INSANITY. 227 



brain the cerveau malade-, and others, as Leuret, 

 recently, place the disorder in the spiritual intelli- 

 gence itself. This is virtually the old question of 

 materialism put into a more special form. The phe- 

 nomena of dreaming, delirium, and drunkenness, as 

 well as the moods of insanity itself, and their tendency 

 to become hereditary, are brought in sanction of the 

 former view. Its frequent occurrence in the most 

 marked forms, without detection of the slightest organic 

 disease of the brain, furnishes argument for the latter, 

 but an argument ever subject to the exception that 

 disease may really exist in textures to which neither 

 eye nor microscope give us access. 



The relation of dreaming to insanity has been dwelt 

 upon from the time of Cicero downwards. The dis- 

 tinction lies in this, that dreams are for the most part 

 an incongruous mimicry, while the senses are closed, 

 of waking sensations, thoughts, and events incon- 

 gruous as to time, place, and connexion ; madness is 

 a persistent adherence (not corrected by the outward 

 senses, though these are awake) of images, thoughts, or 

 feelings, devoid of what may be called reality, and 

 begetting actions equally incongruous. As a definition 

 this is as incomplete as others, but it serves to distin- 

 guish between the wandering and transient dream, 

 made up of fitful memories, when the senses are more 

 or less closed, and the fixed delusions of insanity, often 

 contradicting the evidence of the senses, and all the 

 acts and impulses of antecedent life. 



I have visited lunatic asylums in most parts of 

 Europe, and many in America, without any abatement 



