274 HORACE ON INSANITY. 



That man will have matle no inconsiderable progress towards per- 

 fection who 



** Respicere ignoto discet pendentia tergo." 



But to return to the argument of the Stoic, that *'all men are 

 mad." In order to enter fully into it, we must first inquire, In 

 what does insanity consist ? " A lunatic," says the learned Judge 

 Blackstone, " is one who hath had understanding, but by disease, 

 grief, or other accident, hath lost the use of his reason." Medical 

 writers of late years, and among them Esquirol, Pinel, and Dr. 

 Prichard, have considered insanity principally as offering itself to 

 our observation under two heads ; as insanity with hallucination, 

 and moral insanity, in which no delusion or hallucination of mind 

 can be discovered. 



The first kind of insanity occurs in four principal forms, namely, 

 1st. Mania, where the mental delusion is complete and universal, 

 accompanied by excitement ; 2nd. Monomania, or partial insanity, 

 an hallucination confined to a single object; 3rd. Dementia, or ac- 

 cidental obliteration of the reasoning faculties ; 4th. Idiotism, in 

 which this obliteration is congenital. 



The second kind of mental alienation has been distinguished, by 

 Spurzheim, under the name of irresistibility; by Pinel, as mania 

 without delirium or hallucination ; and by our learned countryman. 

 Dr. Prichard, as moral insanity. 



Dr. Prichard thus defines this affection : — " Moral insanity, or 

 madness, consists in a morbid perversion of the natural feelings, af- 

 fections, inclinations, temper, habits, and moral dispositions, without 

 any notable lesion of the intellect or knowing and reasoning facul- 

 ties, particularly without any maniacal hallucination." 



If this perversion of the feelings and habits be slight in degree 

 and harmless in character, the individual thus affected is merely 

 considered odd or eccentric, and passes muster with the world in 

 general : but if developed more strongly, it becomes the source of 

 one of the most terrible species of mental alienation. 



If the above definition be correct, who is there that can be said 

 to be exempt from the taint of moral insanity ? who is there in 

 whom some of the natural propensities, to use the words of Spurz- 

 heim, do not occasionally become so violent as to be irresistible and 

 incontroUable ? 



" Ira hrevis furor est" and so are many other evil passions. The 

 poor man whose breast is gnawed with a feeling of envious dislike 



