Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the
action of reason and imagination, rarely or never.
* * * * *
Motives imply weakness, and the existence of evil and temptation. The
angelic nature would act from impulse alone. A due mean of motive and
impulse is the only practicable object of our moral philosophy.
_May_ 23. 1830.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND FUNCTIONAL LIFE.--HYSTERIA.--HYDRO-CARBONIC GAS.--
BITTERS AND TONICS.--SPECIFIC MEDICINES.
It is a great error in physiology not to distinguish between what may be
called the general or fundamental life--the _principium vitae_, and the
functional life--the life in the functions. Organization must presuppose
life as anterior to it: without life, there could not be or remain any
organization; but then there is also _a_ life in the organs, or functions,
distinct from the other. Thus, a flute presupposes,--demands the existence
of a musician as anterior to it, without whom no flute could ever have
existed; and yet again, without the instrument there can be no music.
* * * * *
It often happens that, on the one hand, the _principium vitae_, or
constitutional life, may be affected without any, or the least imaginable,
affection of the functions; as in inoculation, where one pustule only has
appeared, and no other perceptible symptom, and yet this has so entered
into the constitution, as to indispose it to infection under the most
accumulated and intense contagion; and, on the other hand, hysteria,
hydrophobia, and gout will disorder the functions to the most dreadful
degree, and yet often leave the life untouched. In hydrophobia, the mind is
quite sound; but the patient feels his muscular and cutaneous life forcibly
removed from under the control of his will.
* * * * *
Hysteria may be fitly called _mimosa_, from its counterfeiting so many
diseases,--even death itself.
* * * * *
Hydro-carbonic gas produces the most death-like exhaustion, without any
previous excitement. I think this gas should be inhaled by way of
experiment in cases of hydrophobia.
There is a great difference between bitters and tonics. Where weakness
proceeds from excess of irritability, there bitters act beneficially;
because all bitters are poisons, and operate by stilling, and depressing,
and lethargizing the irritability. But where weakness proceeds from the
opposite cause of relaxation, there tonics are good; because they brace up
and tighten the loosened string. Bracing is a correct metaphor. Bark goes
near to be a combination of a bitter and a tonic; but no perfect medical
combination of the two properties is yet known.
* * * * *
The study of specific medicines is too much disregarded now. No doubt the
hunting after specifics is a mark of ignorance and weakness in medicine,
yet the neglect of them is proof also of immaturity; for, in fact, all
medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science.
_May_ 25. 1830.