70 OBSERVATIONS ON INSANITY 



between the different varieties, and how readily and humanely and 

 profitably a separation of the inmates of Lunatic Asylums, founded 

 on such broad distinctions, could be carried into effect. 



Mr. Browne's second Lecture, like the first, has an interrogative 

 title : its subject is — " What are the Statistics of Insanity ?" This 

 leads him into a very comprehensive but requisite inquiry which he 

 ably prosecutes to a satisfactory conclusion. In the course of his 

 disquisitive observations on the manifold bearings of this subject, he 

 establishes these important propositions. 1. That, in Britain, there 

 are not less than fourteen thousand lunatics, variously distributed. 

 ~2. That, insanity is not an inseparable adjunct of civilization ; though, 

 with this, come sudden and agitating changes of fortune, vicious effe- 

 minacy of manners, complicated transactions, misdirected views of 

 the objects of life, with ambition and hopes and fears which man, in 

 his primitive state, does not and cannot know ; but these neither con- 

 stitute civilization, nor are they necessarily connected with the sources 

 from which it springs. 3. That, insanity has a greater number of 

 victims, in proportion to the population at present existing, than at 

 former periods ; and that this relative increase proceeds from the too 

 palpable multiplication of the causes by which Mania is produced : 

 the occupations, amusements, follies and vices of the present race, 

 are infinitely more favourable for the development of the disease, 

 than they had ever previously been with any people of this country. 

 4. That, there are certain classes of society, and certain courses of 

 life, which are more exposed than others to Insanity, not because 

 they are worldly or wicked, but because they lead to excitement, and 

 tend to the formation of habits of thought and action, inimical to the 

 preservation of mental serenity and health ; and that the cultivators 

 of the earth are not so liable to Lunacy as the cultivators of the mind 

 itself ; because, from accessary circumstances, the latter are most ex- 

 posed to have the tranquillity and equilibrium of their mental powers 

 destroyed. 5. That, there are more deranged persons in the wealthy 

 than in the poor classes of society : poverty enjoins a compulsory 

 temperance ; it shuts out the longings of ambition ; it acquaints man- 

 kind with the realities of life, and excludes from the vitiating effects 

 of sentimentalism ; and, in that it trains the body to be vigorous, it is 

 favourable in all these respects to the continuance of mental sanity : 

 the agricultural population is to a great degree exempt from lunacy : 

 hereditary talent is the most frequent cause of this disease. 6. That, 

 mental derangement is more prevalent under liberal than under des- 

 potic forms of government ; but that, in the state, be it monarchical 



