they are capable, God will, no doubt, in his own good time, raise up successors; but in the meanwhile the prospect is dark and cheerless, and thousands must endure a misery which it would be easy to annihilate.

To parody the Arabian prayer I have quoted in my preface "O God! be kind to the insane, to other men thou hast been already abundantly kind, in giving them the blessed faculty of unclouded reason."

DEFINITION

OF

CHAPTER XVII.

INSANITY.-COMPARISON

OF THE WATCH. DR. CONOLLY'S

INQUIRY INTO THE INDICATIONS OF INSANITY.-PROOFS OF DOUBLE MIND
IN THAT WORK.-EXAMPLES OF RAPID TRANSITION OF THOUGHT.-OF TWO
CONCURRENT TRAINS OF THOUGHT.-FORMS OF MENTAL DISTURBANCE.-

MR. BARLOW.-EXAMPLES OF TWO ANTAGONIST VOLITIONS.—MORAL
MEDICAL OBJECTS OF DR. CONOLLY'S WORK.

AND

In the moral as in the physical world, a small addition to the ordinary stature makes a great man. A man of six feet is not remarkable, but a man of seven feet is gigantic. It seldom happens, however, that either intellect or bodily frame is thoroughly well formed throughout. It is only in such cases as O'Brien and Sir Isaac Newton that nature puts forth respectively a physical and intellectual giant of eight feet, and uniformly proportioned, and it takes more than a cen tury to temper the clay for such a man.

I have been led to this remark by observing, during my examination of works bearing on the subject of insanity, that authors whose dicta I have been accustomed to receive without examination, through deference for their reputed intellectual stature, are on a closer examination no taller than myself. The defective reasonings, the "inconsequences," as the French call them, are more glaring than I could have supposed, and it appears that the reputation of intellectual superiority is not unfrequently unfounded. I will not perform the ungracious task of exposing the absurd conclusions which some established writers on the

subject of mental derangement put forth as truths, but will merely warn the reader to withhold his assent from their authoritative announcements; for, if he adopt their results as the foundation of his own reasoning, he will waste his time and powers. Like a man who should enter into calculations of the strength of the tortoise on which stands the elephant that supports the world, he had better first make himself quite sure that the earth really rests on the back of an elephant. A large proportion of the works on insanity are the most perfect trash that ever a man wasted his faculties in composing or his time in reading. I shall therefore confine my attention to a very few of better pretensions.

The word insanity means unhealth, and it means nothing more. Why the term should have been applied to the class of diseases which, by disordering the brain, disturb the intellect, I know not; but the consequences of such restriction of its meaning have been mischievous. We are set to seek the causes of insanity as if it were a disease, whereas it is the effect or result of many diseases. The physician is expected to cure a disorder of the mind, as if it were something quite distinct from a disorder of the body. This is exactly equivalent to the step of which I have elsewhere spoken, of addressing a watchmaker thus: "Here is my watch-the motion is wrong, and I have brought it to you to be put right; but you must not touch the works-all the wheels, pivots, springs, balances, verge, contract pinion, and so forth, are quite in order. I do not know the structure of a watch, for I have never taken one to pieces or put it together, but have read books on the subject, and from the knowledge thus

acquired, am sure that there is nothing wrong in the machinery of that I am now putting into your hands; therefore I beg you will not touch the works, but merely set right the motion, for that is the only defect."

Every one perceives the absurdity in the case of the watch, but the belief of those who are not watchmakers has been allowed to influence the watchmakers in our own profession, and it is only of late years that medical writers have begun to shake off the prejudice thus confirmed by the ignorance of the public. We still find in some of them a hankering after the mysterious, and an attempt to explain the cause of insanity instead of the causes. To explain the cause of unhealth is absurd, but the attempt to ascertain which of the causes of unhealth exclusively or most frequently affect the brain, and interfere with the perfect exercise of its functions, is quite reasonable; and if a man choose to confine his investigations to one portion only of the causes of unhealth, there is no objection to it, if he will only bear in mind that the symptoms produced depend on the structure of the organ which is the subject of disease, rather than on the nature of the cause. Inflammation, for example, shall increase the functions of one part, but entirely suspend those of another. Although the brain be the direct instrument. of mind, and specific disease of that part produce mental derangement, yet the same intellectual disturbance may take place from a distant disease or disorder, by the mere force of sympathy-a word we have invented to conceal our ignorance of the real nature of the mysterious connexion. I have seen madness as complete from distended bladder as from inflammation of the membranes of the brain; it ceased when the cause

ceased, and so will that in the brain itself, unless during its existence it have produced an organic change in the structure of the part.

It is obvious then that the causes of unhealth or insanity must be infinitely numerous, and our main business in the investigation is to ascertain which of these numerous causes admit of alleviation, removal, or prevention. This is quite enough to occupy the greatest talents, the most untiring industry, and the longest life that ever was devoted to the welfare of mankind. I do not attempt anything so greatly beyond my powers; but I do firmly believe that I shall remove many obstacles to the progress of others, and point the way to further discoveries, though the short remainder of my life will not suffice to advance far on the road to them myself.

If I can succeed in shewing that many of the complicated forms of cerebral unhealth, or mental derangement, are only varieties produced by the more or less perfect exemption of one of the brains from the disease affecting the other, I shall have done much more than simplify the treatment and increase the number of remedies. I shall have done something towards removing the ignorance of the public in this most interesting department of medical research--an ignorance which, at every step, forms an almost insuperable obstacle to our success. If I only succeed in convincing well-meaning, active, energetic, philanthropic, and benevolent individuals, who interest themselves for the insane, that they are exerting their wrongly-directed and mischievous efforts so as entirely to thwart their own good intentions, I shall have rendered a very important service to my fellow-creatures; and if any such persons take the