when they enter responsible life, they are laying plans which cannot be fulfilled, they are looking for events which will not happen. They are struggling perpetually and unsuccessfully against the tide of fortune. They are always hoping, but they are frequently disappointed. Their ineffectual labor exhausts them, and their disappointments distress and disturb them. They are thus apt to become nervous, querulous, and despondent, and sometimes insane. But in an uneducated community, or where the people are overborne by despotic government or inflexible customs; where men are born in castes, and die without overstepping their native condition; where the child is content with the pursuit and the fortune of his father, and has no hope or expectation of any other; there these undue mental excitements and struggles do not happen, and men's brains are not confused with new plans, nor exhausted with the struggles for a higher life, nor overborne with the disappointment in failure. Of course, in such a state of society, these causes of insanity cannot operate. But in proportion as education prevails, and emancipates the new generations from the trammels and condition of the old, and the manifold ways of life are open to all, the danger of misapplication of the cerebral forces and the mental powers increases, and men may think and act indiscreetly, and become insane. The same is distinctly manifested in the pursuit of business. There are many new trades and new employments; there are new schemes of increasing wealth, new articles of merchandise, and speculations in many things of new and multiplying kinds. All these increase the activity of the commercial world. The energy of men of new enterprises gives a hope of actual value, and a momentary market value to some new kinds of property. The consequent inflation or expansion of prices, to a greater or less degree, makes many kinds of business more uncertain, and many men's fortunes more precarious. This increases the doubts and perplexities of business, the necessity of more labor and watchfulness, greater fear and anxiety; and the end is more frequently in loss, and failure of plans, and mental disturbance. Besides these uncertainties, which may happen to any, there are more that enter the free and open avenues to occupations which hold out high and flattering promises, and for which they are unprepared, in which they must struggle with greater labor and anxiety than others, and in which they must be more frequently disappointed. Besides these causes of mental disturbance in the new and untried fields of study, business, and commerce, there are oth er causes in the social position which are subject to like changes. Many are passing, or have passed, from a comparatively retired, simple, and unpretending, to the showy, the fashionable, or the cultivated style of life. In this transition state, there must be more mental labor for those who are passing from one condition to the other; there must be much thought and toil, much hope and fear, and much anxiety and vexation, to effect the passage, and to sustain one's self in the new position. With the increase of wealth and fashion there comes also more artificial life, more neglect of the natural laws of selfgovernment, more unseasonable hours for food and for sleep, more dissipation of the open, allowable, and genteel kind, and also more of the baser, disreputable, and concealed sorts. Consequent upon the new labor, and new positions, and new styles of life, there comes more low health from exhausting and perplexing cares and toils of business of social life and fashion, and from frequent irregular habits of diet and regimen. The secondary consequences of impaired health, of diminished vital forces, dyspepsia, debility, consumption, gout, or other diseases, are manifested in the brain; and then nervousness frequently, and insanity sometimes follows. Thus we see that, with advancing civilization and especially in the present age and in our own country, there is a great developement of activity of mind; and this is manifested in most of the employments, in the conduct of the mechanic arts, agriculture, trade, and commerce, in the attention to the professions, and to other subjects of duty, and to politics. This increase of mental activity and of cerebral action, comes without a corresponding increase of discretion to guide it, and of prudence to restrain it. And this proneness to mental action must prevail until the world learn the nature and the limit of their mental faculties, the connection of these with the brain, and the connection of the brain with all the other physical organs, and govern themselves accordingly. In review of this history of the causes of insanity, we find that very few of them diminish with the progress of the world. Some are stationary, remaining about the same in the savage, the barbarous, and the civilized state, while many of them increase, and create more and more mental disorder. Insanity is then a part of the price which we pay for civilization. The causes of the one increase with the developements and results of the other. This is not necessarily the case, but it is so now. The increase of knowledge, the improvements in the arts, the multiplication of comforts, the amelioration of manners, the growth of refinement, and the elevation of morals, do not of themselves disturb men's cerebral organs and create mental disorder. But with them come more opportunities and rewards for great and excessive mental action, more uncertain and hazardous employments, and consequently more disappointments, more means and provocations for sensual indulgence, more dangers of accidents and injuries, more groundless hopes, and more painful struggle to obtain that which is beyond reach, or to effect that which is impossible. The deductions, then, drawn from the prevalence and effects of causes, corroborate the opinion of nearly all writers, whether founded on positive or known facts, on analogy, on computation, or on conjecture, that insanity is an increasing disease. In this opinion all agree.-Edward Jarvis, M. D. TRIFLES MAKE PERFECTION. That writer who aspires to immortality, should imitate the sculptor, if he would make the labors of the pen as durable as those of the chisel. Like the sculptor, he should arrive at ultimate perfection, not by what he adds, but by what he takes away,-otherwise all his energy may be hidden in the superabundant mass of his matter, as the finished form of an Apollo in the unworked solidity of the block. A friend called on Michael Angelo, who was finishing a statue. Sometime afterwards he called again; the sculptor was still at his work. His friend, looking at the figure, exclaimed, "You have been idle since I saw you last." "By no means," replied the sculptor. "I have retouched this part, and polished that; I have softened this feature, and brought out this muscle; 1 have given more expression to this lip, and more energy to this limb." "Well, well" said his friend, "but all these are trifles." "It may be so," replied Angelo; "but recollect, that trifles make perfection, and that perfection is no trifle." "SOLDARITE." This is a favorite word of Kossuth's. It is French, and has not yet found its way into our dictionaries. It expresses generally, that the life of man is not exclusively the life of an individual, but life which he possesses jointly with his race; that men live in solido, soldered together in one, if we may say so; that each man is an indivisible indissoluble of the life of all men, and all men are indivisible parts of each man. St. Paul gives its meaning thus: "For, as we have many members in one body, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another."-See also Ephesians, iv. 25, and other places. No word in English conveys what is expressed by soldarite, or soldarity, as it is now generally printed. With this definition, the reader will readily apprehend what is meant by the soldarity of nations, now often used. From the New York Quarterly Review. MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS. TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE. Tell me with whom thou art found, and I will tell thee who thou art; let me know thy chosen employment, and what to expect from thee, I know. Every one must think in a way peculiar to himself; since he finds in his path a truth, or a kind of truth, which affects his whole life; only let him not cease to control himself; mere naked instinct is not becoming to man. Incessant activity, of what kind soever, leads at last to bankruptcy. In the works of men, as in those of nature, aims and intentions are specially to be regarded. Men will err both in respect to themselves and others, whilst they pursue means as ends; for, from this false activity nothing can come, or perhaps the opposite of that which they wish. Whatever we think out, whatever we take in hand to do, should be so perfectly and finally finished, that the world, if it must alter, will only have to spoil it; we have then, nothing to do but unite the severed, to re-collect and restore the dismembered. Broad and general ideas, combined with strong prejudices, are calculated to produce serious mischief. Instead of regretting that we are sometimes deceived, we should rather lament that we are undeceived. What we wish to do we think we can do, but when we do not wish to do a thing it becomes impossible. From Graham's Magazine. THE BUILDERS. BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. All are architects of Fate, Nothing useloss is, nor low; Each thing in its place is best; And what seems but idle show, Strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise, Our to-days and yesterdays, Are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these, In the elder days of art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and each unseen part― For the gods see every where. Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen; Else our lives are incomplete, Build to-day, then, strong and sure, Thus alone can we attain, To those turrets where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain And one boundless reach of sky. |