270 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it as it was going through the press. We 

 have been struck by one feature of the 

 treatise, which indicates an important ad- 

 vance, and which involves the author's fun- 

 damental view of the subject. He draws a 

 line between legal and medical insanity, and 

 shows that the latter conception is far wider, 

 taking into account slight mental failures 

 which legislation can not recognize. His 

 work is not on the medical jurisprudence 

 of insanity, which deals with the subject 

 entirely on the legal side, but it is a scien- 

 tific inquiry into all grades and forms of 

 mental aberration, and deals with the sub- 

 ject with reference to the treatment of men- 

 tal disease rather than the responsibilities 

 of the alienist class. We quote the author's 

 statement in his preface of these views by 

 which he has been guided in the preparation 

 of the work : 



I have long been convinced that the term " in- 

 sanity " has hitherto been applied in altogether too 

 limited and illogical a manner. It has been under- 

 stood, both in and out of the profession, that a per- 

 son, in order to be considered the subject of mental 

 aberration, must, at some time or other, present 

 certain marked symptoms, which he can not avoid 

 exhibiting, and which are sufficient to indicate to 

 the world that he is not in his right mind. 



Starting from the points that all normal mental 

 phenomena are the result of the action of a healthy 

 brain, and that all abnormal manifestations of mind 

 are the result of the functionation of a diseased or 

 deranged brain, I do not see why these latter should 

 not be included under the designation of "insanity,'' 

 as much as the former are embraced under the 

 term " sanity." There can be no middle ground, 

 for the brain is either in a healthy or an unhealthy 

 condition. If healthy, the product of its action is 

 " sanity " ; if unhealthy, " insanity." 



Of course very little of such Insanity comes under 

 the signification given to the word by lawyers and 

 the public generally. But legal insanity and medical 

 insanity are very different things, and the two stand- 

 ards can never and ought never to be the same. The 

 law establishes an arbitrary and unscientific line, 

 and declares that every act performed on one side 

 of this line is the act of a sane mind, while all acts 

 done on the other side result from insane minds. 

 This line may be in one place to-day, and in an en- 

 tirely different place to-morrow, at the whim or 

 caprice cfa Legislature; it may be established on a 

 certain parallel in one country, and on an entirely 

 different par.aUel in another country. In the State 

 of New York, for instance, it is drawn at the 

 knowledge of right and vTong ; and perhaps, all 

 things considered, this is about as correct a legal 

 line as a due regard for the safety of society will 

 permit to be made. But every physician knows 

 that it is absolutely untenable from his point of 

 view ; that it is not a medical line, and that there 

 are thousands of lunatics insane enough to believe 



I . 



themselves to be veritable Julius Caesars, and yet 

 sufficiently sane to know that a particular act 

 is contrary to law, and to be fully aware of the 

 nature and consequences of such act. Hence it 

 follows that, from a medical stand-point, there is no 

 middle ground between sanity and insanity. The 

 hne of demarkation is sharply drawn, and it is but 

 a step from one territory to the other. There is a 

 large proportion of the population of every civilized 

 community composed of individuals whose insanity 

 is known only to themselves, and perhaps to some 

 of those who are in intimate social relations with 

 them, who have lost none of their rights, privileges, 

 or responsibilities as citizens, who transact their 

 business with fidelity and accuracy, and yet who 

 are as truly insane, though in a less degree, as the 

 most furious maniac who dashes his head against 

 the stone-walls of his cell. To many of these per- 

 sons life is a burden they would willingly throw 

 off, death concerned them alone, for they are 

 painfully conscious of their actual suffering, and 

 morbidly apprehensive in regard to the future. 

 There are very few people who have not, at some 

 time or other, perhaps for a moment onlj', been 

 medically insane. It is time, therefore, that the 

 horror of the word should be dissipated, and that 

 the fact should be recognized and acted upon, that 

 a disordered mind is just as surely the result of 

 a disordered brain as dyspepsia is of a deranged 

 stomach ; that a scarcely appreciable increase or 

 diminution of the blood-supply to the brain will 

 lead as surely to mental derangement of some 

 kind as an apparently insignificant change of the 

 muscular tissue of the heart to fat will lead to a 

 derangement of the circulation, and that in the one 

 case there may be a hallucination, a delusion, a 

 morbid impulse, or a paralysis of the will, just as 

 in the other there may be an intermittent pulse, a 

 vertigo, or a fainting-fit. There is no more dis- 

 grace to be attached to the one condition than to 

 the other. 



An Examination of thk Philosopht of the 

 Unknowable as expounded by Herbert 

 Spencer. By William M. Lacy. Phila- 

 delphia : Benjamin F. Lacy. Pp. 235. 



This volume is a metaphysical onslaught 

 on Herbert Spencer's metaphysics, and may 

 be recommended to all interested in the 

 subject as acute, subtile, ingenious, and 

 very well stated. A writer in " Science," 

 reviewing the book, declares that the task 

 of refuting Spencer's doctrine of the un- 

 knowable is merely flogging a dead horse, 

 and he expresses surprise that " a man of 

 extraordinary keenness and vigor of thought 

 should waste so much speculation upon 

 the subject." The aforesaid writer in " Sci- 

 ence" is also greatly scandalized that the 

 metaphysician Lacy is so grossly ignorant 

 of the rudiments of physical science, and 

 he takes some pains to expose the au- 



