68 ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MENTAL 



I come now to speak, shortly, of those forms of mental disturb- 

 ance in which the Imagination is called forth in its most energetic 

 forms; where, the judgment exercising no part of the mental fa- 

 culty, the mind is given up to the vacillating and uncertain govern- 

 ment of the former. 



I need not repeat what has been recognised by the only two ju- 

 dicious writers on insanity with whom I am acquainted, Pinel and 

 Esquirol, that the peculiar form of alienation is regulated altogether 

 by the previous constitution of the mind, and that this scarcely ever 

 takes place without a powerful predisposition. This predisposition 

 to mania is different from that which formed the precursory stage of 

 craziness and melancholy. The individual is generally character- 

 ized — not by a powerful judgment, a brilliant and lively wit, or 

 profound thought — but, by great energy of purpose, sudden and 

 quick in his determinations, violent in his affections, and implacable 

 in his hatred, embracing the most exaggerated schemes with an en- 

 thusiasm which in itself is hardly indicative of perfect sanity. His 

 imagination is ardent, the visions which it produces full of life and 

 fire. His is the royal road to fame ; the whole energy of his intel- 

 lect is bent on the accomplishment of his designs. Obstacles disap- 

 pear, as it were by magic, from before him ; he is impetuous, ungo- 

 vernable, and impatient of controul. The fancies of his dreams are 

 similar to the determinations of his waking hours : he dreams not 

 of the calm sea, of the peaceful home, but of the tempest, the hur- 

 ricane, and the tornado — not of the arts of peace, but of the din of 

 war. So active is the imagination of these persons, that somnam- 

 bulism is a frequent occurrence with them : the hurry of their mind 

 will not allow them time for needful repose. The imagination of 

 the maniac is a perfect chaos, having no direction, no harmony, no 



or from the narration of others, and not from actual impression first made 

 upon the mind so influenced. Many curious examples in illustration and 

 support of this remark, are to be found in Walker's Lives, in Sir W. Scott's 

 Letters on Dcmonology, and elsewhere. The instinct or faculty of imitation 

 is widely extended in nature, possessed by all animals and man, and in great- 

 er power by the latter as he is less civilized or less intellectual, approaching 

 more to the state of the brute or the savage. Hence we find diseases in 

 which the faculty of imitation is concerned, almost peculiar to the ages of 

 ignorance and superstition. Hence all the epidemic diseases springing from 

 a distempered fancy occurred in the ages and countries where fanaticism 

 prevailed, when the laws regulating the phenomena of natural occurrences 

 both in physics and physiology were utterly unknown, and where the pro- 

 mulgator or advocate of truth was branded as an atheist for his unbelief in 

 the errors which surrounded him, and happy if his talents or his zeal did not 

 hurry him to the cells of the Inquisition, to the scaffold, or the rack. 



