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the shock of (for) some days, so as to be deemed out of danger; when he was so, it was perceived that he was mentally deranged. He was to have been married two days subsequent to that on which the accident happened; from this peculiar combination of circumstances, the phenomena of the case appeared to arise, for all sanity of mind seemed to make a full stop as it were at this spot of the current, and he soon became a mild, pleasant, chronic lunatic. All his conversation was literally confined to the business of the wedding; out of this circle he never deviated, but dwelt upon every thing relating to it with minuteness, never retreating or advancing one step further for half a century, being ideally still a young, active, expecting, and happy bridegroom, chiding the tardiness of time, although it brought him, at the age of eighty, gently to his grave. This sufferer was never known to complain of heat or cold, although his window was open all the year round.'

It may be noticed, as we proceed, that one of the above cases, appears to acknowledge a purely mental origin; the other was engendered in a mixed way. The injury done to the brain, in the last instance, would most probably have been insufficient to the production of lunacy, had the subject of the disease been in different circumstances of mind.

On the subject of predisposition to insanity, our Author has been guilty of the common error, especially in medical writings, of clothing common-place, self-evident truisms, in the garb of pompous, high-sounding words; and thus deceiving himself into a supposition that he is advancing new and important truths. Dr. Cullen's long dissertation respecting excitement and collapse, has always appeared to us to be of this nature; and Mr. Hill, with different terms, has pursued the same track. Predisposition, the whole section says, and it says nothing more, is predisposition!

The proximate cause of insanity, we are told, consists in a peculiar or specific change in the power of accumulation, and subsequent action of the subtle matter of nervous influence. Such may be the case; but as this subtle matter has not yet assumed a sensible, tangible shape, it would have been more consistent with the simplicity which philosophy requires, to have talked of irregularity in distribution of power, rather than of matter.

The cloven foot of materialism is, as might be expected, fully displayed, while treating of the exciting causes of the insane state. The absence of brainular appearance correspondent to symptoms of diseased brain during life, has been remarked by all the writers who have treated of the subject of mental hallucination. Mr. Hill is exceedingly anxious to shew that such want of sensible, is no want of actual proof, that brainular changes had taken place; for morbid dissections of other parts, even of the lungs, have often, he says, displayed a very different

state of things from that which the anatomist had anticipated. In this part of the treatise, our Author evidently exhibits a disposition to mould his facts into the form of his theory.

This attachment to system at the expense of fact, again breaks out, when our Author comes to the consideration of the much agitated inquiry, respecting the hereditary nature of the malady in question. It might have been expected from a thoroughbred Brunonian, who talks of Sthenia and Asthenia, as states always regular and minutely recognizable, that he would enter the list with those who fall into the vulgar notion of hereditary predisposition. But to deny the fact of constitutional similarity between parent and progeny, is, assuredly, to fly in the face of truth. Philip's father having been arthritic, Philip will, in the general way, be more predisposed to gout than another; and it will behove him to be more careful in avoiding exposure to the exciting causes of gout. Nay, further, the son will sometimes inherit the patrimonial malady in spite of all his precautions. Constitutional bias, both mental and physical, is, in many instances, early discoverable; and in both cases, it becomes a part of the moral duty devolving upon the individual, sedulously to counteract evil tendency, by a timely and prudent employment of preventive measures. A special and strong guard ought always to be kept, at the most vulnerable parts. To question the enemy's power, or to deny his existence, is not the way successfully to oppose his machinations. Let it never be forgotten, that the mind religiously disciplined, and duly regulated, has a certain degree of command over constitutional bias, and original temperament. If we endure the tortures of the gout, we must, before we complain of the legacy left us by our parents, first institute a self-inquisition as to our own share in producing the expansion of the latent germe; and the same principle must be pursued with respect to other tendencies. Natural disposition will prove troublesome, or otherwise, in proportion to its being, or its not being, permitted an uncontrolled reign. That I am of an evil temper, is an illegitimate plea before conscience and my Maker, for evil conduct. We are not passive bodies, impelled by pure necessity. Moral responsibility is not a name without meaning. But to return to our Author.

The fourth and last chapter of the work, brings us to the treatment, preventive and curative of the complaint; and here we have to remark, in the first place, that the Author deals too much in the language both of censure and of confidence. He is too free with the conduct of others, and perhaps too positive in favour of his own principles. We are no enemies to decision, nor do we think it necessary to conceal our sentiments on the misconduct of otliers; but, in the present instance, we think the

candid avowals of Mr. Haslam especially, are dealt with too harshly; and a confidence is evinced in the efficiency of the writer's own plans of treatment, which, highly as we esteem his talents and judgement, we cannot say has, by any means, a full

warrant from his own narrative of cases.

Failure in treatment is referred to delay in the application of appropriate remedies; to the censurable practice of sending the insane to receptacles for lunatics; and to the mistakes that are made with respect to the form of the disease. Mr. Hill is a decided enemy to lunatic asylums; and perhaps carries his objections to these establishments to an unjustifiable extent. We have ourselves been witnesses to the beneficial effects of these asylums, under certain circumstances; but it is a deplorable fact, that they are susceptible of abuse; and that they have been abused in a variety of ways. It seems, however, scarcely practicable, even if it were desirable, that every insane subject should have a separate residence, and a separate attendant, in the way that Mr. Hill suggests. While making this admission, we feel anxious to have it understood, that it is far from our design to advocate the indolent, unfeeling, and cruel principle, of indiscriminately condemning every nervous invalid to the stigma of madness, and to the confines of the mad-house. A conscientious discrimination and delicacy, ought ever to be exercised on these momentous and melancholy occasions. Nothing, perhaps, is more calculated to make a man mad, than the idea that he is thought to be so by others. The following recital of the Author, deserves the most serious consideration. It is a recital of heart-rending interest.

'The amiable daughter of a once respectable tradesman of this city, now dead, became, at the age of twenty-three, a sufferer under the Sthenic form of insanity. She was naturally of a sprightly disposition, endowed with great sensibility, an excellent understanding, and most affectionate heart: becoming very unmanageable, her relatives sent her to an extensive asylum in a neighbouring county; during a long residence, she became convalescent, after a few well marked lucid intervals, in which she grieved excessively on discovering her situation. One day two old school-fellows were accidentally viewing the receptacle of multiplied misery, with an attendant in waiting, as a matter of mere travelling curiosity, (which, it is proper to notice, is a very reprehensible practice,) not knowing she was there. Upon entering a common sitting-room, the invalid was discovered sewing; when, lifting her eyes from her work, she fixed them most earnestly on the visitors, screamed, sprang from her chair, rushed into the arms of the foremost, and exclaimed, "Ah! my dear, dear S――, you to see me HERE!!" and at intervals, screaming and sobbing, reiterated the words, adding, "in this place, in this figure," &c. As soon as her arms could be disengaged, she was removed to her VOL. III. N. S.

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own apartment, from whence she has scarce ever emerged, al though upwards of ten years have succeeded the heart rending scene.' p. 382.

The fourth section of this chapter, entitled, 'On the Preven'tion of Insanity,' involves considerations of the highest political and moral interest. It is here that we find the principles of the Author conducting him to dangerous inferences; and here we become particularly impressed with the absolute necessity of accurately marking the constituents, or real essence of madness. We have already more than once observed, that in spite of all that has been, or that can be, advanced in defence of the doctrine of necessity, we must still consider man as a moral agent; and it is not until insanity be established that responsibility is lost. Surely then, we cannot be too earnest in our endeavours to ascertain the essentials of the two states of madness and sanity. Now it appears to us that every form of actual madness, is, in one way or other, resolvable into this; That imagination has become exalted to the strength of supposed perception, or actual belief of non-existing things. Short of this, an individual may be fretful, gloomy, wayward, melancholic, despondent, nervous-but he is not mad; and it requires a reiteration, or continuance of the above-mentioned circumstances, to constitute genuine insanity. Here then is the principle upon which the whole business rests; and an investigation of the mental state, with a view to ascertain its precise condition, resolves itself into an inquiry, whether the imagination has become so inordinately excited as to have deranged conception, and destroyed consciousness; which last circumstance involves the annihilation of free agency, and of consequent responsibility. The assassin Bellingham was not mad, inasmuch as the wanderings of his imagination had not proceeded a sufficient length to disorder the faculty of conception, and to convert the lamented victim of his guilt, into something different from what he actually was. Had Mr. Perceval been presented to the perceptions of the assassin, as an enemy seeking his life and fortune, the act of vengeance would then have been committed in supposed self-defence: it would have been an act of insanity, and no criminality would have attached to it, because no proper consciousness would have been engaged in its perpetration. Again, the disappointed gamester, whose fortune, and imaginary happiness have been thrown away by the chances of a single night, and who, in consequence, dreadfully resolves, and rashly executes, his own destruction, rather than plunge into the abyss of poverty and ignominy, that he sees before him, is not a madman, but a criminal; and your pity for his fate, and sympathy with the sufferings of surviving friends, are, or ought to be, mingled with decided condemnation of the dreadful deed. But

upon the strict principles of necessity, which are the principles of materialism, and these latter we are concerned to say are the avowed principles of the work before us, pity is the sole sentiment that should be called into exercise upon such occasions. The advocate of these tenets is admonished to reflect most seriously, whether they do not involve the possibility of his being the advocate of assassination, and the apologist of suicide.

It must be allowed that cases sometimes occur, wherein propensities are displayed to acts of criminality, which seem to impel the mind with irresistible force, even while consciousness remains unimpaired, and the degree of guilt about to be incurred, is accurately judged of. But these instances we believe to be comparatively few; and here the question comes to be tried, of the precise signification which ought to attach to the term irresistible. The assassin already alluded to, argued the irresistibility of his criminal impulsions; and it may, with this laxity of interpretation, be said of every suicide, that he was irresistibly impelled.

The fact is, that these alleged cases of unconquerable impulse, how different soever in degree, are similar in kind, to what take place in the common and familiar occurrences of life. We may as well say that it is impossible for the voluptuary to forego his vicious and unchristian habits, for the glutton to lay aside his gross and unmanly enjoyments, or for the gamester to abjure his dice, as talk of the irresistibility of propensities of a still more censurable and alarming nature. If we consult, on these occasions, the oracles of conscience, and regulate our decisions by her dictates, it will be found that she talks a language very foreign from physical necessity, and uncontrollable impulse. And with respect to prevention, which is the business of the section under notice, what are the means which afford most promise of success in accomplishing this object? Suppose the project of the assassin or the suicide, (and these examples we bring forward and dwell upon, because Mr. Hill has done the same,) suppose, we say, the projects of these in either instance were imparted to a friend, would that friend set about the prevention of the purposed deed, by physical agents, force being excluded—or would he not rather endeavour to dissuade by arguments drawn from a religious, moral, or political source, according to the requisites of the case? For our own parts, in the event of these last having been put into employment and failed, we should have very little confidence in the superior efficacy of Fomits, camphor, digitalis, or belladona.

Had we time or space to pursue the investigation, we might enlarge here on the interesting subject of those preventive means, which should be exercised against the establishment of

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