Constructive Delusions

No one who has ever argued with a paranoic will forget how keen a sense of reality he may retain, how logical his arguments are, and how reasonable his delusions appear, if only some one point be granted. With the praecox, however, the opposite impression may be quite as striking. His delusions are bizarre, inconsistent, kaleidoscopic; he has no logical explanation and cannot even state them consecutively. And all gradations from pure paranoia to dementia praecox seem to have corresponding losses in the sense of reality as embodied in delusions.