thus the order of nature im-poses an identical law for all beings animate orinanimate The universe is a homogeneous spacein which the slightest alteration the slightestdisplacement reacts on the totality of beings

In some ways these ideas are common to theNeo-Stoics and to the Peripatetics of the Re-naissance and the seventeenth century They thusprepare the ground for modern mechanicswhich will give these intuitions their quantifiedexpression The article reaction of the Encyclo-pedie (translated literally from the Cyclopaedia ofChambers 1743) is very significant in this caseIt shows that Newton has formulated in thelanguage of quantitative equality and in the soledomain of movement of bodies what had beenpreviously described by means of words in thequalitative phenomena of nature

The peripatetics defined reaction the impression abody makes on that which has affected it an impres-sion exercised on the same part of the agent and atthe same time that the agent affects it like waterthrown on fire1 which extinguishes the fire while it isitself heated But one did not know that thereaction is always equal to the action It was MrNewton who first observed this

Thanks to the fame of Newton the conceptualpair actionreaction acquires undisputed author-ity in European thought of the eighteenthcentury Let us recall his third principle For allaction there is an equal reaction or thereciprocal actions of two bodies on each otherare always equal and directed in opposite direc-

1 The example of the water and fire is that proposed in 1644by Sir Kenelm Digby in his Natural Bodies (xvi 141) If firedoth heate water the water reacteth againe upon the fireand cooleth it (as quoted in OED article react) The exampleis derived from the medieval tradition

tions - a notion so famous that it has come to bea metaphoric model in many other domains

The use of the notion can thus return to beingan image and be no more rigorous than it was inthe language of the natural philosophies before themathematicization of their language none theless the terms by now bear the sign of theillustrious mathematician They are covered by aprestigious guarantee2

Even in theological language one evokes thereaction of the soul to the action God exerts onit That contributed to bring God closer to thecreature as the initiates of Pietism and Method-ism hoped3 God and internal sentiment canmeet on the same level just as an action en-counters a reaction Human love and divine loveare forces that can enter into agreement

It is to Newton or at least to a Stoic modelthat Montesquieu is beholden when he writesThe parts of a state are like the parts of thisuniverse eternally bound by the action of one andthe reaction of the other4 This is not the onlyexample of Montesquieus use of the lexical pairactionreaction Each time he applies it to therealm of political matters he never fails toindicate that he has borrowed it from thevocabulary of physics Montesquieu does notforget the original register from which heborrows this conceptual tool The comparisonserves him in making it understood that everyevent and every political decision cause effectswhich reflect back on the cause of these events oron the authors of these decisions If one dis-passionately examines history one can neverfail to observe the just return of things eachviolent movement arouses another no less violentmovement which replies to it and sometimesstops it The play of action and reaction inhistory ensures inevitable recurrences In thedynamics of history it represents what the playof weights and counterweights ensures in the

1 The dictionary of Feraud (1788) makes a state of a modereaction to react are used in writings on all sorts of mattersThe beguiling efficacy of the lexical pair aciionjreaction isnever felt more than in the cosmosophic speculations of theend of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nine-teenth century One need only name Goethe SchellingEdgar Poe (Eureka) Edgar Poes speculation will find a lateecho in the Art Poetique of Claudel (1907)

bull In 1771 the theologian Wesley evokes a continual actionof God upon the Soul and a re-action of the Soul upon God(Works 1872 vol v p 232) The example is quoted fromOED article reaction

1 Montesquieu (1743) Considerations sur les causes de lagrandeur des Remains et de leur decadence chap ix

















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the word reaction: from physics to psychiatry · 2017. 12. 3. · only example by ducange (1734),...

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