say whether it is the result of an orgasm, of a fever, or a rousing of the spirit.

"Between the thoughtless curiosity of the child who destroys his dearest plaything and the deliberate purpose of the adult who does violence to his better judgment, there is an affinity; both have their origin in the deficiency of a solid, well-grounded judgment.

"Every delusion is the result of confused modes of thinking; wrong and crime originate in ignorance. Physicians who labour to stop up the fountains of physical evil are not merely the guardians of health and the ministers of diseased nature, but the champions of peace of mind and virtue. These pure qualities are not put to the proof, not because they are not the best, but because one ought not to declare, or prove which are the best.

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Psychology still expects its Meckel, who might demonstrate that bad men are to be considered as standing in their development in a lower grade. Such an unfortunate person is to be pitied, not blamed.

"He who takes the things of this world naturally as a general rule, preserves his mental strength unimpaired. Naturalists are seldom found inmates of lunatic asylums. The more any one accustoms himself to regard all things, even misfortune, teologically, and to inquire invariably after the cui bono will be able to endure all the situations of life with the greater equanimity.

"Many are puzzled to know what may be allowed to human nature; for instance, the impulse to injure what is dearest, as this may express itself in an indifference to the individual's own health, or towards his nearest relatives, and in a rending of the most intimate connexions. The wise man sees in this impulse an inducement to accustom mortal man to the transitory, to the loss of their dearest possessions, either by conflagration, inundation, calumny,

or war.

"It is less necessary to be reasonable than to convince others that we are so. Many a one is unjustly considered a fool, and many a real fool escapes unsuspected. Fortunately a medical opinion is not always required. Ulysses having been warned by an oracle that he would be kept away from his home twenty years by a war, feigned himself mad when Palamedes came to invite him to the expedition against Troy. He put on a hat, contrary to the custom of the country, yoked an ass and an ox together to his plough, and strewed salt in the furrows. But Palamedes laid the infant Telemachus in the furrow, when the father turned aside the plough, and betrayed himself. Sophocles wrote the Edipus Coloneus to prove himself of right mind.

"The most which men undertake is done to show themselves to advantage, but when their success in this respect is but little evident to themselves and others, it follows that they are looked upon as madmen, and as they imagine themselves wise, they may represent, in a reduced scale, a madhouse. For these reasons, those who are insane in a high degree should meet with general forbearance, sympathy, and cordial succour. Just as public security is left to the police, so is general compassion left to physicians. How it may become too much for them, in spite of all self-sacrifice, your example may show.

"Good-will and a kindly feeling any one may have, but he only deserves commendation who uses these aright. The way to a right estimate and execution results from a right judgment of our own doings and omissions.

"Youth and age have sometimes opposite opinions upon what is thought, as author and reader have upon what is printed. If reviewers were to be relied upon in their judgments as to what is rational or what is not, as much as the physicians of the insane are, many a papermill must stand still. If it is difficult to form a cool

judgment on what occurs in our waking hours and in calm reason, how much more so to judge of the freaks of humour, of fancy, or dreams? I know not to this hour whether what I once wrote on the language of the body and the origin of colloquial speech, upon proverbs and mode of expression, is wise or foolish.

"Since the work in which I betrayed the marks of slumbering consciousness came into few hands in this country, I can the more easily presume that you took little notice of it. Whether I shall succeed in a like trial at some future day is a question. Richter+ relates of a Gottingen student, that he played the harpsichord better asleep than awake.

[Professor Marx then proceeds to give, as it appears, some specimens of his observations on language alluded to, consisting of a string of puns, or phrases, relating to the body, used to express actions of the mind, but which phrases would lose all their intelligibility in translation. He then concludes.]

“Man does well to turn all his strength, as all his love, upon those who understand and appreciate him; that which lies beyond space and time he must calmly and hopefully leave to Him who has created all things, inconceivable as they may be, for himself. Our language is the language of earth-even here a foreigner hears in vain. many expressions most significant to him who utters them, and how much more must this be the case with him who has turned his back on earthly matters.

"He who has stripped off the earthly may probably stand in a relation to earth incomprehensible to us."

* In my 'Erinnerungen an England.' Brunswick, 1842.

+ Medico-Chirurgical Remarks, B. ii, p. 123.

REMARKS ON THE LETTER TO PINEL.

The subjects touched upon in this letter would, if fully developed and illustrated, carry us into the province of the medical jurist, and involve some of the most difficult questions, namely, the positive indications of insanity, its availableness as a plea in criminal cases, and the relation which eccentricities bear to unsoundness of mind. It would be impossible in a volume like this to do justice to such important topics, we shall content ourselves with offering a few brief inquiries as to how the subject bears morally on the duties of the physician.

Our author remarks, in one part of his letter, that "every delusion is the result of confused modes of thinking, wrong and crime originate in ignorance.'

The exact point at which ignorance ends and conscious violation of duty begins is not perhaps given to human judgment accurately to define, the Omniscient Judge alone can fully do justice to all; there is doubtless a time when he, whose object has been ever to deceive and blind others, succeeds in deceiving and blinding himself. Mr. Winslow, in his 'Plea of Insanity in Criminal Cases,' says, on the subject of disease of the moral perception, "how many maniacs of this description are let loose upon society. As long as the intellectual faculties are sound, and the person manifests no delusion of mind, the law does not recognize the existence of any malady requiring coercive treatment. A man may, under the influence of disease of his moral powers, commit acts of extravagance, ruin himself and his family, become involved in all kinds of difficulties, indulge in habits destructive to both body and

* Jeder Wahn ist Folge der unklaren Denkens Unrecht und Verbrechen stammen aus Unwissenheit.

mind, and no restrictive or protective powers are adopted to save him from inevitable ruin. The absence of all hallucination or perversion of the mental powers, is the only thing that saves such a person from the madhouse. Let his moral disorder be accompanied with the slightest derangement of mind, let the person imagine that he is commissioned by some unseen agent to perform certain acts, and he is immediately brought within the cognizance of the law; but until he manifests some degree of intellectual insanity, he is permitted to go at large with impunity, and is considered by the world to be perfectly sane. A person addicted to habits of intemperance is often heard to deplore the loss of all control over his vicious propensities, and to confess that he is only fit for a gaol or a lunatic asylum. Such individuals in their lucid intervals, when the fit is off, reason calmly, rationally, and sometimes with considerable power; but they are, to all intents and purposes, unfit to have the management of themselves. It is the consideration of such cases that induces me to lament the want of establishments between a prison and a madhouse."

Professor Marx, in another part of the letter, humorously observes, that the world itself is only a madhouse on a larger scale. In the case of Miss Baxter, in the year 1832, the celebrated Dr. Haslam was examined by Sir Frederick Pollock, when the following curious dialogue took place. "" Is Miss Baxter of sound mind?" Dr. Haslam. 66 never saw any human being who was of sound mind." "That is no answer to my question: is she of sound mind?” "I presume the Deity is of sound mind, and he alone." "Is Miss Baxter of sound mind?" "Competently sound." "Is she capable of managing herself and her affairs?" "I do not know what affairs she has to manage."

With this ingenious evasion of the question, we may contrast Dr. Conolly's clear and practical distinction be