struggle the soldier drew his bayonet, and, striking him across the temples, divided the temporal artery. He had scarcely recovered from the effects of a great loss of blood on this occasion, when he undertook to accompany a friend in his walking-match against time, in which he went forty-two miles in nine hours. He was elated by his success, and spent the whole of the following day in drinking, &c.

The result of these things was an affection, probably an inflammation of the brain. And the consequence of this was the existence of those vivid states of mind which are termed apparitions. Accordingly, our shopkeeper (for that was the calling of this person) is reported to have seen articles of sale upon the floor, and to have beheld an armed soldier entering his shop, when there was nothing seen by other persons present. In a word, he was for some time constantly haunted by a variety of spectres or imaginary appearances; so much so, that he even found it difficult to determine which were real customers and which were mere phantasms of his own mind. The remedy in this case was blood-letting, and some other methods of cure which are practised in inflammations of the brain. The restoration of the mind to a less intense and more correct action was simultaneous with that of the physical system.

344. 5th cause of apparitions. Hysteria.

It is further to be observed, that people are not unfrequently affected with apparitions in the paroxysms of the disease known as HYSTERIA or hysterics. For the nature of this disease, which exists under a variety of forms, and is of a character so peculiar as to preclude any adequate description in the narrow limits we could properly allot to it, the reader is referred to such books as treat of medical subjects. This singular disease powerfully agitates the mind; and its effects are as various as they are striking. When the convulsive affections come on, the patient is observed to laugh and cry alternately, and altogether without any cause of a rational or moral nature; so that he has almost the appearance of fatuity, or of being delirious. But apparitions or intensely vivid

conceptions are among its most striking attendants. The subjects of it distinctly see every description of forms; trees, houses, men, women, dogs, and other inferior animals, balls of fire, celestial beings, &c. We can, without doubt, safely refer to the experience of those who have been much conversant with instances of this disease, in confirmation of this.

The existence of the states of mind under consideration might, without much question, be found, on further examination, to connect itself with other forms of disease. The subject is certainly worthy, whether considered in relation to science or to human happiness, of such further developements as it is capable of receiving.

CHAPTER III.

PARTIAL INSANITY.

345. Meaning of the term and kinds of insanity.

THE term Insanity, etymologically considered, indicates simply a want of soundness or want of health. In its application to the mind, it indicates an unsound or disordered state of the mental action. As the mind is complicated in its structure, existing, as it were, in various departments and subdivisions of departments, the disordered action may pervade the whole mind, or exist exclusively in some one of its departments. Accordingly, Insanity naturally resolves itself into the two species of Partial Insanity and Total Insanity; and it is under these two general heads that we shall now proceed to

consider it.

Partial Insanity, which naturally comes first in order, is a disordered condition of one or more of the mental powers; but which leaves the mind essentially free and undisturbed in some of its departments and in some of its modes of action. The method which we propose to pursue in the investigation of this form of insanity, is to consider it as it exhibits itself in the powers of the mind sep

arately. And it is proper to add here, that we examine the subject of insanity at present only so far as it may naturally be supposed to exist in connexion with the Intellect, leaving the consideration of it, as it is occasionally found to exist in the Sensibilities and the Will, to a future time.

§ 346. Of disordered or alienated sensations.

Beginning with the External Intellect, the power which first presents itself to our notice is Sensation. It is well known that all the outward senses are liable to be disordered, and as the inward sensation corresponds to the condition of the outward or bodily organ, a disordered or irregular movement of the organ of sense necessarily communicates itself to the inward or mental state. A regular or healthy sensation always has reference to some outward cause (we mean here outward even in reference to the organ of sense), but a disease in the bodily organ disturbs this relation, and necessarily gives to the inward mental state the character, as compared with other sensations, of being unreal, visionary, and deceptive. Not unreal and deceptive in itself, but because it intimates a relation which is obliterated, and tends to force upon our belief an outward cause which has no existence.

There are diseased or disordered visual sensations existing in connexion with a morbid condition of the visual organ; but as this view of the subject was necessarily involved in some degree in what has already been said on the subject of excited conceptions or Apparitions, it is not necessary to enlarge upon it here. There are also diseased or disordered sensations of touch. A single instance, out of multitudes like it, will serve both to illustrate and confirm the remark. In the Natural Magic of Dr. Brewster is an account of a lady (the case which we have already had occasion to refer to) who was subject to spectral illusions, of whom it is expressly stated, in connexion with her remarkable mental affections, that she possesses" a naturally morbid imagination, so strongly affecting her corporeal impressions, that the story of any person having suffered severe pain by accident or otherwise will occasionally produce acute twinges in the

corresponding part of her person. An account, for instance, of the amputation of an arm will produce an instantaneous and severe sense of pain in her own arm." There are also (and we might apply the statement to all the senses without exception) diseased or disordered sensations of hearing. The celebrated Mendelsohn was frequently subject to the attacks of a violent species of catalepsis. And it happened, if he had recently heard any lively conversation, a loud voice apparently repeated to him, while in the fit, the particular words which had been distinguished from others by being pronounced with an emphatic and raised tone of voice, and "in such a manner that his ear reverberated with the sound.”

347. Of disordered or alienated external perception.

We naturally proceed from sensation to a power closely connected with it, that of External Perception. Indeed, what has been said of sensation will apply in a considerable degree to the last-mentioned power, because sensation naturally precedes perception, and is always involved in it. But perception, while it involves sensation, implies also something more, something additional; it involves the reference of the inward mental state to the outward cause or object, and not unfrequently implies also acts of comparison, by which it distinguishes one cause from another. And particularly is this the case in respect to those perceptions which are designated as ACQUIRED perceptions, in order to distinguish them from ORIGINAL. So that, in view of what has been said, it would seem to be the fact, in the first place, that when our sensations are disordered, our perceptions will be so likewise. But this is not all. In consequence of some interior cause, such as an inability to attend to a thing for any length of time, or incapacity of instituting comparisons, disordered and false external perceptions will sometimes exist when there appears to be no unsoundness in the sensations.

Agreeably to these views, we find that persons, in whom the power of external perception is disordered from the first of the two causes just referred to, sometimes have perceptions of colour which do not accord VOL. I.-Ö O

with those of mankind generally, being entirely unable, for instance, to distinguish blue from green. Other persons, again, have no distinct perception of minute sounds; and take no more pleasure in the harmonies of a musical composition of truly great merit than they do in the most discordant screams. When the disordered action of the perceptive power originates from the second cause, the subjects of it are apt to confound times, persons, and places. They mistake, for instance, their friends and relations for others, and are at a loss as to the place where they are, although they may have been in it hundreds of times before. They exhibit particularly this species of alienated perception when they attempt to read a book. They no doubt see the letters no less than others, but the action of the mind in other respects not being such as to permit them to dwell upon them, and compare and combine them into words, they are unable to read; it is at least exceedingly difficult.

348. Disordered state or insanity of original suggestion.

When we pass from the External to the Internal Intellect, from the region of sensation and external perception to the interior domain of Original Suggestion, to the convictions involved in Consciousness, to the important powers of Relative Suggestion, Memory, and Reasoning, we are introduced, indeed, to a higher order of mental action, but we find no exemption from those disorders to which the human mind in all its great departments is occasionally exposed. In regard to Original Suggestion, which comes first in order, a power which deals with original ideas and principles merely, without professing to ascertain the relations existing among them, it must be, admitted that it does not give so frequent and decided indications of disordered action as we find elsewhere. Nevertheless, this is sometimes the case. The conviction, for instance, not only that we exist, but that we have personal identity, that we are now what we have been in times past in all that constitutes us rational and accountable beings, is obviously essential to a sound mind. But this elementary and important conviction, which obviously does not rest upon judgment nor the deductions