The attempt was unsuccessful; but the result upon his own mind was such as to fill him with horror and disgust of the human race. He resolved, from that time, to seclude himself from society. He ever afterward lived alone, avoiding, as far as possible, the sight of every human being, and spending his time in reading, meditation, and prayer. And although he seems to have had but one child, an amiable daughter, who was happily married, he could never, after having been affected with this disordered mental bias, be persuaded to see her or any of her family.

§ 205. Further remarks on the disordered action of the Social propensity.

There is another class of cases, which in their character appear to be directly the reverse of those which have just been mentioned.—Individuals, when they are cut off from society, particularly the society of their friends, are sometimes the subjects of a misery inexpressibly intense. In these persons the social principle is, perhaps, too strong. It is, at least, subjected to too severe a trial. Deprived of its natural food, it disorganizes, in the intensity of "its grief, the whole mind.

Such was the case, perhaps, with the unfortunate Foscari, whose sad story is so well known. Having been banished from Venice, he took measures to return again, to see once more his beloved parents and family, at the evident hazard of his life. On being again banished from his country, he died in a short time of pure anguish of heart.

In this place, and as illustrating the connexion which the social principle has in various ways with soundness of mind, we may briefly refer to certain psychological and disciplinary experiments which have been made in this country. In the year 1821, the Legislature of New-York directed the Superintendent of the Auburn State Prison to select a number of the most hardened criminals, and to lock them up in solitary cells, to be kept there day and night, without any interruption of their solitude, and without labour. This order, which was regarded, and was designed to be regarded, in the light of an experiment, was carried into effect in September of that year, by confining eighty criminals in the manner prescribed. On this experiment, Messrs. Beaumont and Toqueville, who were recently commissioned by the French government to examine and to report on the American system of Prison Discipline, make the following remarks: "This trial, from which so happy a result had been anticipated, was fatal to the greater part of the convicts; in order to reform them, they had been subjected to complete isolation; but this absolute solitude, if nothing interrupt it, is beyond the strength of man; it destroys the criminal without intermission and without pity; it does not reform, it kills.-The unfortunates on whom this experiment was made fell into a state of depression so manifest, that their keepers were struck with it; their lives seemed in danger if they remained longer in this situation; five of them had already succumbed during a single year; their moral state was not less alarming; one of them had become

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insane; another, in a fit of despair, had embraced the opportunity, when the keeper brought him something, to precipitate himself from his cell, running the almost certain chance of a mortal fall.-Upon these and similar effects the system was finally judged. The Governor of the State of New-York pardoned twenty-six of those in solitary confinement. The others, to whom this favour was not extended, were allowed to leave the cells during the day, and to work in the common workshops of the prison."

§ 206. Of the disease founded on the Social propensity termed Nostalgia.

There is an exceedingly painful disease, founded, in a great degree, upon the disordered action of the social principle, which is termed by physicians Nostalgia, but which is more commonly known under the familiar designation of HOME-SICKNESS. This disease, which is sometimes fatal, is said to have frequently prevailed among the Swiss when absent from their native country. The beautiful sky which shone over them in their absence from their native land, the works of art, the allurements of the highest forms of civilization, could not erase from their hearts the image of their rugged mountains and their stormy heavens. They had society enough around them, it is true; but it was not the society which their hearts sought for, or in which, in existing circumstances, they could participate. They bowed their heads under the influence of a hidden and irrepressible sorrow; and in many cases not merely pined away, but died in the deep anguish of their separation.

In the year 1733, a Russian army, under the command of General Praxin, advanced to the banks of the Rhine. At this remote distance from their native country, this severe mental disease began to prevail among the Russians; so much so, that five or six soldiers every day became unfit for duty; a state of things which threatened to affect the existence of the army. The progress of this home-sickness was terminated by a severe order from the commander (designed probably, and which had the effect to produce a strong counteracting state of mind), that every one affected with the sickness should be buried alive.*

§ 207. Disordered action of the principle of Veracity.

We close these remarks on the alienated action of the Propensities, although we do not profess to have fully exhausted the subject, by a brief reference to another important principle, that which is the natural basis of the utterance of the truth.

The principle of Veracity, or the tendency of mind which leads men to utter the truth, appears to be an original or implanted one. This principle, either through habit or by natural defect, sometimes exhibits itself in strangely perverted forms.—In accordance with this view, Dr. Rush speaks of a LYING disease.

"It differs" (he says) "from exculpating, fraudulent, and malicious lying, in being influenced by none of the motives of any of them. Persons thus

* Rush on the Diseases of the Mind, 2d ed., p. 113.

diseased cannot speak the truth on any subject, nor tell the same story twice in the same way, nor describe anything as it has appeared to other people. Their falsehoods are seldom calculated to injure anybody but themselves, being for the most part of a hyperbolical or boasting nature, but now and then they are of a mischievous nature, and injurious to the characters and property of others. That it is a corporeal disease [that is to say, in some way connected with a diseased state of the body], I infer from its sometimes appearing in mad people, who are remarkable for veracity in the healthy states of their minds, several instances of which I have known in the Pennsylvania Hospital. Persons affected with this disease are often amiable in their tempers and manners, and sometimes benevolent and charitable in their dispositions."*

Enough, perhaps, has been said on this part of our subject, although the topic is not exhausted, to give at least a general idea of it. The same train of thought, and with scarcely any modification, will apply to all the original appetites and propensities, whatever they may be, which have not been noticed. They are all implanted by the Creator of the mind; they are all good in their place, and under proper regulation; they are all not only morally evil when they are not properly controlled and restrained, but are liable to be attended with more or less of mental disorder, from the slightest shades of disorganization to the deep and terrible miseries of permanent insanity.

* Rush on the Diseases of the Mind, 2d ed., p. 265.