the supremacy of conscience as established on moral grounds by Dr. Butler; and his hypothesis, that "habit strengthens active principles, and weakens passive impressions."

It is my object in these pages to bring the philosophy of mind to bear upon the conduct of life in some new points of contact.

Such considerations are at present demanded on professional grounds. The medical art is not, as formerly, limited to the cure of specific and definite disease; its application is extended widely over our habitual and ordinary state. This fact is attested by the various works on diet, on dyspepsia, on the hygiene, which flow profusely from the press. But it should be remembered, that all that class of physical measures, which such considerations suggest, is calculated to produce a corresponding portion of mischief, unless the concomitant phenomena of mind are duly appreciated. A familiar illustration of this fact may be supplied from the disorders of the dyspeptic class

of mankind. The dinner pill, the careful choice of the most appropriate condiment, and the autumnal recreation of the stomach at Carlsbad, might easily be made to supersede various moral considerations, in smoothing the temper, obviating or preventing regrets, and counterbalancing disappointment. But, when it is considered, that a heavy reckoning awaits those, who rely on such palliatives as an adequate substitute for selfcontrol, the admission, that an ir airy into the methods of obtaining this habit, should proceed pari passu with the direct physical expedient, will become obvious.

It were better that we should return to the habits of our forefathers, lose blood at spring and fall, and wait till acute disorders attack us for the occasion of calling in a physician, than that we should disjoin the consideration of mental therapeutics from those of the body.

Let it, indeed, be remembered, in illustration of the noble aphorism, which I have above

quoted; that the repetition of the dinner pill may be a diminution of its remedial virtue, while the repetition of the moral effort must tend to the formation of an active sanatory principle.

ELEMENTS

OF THE

PATHOLOGY OF THE HUMAN MIND.

CHAPTER I.

Primary mental disease implies perversion, i. e. insanity or deficiency, i. e. 1st, Brutality; 2nd, Imbecility.— Description of insanity more expedient than definition. Order of phenomena in an attack.— Suspension of will occasioning, 1st, Moral incoherency; 2nd, Incoherency of thought, i. e. delirium. False per

ceptions explained on the foregoing assumption. Insanity compared, relatively to the suspension of will, with the sane state, with sleep, with inflammation of the brain.- Lesion of judgment no proof of insanity.

EVERY morbid state may be viewed in relation to some change, which it supposes either in our material or our immaterial system;-as influencing us, for example, in our capacity of reflective, observant, or imaginative beings, and again in our

capacity of secreting, of absorbing, of growing, and of sentient beings.

We might give a history of inflammation of the liver in regard to the pains of thought, and the moral emotions to which it may give occasion

or again we might view it in relation to its influence on the pulse, the complexion, the sensation of pain, and the evidence of approaching suppuration.

But while the combined existence of physical and mental phenomena in every morbid state of man is admitted by us, it is equally obvious, that in some morbid states mental phenomena predominate, while in others there is a corresponding predominance in bodily symptoms. Thus an inflammation of the liver may be contemplated in the two relations above alluded to; but no one would hesitate to assign the primary importance to its bodily symptoms.

The limits, by which I shall confine my present views, are founded upon the above consideration; and it is my purpose to prosecute an inquiry into the elements of mental pathology, by seeking for them in that class of disorders in which mental symptoms predominate.

Now a morbid state of mind may be said to exist, either where some property essential to