224 ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MENTAL 



The intimate knowledge which this greatest of poets possessed of 

 the phenomena of mind in all its various complexions, characters* 

 and bearings, is truly wonderful. Hamlet disproves his insanity, 

 though believing in the presence of his vision, from the only two 

 causes which could possibly have produced or continued it, viz., 

 disease of body or disorder of mind. And it is singular that the 

 latter test given by Hamlet should have passed unnoticed so long 

 in inquiries into the existence or non-existence of mental sanity. 

 Sir H. Halford, by chance, determined to rely upon it in a case 

 which was extremely doubtful, which, if the gentleman had been 

 treated as sane, and suffered to make his will accordingly, would 

 have involved the physicians in much litigation, and have been 

 productive of a series of unpleasant consequences. It is sufficient 

 to state that Shakspeare's test was correct ; the gentleman did not 

 re-word what he had before said, and immediately fell into a state 

 of incurable mania. Thus does literature furnish her mite to the 

 advancement of medical knowledge, and I cannot conceive any man 

 to be less acquainted with the features of disease, especially those of 

 a mental kind, who has devoted part of his time to literary attain- 

 ment. The dramatic poets particularly, of all countries, have been 

 extremely successful in the delineation of the human passions ; they 

 have shewn us mind in all its workings, they have given histories 

 of its various constitutions, and have shewn the manner in which 

 its different predispositions are likely to terminate. I illustrated 

 this point to some extent in my lecture on the Imagination of the 

 Insane. I mention this because I have no doubt that many persons 

 suppose literature of a general character to be a pursuit utterly at 

 variance with all medical attainment. Were this the place for such 

 digression, I think many instances might be adduced, and numerous 

 examples brought forward to prove that they commonly move hand 

 in hand. Need I mention Darwin, Mead, Baillie, John Bell, 

 Beddoes, Sir H. Halford, Abernethy, and others ? It is probable 

 that the narrations of the poet and novelist are, in many instances, 

 taken from actual occurrences, which, from the imperfect state and 

 the limited study of medicine in the earlier aeras of its history, 

 would otherwise have passed unnoticed. If this were not the case, the 

 knowledge of many of them must have been intuitive. If Le Sage had 

 not heard of or witnessed a case of disorder and death from the sup- 

 position that a person was constantly haunted by a spectre, how are 

 we to account for his history of the case of the Duke d'Olivarez, 

 who fell a victim to an imaginative affection of this nature ? To one 

 of two causes only can it be attributed — the one which I have men- 



