t 



AND BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION. 7^ 



set of ideas, whether of a pleasing or gloomy character, may become 

 permanently exalted and produce a partial alienation of mind, which 

 the lifting of a finger or the shaking of a straw may precipitate into 

 an abyss of incurable melancholy or mania. I have endeavoured 

 in this paper — and it has been an undertaking of considerable diffi- 

 culty — to trace these exalted states of the Imagination, which pre- 

 dispose to the different turns of mental aberration. The limits of 

 a single paper, of course, would not permit me to pursue them to a 

 great extent : I have given the outline, and leave others to complete 

 the picture. The track which I have chosen has been nearly an 

 unbeaten one ; the road has been clogged with rubbish, overgrown 

 with weeds, and some little labour has been required to form a new 

 road, which at present is extremely rugged. Uniform study, or 

 unremitting manual or mental application to one subject — especially 

 if this be pursued with the ardour common to many minds — not 

 unfrequently wears a track in the brain, down which the Imagina- 

 tion rushes with destructive violence. The great object in the 

 regulation of mental sanity, is to divert this single stream into many 

 smaller channels, which, by their uniform and gentle motion, will 

 visit and strengthen all the mental powers, instead of concentrating 

 their whole force in one, which, from the violence and impetuosity 

 of its career, rests not till it has included all in one general wreck. 

 " At Saragossa, in Spain, there is an asylum for the insane of all 

 countries. The patients are divided, early in the morning, into 

 parties, some of which perform the menial offices of the house ; 

 others repair to shops belonging to their respective trades : the ma- 

 jority are distributed, under the superintendence of their guards, 

 through a large inclosure, where they are occupied in the works 

 belonging to gardening and agriculture. Uniform experience is said 

 to prove the efficacy of these labours in reinstating reason in its seat. 

 It is added, that the nobles who live in the same asylum, but in a 

 state of idleness suitable to their rank, retain their lunacy and their 

 privilege together ; whilst their inferiors are restored to themselves 

 and to society."* This fact is so striking, explains so thoroughly 

 the moral treatment of insanity, and illustrates so clearly what 

 ought to be the plan adopted in all systems of education, that I make 

 the statement without comment — since no argument can add to its 

 weight, and no sophistry detract from its utility. 

 • 



* Beddoe's Hygeia. 



VOL. V. — NO. XVII. 



