that this is an adequate or even a fair reply to the difficulty. For it implies that Christ and His disciples deliberately countenanced an opinion which they knew to be false; that they fostered superstition though their professed object was to proclaim only truth.

We may be quite sure that they would never sanction any falsehood— they would never countenance any superstition. We may be quite sure, also, that when they spoke of the miserable victims of madness, as daiμovisóμevoi, they had some real and deep meaning in it. And we believe that only by taking this view, and meeting the difficulty which the words present fairly and honestly, shall we be able to find any answer to it. No argument was ever yet really strengthened, but rather weakened, by disingenuousness and evasions.

There lay a very awful truth under their words- —a truth which, in our opinion, is scarcely held in view at all, but to a great extent obscured and overlooked, in the meaning so often attached to their words, of a real, visible, palpable demon being within the men. What the Evangelists believed, and meant their readers to believe, was this, that all evil, especially such evil as affected the spirits and minds of men, was the work of the devil; and they represent Christ as the Deliverer from this evil. Now if they had represented Him as healing men's bodies only, whilst He passed over the diseases of the mind, they would scarcely have given a full idea of what the Deliverer was - the Destroyer of the devil's power, the Restorer of man's true humanity. To attribute then, as they do, the malady of insane men to the "possession" and power of Satan, is only speaking in accordance with the view given above-in accordance with the whole spirit and teaching of the Bible-in accordance also with their own expressed teaching with reference to the diseases of the body. For, in recording the case of that poor "daughter of Abraham" bound, and bowed together with the spirit of infirmity eighteen years, it is expressly stated, that "she was bound by Satan." He is described in another place as possessing "the power of death,” rò кpáros toũ Davárov. To this it will naturally be answered that though disease and death are represented as the work of the devil, yet we never read of any diseased man as being " possessed by the devil." Of course we never do. The language would be absurd and false in such a case. For disease affects only the body, the outer shell, and not the real ego of the man. But insanity possesses the mind, the actual personality of the man. Therefore in the one case it is simply said, Satan hath bound the body; but in the other, the man is possessed with him. And it would be just as absurd to infer from this language, in the one case, that actual demons dwelt within the man, as it would in the other that diseased men were stricken or bound, or the dead cut off, in every case by an actual

stroke or personal act of the Evil One. What is really meant is thisthat disease and death are the effect of that sin which the devil tempted man to commit, and still tempts him to perpetuate; and that insanity also is the result of the same malignant influence, exerted on the mind as well as the body. This, indeed, is all that can be drawn from the Scripture words on the subject. We never read of one single case possessed by Satan, the actual, the real diáßoλos, but by daiμoves, or dauória - evil influences proceeding from the Prince of Evil. There is certainly nothing in the word daiμor itself to indicate more than this -nothing to indicate, necessarily, a personal existence. It is used in one case, at least, by the Septuagint translators in no stronger meaning than this, rather indeed a weaker, as the equivalent of the Hebrew res nihili, any vain, perishable thing, particularly idols.

And everything which the Evangelists predicate of these demons is perfectly easy of explanation on the supposition that the daípoves were not personal existences. It is true they are spoken of as casting their victims into the fire, &c. But every language has forms of expression analogous to this. It is just what we should expect in an Eastern language; that the words and deeds of a man acting under the impulse of insanity should be attributed, not to the man, but to the influence by which he was impelled. Free as our own language is from all tendency of the kind, we have analogies even in it. We personify anger; and men's words uttered in passion are overlooked and forgiven, as being not his own words, but those of that furor that possessed him. We say of the follies and inanities uttered under the influence of wine, "It is the wine speaking." The language of the Evangelists means no more than this-a man utters wild words, or does deeds of folly and madness, but the man's mind is not under his own control; an evil influence possesses him, therefore his deeds and words are not attributed to himself, but the evil power, or dawr, that has rule over him. It is just the very language we should expect to find in the Gospel descriptions of the men; the very language that would appear most natural and proper, more especially when we take into consideration the fact that insane persons often speak and act under an impulse against which their real self rebels, but is too weak to resist. We quote as an authority for this assertion the opinion of Dr. Guislain on the subject, from the analysis of his work which appeared in former numbers of this journal:-" I have known patients who have said to me, 'Something, I know not what, an electric force, perhaps, compels me . . . . . I must act in opposition to my intentions.' Others say, 'There is in me some one who is not myself-who drives me, and forces me to act.'"

Every one at all conversant with the insane must have seen cases of

this kind; men possessed of a sort of double consciousness; the actual ego of the men feeling itself fettered, or driven onward by some strange impulse, and perfectly conscious of the thraldom, yet not having strength of will to resist it.

The tenour of these observations is to prove that the language employed by the Evangelists in speaking of the demoniacs, though at first sight it presents us with some difficulties, is not, on a fuller consideration, inconsistent with the theory that the insane and the demoniacs are one. There is nothing in it to overthrow that theory; so that the arguments which we employ to show the analogy between the character and acts of the insane and of demoniacs remain in their full force, unassailed and unassailable.

We shall proceed now to offer some evidence, that in giving to the word the signification of maniac or insane, we are not imposing upon it an arbitrary meaning of our own. We are not without proof that this is the sense which the Jews and the writers of the Gospels themselves put upon it. We have seen in a former part of this Essay, that the Evangelist St. Matthew employs this, or an equivalent term, as synonymous with the word Lunatic, or Epileptic. Now, if an epileptic person were demoniac, the inference is clear that the writers of the New Testament did not employ the word to signify a supernatural disease. And since their application of it shows that it has also a wider meaning, and that it refers to a class of diseased persons of whom the epileptics are but a small portion, how irresistible the conclusion that that class to whom they applied it were simply the insane. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that, in St. Matthew's account of the healing of one of these demoniacs, he speaks of the man after his restoration to health, as sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind:" owopovouvra is the word he employs on this occasion a word which clearly intimates that, according to this writer, his state of mind was unsound before, but the miracle of healing had given back its sanity again.

The people also affixed this meaning to the term. On more than one occasion we read of them uttering these blasphemous words to our Lord, "Thou hast a devil:" an expression exactly analogous to the words, "Thou art demoniac." Now they apply this expression to Him, not because of any supposed wickedness in Him, but because His language appeared to them unintelligible, incoherent raving. He said, they went about to kill him. They thought this the dream of a madman. He told them, by implication, that they were not Abraham's children. They thought it the language of folly and delusion, and again apply the term to Him. He told them, if a man kept His saying, He should not see death. This seemed to them madder than all.

Abraham was dead, and the prophets. It seemed to them the wildest folly; and they replied, "Now we know thou hast a devil." On the fourth occasion they clearly explain their meaning,-" He hath a devil and is mad," kaì μaivɛɩ,-He was under delusion, a wild and mad enthusiast, deceived, and a deceiver.

This kai paive of theirs is the very term applied by Festus to St. Paul, when he believed him, as they believed Christ, to be speaking the words of a wild delusion.

We see, therefore, that the expression, "Thou art demoniac," is only a Jewish way of declaring that a man is mad, deluded, wild, insane.

Before we conclude, we must say just one word in reply to a large class of persons, whose scruples we wish to respect, who believe that our view on this subject goes far to deprive our Saviour's most wonderful works of all that made them miraculous. We scarcely flatter ourselves that any argument of ours will carry conviction to their mind. We do not know what views they entertain of insanity. It may seem to them a very slight, unnoticeable miracle to heal it with a single word, as our Lord did. But for ourselves we must confess that to restore the demented to vigour of thought, to banish all mental delusions, to heal raving maniacs and hopeless idiots in an instant and with one single word of power, seems to us one of the grandest, noblest, most Godlike miracles we can possibly conceive of. It is a miracle which, to our thinking, has a much deeper meaning for us, and all generations of men-a meaning that appeals much more to our sympathies than that which represents Christ as ejecting from men actual, palpable devils. For in the one case, wonderful though the work is, He is but healing a disease which never, that we know of, appeared before, and never may appear again. Whilst in the other, He cures a malady which all men concur in believing to be the most fearful that can afflict humanity; a malady that has existed in every age of the world; a malady that may befall any one of us, since, to use the language of an eloquent and learned writer on insanity, "neither the genius of a Southey or a Tasso, nor the wit and vigour of a Swift, nor the tenderness of a Cowley, nor the piety and talent of a Cruden or Hall, can exempt men from its influence." In healing this disease, Christ appears as the Lord of mind and matter, the Restorer of our true and real humanity. He declares to us, by this miracle, that as it is the work of the Evil One to overthrow the balance of the mind and cover it with darkness; so it is His work to restore and give light. And all they whose lives and talents are devoted to the study of this painful disease, that they may mitigate the evils of it and remove them, have thus, in their noble work of mercy, the encouragement of His Divine example.

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AN ANALYSIS OF GUISLAIN'S WORK ON INSANITY.

TWELFTH LECTURE.

(Continued from No. XXVII., page 443.)

On delirium or disorder of the ideas.—I have shown you the moral sensibility painfully affected, the passions diseased, and the pathological perturbations of the will. Now let us consider morbid ideas, delirium. Delirium, which I shall define to be a marked aberration of reason, is an error in the conceptions, a disorder in the ideas, which the patient can neither resist, nor put an end to; it is always a chronic condition in which he regards as realities the phantoms of his imagination.

The delirium may be general, or partial when it relates to certain isolated ideas. There are two species of delirium-one essential, pure, constituting a disorder absolutely simple; the other symptomatic, secondary, tertiary, arising at the same time as other disorders, and disappearing with them. In special delirium, the patients preserve more or less the aspect and bearing of a healthy man. The memory remains intact; they count, calculate; they distinguish right and wrong; they judge of events; up to a certain point they can conduct themselves suitably in society, sometimes even carry on their affairs. Most frequently delirious madmen are not conscious of their state; they look upon their dreams as realities. There are states in which reason and the imagination engender errors, and in which the patient feels that he is the sport of an intellectual phantasmagoria. This state is not delirium.

In partial delirium, the sleep may be disturbed; but the nutritive functions are rarely disturbed.

I recognise four distinct categories of erroneous conceptions,-1. An accusative delirium.

Many patients thus affected talk of secret means which their pretended enemies use against them. Often these imaginary beings act at a distance; they have electricity, magnetism at their disposal.

A captain, formerly aide-de-camp to Byron, in Greece, now in this establishment, is convinced that enemies in the island of Ipsara work upon his mind by the aid of a machine he does not describe. "Yes, sir, those villains yonder are working the machine. you know the machine." If you ask him what machine? he smiles cunningly, as if to say, "You, too, are setting a trap for me."

We have patients profoundly impressed with the belief that the pump-water is poisoned, and that arsenic is put into all the food. They refuse food accordingly. In this case the refusal has a motive; they refuse because they think you want to get rid of them. In folly, on the contrary, this refusal is a caprice of the will; the patient refuses to eat without knowing why.

Others behold spies on every side. The features of these change, they turn pale at the sight of another patient, or of a keeper approaching them; they take them for assassins or traitors. This species constitutes a form of transition which connects delirium with mania; the whole condition announces excitation, exaltation. In simple accusative delirium, the patient is much more

calm.

2. The delirium of inspiration. I define the condition of those affected with this form by describing them under the term of erotic monodelirious, religious, ambitious, and hypochondriac monodelirious.

Erotic acts are sometimes accompanied by a marked derangement in the conceptions and ideas. These are false interpretations, pretended marriages, the persuasion of having had children contrary to the fact. This is metromono delirium.