INSANITY. 



WHETHER human nature improves by lapse of time, or re- 

 mains the same woof and weft of good and evil, mingled in 

 the same proportions as of yore, is a question undetermined, 

 perhaps indeterminate. 



Optimists hold to the belief that, even on this earthly 

 field, the clay-imprisoned soul of man, manacled and shackled 

 though it be, can attain a goal; from which starting, other 

 clay-imprisoned souls can onward pass, each to another land- 

 mark more near perfection. Pessimists, taking a gloomier 

 view of humanity, believe that, considered all in all, man is 

 pretty much as he was and ever will be : that if, in one 

 respect, an advance towards goodness be made, in another it 

 is counterbalanced by some compensating lapse toward that 

 goal of evil which is the realm of fallen spirits the ' kleine 

 Gott der Welt' ever being and to be, partly god-like, partly 

 satanic, else he would not be man. 



Either assumption is compatible with the subject of this 

 essay, namely, the amelioration which of late years, far too 

 late has taken place in treating the insane. 



Those amongst us who study the world's way of paying 

 deference to humanity's better elements to virtue, charity, 

 pity, and whatever else of good lingers within us must own 

 each to his own conscience, though perhaps not openly, that 

 the world people, men and women ofttimes, when seem- 

 ingly most good, have achieved goodness by the propitiatory 

 sacrifice of victims. It seems that the evil within us must 

 have scope somehow, and upon somebody. 



Could I not tell a tale about social victims human beings 



o 



