NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 589 



greater men in the Established Church, and notwithstanding the 

 Scriptural demonstrations of Wesley that the majority of the 

 insane were possessed of devils, the scientific method steadily 

 gathered strength. In 1750 the condition of the insane began to 

 attract especial attention; it was found that mad-houses were 

 swayed by ideas utterly indefensible, and that the practices en- 

 gendered by these ideas were monstrous. As a rule, the patients 

 were immured in cells, and in many cases were chained to the 

 walls; in others, flogging and starvation played leading parts, 

 and in some cases the patients were killed. Naturally enough, 

 John Howard declared in 1789 that he found in Constantinople a 

 better insane asylum than the great St. Luke's Hospital in Lon- 

 don. Well might he do so ; for, ever since Caliph Omar had pro- 

 tected and encouraged the scientific investigation of insanity by 

 Paul of ^gina, the Moslem treatment of the insane had been in- 

 finitely more merciful than the system universal throughout 

 Christendom.* 



But in 1792— the same year in which Pinel began his great 

 work in France — William Tuke began a similar work in Eng- 

 land. There seems to have been no connection between these two 

 great reformers ; each seems to have arrived at his results inde- 

 pendently of the other, but the results arrived at were the same. 

 So, too, in the main, were their methods ; and in the little house 

 of William Tuke, at York, began a better era for England. 



The name which this little asylum received is a monument, 

 both of the old reign of cruelty and of the new reign of humanity. 

 Every old name for such an asylum had been made odious and 

 repulsive by ages of misery. In a happy moment of inspiration 

 Tuke's gentle Quaker wife suggested a new name ; and, in accord- 

 ance with this suggestion, the place became known as a " Retreat." 



From the great body of influential classes in church and state 

 Tuke received little aid. The influence of the theological spirit 

 was shown when, in that same year. Dr. Pangster published his 

 " Observations on Mental Disorders," and, after displaying much 

 ignorance as to the causes and nature of insanity, summed up by 

 saying piously, " Here our researches must stop, and we must 

 declare that ' wonderful are the works of the Lord, and his ways 

 past finding out.' " Such seemed to be the view of the Church at 

 large ; though the new " Retreat " was at one of the two great 

 ecclesiastical centers of England, we hear of no aid or encourage- 

 ment from the Archbishop of York or from his clergy. Nor was 

 this the worst : the indirect influence of the theological habit of 

 thought and ecclesiastical prestige was displayed in the "Edin- 

 burgh Review." That great organ of opinion, not content with 

 merely attacking Tuke, poured contempt upon his work as well as 



* See D. H. Tuke, as above, p. 110; also Trelat, as already cited. 



