NOTES ON THE NATURE OF INSANITY. 239 



our defective knowledge of the Brain and Nervous System through 

 which the mind acts and is acted upon, will explain why so many 

 solemn fancies have been entertained and fondly cherished, on the 

 subject of Insanity. Superstition devised the romantic notion, that 

 Insanity proceeded from the malignity of demonian influence ; and, 

 as a duty descending from necessity, the charge of disenchanting its 

 victims was charitably undertaken by the priesthood, and the pow- 

 ers employed with this aim, were amulets, exorcisms, charms, and 

 other mystical expedients. For more than two thousand years, the 

 sagacity and experience of Hippocrates have preserved the profound 

 reverence ever due to his authority ; and, with this venerable Fa- 

 ther of Physic, as well as his chief disciples in the Hellenic, Italian, 

 Arabian and Arabistic schools, it was held for a fundamental doc- 

 trine — that Insanity exists as the symptom of a corporeal disease. 

 This natural and self-evident conclusion was afterwards supplanted 

 by the assumption wherewith inventive psychologists would represent 

 Insanity as a disease of the mind itself, and thus endeavour vainly 

 to metamorphose a spiritual system into a material machine with 

 its elements susceptible of decay and dissolution. The " divine old 

 man" attributed the disease to a mixture of bile with the blood ; 

 others held it for a result from an excessive determination of blood 

 to the head. For a long while, among the moderns, it was gene- 

 rally considered purely as a mental affection requiring only moral 

 remedies : more recently, however, and on substantial grounds, it 

 has come to be regarded as a distinct bodily disease. 



There is every reason for believing that all animated beings pos- 

 sess such a portion of mind as is adapted to their several conditions. 

 Some require no more than is sufficient to direct them in the choice 

 of food, to warn them of danger, and to induce them to procreate 

 an offspring. Their instincts operate through a corporeal machi- 

 nery, which is exceedingly simple in such creatures : they have 

 " ganglia and plexus of nerves," but are destitute of brain : in those 

 where the energies of mind are more extended, there is a cerebral 

 organization superadded to a more elaborate development of the 

 nervous system. Man possesses a bodily structure and mental 

 powers, in their nature similar to those enjoyed by the brutal tribes ; 

 but in addition to the animal endowments, he is gifted with far 

 higher and nobler faculties. He has, and ever has had, the capa- 

 bility of knowing and worshipping and loving God, and of perceiv- 

 ing divine or supernatural impressions. Now, this distinction has 

 place wherever man is found, at the equator and at the poles, in 

 the white-skinned European and the sable African and the Ameri- 



