HORACE ON INSANITY. 275 



towards him who is richer and apparently happier than himself— 

 the rich and powerful who looks down with contemptuous loathing 

 On his poor and miserable fellow-man, equally with himself the 

 work of God — the gambler who sacrifices health, happiness, honour, 

 and peace of mind, both his own and that of others, in his destruc- 

 tive pursuit — the miser who hoards up useless treasure, and denies 

 to himself and to his offspring the merest necessaries of life — in 

 these and a hundred other cases the same passions are at work 

 which, if developed in a higher degree, would come under the deno- 

 mination of insanity. 



But let us turn to our poet, and see what he has to say on this 

 point :— 



" Audire, atque togam jubeo componere, quisquis, 

 Ambitione mala aut argenti pallet amore 

 Quisquis luxuria, tristive superstitione 

 Aut alio mentis morbo calet." 



Ambition, avarice, luxury, and superstition, may well be placed 

 foremost among the diseases of the mind; productive of various 

 shades of mental alienation, as injurious to society, in their conse- 

 quences, as many other more generally recognized varieties of insa- 

 nity. Of these disorders Horace seems to consider avarice as the 

 most obstinate and most difficult of cure : — 



" Danda est hellebori multo pars maxima avaris 

 Nescio an Anticyram ratio illis destinet omnem." 



Avarice is, indeed, the vice at which Horace most frequently levels 

 his satire, but not at this alone. He asks, 



" Quisnam igitur sanus ? Qui non stultus ? quid avarus ? 



Stultus et insanus. 



* • * ambitiosus et audax 



Naviget Anticyram." 



The numerous gradations of insanity are extremely difficult of 

 distinction, especially in the slighter varieties. It is no easy matter 

 to define the boundary between that state of mind which is com- 

 monly called eccentricity, and what would legally come under the 

 denomination of unsoundness of mind. An individual may acquire 

 habits at variance with those of the world in general, and his con- 

 duct may be influenced by a mental impression, or some mental fa- 

 culty which in him is more than ordinarily energetic ; and yet he 

 may be capable of reasoning correctly on correct premises, and may 



