590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



on that of Pinel. A few of Tuke's brother and sister Quakers seem 

 to have been his only reliance ; and, in a letter regarding his efforts 

 at that time, he says, " All men seem to desert me." * 



In this atmosphere of English conservative opposition or indif- 

 ference the work could not grow rapidly. As late as 1815 a mem- 

 ber of Parliament stigmatized the insane asylums of England as 

 the shame of the nation ; and even as late as 1827, and in a few 

 cases as late as 1850, there were revivals of the old absurdity and 

 brutality. Down to a late period, in the hospitals of St. Luke 

 and Bedlam, long rows of the insane were chained to the walls of 

 the corridor. But Gardner at Lincoln, Donnelly at Hanwell, and 

 a new school of practitioners in mental disease, took up the work 

 of Tuke, and the victory in England was gained in practice as it 

 had been previously gained in theory. 



There need be no controversy regarding the comparative merits 

 of these two benefactors of our race, Pinel and Tuke. They clearly 

 did their thinking and their work independently of each other, 

 and thereby each strengthened the other and benefited mankind. 

 All that remains to be said is, that while France has paid high 

 honors to Pinel, as to one who did much to free the world from 

 one of its most cruel sujjerstitions and to bring in a reign of hu- 

 manity over a wide empire, England has as yet made no fitting 

 commemoration of her great benefactor in this field. York Min- 

 ster holds many tombs of men, of whom some were blessings to 

 their fellow -beings, while some were parasites upon the body 

 politic ; yet, to this hour, that great temple has received no con- 

 secration by a monument to the man who did more to alleviate 

 human misery than any other who has ever entered it. 



But the place of these two men in history is secure. They 

 stand with Grotius, Thomasius, and Beccaria — the men who, in 

 modern times, have done most to prevent unmerited sorrow. 

 They were not, indeed, called to suffer like their great compeers ; 

 they were not obliged to see their writings — among the most 

 blessed gifts of God to man — condemned, as were those of Gro- 

 tius and Beccaria by the Catholic Church, and those of Thoma- 

 sius by a large section of the Protestant Church ; they were not 

 obliged to flee for their lives, as were Grotius and Thomasius ; 

 but their effort is none the less worthy. The French Revolution, 

 indeed, saved Pinel, and the decay of English ecclesiasticism gave 

 Tuke his opportunity. But their triumphs are none the less 

 among the glories of our race ; for they were the first acknowl- 

 edged victors in a struggle of science for humanity which had 

 lasted nearly two thousand years. 



* See D. H, Tuke, as above, pp. 116-142, and 512; also the "Edinburgh Review" for 

 April, 1803. 



