The same is alluded to by Shakspeare in his “Hamlet,” when he is
cautioned by Horatio not to follow the Ghost,--
“What if it tempt you towards the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea;
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And _draw you into madness_? Think of it,--
The _very place_ puts toys of desperation,
_Without more motive_, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.”
This, though fiction, is true to nature. We know how many have jumped
from monuments, and given way to an impulse to suicide created by
circumstances. Many instances of the same kind might be brought
together, not merely from our classical writers, but from the pages of
our journals and newspapers. The cases of suicide which seem to have
been suggested by the contemplation of frightful precipices, deadly
poisons, or dangerous weapons, may be considered under this head. Hence
the importance of avoiding evil thoughts, and tampering with dangerous
ideas. The same kind of feeling sometimes urges people to contemplate
scenes of suffering and distress, which are painful to be witnessed, or
pushes them on to acts which they at the same time dread. This tendency
is also well alluded to by the great poet of nature in the scene in
“Romeo and Juliet,” where the latter contemplates her anticipated
position in the tomb of all the Capulets:--
“How if, when I’m laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Comes to redeem me?
* * * * *
Alack! alack! shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears?
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints,
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And in this rage with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?”
This insane feeling is here well portrayed, where the very speaker has
been previously expressing her horror of that dreadful place, where--
“Bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud.”
There are feelings sometimes which are contradictory in their
nature and objects. The mind is strangely perplexed in a war of
emotions--emotions which are cherished whilst they are painful. Actions
are not always dictated by the simple feelings which seem to have
given them birth. How many persecuting spirits have wept for those
they have persecuted! There are those whose feelings of mercy and
forgiveness have struggled hard and yet yielded to pride and an ignoble
revenge. Such contradictory feelings do indeed partake of an insane
character, and there is a fine significance in the words of the poet,--
“That to be wroth with those we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.”
I bring forward these remarks on such states of mind, because I think
it of great importance (as they really do exist) that they should be
at once deprecated as unhealthy and insane feelings; and in order
if possible to make it appear that the proper control of the mind,
which constitutes virtue, is in reality the most conducive to a sound
understanding. Let it not be considered, however, that I mean to assert
that mental derangement is necessarily the result of vice--it is more
often the cause of it. To resume, however. In the autobiography of
the celebrated Goëthe, he makes reference to this most unfortunate
contention of feeling.
Goëthe says,--“I accordingly fell into that evil disposition of mind
which often misleads us so far as to make us find a pleasure in
tormenting those whom we love; and I abused the fondness of a young
female by tyrannical and arbitrary caprices. Secure of the affection
of Annette, and of her anxiety to please me, I vented on her all
the ill-humour that the failure of my poetical essays, the apparent
impossibility of doing myself honour by them, and everything else that
occurred to vex me. I poisoned our best days by groundless and unworthy
jealousies. She long endured all these follies with angelic patience;
but I had the cruelty to tire it out.”[31]
Hazlitt observes, that men often “take a perverse delight in
acting, not only contrary to reason, but in opposition to their own
inclinations.”[32]
Again and again I may say that the contemplation of these curious
workings of the mind should lead us to see the importance of attending
to its due regulation, and make us regard improper feelings as insane
impulses which are to be dreaded as disease.
The peculiar notions which some eminent men entertain, probably against
their better judgments, may be also just alluded to. Scott speaks of a
feeling of _pre-existence_ in his Diary (Feb. 17.):--
“A hard day of working, being I think eight pages before dinner. I
cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking down, that yesterday, at
dinner time, I was strongly haunted by what I would call the sense of
pre-existence--viz. a confused idea that nothing that passed was said
for the first time; that the same topics had been discussed, and that
the same persons had stated the same opinions on them.... There was a
vile sense of want of reality in all I said and did.... Something of
this insane feeling remains to-day, but a trifle only.”[33]
This feeling of pre-existence is a sort of poetical feeling;--I mean
that it is most frequently met with in persons of highly imaginative
minds, or in those engaged in metaphysical pursuits. Dickens mentions,
in his “Pictures from Italy,” his first sight of Ferrara in the
following terms:--
“On the foreground was a group of silent peasant girls leaning over the
parapet of a little bridge, looking now up at the sky, now down into
the water; in the distance a deep bell; the shadow of approaching night
on everything. If I had been murdered there on some former life I could
not have seemed to remember the place more thoroughly, or with more
emphatic chilling of the blood; and the real remembrance of it acquired
in that minute is so strengthened by the imaginary recollection, that I
hardly think I could forget it.”[34]
Shelley states, “that whilst walking with a friend in the neighbourhood
of Oxford, a scene presented itself which he remembered long ago to
have seen _in a dream_.”[35] Mrs. Shelley remarks on this, “I remember
well his coming to me pale and agitated to seek refuge in conversation
from the fearful emotions it excited.”
Many of us may have a sort of feeling of reminiscence of things which
we in reality see for the first time, probably because they awaken a
train of thought similar to what other objects may have previously
excited.
From these desultory remarks on the characters of mind which
accompany the more highly, and may be unduly, developed powers of the
imagination, I may proceed to speak of the connexion of bodily disease
with mental peculiarity.
Every one knows the effect of disease on the human mind in rendering
it a prey to uneasy feelings and capricious changes. Happy, indeed,
is he who has no reminiscences of weary hours spent in midnight
vigils, or long days of unrest, in which the mind refused to take its
wonted pleasure in occupation or literature. We are, perhaps, too
apt to regard our minds as above the influence of circumstances, and
altogether dependent on self-control and voluntary effort. Disease may
teach us that the mind itself is the gift of a superior power, and its
very complexion dependent on causes which we cannot command.
Shakspeare, as you all well know, makes a happy allusion to the effect
of disease in enervating the mind, in Cassius’s speech in contempt of
Cæsar:--
“He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake. ’Tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their colour fly;
And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose his lustre! I did hear him groan;
Ay! and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cried, Give me some drink, Titinius,
_As a sick girl_.”
Apoplexy and palsy bring the finest minds to imbecility. The sufferer
yields to fits of passion, and readily “dissolves in tears,” in
alternate succession, and thus remains an object for pity and the
tolerance of friendship, until another attack completes the ruin, and
leaves him a miserable wreck--the shadow of his former self. “By this
distemper,” Sir Henry Halford tells us, “the talents of the great
Marlborough were confounded.” The most serene and powerful minds are
troubled by disorders of this nature,--curious aversions, fits of
irritation, and whining imbecility, take the place of easy and kindly
dispositions; so that our very virtues are dependent on the sufferance
of a superior power.
The languor and lassitude which accompany biliary derangements are
well known and of common remark. The peculiar perverse states of mind
which attend various forms of hysteria, furnish us with some of the
most curious instances of human weakness which can possibly engage the
attention. The effects of indigestion in creating frightful dreams,
have been experienced by us all. How rejoiced we are, after suffering
from the most terrible nocturnal alarm, to awake, and “find it all a
dream.” Perchance a bull pursues us, and our limbs refuse to move,--a
wild and disgusting animal fastens its teeth on us, and escape is
in vain,--an immense load bears on us, and instant suffocation is
impending.
Sterne, in his “Sentimental Journey,” illustrates the effects of
disease on the mind in his usual striking manner:--
“The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris, and from
Paris to Rome, and so on. But he set out with the spleen and jaundice,
and every object he passed by was discoloured or distorted. He wrote
an account of them, but ’twas nothing but the account of his miserable
feelings. I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon,--‘’Tis
nothing but a huge cockpit,’ said he.... I popped upon Smelfungus
again at Turin in his return home, and a sad tale of sorrowful
adventures had he to tell.... He had been flayed alive, and bedevilled,
and used worse than St. Bartholomew, at every stage he had come to.
‘I’ll tell it,’ cried Smelfungus, ‘to the world.’--‘You had better tell
it,’ said I, ‘to your physician.’”
It is well known that age induces great mental changes. We are all
willing to suppose that we grow wiser as we grow older, and it is to
be hoped that this is really the case; but so far as our morality is
concerned, we should bear in mind that we forsake many of our vices
only because the temptation no longer exists. We “_put away childish
things_” when we cease to have the desires of childhood; and the vices
of youth would often come back in advanced life if we could bring back
the fresh feelings of youth, and all the impulses which first took
possession of our souls. How much such considerations should make us
humble, charitable, and forgiving; should render us distrustful of our
own virtue, and compassionate for the failings of others.
Delicate states of health often induce, or are connected with, states
of mind which seem too refined for the common intercourse of life.
There is often a precocity of mind in delicate children which far
surpasses in nicety of feeling the ideas of those more advanced in
age. They who have remembrance of their early sick beds can tell how
little their own ideal creations were understood, and how little known
were the deep recesses of their infant minds. The practical in after
life takes the place of the poetical, and the fine sensibility shrinks
and withers in the rude competition of actual life, and in reality
“concealment, like a worm i’ th’ bud, feeds on the damask cheek.”
Debility of body is often, in fact, generally, productive of great
mental susceptibility, and sometimes irritability of mind. Shakspeare
says, “Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.” People who have
robust health, and have always enjoyed such, can enter little into
the sentiments of others, nor appreciate the feelings which accompany
feeble and imperfect states of health, or constitutions of greater
delicacy and refinement. Shelley says, “I know not the internal
constitution of other men. I see that in some external attributes they
resemble me; but when, misled by that appearance, I have thought to
appeal to something in common, and unburden my inmost soul, I have
found my language misunderstood, like one in a desert and savage
land.”[36]
In considering the human mind, in its medical aspects, it might
naturally enough be supposed, that the subject of insanity would
form a principal part. I shall not, however, for many reasons, enter
upon it in this place, further than to touch upon those lighter, or
more partial derangements, which are less commonly made matter of
observation or remark.
It has often appeared to me, that much good might arise from the
consideration of mental sanity, on a finer scale than has hitherto
been afforded. The condition of the mind may not be properly healthy,
without being betrayed into those complete aberrations which shock
the observer, or call for the interference of friendly restraint.
The subject has its relations, both to morals and jurisprudence; but
there is, perhaps, no education which so fits the mind to enter on its
consideration, as that which is prescribed by the study of medicine.
When we contemplate our species in the workings of great and good
minds, we cannot fail to feel proud of a humanity which is capable
of achieving vast designs, and compassing mighty undertakings. The
names of Newton and Locke inspire us with a kind of reverence for the
capabilities of our nature. We then, indeed, perceive, that there is
“a divinity which stirs within us, and indicates eternity to man.” How
high and godlike is the mind which can scan its own operations, sit
in judgment on itself, review the events of past ages, and anticipate
the future progress of societies and nations. It would be a pleasing
task to dwell on the greatness of the human mind. We see it in the
honest and sturdy Franklin--the humble and philosophic Dalton--the
persevering and indefatigable Priestley--the bold and imaginative
Davy--the philanthropic Howard--the laborious and highly-gifted Hunter.
If we turn from this picture of the more lofty style of man, and look
to those aberrations of the intellect which we find in the receptacles
for the insane, we must feel a humiliation at least equal to our
previous gratification. Here we have the drivelling idiot--the raving
madman--the moping melancholic--the incoherent dreamer--and the timid
and suspicious hypochondriac. Nor is it a correct opinion, that the
division between the intellectual and insane portion of mankind is so
broad as it appears on a cursory consideration. That there are minor
aberrations of mind which do not come within the limits of actual
madness, there can be no doubt; nor is real insanity so far dissevered
from the more healthy operations of the mind, as to be altogether
incompatible with intermissions of extraordinary brightness.
It is well known that many of our eminent writers, especially those
of an imaginative kind, were hypochondriacs. The unfortunate Cowper
and Collins were of this class; and Chatterton and Haydon, it will be
remembered, destroyed themselves under its influence. The Rev. Robert
Hall had periods of actual insanity, and the elegant Charles Lamb
probably escaped from his sister’s fate only by the necessities of his
own position. Whitbread, Romilly, Londonderry, and Calcraft, put an end
to their own existences; but the list is too great to particularise,
and it is enough to know, that learning and genius are not removed from
the worst of human calamities.
The fate of the unfortunate Swift is too well known to need comment;
but even before the period at which his mind gave way, it is too
probable that he inwardly laboured under a mental infirmity which, in
itself, might be nearly allied to his genius.
The last document which we possess of Swift, as a rational and
reflecting being, is given by Sir W. Scott, in his life of the Dean;
and, as Sir Walter says, awfully foretells the catastrophe which
shortly afterwards took place.
“I have been very miserable all night, and to-day extremely deaf, and
full of pain. I am so stupid and confounded, that I cannot express
the mortification I am under, both in body and in mind. All I say is,
that I am not in torture; but I daily and hourly expect it. Pray let
me know how your health is, and your family. I hardly understand one
word I write. I am sure my days will be very few--few and miserable
they must be.
“I am, for those few days, yours entirely, J. SWIFT.
“If I do not blunder, it is Saturday.”
From these glimpses of the misfortunes and imperfections of great men
we may see that genius is not unalloyed. Carlyle, in his estimate of
Scott, has much sense in the following remark:--“The truth is, our
best definition of Scott were perhaps even this, that he was, if no
great man, then something much pleasanter to be, a robust, thoroughly
healthy, and withal very prosperous and victorious man.” What we call
genius has often a degree of eccentricity connected with it, and, as
Dr. Ferriar has hinted, may even have an alliance with insanity. “No
doubt,” says he, “the same causes which in a strong degree produce
madness, may, in a lower, increase the natural powers of the mind.”
High cultivation and extraordinary talents are not in themselves the
certain means of goodness nor of happiness. The mind, rendered more
subtle and more oppressed with thought and ambition, looks back even to
its primitive simplicity with a feeling little short of regret. Byron
says--
“I feel almost at times as I have felt
In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
My heart with recognition of their looks.”[37]
On the other hand, the mental powers which are the farthest removed
from insanity are not perhaps the most ingenious, fertile, or
imaginative. The more brilliant mind which sees relations not
perceptible to others--the associations of which are not too strong and
constant to forbid erratic flights, may be, on that very account, the
more capricious, unsettled, and uncertain in its operations--possibly,
the more easily pushed from its own balance, and lost from its very
want of anchorage to slow and settled, albeit erroneous, doctrines.
They who have undergone great changes of opinion can alone know what
it is to abandon the landmarks of thought, and go out into a sea of
meditation, without any well-known beacon to guide them, or familiar
appearance to mark their course. Errors may be dear, _even sacred_ to
the mind, and to abandon the errors which ages have nursed, may indeed
be difficult to those who have cherished them from their earliest
infancy.
As minds differ greatly in respect to the intellectual powers, so they
differ also in regard to the affections and instinctive impulses, and
these latter appear to be subject to aberrations independently of
the former. The late Dr. Prichard, in a very able work on “Insanity
in its Relations to Jurisprudence,” has treated of the subject under
the head of “Moral Insanity;” and were I to state all that I think
important, I should not content myself without transcribing the
greater part of what he has written. It may seem rather startling to
look upon _moral_ aberrations as resulting from mental infirmities. I
am far from wishing to appear as an apologist for vice, but a close
attention to the subject obliges me, in fairness, to admit, that the
propensities and impulses of the mind may want a just balance as well
as the intellectual powers. I feel that I have not here room to do
justice to the subject, but I may say that those who have given most
attention to the various phases of insanity are coming to this opinion.
Such views cannot, perhaps, alter materially our social relations
nor penal institutions, but they will at least make our charity more
broad and lasting, and our compassion for the erring more enlightened.
Undoubtedly the protection of society requires that the morally insane
be arrested in the career of crime; for if it _needs be that offences
come_, it must also needs be that there _be woe to him through whom
they come_.
The facts upon which the evidence of moral insanity rests are too
striking and numerous to admit of doubt, and the subject would probably
have long ago been more fully investigated, had it not been for the
privacy attached to instances of this kind, and the reluctance which
is naturally felt to admit a plea which appears, at least on first
consideration, to have dangerous consequences.
The existence of moral insanity is recognised by Esquirol and Georget,
on the continent, as well as by Dr. Prichard, Dr. Hitch, and others,
in England,--indeed, by the best authorities we have on the subject.
Insanity is far from showing itself merely in hallucinations and
illusions, as is commonly supposed. Often the first overt act of
insanity is one of moral delinquency or extravagance, and however
delicate the question may appear in a moral consideration, it is
impossible to shut our eyes to the truth. In many of these instances
it seems that the absence of moral control constitutes the essence
of the disorder; and persons are known to conduct themselves well in
asylums who, immediately on being released, give way to excesses of
maniacal excitement, or betray the most ridiculous eccentricities and
absurdities. I may probably, on some future occasion, return to this
subject; here I can only hint at it.
Independently of this moral insanity, there are also grades of
difference in the passions and propensities of the mind, less
excessive, but still worthy of study in connexion with such
considerations as these.
That attachments are to some extent instinctive, would appear from the
maternal fondness even of the brute creation; and it is beautiful to
witness the tender offices to which it leads. There can be no doubt
but that feelings of personal attachment are much stronger in some
people than in others, and may even exist to a morbid degree. Sheridan,
in his play called the _Rivals_, apostrophises LOVE as the tormentor
and fiend, “whose influence acting on men of dull souls makes idiots
of them, but meeting subtler spirits betrays their course, and urges
sensibility to madness.” Dramatists and novelists have in all ages
amused mankind with the tragical creations of fiction, but such stories
interest only because the annals of real life have also their _broken
hearts_.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful delineations of human attachment in
comparatively modern literature, is that of Goëthe’s Margaret, in his
celebrated Faust. The clinging of affection in the last hour of horror
and of crime rises to a sublimity which is only heightened by the
confiding simplicity of the character. The mystical and unholy career
of Faust contrasts with the beautiful love of Margaret, nor can there
be imagined in the downward career of destruction any reproach which
can speak so eloquently as the voice of unaltered love:--
“Where I have him not,
Is the grave to me,
The whole world
Is embittered to me.
For him alone look I
Out at the window.
For him alone go I
Out of the house.
My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I shall find it never,
And never more.”[38]
How delicate is the sentiment of pity,--how exquisite the combination
of sorrow and of love!
Attachment to place may exist with more or less strength. Some persons
have strong preferences for particular places, and feel, when removed,
as if transplanted to an uncongenial soil, and pine for the scenes they
have left.
Amongst the Swiss, love of country sometimes rises to a degree which
actually impairs the health. I think Sir Walter Scott in his last
illness felt, in the spirit of his own poetry, a strange yearning for
the scenes of his native country, after literally “wandering on a
foreign strand.”
Man is, perhaps, as beautiful in the passions and affections of his
nature as in the highest reach of his intellectual powers. Terrible,
indeed, are the passions, but they are also glorious and lovely.
The very emotions, feelings, and instinctive impulses of our nature
constitute more than all else our _humanity_. The cold calculations of
the strongest minds are dead, without the warm influence of affection;
and we would rather pardon the frowardness of childhood, and the
caprice of woman, than lose all those endearing sentiments which bind
us to the one and to the other. But there is a maddening impulse, which
breaks out fiercely, and blinds the reason, or acts in spite of it. It
comes fearfully over the horizon of the mind, like a storm, and rages
in cruelty and guilt. The voice of pity pleads unheeded;--but there
comes a day when serenity is restored, and then all the better feelings
of the heart come up as a memorial against it. It is at such times that
every kind emotion and every tender sympathy of our nature bears with
it a sting more terrible than reproof or revenge.
Very strong and enduring hatreds are sometimes indicative of insanity
itself, especially where they are cherished without a sufficient cause.
Happiness is compatible alone with a healthy balance of the mind, and
the indulgence of proud hatred and uncharitable hostility is only a
small remove from the ravings of the madman, and the sound and fury
“which signify nothing.”
In connexion with the subject of hatred, I may mention a law of
the human mind which has always appeared to me of the greatest
importance--I mean, that the passions are greatly augmented by the
manifestation or expression of them. I have sometimes overheard an
animated conversation, passing by transitions of bitterness into the
most violent quarrel, each party rather fanning his own feelings by the
expression of them than listening to the abuse of his opponent.
A woman will sometimes set her arms akimbo in the street and
commence in a moderate tone of reproof, but after a time she will
acquire greater and greater warmth until she flies at the cap of her
antagonist. This law of the mind is very apparent in Lunatic Asylums.
I remember an old woman at the County Hospital at Lancaster, who is
always abusive, but the first few words she says, especially to a
stranger, are tranquil enough; after a little time, however, she waxes
louder and louder, and more and more vehement, although no remark or
opposition may have been offered to what she has said.
A tendency to excess sometimes seems to take its origin in mental
peculiarity. Where the imagination strongly predominates there is often
a liability to intemperance or excess, which brings talent to contempt,
and is a matter of surprise to those of more obtuse but evenly
regulated minds. The fate of the unfortunate Savage has been rendered
familiar to all the lovers of literature by the able pen of Johnson.
Addison and Parnell are said to have drunk to excess, and Burns is well
known to have given way to the same vice.
Anthony Wood, speaking of John Skelton, who, according to Erasmus, was
“the light and glory of English literature,” says, “that he was guilty
of many crimes, _as most poets are_.”[39]
Carlyle, in speaking of the _literary man_, says, “His fame rarely
exerts a favourable influence on his dignity of character, and
never on his peace of mind; its glitter is external for the eyes of
others; within, it is but the aliment of unrest, the oil cast upon
the ever-gnawing fire of ambition, quickening into fresh vehemence
the blaze which it stills for a moment.... The calamities of these
people are a fertile topic, and too often their faults and vices have
kept pace with their calamities. Nor is it difficult to see how this
has happened. Talent of any sort is generally accompanied with a
peculiar fineness of sensibility. Of genius, this is the most essential
constituent, and life in any shape has sorrows enough for hearts so
formed.”[40]
In conclusion, I may observe, that it is impossible, for many obvious
reasons, to enter fully, in this place, into the subject of medical
psychology, but it does seem to me that it is one which has not yet
found its due place in human consideration.
The very routine and common-place order of life are disadvantageous
to reflections of such a nature.--We hear the yell of the lunatic in
his ward, and see around the hideous congregation of his associates,
but as we close the door the sound dies on the ear--and it fades from
the recollection also. We see poverty and guilt stalking about the
streets of our cities, but we step into saloons, and forget, in the
forms and usages of society, the misery we shut out. There are _forms
and usages_ in our very thoughts, also, which stop the generous flow of
nobler and better feelings. We do not love mankind as we ought, because
we do not know it--or we know it only in our own selfish circle, and
forget that the same pattern of humanity is abroad; sometimes great in
the pride of beauty and vigour, and again miserable in depravity and
crime. We respect the high-born and the successful,--we build statues
to celebrate military prowess and statesman-like policy,--but we should
learn, also, to love man as _man_, to regard his failings as it
becomes those whose judgments can only be made with partial knowledge
and limited comprehension, and in all his wanderings still to recognise
his dear humanity.
There are facts before us, respecting the habitudes of the human mind,
which are as much to be relied on as any in physics, and as capable of
being generalised and rendered available for practical ends. Ignorance
of these facts is daily and hourly leading to cruel judgments, and to
misery in all its various forms. I am glad to say that we have now a
“Journal of Psychological Medicine,” which will, no doubt, greatly aid
in bringing about just views, and removing old and injurious notions.
For my part, I most solemnly believe that there are varieties of mental
constitution as great as any in outward form: and when I further
consider the difference which circumstances and education produce, it
appears most unfair and cruelly uncharitable to measure all by the same
standard, and expect like results from different minds. Yet this is
the practical effect of common notions--the doctrine which is tacitly
implied in our literature and in our law. There is an old adage, that
what _man has done, man may do_, but it would be ridiculous logic to
interpret such a passage to signify that what _one man_ has done,
_every man_ may do.
The abstract mind--the _general term_ of logicians--I grant, has no
disorders, no grades of health, no varieties of power--but of this
abstraction there is nothing in nature. The mind is connected with the
body, and affected by the body, and there is still a lesson of charity
to be learnt from a knowledge of such an association.
There is a common cry against the doctrine of different grades of
mental and moral capacity, as though it impugned the goodness of the
Deity; but to me it seems only in accordance with the great plan of
Divine government which commits different talents to the care of his
creatures. Some men are deformed, others good-looking--some invalids
from infancy, others robust--some idiots, epileptics, insane--some rich
from birth, others poor--some the descendants of a long and, may be,
an honourable line of ancestors, others the children of beggars and
of pick-pockets. The brains of men differ in shape and in volume; and
shall the mind be the same in all?
It seems to me on such a subject that _not_ to think _boldly_, is to
think _unjustly_, and to fear the truth on such a question, is to
imagine that the works of the _eternal_ Creator have need to be veiled
by the flimsy apologies of his perishing creatures.
* * * * *
Whilst these sheets were passing through the press, a remarkable
instance of suicide occurred in Leicester, some notice of which may not
be deemed irrelevant, as illustrative of the connexion of disordered
imagination with accomplishment of mind.
A lady, respectable both by birth and education, experienced a
succession of misfortunes, and was eventually reduced to a state of
want.
Being of literary habits, she endeavoured to maintain herself by the
sale of some books which she had published, but she did not meet with
much success. Her means became gradually more and more limited; and
one evening having experienced disappointment, she put an end to her
existence with poison.
It would appear, from the papers she left behind her, that her mind
was of a highly sensitive nature, and somewhat under the influence
of insane feelings. How far these latter may have been cherished or
evolved by misfortune, it is difficult to say. It is probable that they
might, at least, have remained in subjection if it had not been for
the pressure of calamities. The idea of suicide seems frequently to
have entered her mind, and she had actually composed a prayer to the
Almighty that no temptations might lead her to such an end.
It seems that she had written a statement of her case to Lady Peel, but
the document had never been presented. At an appropriate address, which
was delivered over her remains, some manuscripts were read, which show
her to have been capable of high poetic feeling, but reveal also the
strange peculiarities of her mind. One extract runs thus, and will be
read with interest.
“The visitor was gone, but still the glory of his presence seemed
to shine on the spot--still the solitary air seemed to murmur with
tremulous delight--and thus ever shall it be with those who have
once, detaching themselves utterly from life, received the visit of
the Angel. Faith, solitude, and space retain the splendour, and it
settles like a halo round their graves. Wherever the soul can wander,
the eternal soul of all things protects it still! The thoughts of
souls that would aspire like hers are all prayer! Canst thou think
it no sorrow, either to reject all human ties, all friendship, all
love, or to see day after day friendship and love wither from our life
as blossoms from the stem? Canst thou wonder how, with the power to
live while the world shall last, that ere even our ordinary date be
finished, we yet may prefer to die?--She arose fevered and oppressed
with new thoughts which raged within her, opened the casement, and
the ocean lay suffused in the stormy light; and the stillness of the
heavens never more eloquently preached the morality of repose to the
madness of earthly passions; the very hush seemed only to deepen the
wild desires of her soul, and the solemn stars, that are mysteries in
themselves, seemed, by a kindred sympathy, to agitate the wings of the
spirit, no longer contented with its thrall. As she gazed, a star shot
from its brethren, and vanished from the depths of space!”[41]
THE END.
LONDON:
SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW,
New-street-Square.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Read at a _Conversazione_ of the Manchester Royal Institution, and
published in No. 10. of the Psychological Journal, edited by Dr. Forbes
Winslow.
[29] P. 105.
[30] Vol. iv. p. 10., Lockhart’s Life.
[31] P. 218. vol. i.
[32] Characteristics, p. 82.
[33] P. 114. vol. vii.
[34] P. 102.
[35] Shelley’s Memoirs, p. 135.
[36] Memoirs, p. 189.
[37] Poetical epistle written to his sister.
[38] From a prose translation of Faust.
[39] Quoted from the “Memorials of London,” p. 237.
[40] Life of Schiller, p. 54.
[41] The particulars of this lady’s death (whose name was Caroline
Charlotte Veasey Gilldea), are contained in the Leicester Chronicle for
the 29th of November, 1851.
THE
MEDICAL ASPECTS OF DEATH,
AND
THE MEDICAL ASPECTS
OF THE
HUMAN MIND.
BY JAMES BOWER HARRISON, M.R.C.S.E. ETC.
FORMERLY SURGEON TO THE ARDWICK AND ANCOATS DISPENSARY, ETC. ETC.
Opinions of the Medical Press.
“Mr. HARRISON, the author of the very interesting little work before
us, has succeeded in his attempt to add another stone to the pyramid so
well commenced by previous inquirers. The first essay on the ‘Medical
Aspects of Death’ is a truly masterly account of all those appearances
which simulate death, and of death itself;--and it is written in so
philosophical a spirit, that it cannot but tend to fulfil the dictum
of Johnson, that ‘he had found physicians to be amongst the most
intelligent and well-informed of his friends.’ From a production like
the present it would be most difficult to find a quotation which would
convey an idea of its general tendency; but we extract the following as
a specimen of the author’s mode of treating the subject. * * * * * *
The second essay, which is one of _rare merit_, has been reprinted from
Dr. Forbes Winslow’s ‘Psychological Journal.’”--_Lancet_, January 10.
1852.
* * * * *
“‘The Medical Aspects of Death’ is an excellently-written essay on the
signs of death, the changes the body experiences after death, premature
interment, the bodily changes which immediately precede death, the
mode in which death takes place, the way in which the various suicidal
agents act in inducing death, and the signs of dying. Each of these
sections is illustrated by well-told anecdotes, and ornamented with
most appropriate quotations. The following extract will convey to our
readers a good idea of Mr. Harrison’s powers and style. * * * *
“The second essay ‘On the Human Mind, considered in some of its
Medical Aspects,’ is well written, and will well repay reading. It was
originally published in the ‘Psychological Journal.’”--_Medical Times
and Gazette_, January 24. 1852.
* * * * *
“In the elegant little volume now before us, bearing the above title,
Mr. Harrison, of Manchester, already very favourably known as a medical
writer, presents an interesting view of two important aspects of
mortality. The latter, ‘On the Medical Aspects of the Mind of Man,’ a
most able essay, has already appeared in the pages of our excellent
contemporary, the ‘Psychological Journal,’ and we doubt not has there
fallen under the observation of the majority of our readers. The former
contains first an excellent _resumé_ of the signs of death, a subject
which has lately been very fully investigated, chiefly by the French
physiologists, and the important results arrived at by whom we have
recently noticed at length; second, a review of the causes of death,
or the mode in which life terminates; and third, a notice of the
antecedent symptoms of death, or the bodily changes which immediately
precede it. The entire is written in a highly philosophic spirit,
containing throughout, not alone judicious observations on the intimate
link between life and death, which do honour to the author, but
valuable medical hints. We cordially commend the tone and character of
these essays, and we earnestly press their perusal on the profession.
Indeed they may be read too, with advantage, by the non-professional
public.”--_Dublin Quarterly Medical Journal_, February, 1852.
* * * * *
“In this little volume, Mr. Harrison presents us with a couple of
remarkably readable and pleasantly-written essays on two subjects,
neither of which it is easy to treat pleasantly. In his preface, the
author _naïvely_ observes that he has ‘never thought it essential that
a book should be dry in order to be useful.’ We think that he has
produced a useful book: we are sure that he has not added to the stock
of dry ones.
“In the first essay, the premonitory signs of death, the several modes
in which death is occasioned, and the indications of death having
really taken place, are discussed with an absence of disagreeable
detail, and yet with a fulness of description, that bespeak a skilful
and not unpractised hand. We do not know of any other work in which
the unprofessional reader could meet with the same information so
intelligibly and pleasingly conveyed, nor in which the medical man
would find the subject so appositely garnished with anecdotes and
classical illustrations. * * *
“The second essay touches pointedly, but gently, upon the slighter
deviations from health of mind, such as, not constituting acknowledged
insanity, are still indicative of disorder of the mental balance. To
do justice to Mr. Harrison’s mode of treating his subject, we should
have to transcribe his essay. We need scarcely say that we commend this
work to our readers. It is such as we may frequently find convenient
to place in the hands of our more intelligent patients. The author has
managed to combine the _utile_ with the _dulce_ in a way _which must
ensure success_.”--_Provincial, Medical, and Surgical Journal_, March
3, 1852.
* * * * *
LONDON:
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
_By the same Author_,
POPULAR MEDICAL ERRORS.
Price 3_s._ 6_d._
LONDON: LONGMAN AND CO.
* * * * *
SOME REMARKS
ON
THE CONTAMINATION OF WATER WITH THE POISON OF LEAD.
LONDON: CHURCHILL.
* * * * *
LETTER TO THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY
ON THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF
THE MANUFACTURE OF LUCIFER MATCHES, &c. &c.
MANCHESTER: HAYCRAFT.
Transcriber’s Notes
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter.