be far from exhausting the moral causes of insanity. There is even much difficulty in adducing proof that the above are among the conditions of this morbid state. The painful feelings of mankind on this subject make it difficult to publish the moral dissections of individual characters. We must be contented to rest our case upon the opinion of those, who have had opportunities and inclination to investigate for themselves.

Among the more obscure and dubious topics, out of which light may at some future time be shed upon this mysterious subject, the following perhaps deserves a place.

There is a morbid state of the human mind admitted by pathologists, under which the patient lives in alternate stages, as it were of two different beings, in regard to the sequence of his thoughts, and the operations of his intellectual and moral properties. The one is easily recognised as his normal state. It exhibits the ordinary phenomena of his character and habits. In the other he appears to have undergone a remarkable change. He has forgotten things and persons, or views them in perfectly new lights. The current of his thoughts verges on delirium in rapidity and excitation. Sometimes there appears in him more force and vivacity of intellect in his paroxysmal

state, than was observable in his original character. From each of these states he drops suddenly into the other, and he has no clear recollection in the one, of subjects which had interested him in the other. This morbid state, to which the name double consciousness is usually given, has a considerable affinity to the intermittent form of madness; so much so, that it seems not unreasonable to suspect that their laws of causation may have some common points. Now, unless the system of Mesmerism,* which has recently been brought before the British public, be a system of simulation and collusion, we have here also a form of double consciousness, which those who have seen the experiment made during the spring of 1838, at a London Hospital, will admit to have exhibited this affinity in a high degree; - and this form of double consciousness is voluntarily brought about by external agency. On the principles which regulate this agency, I have nothing to say.

The facts indeed, produced by the professors of this new science, should be kept carefully distinct from the various hypotheses, on which they have at different times been based. The latter may be erroneous and absurd, while the

* Vide Note I.

former may be undeniable. If true, these facts constitute a remarkable epoch in the history of the nervous temperament. If false, they involve marvellous imposture, and leave us in a state of profound distrust at the evidence of our senses.

The subject has not yet obtained the scrutiny which it deserves. To such a scrutiny I must observe, that apparent deviations from the order of nature ought to oppose no obstacle. It is probable that some improbable phenomena should turn out to be true, if ever it should be given us to fathom the laws to which the phenomena of mind are subjected.

The necessary antecedents to an attack of insanity are hidden from our view at present behind a veil, more impenetrable than is thrown over any other disorder. If Mesmerism should help us to a partial removal of this veil, it will have done much. The discovery of a cure in disease is most likely to be effected through a discovery of its cause.

CHAPTER III.

Active intel

Intellectual properties, active or passive. lectual properties favourable to mental health: insufficiently appreciated in this point. - Why? - Application of them by the patient to his own case. — Rev. Robert Hall.

THE same distinction which we have noticed in relation to the moral department of the human mind, may be applied to its intellectual properties. They also may be viewed as active principles, or passive states.

We are so constituted, that a current of associated ideas must flow, without any agency of our own, through the mind. We can enlarge its

channels, or divert its course; but the stream pours on spontaneously, and is so far independent of our will.

It has been observed, above, that an adequate

development of active moral principles is requisite to mental health. An absence of them would leave human nature a monotonous blank. They are wholesome in their modified state, and not necessarily mischievous in their more energetic forms.

Much more than this may be said in favour of the active intellectual principles. These are not merely consistent with mental health, but also highly preventative of mental disease. This is generally true of the faculties of observation, of judgment, and of reasoning, deductive or inductive. The faculty of observation may be made available towards even the removal of actual insanity. No one, who has witnessed the temporary mitigation of insanity produced by the studies, to which this faculty leads, can doubt its efficacy. A flower, an insect, or a mineral, have often beguiled the restlessness of that disease into temporary self-control, when the mind had been previously imbued with a taste for such pursuits. But every exertion of the intellect has in truth its own delight; and all are beneficial in kind. Again, the pause from intellectual pursuit is itself full of enjoyment. It is rest. That from moral emotions is languor; and, in ill-regulated minds, it is ennui.