shades and degrees of disturbance, and disease, commensurate with the nature, extent, and position of the cerebral lesion.

The state of mind, included under the head exaltation, often resembles, in its earlier manifestations, a trifling exuberance, excessive buoyancy, an unnatural elasticity, extravagance, or exhilaration of the spirits. The patient is unusually cheerful, indulges in great volubility and violence of speech, is boisterously loquacious, and manifests phases of hysterical, emotional, and pleasurable psychical, as well as physical exaltation, rarely considered, in the early stages of diseases of the brain, and alienation of mind, to be symptomatic of morbid cerebral, or disordered, mental conditions.

"E ai volti troppo alti e repentini

Sogliono i precipitii esser vicini."*-TASSO.

This unnatural, and, often suddenly developed flow of animal spirits, frequently merges into a state of unhealthy mental exaltation, and morbid cerebral excitement, clearly indicative of organic disease of the brain, irritation, congestion, or inflammation of its investing membranes, unhealthy blood poisoning the encephalic mass, disordered states of nerve nutrition, retained excretions, or, disturbed conditions of the cerebral circulation.

When considering the second division of the subject, viz., that of mental depression, it will be apparent that this phase of mental disorder often ranges, from mere listlessness, slight degrees of depression of spirits, tædium vitæ (the "atra cura" of Horace), and ennui, to profound conditions of despondency, despair, and acute melancholia,

* Our own illustrious poet thus gives expression to the same idea:"These violent delights have violent ends,

And in their triumph die."

frequently urging its unhappy victim to the commission of suicide.*

It is in this state of insane thought, that a terrible struggle occasionally ensues, between an intensely morbid, and often, irresistible impulse to suicide, and the natural instinct of love of life, and self-preservation, as well as antagonistic principles of worldly prudence, religion, and morality, that are occasionally happily seen to retain a mastery, and exercise a controlling influence over the mind, goaded on by disease, to self-destruction.

In the morbid mental affections included under the heads of, aberration and impairment, are observed various gradations (blending almost imperceptibly with each other) of psychical disorder, and weakness, extending from

*It is a fallacy to suppose, a state of ennui to be one of brain rest, and psychical inactivity. It is, in many cases, an active condition of the mind, unaccompanied by the pleasurable, and, consequently, healthy gratification, usually associated with ordinary phases of intellectual labour, and emotional excitement. "In life," says Pascal, " we always believe that we are seeking repose, while, in reality, all that we seek is agitation." "Is," says Sir W. Hamilton, "the 'far niente'-is that doing nothing in which so many find so sincere a gratification, in reality a negation of activity, and not in truth itself an activity intense and varied? To do nothing in this sense is simply to do nothing irksome, nothing difficult, nothing fatiguing, especially to do no outward work. But is the mind internally the while unoccupied and inert? This, on the contrary, may be vividly alive; may be intently engaged in the spontaneous play of imagination; and so far, therefore, in this case, from pleasure being the concomitant of inactivity, the activity is, on the contrary, at once vigorous and unimpeded. **** Ennui is a state in which we find nothing on which to exercise our powers; but ennui is a state of pain. All energy, all occupation, is either play or labour. In the former, the energy appears as free and spontaneous; in the latter, as either compulsorily put forth, or its exertion so impeded by difficulties that it is only continued by a forced and painful effort, in order to accomplish certain ulterior ends. Under certain circumstances, play may become a labour, and labour may become play."

A mind ennuyed, may unconsciously be occupied in the contemplation of mentally distressing, and physically laborious and depressing thoughts. Let us, therefore, not flatter ourselves with the illusion, that a life of idleness and inactivity is necessarily one of repose, rest, and freedom from painfully-perturbed thoughts. How true it is—

"A want of occupation gives no rest;

A mind quite vacant, is a mind distressed."

the shadowy forms of false perception, erroneous judgment, paralyzed volition, perversions of the moral sense, derangement and confusion of thought, to positive hallucinations, and clearly manifested insane delusions; and from brain-fag, cerebral lassitude, loss of mental stamina, tone, weakened memory (dysmnesia), actual loss of memory (amnesia), and flagging powers of attention, to obvious states of imbecility, and idiocy.

In analysing the precursory symptoms of cerebropsychical disease, it will be important to remember, that the earliest signs of appreciable deviation from mental health, often resemble, in a remarkable degree, temporary and transient exaggerations of natural and healthy conditions, or states of mind, the first symptoms of the psychical affection being recognised by certain marked deviations from ordinary phases of thought, and normal modes of action, or conduct.

CHAPTER III.

Premonitory Symptoms of Insanity.

THIS subject is too important and comprehensive, to be analysed at any length in a work which professes to embody only an outline of incipient morbid cerebral, and psychical phenomena.

This section will be considered in the following order:

1. Anomalous, and masked affections of the mind.

2. Stage of consciousness.

3. Exaltation of mind.

4. Depression of mind.

5. Aberration of mind.

6. Impairment, and loss of mind.

This classification of the phenomena of disordered thought will embrace the more prominent and salient points connected with the subject of incipient insanity.

Previously, however, to my considering any one of the preceding sections, I propose to discuss cursorily,

1. The present limited knowledge of the physiology of the nervous system, and ignorance of the phenomena of mind, and life.

2. Analogy between insanity and dreaming.

3. State of the mind, when passing into a condition of alienation, as deduced from the written confessions of patients after recovery.

4. Morbid phenomena of thought, as manifested during the states of transition, and convalescence from attacks of insanity.

In order to obtain a right appreciation of the mind in its incipient, as well as matured conditions of disorder, it will be requisite for the psychological physician to analyse with metaphysical exactness, and scientific, medical precision, the intellect, when in the preceding states of unhealthy manifestation. These are four philosophical points d'appui in this important inquiry, and if elaborately and, faithfully investigated, a clearer insight may yet be obtained of morbid psychical phenomena, hitherto deemed very obscure, if not, altogether inexplicable.

Before proceeding to an analysis of the premonitory symptoms of the various types and phases of mental and cerebral disorder, it will be well to refer to, the following important preliminary interrogatories: they suggest themselves as prefatory, or starting points in this inquiry. What is insanity? Is its nature known; its essence discovered; the laws governing its phenomena understood? What is the constitution of its materies morbi; the exact condition of the moral, and intellectual faculties, emotions, instincts, or passions, during, to use the significantly suggestive language of Coleridge, "the mind's own revolt upon itself"? In what does mental derangement consist? Is it an affection of the moral, intellectual, emotional, or perceptive faculties, and are the reason, judgment, comparison, memory, and imagination most implicated in the malady? Is there a type of insanity manifesting itself more in conduct, than in the ideas? What is the nature, where the seat, of the alienation of mind? In which of the mental faculties does the disease commence its ravages, and where is the precise position, in the brain, of the latent insane nidus, or germ

P*

The subjoined poetical description of insanity was written by a lunatic.