Demi D if a-day looks only to the material brain CUT O DE My mestra of perverted or deranged intellect. Les ne ferce and violent maniac, by throwing Sizza in us named tubercula quadrigemina; or HILL 12 ↑ varets wi że fightful visions of the inebriate, by DCIMS ▼In his exited brain and nervous system, Opium ALS. The nelazeholy and despair of the hypochonses i 3 rum ai Latia; or the homicidal or suicidal i de monomamad by Stramonium, Aurum, Hyoscyamus,

erverous wich were formerly regarded as mysterious Hudas # Zmunience, are now known to be only symptoms * 12 H and nervous system, and to be just as a neden zvizens as any other malady.

360 I-CERANGEMENT OR PERVERSION OF THE REASONING FACULTIES-INSANITY.

*** intellect has always been regarded as a sar. Rush said, that in attempting to write out sexes a the Diseases of the

consecrated ground.

Mind," he felt that he

No theory of the phi

A reveleder in health or disease, has ever been geneso a gestion of the sanity or insanity of the mind presents the most difficult problem ever presented

have generally been confounded; and even between the metaphysical or higher reasoning ch reasons on the facts furnished by the evidence ***s a not generally recognized; but it is believed that the e and action of these two powers of the mind admit A few compressed statements on the subject are

er present purpose.

tas ver de ered by the wisest philosophers of all ages, that the t assessed a higher reasoning power than that emceng on the material objects around them. It was obPeasiest students of human nature, that some men who

sexey on all questions presented to the senses could academi syng of higher abstract truth; and a distincvan de woon physical or sensuous, material subjects and aanse mitog Fyodor?-that is beyond or above the physical. 81208 98802g power, which was known as pure reason,

à ed ader the name of MINERVA, or the goddess

of wisdom. She was the impersonation of that highest faculty which perceives truth intuitively, before it has time to demonstrate it through the slow processes of the external senses. Instead of having grown up during the course of successive years through the ordinary stages of life, she is represented as having sprung forth from the brain of Jupiter, armed with the spear of victory, and the far-seeing eye of inspired wisdom.

The ancients distinguished between the higher reason and the lower reason, called by many authors judgment or understanding. Plato, Seneca, and Aristotle made this distinction; and in modern times, Leighton, Harrington, Lord Bacon, Kant, Coleridge, and all other philosophers, except such as are imbued with the materialism of Locke, have confined the understanding to the office of reasoning on the objects of the external world, and called it "the faculty of judging according to sense." Animals, say these authors, have the power of understanding, as applied to the things of time and sense, but they have no perception of the subjects of metaphysical or spiritual contemplation, which are the proper objects of pure reason.

In its highest condition of development the nervous mechanism has a three-fold operation: 1. objective ideas, which arise in external facts; 2. subjective ideas, which exist in registered impressions; 3. impressional ideas, as the abstract truths of geometry, the issue of pure reason, and are therefore to be attributed to the essential nature of the soul.

It is believed that an impression made upon either of the senses is conveyed by a nerve connected with it to one of the ganglia at the base of the brain. Upon the vesicular contents of this, the change, whether chemical or mechanical, is made, which afterwards in some way corresponds to the outward and material object which caused the impression. Not, by any means, that this change impressed upon the ganglia necessarily at all resembles its material correspondent in form and color, &c.; it is simply conventional with the mind, as are the letters of a book, or in the dots and dashes of the telegraphic message. The act of remembering, then, is nothing but fixing the attention upon those ganglia, and thus discovering the changes which have taken place.

We may conjecture that these impressions on the ganglia are finally transferred to the mind proper, and form, therefore, an integral portion of it, thus constituting the faculty usually called memory.

GENERAL SYMPTOMS OF INSANITY.-In total or partial perversion of intellect the concatenation of ideas is broken, as in dreams,-producing incongruous combinations, which are repugnant to reason and common reflection. The person in whom the intellect is thus deranged may manifest it in different ways, and very often it is difficult to decide

whether any of the visible symptoms constitute positive evidence of insanity. "The tearing of clothes so common in this disease was one of the usual manifestations of deep distress among the Jews, probably from its being one of the natural signs among the nations of the east. The hallooing, stamping, and rattling of chains common among mad people are designed to excite counter-impressions upon their ears, to suspend or overcome the anguish of their minds; they wound and mangle their bodies for the same purpose. Even when there is singing and laughter, there is reason to believe that the heart is oppressed with sadness. The sadness and seeming apathy of manalgia are not always evidence of the absence of misery. The willow weeps,' says the poet, but cannot feel;' the torpid maniac feels, but cannot weep. One insane person declared, that his sufferings from imaginary evils were vastly greater than any real ones could be."

Insanity appears in various aspects, according to the causes in which it has originated. Some are gay and seemingly happy; some imagine themselves superior beings, and assume the importance of their supposed situation; some are delighted with flowers, some with playthings; some are revengeful and furious; others are silent. Thus they drag out their miserable existence. In one respect they are all alike; all have incoherency of conception and incongruous ideas on at least one subject, which may have caused their malady. Some consider themselves utterly miserable, and resort to various efforts to drive out their anguish of mind; they laugh, scream, cry, and especially seek to obtain ardent spirits and tobacco. Some, though previously silent and gloomy, become lively and loquacious as soon as tobacco is given them, or ardent spirits promised; they are cunning, suspicious, alive to injury, and quick in avenging it.

INSANITY INVOLVING THE AFFECTIVE FACULTIES OR FEELINGS, WHILE THE INTELLECT OR REASONING POWER REMAINS SOUND.Austerity of conduct and tyranical disposition often present the principal visible evidence of a grade of insanity which no defect of reasoning power betrays. "In a well-attested case, a father systematically persecuted his children for many years, during which time he passed in the world for a man of great talent and probity; and it was only after the history of his life had been sifted by the best physicians that a tinge of insanity could be found in it." He had started in life with impractical notions of propriety of conduct, which he failed to realize in his children. He therefore conceived such a hatred for them that he persecuted them even to destitution and charges of the worst crimes. His success in prosecuting his plans, and in common business evinced anything but insanity (Halford). A strongly-marked

case of this kind is finely painted by M. Chateaubriand in the person of his father.*

M. Pinel gives the case of a man who had periodical fits of insanity, in which he was seized with incontrollable fury which inspired him to a propensity to take up any weapon he could find, and knock on the head the first person who came in his sight. He experienced a kind of internal combat between this propensity to destroy, and the profound horror that arose in his mind at the contemplation of such a crime. There was no mark of wandering of memory, imagination or judgment. Although devoted to the happiness of his wife, he came near killing her, and had only time to bid her run to avoid his fury. "He said to me," says Pinel, "during his seclusion, that his tendency to commit murder was absolutely forced and involuntary. All his lucid intervals were marked by expressions of melancholy and remorse; and so great did his disgust of life become, that he often wished to put an end to his own existence. 'What reason,' said he, 'have I to wish to destroy the superintendent of the hospital who treats me with so much kindness; and yet, in my moments of fury, I am tempted to rush upon him as well as others, and plunge a dagger into his heart."" (Sur L'Alienation Mentale, p. 202).

Hospitals for the insane are never without some examples of mania, marked by acts of extravagance or even fury, with a kind of judgment preserved in all its integrity, if we judge of it by conversations. The lunatic gives the most just and precise answers to the questions of the curious; no incoherence of ideas are discernible; he reads and writes letters as if his understanding were perfectly sound; and yet, by a singular contrast, he tears in pieces his clothes and bed-covers, and always finds some plausible reason to justify his wandering and his fury. Such cases have been referred to as proving the plurality of the organs of the brain.

It is remarked that it is common for the insane to reason correctly, though from false premises. The man who believes himself to be composed of glass, reasons correctly in being afraid of being broken to pieces. The Prince of the House of Bourbon, who believed himself to be a plant, reasoned correctly in standing in a garden, and insisted on being watered with the other plants. The lunatic in the cell of the Pennsylvania Hospital, who thought the wheel-work of the universe moved only by his direction, was right in being afraid to withdraw his regulating hand from it; "for," said he, "it depends on me to move the balance-wheel of heaven, and if ever I should stop, the whole universe would stand still."

The point at which the mind may be said to become unsound is not

* Memoirs of M. Chateaubriand, 1861.

uge ustases rise in trying to draw the The renie i seiers believed Democritus inje doeners, is to em. but Hippocrates decided that **2 4 1 vera were insane. Much learnhave me ze Apostle Paul mad, because from me a strenuous advocate of the same Ver opinions are not generally retensa.” if those who accept them, till reaverme ur prejudices and convince us that 66 we - que teen vring. In religious as well as political wese weakness and disordered minds that the opposing party.

szerely apparently absurd in matters of a ne sfert wat may be called the elementary prinæ zodat we need not fear that these errors will Arason may exist in regard to particular subzone memž vů a zraz of genius, and it may lead him to indulge and Saces; whilst the points on which the illusion aney ai Best to the well-being of all about him, and on

yet is enceptions are clear and his conclusions corPer levered that he had lived in former ages, had inAmbasad in the shape of Euphorbus, had assisted s re seg Dey, where he was killed by Menelaus. Tasso believed PINN i era familiar spirit with whom he conversed aloud. s Dea Quixotte, is a good specimen of this grade

* says a celebrated writer, "the circle in which this ➡redves a se small that it touches nobody, a man is only Redis orbit is so extended to run across the path

Borde holy as healthy and the mind sound, our beliefs, emotions Med by mental processes more or less complete, more ap on soverman, but in all cases there is some kind of foundation for our babe ber Mcase we have evidence, good or bad. But the insane Avere • beat even Persons who have recovered from mental dememeng, say they had no reason at all for believing as they did in ab

PPAV

ssle things; there was the thought in their minds with the gaflence in its truth; but how it came there they know as

went away. Some persons on the verge of melancholy wretched, but know not why; that they have everything pembacay and yet feel no interest in life, they feel a wretch

of der or give no reason. Some who have murdered sever denied them, say they are urged to it by a strange

Yeuls Reader. 1827, p. 481.