NOTES ON THE NATURE OP INSANITY. 241 



sane, because he is capable of performing certain mental operations 

 with accuracy ? Would it not be equally irrational to conclude 

 that persons, having a weak mind, are not sane merely because they 

 find themselves incapable of performing similar operations? In 

 either case, should we not be justified in pronouncing the individual 

 sane, when the manifestations of his affections, sentiments, intellect 

 and general conduct continue in accordance with the previous exhi- 

 bition of his mental powers and habits ? These may have been 

 such as to keep the individual incapable of performing the relative 

 duties of life ; and, for this reason, the imbecile or idiot is not held 

 to be afflicted with insanity, which here expresses, by restriction, 

 those cases exclusively wherein an originally sound mind has fallen 

 into a state of unsoundness. We arrive, then, at the conclusion — 

 that the man is " of sane mind" in whom the manifestations of 

 feeling, sentiment, and intellect, in general conduct, continue either 

 to improve or keep in harmony with the exhibitions of his previous 

 powers and habits : and this constitutes the rule of distinction, 

 whether his mental energies are great or small, whatever may have 

 been the degree of their cultivation, and however remarkable the 

 difference may be between him and other individuals. 



Having noted these preliminary remarks, let us enter on the in- 

 vestigation as to the nature of Insanity ; and, first of all, let us ask, 

 What do we find as symptoms or appearances constantly attendant 

 upon Insanity ? This reply has been given : — " That which is first 

 and invariably noticed, is some injurious alteration either in the 

 intellectual manifestations, or in the conduct, or in both ;" but this 

 answer presents the appearance only of being precise : an attempt at 

 definition might be preferable. Insanity means unsoundness mere- 

 ly as its primary signification ; but it implies the unsoundness of 

 what had originally been sound. By conventional usage however, 

 the term has obtained a definite and comprehensive import ; and, in 

 general phraseology, it is now employed to express mental unsound- 

 ness under all its specific forms with their diversified characters. 

 But here again, this unsoundness is conventional also ; for the 

 mind's nature remains altogether unknown, and its states are dis- 

 tinguished constructively by the co-existent states of those corporeal 

 organs through whose instrumentality the operations or functions of 

 mindare manifested. Insanity is always concomitant with disease 

 in the brain : the chief indications of insanity should always be 

 regarded as distinctive symptoms of a cerebral affection : new and 

 perverse working of the Mind's animal propensities, moral senti- 

 ments or intellectual powers, constitutes the essential character of 



POL. VIII.. NO. XXIV. 31 



