512 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



the timid kind ; and from whatever cause in the perception or 

 judgment, it is not proportioned to such cause, either in the 

 manner formerly customary to the person himself, or in the 

 manner usual with the generality of other men. 



" It is true that, from various circumstances, the estimate of 

 good and evil is very different in different men ; but still, with a 

 great degree of latitude, there is a measure or some limits estab- 

 lished. Nothing is more common than to say, that a man under 

 a violent passion is quite mad, and does not know what he does; 

 but, further, though such a state of violent passion may be 

 a temporary state of madness, yet, if it arises from present and 

 very evident circumstances, which would excite the same pas- 

 sion, though not in the same degree, in another person, and 

 when at the same time it is transitory, it is not considered as a 

 disease ; and then only when the cause of it is not evident, or 

 when, even to an evident cause, it is greatly disproportioned, 

 and especially, or almost only, when the immoderate passion is 

 connected with the incoherence of perceptions, relations, associ- 

 ations, and judgment we have mentioned, can we consider insan- 

 ity as being present." 



MDXXXV. Delirium, then, may be more shortly defined, 

 In a person awake, a false judgment, arising from perceptions 

 of imagination, or from false recollection, and commonly pro- 

 ducing disproportionate emotions. 



Such delirium is of two kinds ; as it is combined with pyrex- 

 ia and comatose affections ; or, as it is entirely without any such 

 combination. It is the latter case that we name Insanity ; and 

 it is this kind of delirium only that I am to treat of here. 



MDXXXVI. Insanity may perhaps be properly consider- 

 ed as a genus comprehending many different species, each of 

 which may deserve our attention ; but, before proceeding to the 

 consideration of particular species, I think it proper to attempt 

 an investigation of the cause of insanity in general. 



MDXXXVII. In doing this, I shall take it for granted, as 

 demonstrated elsewhere, that although this disease seems to be 

 chiefly, and sometimes solely, an affection of the mind ; yet the 

 connexion between the mind and body in this life is such, 

 that these affections of the mind must be considered as depend- 



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