228 INSANITY. 



of the profound and painful interest belonging to such 

 inspections. The statistics of insanity, deal with them 

 as we may, are a mournful and mysterious page in the 

 moral history of man. I fear it must be admitted that 

 what we call civilisation, especially that of crowded 

 communities, tends to aggravate this condition of 

 human suffering, and from causes readily understood. 

 Enquiry, expressly made, has everywhere told me the 

 same tale, that religion, love, anxieties of business, and 

 intemperance are chief among the direct causes of 

 insanity in the world. Add to these hereditary ten- 

 dency, whencesover originally derived, and we see but 

 too well how these mental maladies have embodied 

 themselves in the social state of man, even under the 

 highest intellectual cultivation. 



