Candid avowals of Mr. Haslam especially, are dealt with too harshly; and a confidence is evinced in the efficiency of the writer's own plans of treatment, which, highly as we esteem his talents and judgement, we cannot say has, by any means, a full warrant from his own narrative of cases.

Failure in treatment is referred to delay in the application of appropriate remedies; to the censurable practice of sending the insane to receptacles for lunatics; and to the mistakes that are made with respect to the form of the disease. Mr. Hill is a decided enemy to lunatic asylums; and perhaps carries his objections to these establishments to an unjustifiable extent. We have ourselves been witnesses to the beneficial effects of these asylums, under certain circumstances; but it is a deplorable fact, that they are susceptible of abuse; and that they have been abused in a variety of ways. It seems, however, scarcely practicable, even if it were desirable, that every insane subject should have a separate residence, and a separate attendant, in the way that Mr. Hill suggests. While making this admission, we feel anxious to have it understood, that it is far from our design to advocate the indolent, unfeeling, and cruel principle, of indiscriminately condemning every nervous invalid to the stigma of madness, and to the confines of the mad-house. A conscientious discrimination and delicacy, ought ever to be exercised on these momentous and melancholy occasions. Nothing, perhaps, is more calculated to make a man mad, than the idea that he is thought to be so by others. The following recital of the Author, deserves the most serious consideration. It is a recital of heart-rending interest.

The amiable daughter of a once respectable tradesman of this city, now dead, became, at the age of twenty-three, a sufferer under the Sthenic form of insanity. She was naturally of a sprightly disposition, endowed with great sensibility, an excellent understanding, and most affectionate heart: becoming very unmanageable, her relatives sent her to an extensive asylum in a neighbouring county; during a long residence, she became convalescent, after a few well marked lucid intervals, in which she grieved excessively on discovering her situation. One day two old school-fellows were accidentally viewing the receptacle of multiplied misery, with an attendant in waiting, as a matter of mere travelling curiosity, (which, it is proper to notice, is a very reprehensible practice,) not knowing she was there. Upon entering a common sitting-room, the invalid was discovered sewing; when, lifting her eyes from her work, she fixed them most earnestly on the visitors, screamed, sprang from her chair, rushed into the arms of the foremost, and exclaimed, "Ah! my dear, dear S "you to see me HERE!!" and at intervals, screaming and sobbing, reiterated the words, adding, " in this place, in this figure," &c. As soon as her arms could be disengaged, she was removed to her VOL. III. N. S.

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own apartment, from whence she has scarce ever emerged, al❤ though upwards of ten years have succeeded the heart rending scene.' P. 382.

The fourth section of this chapter, entitled, On the Preven'tion of Insanity,' involves considerations of the highest political and moral interest. It is here that we find the principles of the Author conducting him to dangerous inferences; and here we become particularly impressed with the absolute necessity of accurately marking the constituents, or real essence of madness. We have already more than once observed, that in spite of all that has been, or that can be, advanced in defence of the doctrine of necessity, we must still consider man as a moral agent; and it is not until insanity be established that responsibility is lost. Surely then, we cannot be too earnest in our endeavours to ascertain the essentials of the two states of madness and sanity. Now it appears to us that every form of actual madness, is, in one way or other, resolvable into this; That imagination has become exalted to the strength of supposed perception, or actual belief of non-existing things. Short of this, an individual may be fretful, gloomy, wayward, melancholic, despondent, nervous-but he is not mad; and it requires a reiteration, or continuance of the above-mentioned circumstances, to constitute genuine insanity. Here then is the principle upon which the whole business rests; and an investigation of the mental state, with a view to ascertain its precise condition, resolves itself into an inquiry, whether the imagination has become so inordinately excited as to have deranged conception, and destroyed consciousness; which last circumstance involves the annihilation of free agency, and of consequent responsibility. The assassin Bellingham was not mad, inasmuch as the wanderings of his imagination had not proceeded a sufficient length to disorder the faculty of conception, and to convert the lamented victim of his guilt, into something different from what he actually was. Had Mr. Perceval been presented to the perceptions of the assassin, as an enemy seeking his life and fortune, the act of vengeance would then have been committed in supposed self-defence: it would have been an act of insanity, and no criminality would have attached to it, because no proper con sciousness would have been engaged in its perpetration. Again, the disappointed gamester, whose fortune, and imaginary happiness have been thrown away by the chances of a single night, and who, in consequence, dreadfully resolves, and rashly executes, his own destruction, rather than plunge into the abyss of poverty and ignominy, that he sees before him, is not a madman, but a criminal; and your pity for his fate, and sympathy with the sufferings of surviving friends, are, or ought to be, mingled with decided condemnation of the dreadful deed. But

upon the strict principles of necessity, which are the principles of materialism, and these latter we are concerned to say are the avowed principles of the work before us, pity is the sole sentiment that should be called into exercise upon such occasions. The advocate of these tenets is admonished to reflect most seriously, whether they do not involve the possibility of his being the advocate of assassination, and the apologist of suicide.

It must be allowed that cases sometimes occur, wherein propensities are displayed to acts of criminality, which seem to impel the mind with irresistible force, even while consciousness remains unimpaired, and the degree of guilt about to be incurred, is accurately judged of. But these instances we believe to be comparatively few; and here the question comes to be tried, of the precise signification which ought to attach to the term irresistible. The assassin already alluded to, argued the irresistibility of his criminal impulsions; and it may, with this laxity of interpretation, be said of every suicide, that he was irresistibly impelled.

The fact is, that these alleged cases of unconquerable impulse, how different soever in degree, are similar in kind, to what take place in the common and familiar occurrences of life. We may as well say that it is impossible for the voluptuary to forego his, vicious and unchristian habits, for the glutton to lay aside his gross and unmanly enjoyments, or for the gamester to abjure his dice, as talk of the irresistibility of propensities of a still more censurable and alarming nature. If we consult, on these occasions, the oracles of conscience, and regulate our decisions by her dictates, it will be found that she talks a language very foreign from physical necessity, and uncontrollable impulse. And with respect to prevention, which is the business of the section under notice, what are the means which afford most promise of success in accomplishing this object? Suppose the project of the assassin or the suicide, (and these examples we bring forward and dwell upon, because Mr. Hill has done the same,) suppose, we say, the projects of these in either instance were imparted to a friend, would that friend set about the prevention of the purposed deed, by physical agents, force being excluded—or would he not rather endeavour to dissuade by arguments drawn from a religious, moral, or political source, according to the requisites of the case? For our own parts, in the event of these last having been put into employment and failed, we should have very little confidence in the superior efficacy of vomits, camphor, digitalis, or belladona.

Had we time or space to pursue the investigation, we might enlarge here on the interesting subject of those preventive means, which should be exercised against the establishment of

such states as border on insanity, and which, under an improper management, often menace actual Junacy; but this, as we have already hinted, is not the place to pursue this research. We must not, however, dismiss this subject without repeating our admission that the nervous system is sometimes brought into such a state of morbid being, as to exhibit propensities beyond the power of resistance, even where we might hesitate in predicating the actual presence of insanity.

A melancholy case of the kind just now occurs to our recollection, of a very recent date indeed,; viz. that of a tender mother, and affectionate wife, expressing a wish to murder her husband and children. Now, our views respecting the actual essentials of insanity might be objected to, from the consideration of such instances as these. But upon minutely examining circumstances of this nature, it would be ascertained, that something like a belief existed of the necessity of the acts in question, very different from either the impassioned, or the cool perpetration of the deeds before alluded to:-a belief which, when so confirmed by repetition, as to become parcel of the mind,' would come to constitute genuine lunacy. In like manner, when an individual commits suicide upon a supposition-a belief-that he is executing the commission of a superior power, or that, as in a case which Mr. Hill relates, by applying the instrument to his throat, he is about to dislodge infernal spirits who have made good their lodgement within him, he performs an act of unconsciousness, and insanity-and is therefore justly freed from the imputation of crime.

We shall make no apology for having extended our criticisms on this head to some length, as our aim in having done so, will be obvious to the reader. The subject is unquestionably of prime import to the interests of the community, and we verily believe that a criminal and injurious laxity has obtained both, as it respects private and judicial decisions on cases of self-destruction. Criminal-inasmuch as conscience, and not respect for private feeling, ought to be the only guide in determining upon questions of this nature; and injurious-because we are convinced, that were the intentions of legislative enactment to be abided by, and acted up to in these very important investigations, the number of cases for investigation would be considerably diminished. Motives of shame, and apprehensions of infamy, would often deter, when higher motives had lost their influence.

But we must check our disposition to transgress our limits in pursuance of this view of the subject, and proceed to a more pleasing part of our duty as critics, viz. that of commendation; for in the two sections of the work, which treat more especially of the medical management of the insane, we find a great deal to approve and recommend. The practice of giving

repeated emetics, is spoken of in terms of high approbation; and they are recommended to be given in some cases every third morning for many weeks together, until finally the stomach has so far recovered its healthy tone, as to manifest a more ready disposition to action, from one half or one third of the accustomed quantity of the medicine, than it formerly did from the largest doses.' Mr. H. thinks one of the best formula for emetics, is that of Marryatt, which is composed of equal parts of tartarized antimony, and sulphate of copper. He deprecates the plan of giving much drink to facilitate the action of the vomit, and indeed states it as his opinion, that every kind of drink should be rigidly denied. Cold applications to the head, camphor, and fox-glove, are deservedly favourite remedies of our Author. There is some very good speculations on the modus-operandi of the digitalis in maniacal cases; but we feel our inability to give any thing like a satisfactory analysis of this portion of the treatise, and must refer our readers for information to the work itself.

A rather curious speculation is introduced here, respecting the possibility of madness being communicated in the way of infection, an opinion to which Mr. Hill inclines; but we are rather disposed to suspect that it has been forced upon him by his materializing notions, and his anti-madhouse mania. These sections close with a very important hint in regard to the great delicacy required in the management of insane convalescents.

'An old injurious train of thought cannot be too entirely dissevered, in order that the new and salutary one may be admitted, which once effected it must be duly cherished, and not rudely disturbed by ignorant inattention. Former intimacies are not to be renewed with recovering lunatics, by asking them a number of ridiculous questions, and probably two or three at a time before. one is answered, anticipating, or directing the sufferer's reply, thus confounding his yet feeble powers, whilst they sagaciously (as they mistakingly believe) observe in an under-tone of voice, or a stagewhisper, to some by stander, "I did it to see what he would say," as an ignorant, but well meaning father once did, on being permitted too early an interview with a convalescent daughter, shewing her a bank note, he desired her to try if she could read it, and readily complying, he expressed his astonishment that she could read. "Why father," said she, "what has been the matter with me that you thought I could not read?" This scene proved highly injurious to my patient, as there can be no doubt similar conduct has to numbers.' p. 374.

The book closes with an interesting chapter on the subject of pretended insanity, from which we should be tempted to make large extracts, had we not already exceeded our bounds. The principal means, Mr. Hill informs us, for the detection of pretenders to madness, are, a consideration of their probable motives for coun