the association which led to this appeared to be obvious. In the early part of his life he had been in Virginia, and connected with the trade in tobacco; so that the transition from snuff to tobacco, and from tobacco to a hogshead, seemed to be natural. Another gentleman affected in this manner, when he wanted coals put upon his fire, always called for påper, and when he wanted paper called for coals; and these words he always used in the same manner. In other cases, the patient seems to invent names, using words which to a stranger are quite unintelligible; but he always uses them in the same sense, and his immediate attendants come to understand what he means by them."

CHAPTER VI.

IMPERFECT AND DISORDERED ACTION OF THE REASONING POWER.

§ 143. Of the nature of the Reasoning Power. It will be noticed, so far as we have gone in the examination of the subject of the imperfections and disorders of mental action, that we have considered the powers of the mind separately. Probably every power of the mind, but particularly those of the intellect in distinction from the sensibilities, may be

* Abercrombie's Intellectual Powers, Harpers' ed., p. 130.

come more or less disordered. It is not safe to restrict the doctrine of insanity, much less of mental disorder, in the more general sense of the terms, by arbitrary and narrow definitions. The statements which have already been given seem sufficiently to show the correctness of the general doctrine laid down at the commencement of the work, that the true limits of disordered mental action are coextensive with the opposite, viz., with a just, orderly, sound, or sane state of the mind. Having successively considered sensation, external perception, the conceptive power, original suggestion, consciousness, relative suggestion or judgment, association, and memory, we propose, as coming next in order in the arrangement which we have adopted, to examine the subject before us, in its connexion with the reasoning power.

Of the nature of the reasoning power, inasmuch as the present work takes for granted some general knowledge of the mind's ordinary or regular action, it is unnecessary to speak except very briefly. When the power in question is in exercise, we term such exercise of it REASONING. Accordingly, reasoning may be defined the mental process or operation whereby we deduce conclusions from two or more propositions premised. A train of reasoning may be regarded, therefore, as a whole, and, as such, it is made up of separate and subordinate parts, which are usually denominated PROpositions.

The reasoning power, great as it is in its nature and its results, has its specific position, and also its specific duties or office; and in both points of view

is clearly enough distinguished from all other intellectual powers. It is, perhaps, more likely to be confounded with the power of Relative Suggestion or the Judgment than any other. Nevertheless, there is a distinction between them. Without Relative Suggestion, which is to be regarded as a distinct source of knowledge, there would be no perception of relations in their simplest possible forms. And, unassisted by reasoning, which, as compared with the power just named, takes a higher stand and operates in a wider field, we could have no knowledge of the relations of those things, which cannot be compared without the aid of intermediate propositions.

This great and ennobling faculty, which avails itself of the intimations and appliances of nearly all the other powers, may be subject to imperfection and disorder in various ways and degrees, as we shall now proceed to explain.

§ 144. Of failure of Reasoning from the want of

· ideas.

There can be no reasoning, in the first place, where there are no ideas previously laid up in the mind. Such is the nature of the reasoning power, that it must have its DATA, its materials on which to act. Reasoning deals with propositions, and propositions involve ideas. He, therefore, who is content to be without ideas, must not complain to find himself no reasoner.

It is here we find one ground of the failure of the reasoning power in idiocy. The idiot is almost wholly destitute of ideas; so that, if he happens to

possess those powers of comparison and combina tion which are implied in reasoning, still he has no materials on which to employ them. In such persons, therefore, the reasoning power, even if it has an existence, is not only not exercised in fact, but it is impossible that it should be; and, consequently, it is virtually extinct. Even a few ideas, although they undoubtedly have their value, will not be enough to furnish a ratiocinative basis. The reasoning which is raised on such a basis will generally be found unsymmetrical, built up in some parts and not in others, weak in one place and strong in another, and presenting, on the whole, either an imperfect or a distorted view of the subject. Hence we have, with the failure of ideas, either no reasoning or false reasoning, either no action or perverted action.

§ 145. Of mere weakness or imbecility of the Reasoning power.

In the second place, we are led to remark, that there is in some persons a natural weakness or imbecility of the reasoning power, in itself considered. The difficulty does not consist, as in the case just now mentioned, in the want of ideas; of these they perhaps have multitudes: but it consists rather in their want of a power to perceive and to estimate consecutively their relations. They may, perhaps, be able to perceive and understand separate relations; for instance, the relation existing between two objects or two simple propositions; but they are not able, by connecting object with object, and

proposition with proposition, to deduce remote and ultimate relations. The mind does not expand itself sufficiently so as to embrace the whole subject; or it has not energy enough so as to advance safely and firmly from step to step; or, if these be not the proper expressions, we still have the general and undeniable fact that it comes short, utterly and absolutely, of the consecutive process which is involved in every mental effort deserving the name of ratiocination.

Mr. Locke seems to have had this class of persons in mind, where he remarks in the following terms: "There are some men of one, some but of two syllogisms, and no more; and others that can advance but one step farther. These cannot always discern that side on which the strongest proofs lie; cannot constantly follow that which in itself is the more probable opinion."-These persons are not insane in the ordinary sense of that term, but they are accountable only so far as they have ability. They have, intellectually, but a feeble light; and, such as it is, they are often obliged to borrow, from the lamp of their neighbours, the oil that feeds their own.

§ 146. Of disordered Reasoning in relation to particular subjects.

One of the forms of disordered reasoning, and one, too, of very frequent occurrence, is characterized by the circumstance that the disordered or abnormal tendency has relation to particular subjects, and is limited to them. Beyond this limit, whether