The company afterwards proceed to the parsonage; the Solitary takes leave at the door; the Poet and the Wanderer remain for the night. Thus the Excursion' is not finished; and the Author gives us ground to hope for a sequel; but whether that sequel is to be the third part of the whole Poem, or a second part of this second part, is not quite obvious. At any rate we have to expect two further portions of "The Recluse;" and that they will equal this specimen is as much as we dare hope, while we cannot doubt it. Life, however, is short, and the Author may not live to accomplish his' task.-Life is short, and many who read this volume may never see another. Mr. Wordsworth did not miscalculate his powers, when he began to compose this literary work;'it will live.-It has increased the interest which we always felt in the life and well being of the Author, and the hope of seeing the consummation of the plan is among our most pleasing anticipations.

Art. III. An Essay on the Prevention and Cure of Insanity; with Observations on the Rules for the Detection of Pretenders to Madness. By George Nesse Hill, Medical Surgeon, and Surgeon to the Benevolent Institution, for the Delivery of Poor Married Women, in Chester. 8vo. pp. 446. price 12s. Longman, and Co.

1814.

INSANITY is a subject of dreadful interest. There is

a melancholy peculiarity in the nature of mental maladies, to the description of which, language is inadequate. Mere bodily ailments, even of the most afflictive kind, are susceptible of much mitigation by the sympathies of friendship, or the kindness of relatives; but with madness, who can sympathize? It is not merely the sufferings, it is the actual loss, for the time being, of our friend, that in this case we deplore. The manly and conscious mind, is sunk down to the feebleness and imbecility of childhood. That countenance in which we once delighted to trace the turns of expression, and dwell on the features of intelligence, and which formerly met cur smile with responsive smile, and answered to all our affection, now presents us nothing but the stare of vacancy, or the dire expression of malignant hostility; and while firm faith, in the solemn truths and consoling promises of Christianity, can alone reconcile us to the lingering sufferings, or premature departure of those we love, that faith is assuredly required in a high degree, to bring the mind to a feeling of resignation, while contemplating the decay and destruction of kindred mind.

Whatever be the philosophical light in which this subject is

viewed,-whether we subscribe to the sentiments of one class of pathologists, and refer the whole series of changes which constitute mental aberration to bodily disorder, or with another class, consider such aberrations as, in some cases, more strictly and properly mental, the effect in either way is the same; and in all instances where consciousness and reflection have ceased to do their office, the subject of the disease is enveloped in the thick glooms of peculiar wo.

The melancholy interest of the subject in question, is still further augmented by the consideration, that complaints of the class which we are about to notice, are, in modern times, of comparatively frequent occurrence of nervous maladies, at least, the recent increase has become a matter of proverbial notoriety; and a writer, of no mean authority, has said that every nervous disease is a degree of insanity. Although we by no means subscribe entirely to this position, and shall have an opportunity in the course of our present investigation, to state the grounds of our dissent from the above-quoted apophthegms, we still think that the reason that these affections are of such acknowledged increase, would form a most interesting subject for the research of the medical philosopher. It is not, however, for us at present to step out of our path in order to pursue this inquiry, as it forms no part of the business of that treatise, the merits and demerits of which we are now called upon to

canvass.

The prominent and characteristic feature of the introductory portion of Mr. Hill's treatise, is a bold and undisguised defence of the doctrines of materialism. Now, as either the establishment, or the overthrow of these doctrines, does not end merely in a matter of speculative nicety, or theoretical belief, but possesses, as will be subsequently seen, a considerable influence on the conclusions to which we are to come, respecting the actual nature and distinct essence of mental malady, it will be proper to stop at the commencement of our disquisition, in order to say a few words on the controversy between the MENTALIST and the MATERIALIST.

The grand hinge, then, upon which the treatise under review turns, is this: That insanity has always corporcal disease for its foundation:'-a conclusion which, indeed, unavoidably follows from the premises, that every thing which we are accustomed to consider and to call an attribute of mind, may be traced to physical causes. Now if it be once allowed that all the pheno

* Dr. John Reid;-from whom we are told to expect shortly some observations on the subject of nervous ailments.

mena of mind are referable to organization, there is immediately opened a wide door for every licentious inference. The petulant and peevish man may, upon this principle, transfer the charge of waywardness from himself to his nerves and blood vessels: the miser may plead bodily necessity for his senseless and selfish pursuit of wealth and the more decided delinquent, even while in the perpetration of horrid crime, may refer as an excuse, to acknowledged and irresistible compulsions of con

stitution.

We are sufficiently aware that no question purely philosophical, can be properly tried solely upon the ground of its moral bearings; but, in the present instance, we have chosen, in the first place, to bring the tenets in question to their ad absurdum test, both because it will not be the business of the present paper to plunge into metaphysical subtilties, and because the moral tendency of the reasonings in question, is what we have principally to do with in reference to the particular subject under discussion, as will be seen in the sequel. However, before we for the present dismiss this dispute, we may be allowed to say further, that a great part of the doctrine of that class of philosophers, to whose speculations we now allude, is as inconsistent with a sound ratiocination, as it is pregnant with injurious consequences to the moral interests of the community.

The errors, as it appears to us, which attach to the schools of materialism, arise from considering the mere instrument in the light of the prime agent. Thus a consistent disciple of this philosophy would say, that because the visual organ, and light, are indispensable to the production of the phenomenon of vision, therefore, light, and the eye, are vision: or, that because the brain and nerves are, in some way or other, the principal media, through which perceptions are produced, therefore perception is some peculiar modification of the organs in question: than which conclusions, nothing can be more absurd, or inconsistent with philosophical induction. Reasoning of this nature, proceeds entirely, as it has been justly observed, upon the supposition of our acquaintance with causation, respecting which, the most profound philosopher is, and ever must be, as fully at fault as the veriest clown. Suppose that the retort of the chemist, the knife of the anatomist, and the reasoning powers of the physiologist, were, at some future period, to discover so much of the modes, and forms, and laws, of organized matter, as to make." our present acquaintance with these subjects mere ignorance, we should still remain at precisely the same point of distance, in regard to our knowledge of the quo modo-the why and the wherefore--the modus-operandi, of sensual perception and mental feelings. One link must always be deficient for the completion of the chain; the TT of Archimedes, can never be obtained;

the elephant that supports the world, must have something upon which to support himself.

Now the Scotch-philosophy, as our Author terms it, and at. which he is so exceedingly angry, both in its sum and substance confesses that ignorance, which good sense and correct views of the subject compel to the confession of; and having ascertained the limits of human intelligence, it ceases to worry itself with attempts to pass those limits,-attempts which must always be fruitless; and it confines itself to the generalisation, and classification of those facts which are constantly presenting themselves to the eye of observation. It is, indeed, inductive philosophy, which nature owns, and which truth approves. But we must check our disposition to illustrate and confirm the validity of these statements, and hasten to the more particular consideration of the work before us.

Our Author divides his subject into four parts. In the first part, he endeavours to make out his proposition, that insanity has always corporal disease for its foundation." In the second division of his treatise, he attempts to prove that all the varieties of mental aberration, are divisible into two leading species; viz. the Sthenic, and the Asthenic; and that the mania of writers is applicable to the former, melancholic, to the latter. Thirdly, he tries to prove that madness is not, in the proper sense of the word, an hereditary disease. And, finally, he maintains that it is as generally curable as any of those violent diseases which are most successfully treated by medicine.

It requires a person to be but in a small degree conversant in the usual tenor of reasoning on these subjects, to perceive that the present writer is greatly at issue with most of those who have preceded him on the same subject; and although we purposely defer our remarks on the composition of the treatise till the conclusion of our analysis, we shall here just observe, that it possesses an independence of manner, as well as an originality of matter, which, although it may fail to convince, cannot fail to interest.

We shall preface our further strictures with an unqualified concession, that bodily disorganization is demonstrably, in many instances, productive of mental aberration; and we are ready also to admit, that hallucination of the intellect must always bring with it some corporal condition, different from what would have existed under circumstances of sanity: but still, we must maintain the secondary nature, in many instances, of the bodily change. Nay, we are bold to assert that almost the first example which the Author adduces in support of his hypothesis, gives, to say the least of it, some weight to the opposite side of the question. The narration is as follows.

A gentleman who received a severe bite from a dog, soon after fancied the animal was mad; he felt a horror at the sight of liquids, and was actually convulsed on attempting to swallow them. So uncontrollable were his prepossessions, that Mr. Hunter conceived he would die, had not the dog which inflicted the wound, been fortunately found, and brought into his room in perfect health; this soon restored his mind to a state of tranquillity; the sight of water no longer affected him, and he quickly recovered,' p. 33,

Here, surely, was a bodily disorder produced by a mental cause; and no one will be inclined to dispute that the sight of the animal in health, operated more effectually in dissolving the morbid concatenation, than remedies of a physical nature would have done. The insane and the sane states, were both brought about by an originally mental operation; and the return to health was subsequent, instead of precursory, to the return of sanity. In other words, the bodily change came after the mental;-a succession of events, contrary to the order of our Author's theory.

In pursuit of his subject, Mr. Hill refers to the phenomena of memory, as a further evidence of the mental faculties and affections being actually a part of the material organization. For our own parts, however, we have always thought that this is one of the weakest positions upon which to make a stand in defence of materialism. Physiology has furnished evidence of an unceasing mutation in the parts of a living organized body. In this constant change of particles, indeed, consist the essence of vitality, and its difference from inert, unorganized matter. Now the perceptive and retaining faculties are developed through the instrumentality of the brain and nerves; yet the brain and nerves of the man of forty, are not the brain and nerves of the same individual at twenty: notwithstanding which, intellectual identity remains, consciousness is preserved, and the recollection of past events is retained. Nay, further, as the individual ad-. vances in life, and the susceptibility of the intellectual organs, becomes blunted by age, so that new, impressions are received obtusely, and retained with difficulty, the impressions of former years are now often renovated to so great a degree, that age becomes a second childhood in more senses than one. Yet who will maintain the bodily identity of the two states of infancy and old age? Organization and intellect are, therefore, distinct and independent things. Memory is no modification of matter, and no matter what it is: a true philosophy teaches us that we have no business with its essence; it is for us to investigate only its laws. Describing the state of insanity, our Author says,

Insanity unfolds, as it were, the just texture of every understanding it has attacked, and during its presence strips it of all adventitrous appendages; all such circumstances are now suspended, or