physical necessity, and impulse out of the reach of control, there is already too much tendency in the human mind to have recourse; and were the principles of the author just mentioned, received, every act of oppression, every sally of passion, would be set down to this score. On the other hand, let the line of demarkation which we have pointed out be kept in view, and consistency and rectitude, in our judgment, will follow.

Intimately allied with the inquiry respecting the precise circumstances and actual constitution of insanity, is a question which has likewise been agitated with a great deal of party spirit, and a profusion of words. In the publication to which we last alluded, the author aims to establish the dogma, that mental hallucination is always, and of necessity, a bodily disorder; and to substantiate this position, he fills nearly half his pages with invectives against what he chooses to term the Scotch philosophy. Now, this is so exceedingly from the purpose, that the doctrines defended by Mr. Hill may be either true or false, without in the smallest measure involving that philosophy which it is his aim to impugn, and of the nature of which, by the way, he has formed a very inaccurate estimate. It is worse than a waste of words for writers on insanity to follow one another in the round of these metaphysical cycles, and exhaust their own powers and their readers' patience, with setting out from, and returning to, exactly the same point with all their predecessors. It is sufficiently obvious, that there is something in thought and sensation that bears not the slightest analogy to any other quality or mode of existence, about which we are either conversant or capable of forming any conception; and it is equally so, that all the attempts which have been made to materialize mind, from the earliest times down to those of Hartley and Darwin, are utterly and equally futile.* But because this is our conviction, we do not, therefore, quarrel with that position which assumes an actual difference of organization in every case of madness from that of mental sanity-a position, indeed, which we think it would not be very easy to disprove. This, however, must not lead us to acquiesce in that persuasion which resolves every thing into matter and consequent necessity; which tends to the destruction altogether of moral responsibility; which makes virtue to be constituted of an harmonious correspondence between nerve and blood vessel, and crime to consist of a hurried circulation. In what precise manner motive acts upon organization, we can never know; but of this every man is convinced, that

* By the expression materialize mind,' we mean to designate all those attempts to develope the actual nature and precise mode of intellectual being which go upon the ground of analogical illustration. Loose analogies constitute perhaps the most formidable impediments to conclusive reasoning.

while consciousness is continued, the power also is continued of selection and choice. Thus, in the cases above, the individuals concerned did not act from necessity but from will: However differently organized from others who might have no disposition to fly to unknown evils, from present pain, such organization did not urge them with the force of physical impulse to the commission of suicide.

There is one circumstance accompanying the history of insane. affections, which would seem to assist at least the presumptive evidence that a state of hallucination of mind is a state, more or less, in all cases, of corporeal disorder; we mean that alternation of common and allowedly bodily diseases with diseases of the understanding, which is not seldom met with, and which is a very curious fact in pathology. Two remarkable instances of this are to be found in the Monita et Præcepta of Dr. Mead; others of a similar kind, more or less notable in point of degree, no medical practitioner can ever be long without witnessing. Again: that the bodily functions are often brought into a condition of actual and positive ailment by mere ailments of the imagination, is too evident to require any examples in the way of confirmation.-As we are upon this topic, we feel tempted to say a few words on that coincidence of events with predictions upon which so much stress has been laid in favour of the supposed spiritual origin of visionary and imaginary conceptions. We do not, with Dr. Ferrier, go the length of supposing that apparitions are always to be traced to physical causes, but we do think, the general principle of visionary conceits is susceptible of explication, merely upon the ground of that astonishing influence which the fancy is found to possess over the feelings and functions of the physical frame. In the Zoonomia we meet with the following well authenticated tale which has been versified by Mr. Wordsworth.

A young farmer in Warwickshire, finding his hedges broken, and the sticks carried away during a frosty season, determined to watch for the thief. He lay many cold hours under a haystack, and at length an old woman, like a witch in a play, approached and began to pull up the hedge; he waited till she had tied her bottle of sticks, and was carrying them off, that he might convict her of the theft, and then springing from his concealment, he seized his prey with violent threats. After some altercation, in which her load was left upon the ground, she kneeled upon the bottle of sticks, and raising her arms to Heaven, beneath the bright moon then at the full, spoke to the farmer, already shivering with cold, "Heaven grant that thou mayest never know again the blessing to be warm!" He complained of cold all the next day, and wore an upper coat, and in a few days another, and in a fortnight took to his bed, always saying nothing made him warm; he covered himself with very many blankets, and had a sieve over his face as he lay; and from

this one insane idea he kept his bed above twenty years, for fear of the cold air, till at length he died.'

Sauvages relates a similar incident, upon the authority of Zacutus Lusitanus, of a melancholic who was always complaining of invincible cold, till he was subjected by artifice to a large quantity of spirits of wine in a state of combustion; he was convinced, from his sensations during this experiment, that he was capable of feeling heat, and thenceforth his cold left him. Dr. Haygarth, it will be in the recollection of many of our readers, operated very important changes in the bodily functions of several individuals who were, as they supposed, brought under the agency of Perkin's tractors, in reality merely acted upon by pieces of rotten wood or rusty iron; under this supposition, however, several chronic maladies, which had refused to yield to medicine, were materially mitigated, and at least temporarily cured.

But one of the most striking instances of the amazing influence which the imagination possesses, not over the feelings merely, but upon the actual state and functions of the bodily organization, is related by Professor Hufeland; this case is so interesting, and, we may add, so instructive, that we are tempted, notwithstanding its length, to lay it before our readers.

'A student at Jena, about 16 years of age, having a weak and irritable nervous frame, but in other respects healthy, left his apartments during twilight, and suddenly returned with a pale, dismal countenance, assuring his companion that he was doomed to die in thirty-six hours, or at nine o'clock in the morning of the second day. This sudden change of a cheerful young mind, naturally alarmed his friend; but no explanation was given of its cause. Every attempt at ridiculing this whimsical notion was fruitless; and he persisted in affirming that his - death was certain and inevitable. A numerous circle of his fellow-students soon assembled, with a view to dispel those gloomy ideas, and to convince him of his folly, by arguments, satire, and mirth. He remained, however, unshaken in his strange conviction; being apparently inanimate in their company, and expressing his indignation at the frolics and witticisms applied to his peculiar situation. Nevertheless, it was conjectured that a calm repose during the night would produce a more favourable change in his fancy: but sleep was banished, and the approaching dissolution engrossed his attention during the nocturnal hours. Early next morning, he sent for Professor Hufeland, who found him employed in making arrangements for his burial; taking an affectionate leave of his friends; and on the point of concluding a letter to his father; in which he announced the fatal catastrophe that was speedily to happen. After examining his condition of mind and body, the Professor could discover no remarkable deviation from his usual state of health, excepting a small contracted pulse, a pale countenance, dull or drowsy eyes, and cold extremities: these symptoms, however, sufficiently indicated a general spasmodic action of the nervous system, which also exerted

its influence over the mental faculties. The most serious reasoning_on the subject, and all the philosophical and medical eloquence of Dr. Hufeland, had not the desired effect; and, though the student admitted that there might be no ostensible cause of death discoverable, yet this very circumstance was peculiar to his case; and such was his inexorable destiny, that he must die next morning, without any visible morbid symptoms. In this dilemma, Dr. Hufeland proposed to treat him as a patient. Politeness induced the latter to accept of such offer, but he assured the physician, that medicines would not operate. As no time was to be lost, there being only 24 hours left for his life, Dr. Hufeland deemed proper to direct such remedies as prove powerful excitants, in order to rouse the vital energy of his pupil, and to relieve him from his captivated fancy. Hence he prescribed a strong emetic and purgative; ordered blisters to be applied to both calves of the legs, and at the same time stimulating clysters to be administered. Quietly submitting "to the Doctor's treatment, he observed, that his body being already half a corpse, all means of recovering it would be in vain. Indeed, Dr. Hufuland was not a little surprised, on his repeating his visit in the evening, to learn that the emetic had but very little operated, and that the blisters had not even reddened the skin. The case became more serious; and the supposed victim of death began to triumph over the incredulity of the Professor and his friends. Thus circumstanced, Dr. Hufeland perceived, how deeply and destructively that mental spasin must have acted on the body, to produce a degree of insensibility from which the worst conse quences might be apprehended. All the inquiries into the origin of this singular belief had hitherto been unsuccessful. Now only, he disclosed the secret to one of his intimate friends, namely, that on the preceding evening he had met with a white figure in the passage, which nodded to him, and, in the same moment, he heard a voice exclaiming-"The day after to-morrow, at nine o'clock in the morning, thou shalt die !"—He continued to settle his domestic affairs; made his will; minutely appointed his funeral; and even desired his friends to send for a clergyman; which request, however, was counteracted. Night appearedand he began to compute the hours he had to live, till the ominous next morning. His anxiety evidently increased with the striking of every clock within hearing. Dr. Hufeland was not without apprehension, when he recollected instances in which mere imagination had produced melancholy effects-but, as every thing depended on procrastinating, or retarding that hour in which the event was predicted; and on appeasing the tempest of a perturbed imagination, till reason had again obtained the ascendancy, he resolved upon the following expedient: Having a complaisant patient, who refused not to take the remedies prescribed for him, (because he seemed conscious of the superior agency of his mind over that of the body,) Dr. Hufeland had recourse to laudanum, combined with the extract of hen-bane: twenty drops of the former and two grains of the latter were given to the youth, with such effect, that he fell into a profound sleep, from which he did not awake till eleven o'clock on the next morning. Thus, the prognosticated fatal hour elapsed; and his friends waiting to welcome the bashful patient, who

had agreeably disappointed them, turned the whole affair into ridicule. The first question, however, after recovering from this artificial sleep, was "What is the hour of the morning?"-On being informed that his presages had not been verified by experience, he assured the company that all these transactions appeared but as a dream. After that time he long enjoyed a good state of health, and was completely cured of a morbid imagination.'

Had this youth fallen into less sagacious hands, the event would, it is more than probable, have answered to the prediction; and the occurrence would have stood as irrefragable evidence of that creed which imagines that the times have not long since passed of individual and immediate communication between the world of sense and the world of spirit. How the fancy originated it is difficult to say; but it is not less difficult to explain the phenomena of dreams.

Nervous and mental affections of every kind are, in the present day, proverbially prevalent: were we called upon to give an explanation of this fact, we should say that the cause is to be sought for in that artificial state of society which grows necessarily out of a constant advancement in civilization. We multiply our comforts, and, by consequence, our cares and crosses. We beat out and expand our minds, as it were, and thus create a more extended surface of impression. Savages, unless in cases of palpable disorganization, are neither nervous nor mad;-they are not the subjects of that variety of exciting agents which, while by a law of nature they prove destructive of their own good, are likewise liable, from their multiplicity and complication, to act in undue measure, and thus to set all wrong. In proportion "In proportion as man emerges from his primæval state, do the Furies of disease advance upon him, and would seem to scourge him back into the paths of nature and simplicity."

Are we then to forego civilization for the sake of sanity? The choice of good and evil, in this particular, is no longer left us; we have tasted of the fruit, and we must, in some measure, abide the consequences. But it is of vital importance not to abandon ourselves to the evils of our own creation, or neglect an obvious duty in seeking for the remedy. The great secret which we are taught by reflecting upon the consequences of luxury, is that of making ourselves as independent as possible of external circumstances. Why did Dr. Darwin's patient feel with such dreadful force the disease of tædium-vita? Because he permitted himself to be a mere puppet, and depended for happiness upon a warm fire-side and a pack of cards. In thus cautioning our readers against a -course of sensual indulgence, we shall probably incur the charge of sermonizing; but it is the nascent feeling of dependence upon externals against which we conceive it of so much moment to be on our guard. In urging the necessity of mental occupation, in order to