1
10
199
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/c66b1226e784100eb0334a606693d794.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=U-2QdV39F7QzP3Lu6LDCUY93rkHIiFArB1GAw8KiiZOd69bXfwuAqmoC2P3gFCA0rb%7EvEHsXM5pdVgL4FMgNMxYlBZo2VTFAIxgyjvuYuJH3YY7e3xSc%7EQdVbdKw3A1XkDwpE%7E-vUzIDrXqNlhk9JTR3fTV8skr3%7EM6481USG6yk8FDa4a5k8weIc0qFE0C%7EC0UJhHggFdlnP0ybPdDzDqWk9wX6AViV8QE2Lx8ozYRiIXYAuNnRvGPajc5yWOp9YVFWIrLXhl5T1Mzm2efKIG89tmRM4r4BSQy2BuH-V%7El%7E4w%7EtXauCONuNjxNyJFYY2BghWMD0klGn3TPreYW-Bg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
2658f88e4636726ca52bda82ee448848
PDF Text
Text
����
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
[Travels in South Kensington]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1882?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5601
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: 4 p. ; 18 cm.
Collation: [4] p.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review, by an unknown reviewer, of Moncure Conway's work 'Travels in South Kensington'. The review, from 'The Times'. December 9,1882, has been copied in handwriting on 4 pages of blue notepaper headed The Club, Bedford Park, Chiswick.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Book reviews
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work ([Travels in South Kensington]), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Decoration and Ornament
Kensington (West London)
Moncure Conway
South Kensington Museum
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/10a5a147bc9ed4bd4f2c68b8600c41e1.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=rgxxYDFQZ3QD6kgSY8QbOs3o%7EwTwoDZw4tTag63yClO0l2RtZtWDyoa1895dTQWZIfD7M1%7E0JhFDUuAJa7TFqqJqxGy9HWEt-9Mj9sYQM%7EaEQScs0fwT2n60Qi0sdbN1SeXk-CIXFJqqyfVD%7Eh1j-zckg5vTI-3A3FP-VXwWIRhuy9B-1oI%7EQv%7EkWv2iuIqjq6Gv54Sw%7EWKNoTiXYJR8V6d6rY57iNKHzYObZTZ4qaMTLSG3oECMTY4vMDG1v7d7YKV6yYYx5W2dIWUJpJ02fTyQMr%7EuAPkEhUoze3FzyUkes44Haku3aEWvZTrhpDW2vtg%7EtQfP31rQKwjNAg%7EveA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
abcadb4c3db5bef4921ad1551447cfcd
PDF Text
Text
8o
Notes.
Mr. Conway’s “ Earthward Pilgrimage ” seems to have produced a
strong impression on both friends and foes in England. In a recent
debate in the House of Commons, Mr. Bouverie, a conservative, spoke
of it as a work of remarkable ability, and quoted passages from it to
show that a revolutionary school of thought on social subjects is grow
ing to strength in Great Britain. “ The Theological Review ” says,
“The book is full of suggestive thoughts, poetically and pointedly
expressed: and though, to a thoughtful and judicious reader, he may
seem extravagant, one-sided and unfair in his statements and represen
tations, the general impression left by the whole is that it is the earnest
and healthy skepticism of a man of real genius.” “ The Academy ”
: peaks of Mr. Conway’s style as possessing “ high intellectual vitality,
the subtle, pointed, exquisite manner, the fertility in sparkling conceits,
striking analogies and similes, happy historical allusions and anec
dotes,” and his charges against the traditional religion, though violent,
as “ so refined and cultivated, so cool, disengaged, full of well-bred
restraint, as almost to persuade us of their moderation.”
“The New York Tribune” says of Mr. Weiss’s new book: “From
the specimens we have given of Mr. Weiss’s trains of thought, our readers
may obtain an idea, correct, although inadequate, of the main drift of this
remarkable volume, which we do not hesitate to pronounce one of the most
original and suggestive which have ever appeared in our native literature.”
“The Modern Epoch in Politics” is a new work by D. A. Wasson,
which will, when published, if we do not mistake, create a “ sensation ” of a
wholesome character.
“The Spiritual Annalist and Scientific Record” is the name of
a new magazine, edited by J. H. W. Toohey, and published in Boston by W.
F. Brown & Co. It is ably conducted.
We shall publish in our next number a carefully prepared paper on “ The
French Commune,” by W. J. Linton, who has had favorable opportunities
for an impartial review of the whole subject.
A friend sends us “ a few new subscribers to help the ‘ boiling pot.’ ”
We wish many others may be as thoughtful, and not forget us during this
“hot weather,” persuaded that the pot will boil itself.
�Notes.
79
and hear the voice of reason everywhere. Do you see Jesus walking
among men as himself only a man, and so lose your heaven-born
Lord? You are restored to your own birthright, and have the priv
ilege of being a son of God yourself. God becomes your present
source of supply, and is no longer “ a Hebrew tradition.” To this in
visible Well you may go and drink and thirst no more.
What then is the burden of all this protest and passion ? It is that
all those hindrances of Church and State which, under pretense of
mediating, are separating mankind from God, shall be removed. Men
claim the present and shining light of God to show them what they
may do for themselves and each other.
The questions of the moral or spiritual life are not affected by the
intellectual or moral stature of Jesus, and no Radical can take other
interest in the discussion than is prompted by the desire to rightly
estimate the characters of all who have lived on the earth and left
their fame to posterity. There seems to be no excuse, however, for
any to set him up, lawyer-like, and try him as a prosecuting attorney
would a criminal. His name has suffered enough from the treatment
of Orthodoxy. Radicals can afford, in all justice, to show him a little
personal sympathy, and especially since they do not propose to ride
into heaven on his back.
Father Taylor’s little prayer, as prayers go, is quite refreshing:
“Blessed Jesus, give us common sense, and let no man put blinkers on
us, that we can only see in a certain direction, for we want to look
around the horizon; yea, to the highest heavens and to the lowest
depths of the ocean.”
Robert Collyer finds a hearty welcome among the Unitarians of
England, in spite of the “ loose way ” of saying things to which he
is adicted. At their Festival he told them, “ I like to meet a company
of Unitarians that will speak out their convictions, and show, as we say
in the West, that they ‘ain’t nothing else, nohow.’” “We are no bet
ter for being Unitarians and at the same time tasting very strongly of
Orthodoxy. “You have a right to feed your hearts on the story of
the past. But I tell you it began to be a (Question whether Egypt was
going to live much longer, when she paid more attention to embalming
her grandfathers than she did to inspiring her children.” He rejoiced
that the Unitarians were not “going to tumble the cream back into
the blue milk.”
Are the signs as hopeful this side the water ?
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
[The Earthward Pilgrimage]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[c.1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5714
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 80 ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review of Moncure Conway's work 'The Earthward Pilgrimage'.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Book reviews
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work ([The Earthward Pilgrimage]), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a49b6346ce38bd61614636d47f893488.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=o4Mk5HrnLfnLPKPpvHaHvFR4nS3dKIVnNVUKNP0h7gITQEBbG0veUrK6xrXwcgJAGUXTlQ2uMp8fMPo9k86FABBOABU1r1UniJmT7x5iZo0cj33pt5O0XcXjENRLjUUsBL%7EGTdalbhJd3j9xLN%7E3Cpx0dNPG5Xj1fmgwHHBPGIE00n88J1bA-Ml50nPqjIffakOCqBSoX3BQ7g9mL671MqJJ6H-R3QTFbfLbhTjpBEQDpvH2H%7Ed8EN5qKBNMYxgW2ukkkQVdzcYeleFX5-FdgktX-jhiD7sQsbkPIOLNn3wlIGI1oaIzkzSOGser8v9jRp5X5CBGwSP0ooeO3jT9lg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
596d6778bbb920735856259273e8c31d
PDF Text
Text
i66
CHRISTIANITY AGAIN CONSIDERED.
no earthly law smites him, he still is sinning against God, inflicts
injury on himself. For he that breaks a law of God, whether it be
a material one—in the physical globe or his own body ; or a spiritual
one, in his own soul, or in society, inflicts damage on his own
being; while he who works righteousness by living in obedience to
the law of God, is the better man for it, in himself, alike in time and
eternity. If there be any reader who rejects these statements, I
can only answer in the words of another, “We believe that con
science exists, just as fully as that we believe all men have bones,
and as it seems to us for the same reasons. Why is that to be
struck out of the list of evidence, any more than any physical testi
mony whatsoever ? Surely a more powerful item of evidence, not
only as to the personality of the First Cause, but as to the character
of that personality, could hardly be conceived.”(/)
(a) History of Latin Christianity, vol. ii., p. 253. Second edition.
(b) Church of England Prayer Book, Article 9: Confession of Faith, chap. vi. 6.
(c) Works, vol. iii., p. igg.
(d) R. H. Hutton.
(e) Duration of Future Punishment, by the Rev. George Rogers, p. 4,
(/) The Spectator.
&gain (EonstWlc
HRISTIANITY” is the title of a new book, by M. D. Conway,
M.A., and it is issued by Trubner & Co., of London. It is a
small but striking book. Indeed whatever comes from the pen of
Mr. Conway is always worth perusal. He has a knack of hitting
his opponents straight from the shoulder, of calling a spade a spade,
of denouncing superstition in unmeasured terms. As a preacher
Mr. Conway prefers an “ unfettered pulpit,” from which he can
fearlessly expose the errors and hypocrisy of the popular creed.
We wish there were more unfettered pulpits in the world, occupied
by men of culture and zeal, and “ no longer bribed by the social or
pecuniary endowments of an established creed.”
The book before us should be in the hands of every one who
wishes to be acquainted with the numerous phases through which
Christianity has passed, and we can confidently say that its perusal
will afford both pleasure and profit.
Mr. Conway considers
Christianity under six aspects : its morning state, its dawn, its day, its
decline, its afterglow, and its mosrow, and each of these divisions
receives masterly treatment.
There are several allusions to English Unitarianism, and the
Unitarian Association comes in for a share of the Author's
criticism. We think, however, that Mr. Conway’s strictures
on what he terms the “ professed liberality ” of the Association
are somewhat strong. No Association can exist without obe
dience to certain laws, and the “ fundamental law” which appears
to be so obnoxious to Mr. Conway is not, in our opinion, such an
obnoxious one as he would make it appear.
Personally, we
should like to see an independent Association formed, which should
e
�ANDREW AYLMER: A SKETCH.
167
include all Theists, whether Jews, Unitarians, Brahmins, or
Rationalists, in fact all who worship a supreme Governor of the
Universe, and wish to assist the extension of a Universal Brotherhood
of Man. But reforms whether social or religious are not carried in
a day, so we must be content to plod patiently alsng that road
which leads to the goal we are all aiming at, and we doubt not it
will be reached e’er many years more have been added to the
world’s age.
There are many-paragraphs having especial reference to the
Unitarian faith which we should like to quote, but our space forbids.
We cannot however conclude this brief notice without giving one
or two extracts. On page 89, Mr. Conway writes : “ Where is the
author of our time who defends the wild notion of an eternal
punishment—a punishment without end, and consequently without
purpose—inflicted on millions for a sin they did not commit, and
who have not even determined their own existence!” On page
124 he says:—“ The English Unitarians have an honorable history,
and no page of it is brighter than the last; but they can retain what
they have wn only by following up their advance.” Mr. Conway
brings his book to a conclusion as follows :—“ The highest religion
of to-day is to look and labour for a nobler day. Nor can I think
that new day so distant. For this matter the world of men means
mainly all those who think. The thinkers of the world are but
thinly divided by veils of language and tricks of expression ; speedily
wii^, they pierce these and discover that round the world hearts
beat with one moral blood, and eyes see by one and the same
sunlight. And as thought moves so will the most motionless
masses gravitate; and every sect in the world be subtly consumed
through and through by that popular disgust of bigotry and
hyprocrisy, which will emanate from the fairly awakened con
science and intellect of humanity.”
winter: &
CHAPTER IV.--- A WORD CONCERNING WILL, AND AYLMER’S INFLUENCE.
ACHEL AYLMER, soon after Andrew left home to attend
Mr. Cuthberton’s class at the Institute, dressed herself for
going out to pay a visit to her brother, Benjamin Harton, who lived
in the village of Ronesburn. As he worked the same “ place ” with
Andrew in the Scottingley mine, she was anxious lest the persecu
tion towards her son had been extended to her brother as well.
And then she wanted a talk with him about the whole matter.
Long had she and Joshua chatted over it, but the thing had not
come out any clearer to their minds. As she stood by her hearth
bound husband, to bid him good-bye for her two-hour visit, she saw
the newspaper was by his side, unused, and she had to touch his
shoulder ere he lifted his eyes from the fire. Responsive to her
touch, he said,—
“ Dinna be lang, wife, for I’m nae owre canny the night. Dis
B
�thoo think the laddie troubles aboot his loss o’ wark ? ”
“ Hinny, An’rew winna let his troubles clood his brow. Let’s
hope he dis’na feel them mair than he shows.”
“ Aye, as Ben said once, ‘ he tabs things philosophically.’ ”
“ Aboot that, I dinna kna,” replied Rachel, thoughtfully, “but
sure, as the boy says in one o’ his ain varses,
*
1 The dew o’ heaven is in his heart,’
an’ he’ll mak’ the best o’t, safe enough.”
The old man was comforted, the cloud passed from his face, the
newspaper was resumed, and Rachel wended her way in the direction
of Ronesburn. Approaching Scottingley, which stands between the
cottage and her destination, she saw a larger crowd of men than
usual at the corner of the road leading towards the colliery. This
would not have taken her attention, but, as she came opposite to
them, one, whom she did not recognise in the twilight, left the
crowd, and, as he neared her, said,
“ Mrs. Aylmer, I want a word wi’ ye.”
“ Is’t Will Bardoyle ? Hoo is’t there’s sae mony oot ? Hae
they shut up the public-hoose ? It’s nae a dog-race being made up
or thoo wouldna’ be in’t.”
“Nay, Mrs. Aylmer, we’ve been having a long talk about
Andrew, and I want to see him for the men ; but I suppose he’ll
not be at home for some time, as it is class night.”
“ He’ll no be hame till late, as he’s cornin’ roond for me frae
brother’s after class, but when thoo’s dune here thoo canst find the
way to Ben’s.”
In spite of her concern on Andrew’s account, she could not
help smiling as she said this, for there were a pair of bright eyes at
Ben’s which drew him there, and not against his will.
“ I don’t know if I dare call in to-night,” said Will, in reply,
“ for I have been offered the situation of overman, and I want to see
Andrew first. Ben has’na been out with us, or he would have known
and agreed with what I propose to do, so I’ll just meet Andrew,
and maybe call in with him.”
With a quiet “ good-night ” she passed on toward Ronesburn,
and Will joined the men, who were still talking in clusters.
The men had talked with each other that evening of many
things__ of the franchise, of improvements connected with their work
and their houses, and especially of the treatment Aylmer had been
subjected to; and of these things Will Bardoyle’s mind was full, as
some time after he took the road to Cuthberton, with a view to meet
Andrew. Not meeting him, however, and learning that he had
taken the river-path leading to the Hall, he continued his walk along
the highway, passed Mr.' Pembroke’s villa, and chatted with the old
lodge-keeper until Andrew came out.
Will was some years older than Andrew, but Will could not
have reverenced him more nad he been as aged as he counted him
worthy. Indeed, Andrew had been tne making of Will, for when he
was Aylmer’s present age he was a rough character truly, taking
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Christianity again considered
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 166-167 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A review, by an unknown reviewer, of Moncure Conway's work 'Christianity' from 'Free World' February,1877.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1877]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5612
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Book reviews
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Christianity again considered), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Book Reviews
Christianity
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/6523859c58194dbac4761006eefb7600.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=t3cciwv1lm9O2Fs4Wox81r36Z8XYuTirFx1frNbThi95fjWCeMMZGc5nsoapHb-ZpL%7EOFHhQqMqYHlaV%7EN3Wrki9QUkVkpSgXk3MTl%7EeD0ovG0WKfln4zFalIrlQVe37LNBP7Ki0i4HKYDCFoZM0sCD98Nxk-3HCr1RXUJGrqgePdRAb0Nc06I4Gc2g48wNsYvyWGfDcgTF06LkqWyhm3eRw20Y5PBwAEkRoGQqXdtjJ-G1-HeLyBvsHdXc20Se%7E5cBhX7ZJS2IjOwa6Tlb5KhfrvF2SAf%7EmMaKRHHK1me4MPL4w0Sww02xPHi23QmoQDEcWgRLXkiTaBqVwkzX8rA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
033913a6c476183376cbc11f92918677
PDF Text
Text
THE PRACTICAL IDEALIST.
I.—Worship—(converse
with the supreme.)
1. The Idealist gives his worship and contemplation to the Eternal-Essence,
—to the beautiful Power and Law that underlies all phenomena, of which these
are but the sensuous appearances, or garment.
2. On strictly scientific grounds he has the full assurance that neither Evil
nor Chance, but Good is the mainspring of Nature. He is intensely conscious
of the omnipotent omnipresence of the Universal Spirit, and of his own parti
cipation in the vast Unity of Spiritual Life, but he does not dogmatise con
cerning the personality of the Deity.—“ We distinguish the announcements of
the soul, its manifestations of its own nature by the term Revelation. These
are always attended by the emotion of the sublime. For this communication
is an influx of the Divine Mind into our mind. It is an ebb of the individual
rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life. Every distinct apprehen
sion of this central commandment agitates men with awe and delight. A
thrill passes through all men at the reception of new truth, or at the perform
ance of a great action which comes out of the heart of nature.— Ths Over
Soul.
Trust your emotion. Tn your metaphysics you have denied personality
to the Deity; yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart
and life, though they should clothe God with shape and colour.—Self-reliance.
3. For the Idealist there can be nothing Supernatural in Creed and History
He is as a mountain climber who has the clouds beneath him, and is face to
face with God’s blue of Heaven. Nature and the natural to him are more
miraculous than the most monstrous prodigy, and infinitely more beautiful.
�$3
The Idealist's Code of Tatilt.
•4. The Idealist worships in the Divine Being the Ideal of Truth, Beauty,
arid' Good, and the recognition of His attributes is the central force, and fount
fof power in moral dynamics. Prayer for worldly and material good or success,
;appears to him an arrogant assumption that God will not order things for the
'best, and a selfish intrusion of our own interests that must most frequently be
■at the expense of those of our fellow creatures. But Spiritual prayer, com
prehended in contemplation, and passionate aspiration yearning for communion
■with the Highest, is the natural function of the soul.
II.—Duties.—(Intercourse
with our neighbour.)
The idea of Justice proclaiming that every individual in his pursuit of
enjoyments, and in the development of his life, shall not interfere with the free
exercise of all their faculties by his fellows, inculcates as the duties of all
men,—
1. That they regard all forms of religious and other opinions, that do not
themselves violate the law, in the purest spirit of toleration, and strenuously
resist the monopoly of state protection and other privileges by any one body of
sectarians.
2. That the fullest liberty be acceded to women to exercise their faculties
in any occupation to which those faculties may impel them.
3. That they ever recognise the indefeasible right of all men to the use of
the earth’s surface, and to the opportunity of labouring, and earnestly promote
the achieving of such social organization as shall secure to all men the oppor
tunity of attaining to the most perfect development possible to them.
That
•they pilot their charitable enterprises with discriminating wisdom, and realise
the fact that unthinking well-mindedness is immoral.
4. That they promote the spread of knowledge, and the establishment of a
new system of education that shall render it possible to form the characters of
■children, to more radically influence their lives, and give effect to the special
¿aptitudes with which nature may have endowed them.
The Law of Charity, or Universal Love commands:—
1. That every man have a lively anxiety for the happiness and well-being
•of his fellow men, and abstain from any self-gratification that is injurious to
the general community, or that inflicts pain on another normally constituted
mind.
2. That he vehemently persuade them of the folly of appealing to the
arbitration of the sword; and advocate the establishment of a wise inter
national organisation and code for the settlement of differences.
3. To advocate the principle of friendly association as opposed to selfinterested, aud dis-united isolation, for purposes of social economy, social re
finement, and social happiness.
�jpRNiNA
Pardon.
A PATCHED SOCIETY.
{DigestContinued!)
IO.—Competition.—It would be erroneous to infer that it is proposed to
dispense with the wholesome stimulus of normal and legitimate competition as
•an element of Society. In all that concerns the commerce, or wholesale dealing
■of the country, in contra-distinction to retail distribution, the laws of supply
and demand would continue their unimpeded action. If any are disposed to
attribute inconsistency to such a distinction, they are reminded that whilst
commerce is directly creative of wealth, the unproductive competings of the
retailers are little better than a lawless wrangling for wealth already created,
attended with the consequent waste and destruction to be anticipated from such
chaotic and non-industria] busyness.
The system of allied industries, then, is not Socialism, that would eliminate
competition from human affairs,—that contemplating an ideal conception of
man overlooks his proneness to sloth and to physical and mental inaction; it
would, on the contrary, attempt, for the first time, to free competitive human
works and endeavours, from the clogs and drawbacks that choke its action. It
is precisely because competition is so useful an agency for production that we
would not waste its energies on barren objects.
11-—Associated Industry.—To facilitate the guarantee of employment which
Society is morally bound to provide for all its members, by means of the wisest
regulations tending to this end, the Committees of Public Welfare in order,
afford further security from the variations of the demand in the labour market,
will encourage the establishment of firms of co-operative industry. There
should be at least one estate divided into allotments, and farmed on the best
principles by small tenants, the necessary machinery being supplied by a union
of their capitals ; and the cultivation of a second by labourers who will share
�Ernina Landon.
in the produce in proportion to their contributions of labour and capital, will
be superintended by the Committee, h manufactory, also, of the description
best calculated to succeed under the economical conditions of the locality, will
be established on the same principles.
12. —Administration of Justice, and Arbitration of differences.—The com
munity will obtain, when possible, the nomination of the members of the
Committee as Justices of the Peace, and they, from their knowledge of the
antecedents and character of all the members, be enabled to'treat some of the
‘criminals that may be brought before them in a way that will be calculated to
remove the defects in character, instead of hardening them in offences by de- grading punishments.
Every member of the community will agree to refer any disputes in which
he may become involved, and that at present, are the subjects of actions-atlaw, to the friendly arbitration of one of the members of the Committee ; and
failing a settlement by this means, to submit them to the decision of the Com
mittee as a final court of arbitration.
13. —Education.—How futile are the existing educational systems in influ
encing and forming the characters of the young, the results best show, and it
seems incredibly ludicrous that the mere imparting of the rudiments of know
ledge should be denominated education. In the new organisation, all the
children of the district will pass -the whole of their time in the school-house
and its adjacent gardens and grounds ; which it will be the first effort of the
reformed community to provide on as magnificent a scale as possible. The
masters will be in the proportion of one, to from ten to fifteen children, and
will be fitted by special training on a new system, as well as by natural superi
ority, carefully tested, for the important work of training the young in all
senses. They will, each one attach to himself a manageable number of the
children of poorer parents, to whom they will act stand as parents and educational
guardians, making their characters their constant study and care. The children
instead of wandering wildly in a semi-savage state, as at present, when school
hours are over, will be pleasantly employed in alternately studying and working
in the gardens, or in other light labours with occasional organised recreation,
so that each one, according to the future before him, be instructed to play his
.part in life with intelligence. The industrial-school principle will also be com
bined with the instruction of the girls, who will be similarly provided with
teachers, and the market-garden, laundry, &c., properly superintended, will
render the school partially self-supporting.
14. —The Social Mansion.—The leisure hours of the inhabitants will be
spent in this, the central building, and heart of the town. It will contain besides
reading, conversation, and lecture-rooms—club-rooms, provided with the
different means of amusement, and a concert-room furnished with musical
instruments, and will be situated in an ornamental garden, with pleasure
grounds as extensive as possible. Attached to the Mansion and resident in it,
will be the Lecturer and Public Teacher ; the duty of whose important office
will be to provide for the delight and instruction of the community, by lectures,
�The Practical Idealist.
83
But more especially by directing the tastes and talents of the different members,
and turning them to the advantage and profit of all, and by promoting spon
taneous social assemblies, in which refinement may spread its garlands over all
classes.
We have seen that the town of three thousand inhabitants will effect an
economy of many thousand pounds by adopting the associative principle; this
sum representing the profit obtained by the joint-stock transactions of the
community will be thus- acquired, and school-masters and gardeners will be a
profitable exchange for superfluous and useless shopkeepers.
15. —The Selection of Capacities—The learned professions still be paid by
fixed stipends in the new communities, instead of by a system of fees that
tend to encourage deception, and that make the interest of lawyers and medical
men to consist in the increase of dishonesty and bad faith, and diseases in the
community. It will be at once objected by some, as it has been, that such' a
plan would but universalise the notorious inefficiency of parish doctors. But
it surely must be apparent enough that the young surgeon who accepts the
meagre official pay of the parish doctor, does so only whilst striving to gain
practice of a more remunerative kind, and sharing in the universal game of
money-making, and following, the laws of its code, metes out attention to the
paupers proportionate to the pay, eager to throw up the ungrateful office as soon
as he can afford to. It may be presumed, also, that professional zeal of this
mercenary sort is scarcely of the kind likeliest to advance the interests of
science. On the other hand, when the election of medical men is guided by
the best judgment of the Members of the Committee of Public Welfare, —
subject to the rate of the majority of the community,—who will have also the
power of dismissing those guilty of neglect, a more wholesome stimulus to
conscientious diligence and zeal is provided. It will follow, as a consequence
of this arrangement, that of all social abuses the most prolific in chaotic and
deathful consequences will be extinguished—the placing brainless incapacity
in a profession which is chosen because of a patron’s living, or. a father’s practice.
In the community no mere dictum of parental partiality shall suffice to afflict
society with a misplaced incapable, but the verdict of greatest aptitude from
Teachers and from the Committee of Public Welfare, shall decide on the proper
sphere for a young man.
16. —The New Order af Nobility.—In the commencement of a new society
which involves a higher moral condition of mankind, and turns man’s aspira?tions to the higher still, the noblest will set the example of preferring the
public good and the happiness of all, to selfish considerations, and of substi
tuting for private splendour public magnificence that will help to. lead man
kind along the road of progress.
These noblest,, therefore, will take
upon them a vow of renunciation, binding themselves to satisfy their pri
vate wants with a limited and fixed income, and to devote the surplus of their
incomes and earnings to the promotion of public welfare,-—this with the object
of assuaging the insane rage for wealth and appearances that is driving society
into a whirlwind of well merited disaster; a volcanic upheaval of the downcrushed, under miseries that will no longer be borne.
�87
Emina Landon.
This new and noble Aristocracy will be of three ranks, accord
ing to the surplus of wealth devoted to the service of the community,.
They will receive all the honours that are at present undeservedly paid
to rank, and in order that they may not suffer the loss of the greatest boon
that wealth confers, the community will defray the cost of educating their
children in the best universities. Were this purchasing of honour to become a
fashion even, it would not impair the wholesome desire for wealth that has so
strong an influence in creating it; for the riches that were renounced as far as
private employment of them goes, would be at their disposal for public
purposes, and so be still desirable as conferring power. If it is pretended that
in this nineteenth century the honours and rank of this new nobility would be
had in derision and contempt by an irreverent age, it is replied that if this is so,—
to be contemptible to a people that reverence lying shams, and the ignoble only
is the only true honour, and there is tenfold more need for a fresh fashion of
nobility.
17.—Lastly—because it appears a ludicrous, but melancholy and altogether
intolerable violation of the divine law, that men who chance to be possessed
of wealth should be freed from all compulsory social duties and responsibilities,
producing as we see, a state of things in which such wealth becomes unwhole
some heaps of decomposition, prolific of turf parasites, black-legs, Anonymas,
men in women’s clothes, and similar maggot-births, the Committee of Public
Welfare will assign duties to all such unemployed persons suitable to their
respective capacities.
General Objections Answered.—The sceptic will pertinently enough observe
of this Scheme of a New Society,—‘ it is all very admirable, and would doubtless
work charmingly, if in our community the rather large proportion of Socrates
and infallible wise men were forthcoming for our Committee of Public Welfare,
not to say our regiment of school-masters. As it is the world is suffering pre
cisely from the want of more of these wise men.’ We reply, that the world can
well furnish the brain-power that is requisite for a few experimental communi
ties, and when the fundamental principles have been once laid down and tested, it
will require no supreme amount of initiatory and creative wisdom. The growth
in morality and unselfishness is the grand desideratum, and chief of all the
difference between the two Societies, is the difference between one in which
starving labourers and competing speculators and tradesmen are compelled into
crime, knavery, and bestial low-mindedness by the resistless influence of circum
stances, and one which sets man free for the first time to assert himself human
and heaven’s noblest work.
The first objection that is offered by practical persons, is of this sort,—‘But
you who pretend to be effecting so much good for all men are proposing to
wantonly deprive of their means of livelihood the immense body of tradesmen
who form the great majority of the middle classes,—whilst you yourself admitted
but now, that in wealthy countries the essential point of economical policy is
to distribute the wealth so as to produce comfortable and well-to-do classes,
and it seems that retail trading, if it does nothing more, provides a large body
of persons with the comforts of life, and moreover fills up, as with social
�The Practical Idealist.
99
Buffers, the gap between the otherwise too distinct classes of brain-workers and»
gentry, and the manual labourers.
It is an unfortunate fact, that arguments as exasperatingly irrational as this,
—the desirability of providing for tradesmen even employment that is utterly
useless to the community—are only too abundantly employed by persons who
pride themselves on their common sense. Although it may be that the supply
of mere material wealth that has been accumulated in some old countries, is
almost adequate for the wants of all, can it be necessary to remind anyone that
the essential wealth of all countries is the capacity for work and the labour of
all their inhabitants,—'that the gross sum of this cannot by any ever so multi
plied powers of production be too great,—that this wealth expends itself in com
passing comfortable, happy, intellectual and noble lives for all human beings,
and that to squander any of this work-power is to wantonly cast into the mire
God’s purest gold, to mar His design, and to thwart His purposes.. As for the
services of the tradesman class by way of padding to fill out the gaunt form of
society into a false show of comeliness, and to cover up the hollows of degra
dation and ignorance—the sooner we can tear away this stuffing and reveal the
naked truth, we quicker may hope that the condition of the labouring classes
will have serious consideration. To return to the practical point of the question,
however, it is true that were the new system adopted suddenly in all parts of
the country simultaneously, some confusion and distress would result. But it
is only too certain that the process of transition will be a long and gradual one,
and in the first of the new communities the displaced tradesmen will be pro
vided with such other employment as they will willingly accept, or be compen
sated for any loss sustained. It is equally apparent that in the course of a
gradual transition the condemned class would spontaneously disappoar, and
who will question the fact that a community organised on the proposed system
Could provide useful and productive employment for as many persons in the'Same rank of life as it had discarded, if not the same individuals.
Our opponent would probably continue;—£ supposing your plan of appoint
ing medical men by the Committee already adopted in such a town as you have
been speaking of, do you pretend to hope that we should not see the sons and
relatives of the members of the said Committee filling the posts you are so
anxious to she wisely filled, just as the patronage system in the church gives
us younger sons for our divinely anointed rectors. In any imperfect condition,
of mankind let not a few fallible persons be so heavily laden with responsi
bilities, and depend on it, it is best for everyman to choose his surgeon, and-hisschoolmaster, &c., and be taught wisdom by the consequences, if his choicehappens to be an unwise one.’ It must be replied that this last seems at first
sight very wholesome in theory, but experience shows that a number of persons
are not capable of judging of the merits of a professional adviser, as is abun
dantly proved by the number of successful charlatans; yet, on the other hand,
their faculty of judging will be fostered by their power of expressing discontent
with any such public person, and by nominating the person who shall make the
selection for them. Respecting what might have been the result had the system
been already adopted, we reply that the novel plan is only proposed as a portion of
�1
89
Emina Landon.
an integral system, which by its provisions, requires the improved moral corr*
dition of the whole community, or itself effects it.
Ever foremost in the remembrance of all earnest reformers, should be the
consideration that no perfectest machinery for the distributing and feeding of
men can be of permanent value, if it permit them to remain for the most part
what we see them, a race of ignoble beings. It has been no part of the present
endeavour to create a complicated pattern of theoretical modes of life by
which all the details of human existence and effort are to be regulated. The
genius of any community and of every race will shape their surroundings accord
ing to the degree of nobleness that animates their collective aspirations. The
fundamental principles of Association, therefore, upon which the new institutions
are to be based have been alone indicated. But on the other hand, if the
individualities of the members of the community are all in all, how imperative
is it for this very reason to modify the force of circumstances that irresistably
re-act upon human nature, and give the ineffaceable impress of their good or
evil influence. The characters and lives of men are the produet of the twofactors, natural constitution and circumstance, of which the latter is the greater
and more important. Nine out of ten men if influenced by the best circum
stances-—education, and opportunities for the exercise of their faculties, will
become more or less noble members of society, and the bad propensities of the
other small portion can be pretty well neutralised by such influences, but it
should be needless to repeat that the education alluded to here is no confection
or compound of the three B’s by a National or any other existing school
master.
O many and earnest-hearted brothers, see ye not that these some thousand years
past the wonderful magic of the eternal mind that flows through a hundred
ages, has woven mysterious harmonies into thoughts and sounds of surpassing
delight,—Shakespeares, Angelos, and Mozarts,—helping to make man well
nigh divine; and now, too, that our eyes are opening to the mysteries of the
spheres, and we are glad in the strength of growing science, shall we con
tinue beasts in feeling only, and watch complacently how the sorely afflic ed
labourers who are bound for us, go vilely still on their bellies by reason of
their burdens ? Surely we may open their ears with some scanty visitations of
sweet sounds, and unfold their brains in some sort of life not wholly brutish.
Certainly we may fling off the hot blush that proclaims us conscious oppressors
and monopolisers of the sunshine. Truly we can live honest, and they shall
live men.
Such meaning as this Ernina hastily, greedily tore from the closely printed
volume, and when the early morning light peered into the room, it found its
white robed tenant still pacing up and down with happy unquenchable resolve
in deep, eloquent eyes. “Thank heaven, I am rich, thank heaven for that;”
were the words with which she turned at length to rest.
To be continued.
�Jarge Uhrhe,
m
if c
VERSUS
Cease we then, Loved Ones ;
Cease this hard strainful stress,—
Seeking that mirage—Truth,
Yearning for good unknown,
Seeking to ripen
With our hot painful sighs
Fruitage of world-schemes,
Ere the time destined,—
Seeking to force men’s souls—
Still all beneath the clod—
Swift into golden bloom,
Into large-mindedness,
Open-eyed lovingness,
Into the better life,—
Quenching the acridness
Of their green juices,
Quenching their hatreds,
Their selfish injustice
In love universal
From the unequal war
Cease we and rest we;
And of a larger love
Larglier quaff we.
Then lap me, ye Loved Ones
Enwrapped by your beauties,
Drunk with your beaming eyes,
Awed by your loveliness,
Soothed by your tenderness
My Ideal Maidens.
*
�The Practical Idealist
’Tis not one soul alone
Pouring responses
Back to my thirsting heart,
Prinks from mine perfect love
Knows all love’s fulness.
Maude, my grave Empress love,
Great browed and large eyed,
Thou giv’st me thought for thought
Erom thy imperial soul
Seeking all knowledge.
Swells thy round swelling breast
Echoing lovely
Impulses noble.
Perfect thy perfect form
As large Minerva’s.
Clara, small shrinking fawn
Tenderly clinging
With thy deep hazel eyes
To my down bending face
Feeding upon thee,
Knowledge thou car’st not for,.
Nor Science lov’st greatly
Save for the beautiful
Chance twineth around them.
Thy purest, flawless soul,
Delicate poised
Taste’s pure embodiment
Serves me for magnet,
Testing all things by thee
Testing all thought by thee
For fleck in their beauties.
Helen, sweet Crown of Love
Thou are just beautiful,
Womanly wholly r—
’Tis the soft perfectness
Of thy pure womanhood
Bows my heart down to thee
In willingness unwilled
With the light melody
Of thy bright girlishness
Each resting pause of thought
Fillest thou gracefully
Piecing our four lives
Into a vision bright
Into bright oneness.
�Large Love.
92
So of full largest love
Largliest quaff we,
Four souls inpouring
Brightness convergent
All their quadruple love
All their quadruple life
All their quadruple thought
Into-one Eden..
Turn me mayhap thenBack to the fight again
Teaching with- open eyes
Preaching such largest love
Unto all mortals;—
Quelling the beast in man,
Quelling base self in man
Teaching to quail before
Love’s fearful glances
Unto the higher life
Leading man onwards.
ON PRAYER.
Men take their texts from Bibles, but wheresoever truth is spoken we have a
Bible to hand. Inspiration is in Truth. God himself cannot speak more
than that. To think otherwise is not religion but superstition ; to think that
inspiration is locked up within the covers of one book, and is not the eternal
characteristic of veracity; that it was exhausted some eighteen hundred odd
years ago, and not reserved in an inexhaustible fund to be spent upon the
world, carrying its own sanctity, and founting always
Within the arteries of a man,
that truth can be anything else but inspired, or inspiration anything but truth
is a fetishism only different in quality, not in substance, to that of the idolator
and the savage.
Let us take a text from Emerson; if he does not speak the truth, he speaks
honesty, which is the next thing to it, but that he does speak the truth (and
consequently is equally inspired for us with any Scriptures whatsoever,) I need
not say is the writer’s religion.
�93
The Practical Idealist.
The preamble to the passage runs thus :—
_ “ It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance,—a new respect for thedivinity in man,—must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of
men ; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits ; their modes of
living; their associations ; in their property; in their speculative views.
In what prayers do men allow themselves ? That which they call a holy»
office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad, and asks for
some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in
endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous.
Prayer that craves a particular commodity—anything less than all good, is
vicious.
Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest*
point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is
the Spirit of God pronouncing His works good. But prayer as a means to
effect a private end, is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not
unity iD nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he
will not be. He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer*
kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke
of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout all nature, though for cheap
ends.”
This extract is from the noble essay on “Self-Reliance,” against passages
of which I was impelled to write,—Read me these pages on my death bed.
By a melancholy mistake, truly, is common prayer called holy. Instead of
cultivating manliness, self-help, and fortitude, it feebly whines for subsidy and
indulgence. It forgets the proverb, men in their wiser (if secular) momenta
have invented,—“ God helps those who help themselves.” It is lazy and
luxurious, and essentially immoral. I have for years shrunk from praying for
temporal blessings; I have instinctively and intimately felt that it is so selfish,
or as Emerson says, “mean;” and further that it is, in truth, a piece of
profanity, for it indirectly imputes to God that He will not order things for the
best; it impugns His dispensation.
I have felt that I hardly dared to petition
in this selfish way; that it was a piece of presumption and temerity; that I
was not justified; that I had no standing-point. I, a microscopic creature on
a speck of the Rolling Universe, to lift up my voice to the King without a
a Name to ask him to interfere in my puny affairs for my personal,—nay, my
pecuniary benefit ! Not that anything is too small to be out of God’s Provi
dence; the atom is the focus of stupendous laws; the object of the solar
system ; abstractly, great and little are alike with God; but relatively,—that
God should arrest or modify the progress of the whole to gratify the ephemeral
appetite of an atom is a melancholy superstition, as illogical as it is selfish.
The welfare of the atom, we must learn, is bound up with that of the whole;
we must abandon ourselves to the laws, not pitiably beg that the laws may be
altered.
The theory of materialistic prayer must be either that God will interfere speci
ally to accommodate our lilliputian petitions,—the selfish fancies of a shallow
moment,—morally certain to clash with the true demands of things,—or that
he is pleased with a little lip-service.
�On Prayer.
94
The latter need only be mentioned not to be noticed; the former is almost
■a§ unworthy.
; Is it not seen that prayer is a superfluity as well as an impertinence ; that
God will order all things for the best. It is our duty to accept, and not to
ask; our attitude should be receptivity; it pleases God best that we help ourselves,
—and not ask Him to help us ; He leaves us to answer our own prayers ; forti
tude aud work are what He admires—not petitions; to do and bear, that is
■our duty; not to presume to-ask, which is, indirectly to dictate. God Almighty,
indeed, must look upon such unmanly practices as utterly contemptible, and
one would have thought men would have learnt their futility, if not their
ignobleness, from the systematic way in which they have been disregarded.
The world goes singing the same tune,
And whirls her living and her dead.
God does not put us here to ask Him to help us, but to learn His laws; to
be healthy and clever; and the veteran Premier’s remark to the scandalized
Scotch corporation,—that sanitary measures, and not prayers, were the remedy,
exhausted the truth.
’
To help ourselves appears to be our raison d’etre,—what have we to do with
grayer ?
In the expression—“ Prayer -is the contemplation of the facts of life from
the highest point of view ”—I imagine Emerson meant praise rather than
prayer,—laudatory prayer, not solicitous. Prayer, he says, (in his splendid
eloquence) “is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant” soul; the spirit of
God pronouncing his works good.”
Silent .Praise is this; and it is the spirit of God because in its living appre
hension. it becomes one in identity; as Emerson elsewhere asks—“ Jesus’
virtue, is not that mine ? If it cannot be made mine it is not virtue.”
In the same way as this spirit pronouncing God’s works to be good is a
tacit Te Deum; so laborare est orare,—as Carlyle translates it,—work is
woiship.. The way to praise God is to work; every furrow turned over is an
ode; it is testimony to His genius and obedience to His laws.
Appreciation, too, is the deepest form of praise. When I walk into the
fields and feel helpless with delight, that is the sincerest psalm, and more in
tense than the most throbbing hymn. My son, says the Lord, ever,—give me
thine. Heart; not thy Voice, but thy tumultuous, unfathomable Feeling; the
glowing spirit within you.
To conclude; the beauty, the ineffableness, even, of spiritual prayer is not to
be concealed, though it is singular how the idea of even spiritual prayer seems
to shiink before that of work. After all, it seems somewhat of an indulgence,
or a supeifluity. The man who rises at six o’clock with a hard day’s work
before him, seems to have little to do with prayer; he seems to be independent
of .it, and even of that exquisite relation of docility before God, which the
spiritual pray-er knows in all its sweetness.
�95
The Practical Idealist
The beauty of spiritual prayer consists in the attitude of humility and con«
versation it establishes before God; and if we will only observe the rule—
Pray,—pouring thanks and asking grace.
I own T can conceive little more lovely. Surely it is a sweet preparation for
the day ; from such prayer we seem to come out as from a sanctuary ; invested
as with a radiant atmosphere ; explaining the parable of Moses of old.
The depth and sweetness of true prayer I have not failed to experience;
and yet, alas, such is the meanness of human nature, I must confess their
greatest intensity was in a moment of disappointment and trouble. And yet
it is an intense delight, and an inexprsssible balm to find after the chills and
vanities of the world that we have in our heart-of-hearts the invisible Almighty
God to fall back upon, ever at the bottom and the centre, the Illimitable
Father, the incorporation of all that is Ideal, the Ideal of ail that is loving and
kind, majestic and pure.
A prayer of the spiritual sort, might not, perhaps, improperly, run as
follows :—
O Lord Father, who hast poured upon me so many blessings, and granted
me so many privileges, 1 thank Thee with inexpressible thanks for Thy mercies,
impossible to enumerate. My words can make Thee no return, let my feelings
praise Thee. Make me great, which is making me good; fortify me against
my last day, and reconcile me beyond,—for Thy Fatherhood’s sake, Amen!
Alex. Teetgen.
�By H. L. M.
I must again trespass on the Editor’s courtesy,—already conspicuously dis
played, by disputing the interpretation put upon the argument of my former
■article, as follows :—
“ When the writer speaks of what Christ might have done had He not been
despised and rejected, it is equivalent to saying that He was mistaken and
disappointed in calculations which it seems the insight of modern thinkers
would have been equal to ; and in this case, where the omniscience of God
head ?”—Idealist, p. 66, 67.
I reply, that this omniscience of God-head was “ equal to ” foresee the
result of Israel’s probation, is shown—1st, by the prophecies which speak of
Messiah’s rejection, and 2ndly, by many words of Christ on Earth, proving
that he was by no means “ dissapointed,” however grieved thereat.
I. I alluded in the previous paper to the pathetic 53rd of Isaiah, as sup
plying a strong additional support to the claims of Jesus to the Messiahship.
Eor this is a wondrously fulfilled inspired prophecy ; and one of such a nature
as neither a vain glorious deluding pretender, nor a fondly dreaming, self
deluded enthusiast, would have been particularly desirous to attempt to get
fulfilled in his own person. Let all readers, however well they know the pas
sage, read it once more, from the 13th verse of the 52nd chapter, to the end
of the 53rd, and note its remarkable correspondence with the facts and doctrine
of Christ’s Passion. Then observe how, after the closing notes of this mournful
strain, inwhich the prophet seems to lament his people’s rejection and ill-treatment
of their Messiah—he changes his key, and in the opening of the 54th chapter
salutes with a joyful welcome the new Gentile Church, called in to supply the
place of the unfaithful nation, and promised more numerous children, and a
wider habitation. Similar in spirit are prophecies in chaps, xlviii and xlix.
�The Practical Idealist.
■97
4
i
i
'
Here the Messiah, the “ Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel,” v. 17, seeifts
himself to speak, and thus break forth, (though uic passage had a more
immediate application,) i'nto a lament over his rejection, not for his own
sake, but the nation’s;—“ 0 that thou had’st hearkened to my command-"
ments 1 then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as
the waves of the sea: thy seed also had been as the sand,” &c.—-surely the
very voice which long afterwards exclaimed in the same accents, “ If thou
had’st known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong
unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes 1 ” &c.—Luke xix, 42.
In the 49th chapter, as if turning away in sorrow from Israel, he thus addresses
the Gentiles :—“ Listen 0 isles, unto me, and hearken ye people, from far ; ’*
then after announcing his birth and mission, he sCems to relate a colloquy be
tween himself and his father. “ he said I have laboured in vain, I have spent
my strength for nought, and in vain; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord,
and my work with my God: ” and' the reply is, “ Though Israel be not
gathered,” &c. “ It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to
raise up the tribes of Jacob;—I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles,
that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”—Lev. i. 12.
Daniel announces that “ Messiah should be cut off, but not for himself; ”
ix. 25 ; and Zechariah has some remarkable prophecies;—of the thirty pieces
of silver, assigned to the potter in the house of the Lord •; “ a goodly price
that I was priced at of them.” He said—xi, 12-13, “Awake O sword,
against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow saith the Lord of
hosts.”—xiii, 7 ; and “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced.”—
xii, 10.
These predictions were for several centuries “ unfulfilled inspired prophecies; ”
but now for above 18 have stood forth as fulfilled ones; (the last indeed, as far
as regards the piercing, if not yet the looking,) the more remarkably because
they predict the nation’s own shame and blindness, and the preference of others
in its place; a situation which no nation would be likely to “ aspire ” or
“ sigh after,” or seek to fulfill for itself. It is remarkable that that part of
Handel’s Messiah which depicts the rejection and sufferings of Christ, is taken
exclusively from the Old Testament: indeed the whole work affords a curious
illustration, (by no means an exhaustive one,) of the fulness with which his
storv can be related out of that Testament, and those who recognise the fulfil
ment of some of its testimonies concerning him, find no difficulty in believing
that all will be fulfilled in the end. In the Messianic prophecies, the predic
tions relating to the first and to the second advents, appear contiguously
mingled together, as different chains of mountains sometimes do in a distant
view; but as in journeying nearer and through them, these open and separate,
showing how far they lie one beyond another, and what long stretches of plain
land intervene,—so from our present position between the two advents, we now
behold the long centuries which divide them. That this interval was not clearly
visible in prospect is not surprising when we reflect that before Christ’s coming
it was open to Israel to accept him at his first advent, and then all might have
been fulfilled without a break. Doubtless, he could have found means to accom-
�“Despised and Rejected.”
98
plisli his great sacrifice for the redemption of the world without their wicked
hands; and then having thrown off the guise of humiliation which befitted it,
might for anything we know, have stepped on at once to David’s throne. In
like manner, when the Israelites were in Egypt, God’s promise to bring them
out thence, and to bring them into Canaan was given all in one, and but for
their own fault might have been fulfilled all in one; but through their unbelief
when on the border of the promised land, a long interval was interposed of 40
years.
It may be asked why, if the conduct of the Jews in refusing Christ was so
plainly foreseen by God, as to find place in the prophecies, did He nevertheless
put them to the test? But the same question might be asked concerning every
probation to which God has ever subjected man with a like result; for when
was there any of which He did not see the result ? But it is nevertheless,
morally necessary that such probations should take place. And though those
who fail rightly to endure them suffer loss themselves, they will not in the end
defeat the purposes of God.
II. Nor was Christ’s treatment by the Jews any matter of surprise or dis
appointment to Himself? No, surely no. Not only were the circumstances of
His death and resurrection before Him at the beginning of His public career,
the pulling down and raising up again of the temple of His body, and His
lifting up on the cross, like the serpent in the wilderness, John ii, 19-22, iii, 14,
but His rejection by the leaders of the people with its issue, and many atten
dant circumstances, were the subject of frequent prophecy during the last year
of His life on earth, (Mark, viii, 31-33, ix, 33-34), with reference to the
prophets and the scriptures (Luke, xviii, 31, Matt, xxvi, 54). While confi
dently prophesying His second coming into glory, He interposed the prelimi
nary, that “ first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this genera
tion,” Luke, xvii, 25. When the whole company of the disciples greeted Him
with acclamations on His entry into Jerusalem, thinking that now’ the Son of
David was surely about to take possession of his kingdom, his own thoughts
rested rather on the more proximate events which would postpone that dav,
Jerusalem’s crime and punishment ; over which he wept, not for his own sake,
but for the city’s; seeing in anticipation the Roman armies compassing it
around, and laying it even with the ground, because it knew not the time of
its visitation. When James and John asked to be foremost in sharing the
honours of the kingdom, he told them of a bitter cup to be drunk first, a cold
baptism to be undergone. And it was not without a Divine eagerness that he
looked forward to this, for the sake of the great issues beyond it. “ I have a
baptism to be baptised with,”—a cold plunge into, and rising again from death,
—and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ? ” As the time drew near
the simple-request of certain Greeks to see Ilim, seems to have brought before
His mind the thought of all nations presently drawing near to worship and
afresh stimulated Him to the endurance of the approaching sacrifice which vas
to redeem them. “ Except a corn of wheat” He said ‘ fall into the ground
and die, it abideth alor.e ; but if it die, it bringvlh forth much fruit. And 1,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Should He then
�99
The Practical Idealist.
pray to be saved from this coming hour of pain and death ? No ; it was for
this cause He had come to this hour; “ to give His life,” as He said at another
time, “a ransom for many.” John xii, 20-33, Matt, xxi, 28. Jesus stood
alone at this time in these thoughts ; without any sympathy or comprehension
from His disciples. Peter rebuked Him when first He began to speak to them
of His future sufferings and death, and afterwards we are told “they under
stood none of these things.”—Matt, xvi, 22, Luke xviii, 34), having so fixed
their eyes on the more numerous prophecies of the Messiah’s kingdom and
glory as to overlook the occasional ones which spoke of his sufferings and
hnmiliation. Not till after His resurrection did they learn to connect them,
when to the disappointed sigh of Cleopas. “ We trusted that it had been He
who should have redeemed Israel,” Jesus himself replied “ 0 fools, and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ! Ought not Christ to have
suffered these things,” (according to these prophets) “ and to enter into His
glory ?” Then first to these two pedestrians, and afterwards to the assembled
apostles, Me expounded in all the scriptures, the law of Moses, and the Psalms,
as well as the Prophets, the things concerning Himself—Luke, xxiv, 25-27,
44-47. A wondrous exposition that must have been ! would that it had been
preserved for us! But the Christian student is at no great loss, in the face of
the great facts and doctrines of the Gospel, to trace the many anticipations in
earlier scripture which foreshadowed and led up to them—far more numerous,
taking the whole body of it into account, than could be touched on here. AU
the scriptures looking forward to Christ, catch on their faces the coming dawn,
as those written after His appearance throw back the full light.
As to the effects of the invention of printing, the greatest work which that
did was to liberate the Bible, which had been hidden in convents, shut up in
dead languages and costly illuminated manuscripts, and send it abroad to pro
duce by its influence the reformation of religion, and the regeneration of society.
During the dark centuries of its seclusion, the name of Christ may have been
indeed over rated, but his spirit and doctrine were behind a cloud, overlaid and
encrusted with mediaeval superstition. But how pregnant is true Christianity
with right law-making principles, if not definite laws, for social government, is
manifest in the improvement of legislation, as well as spiritual life, wherever it
has free scope to operate. And how living are those waters which, the seal
being removed from the fountain, could gush forth again so fresh, revivifying
the face of aU lands through which they flow !
H. L. M.
Any mind not irrevocably given up to foregone conclusions in studying the Book of
Isaiah must surely peroeive that only a vague and brief passage here and there, in the midst
of ten chapters of wholly inapplicable matter, oan be strained into any sort of reference
to Jesus. Compared with the general vagueness of the Hebrew prophecies, the Delphian,
oracles might rationally be styled miraculous, and given such a mass of poetic utter
ance, or so-called prophecies, it may be assumed that the circumstances of the life of any
illustrious Jew, in the course of the latter half of the nation’s history, would have tallied
more closely with them. Taking the much vaunted 53rd chap. Isaiah, whilst the whole
�“Despised and Rejected'
100
that is so rashly deemed conclusive, is only the natural portrait of a future ideal person
age that would naturally occur to the prophetic Poet of a country that’was wont to place
its faith in its prophets, and jet amongst a people who usually rejected and ill-used, like
the
their great men, it contains no single direct and unmistakeable allusion, and
the passages in the 10th and 12th verses are distinctly contradictory of such allusion to
Jesus, unless contorted in a manner by which anything might be made to mean any
thing.
It would be idle to answer arguments founded upon the prophecies recorded along with
miracles in the very narrative whose authenticity is the question at issue. But any dis
passionate mind should have its doubts at once set at rest by the consideration that it is
altogether incredible that the Deity in making a revelation that should save man the
trouble of solving “ the painful riddle of the earth,” would involve it in such mysteries as
to render it the only incredible and inscrutable thing in His Universe to the greater part
Of thoso acknowledged to be the most earnest, reverent and enlightened minds on the
earth.
The following words of Emerson irradiate the subject.—
“ Jesus saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take
possession of his world- He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, ‘I am divine.
Through me, God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me ; or, see thee,
when thou also thinkest as I now think.’ The understanding caught this high chant from
the poet’s lips, and said, in the next age, ' This was Jehovah come down out of heaven.
I will kill you if you say he was a man.’ The idioms of his language, and the figures of
his rhetoric, have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not built on his principtes, but on his tropes. Christianity became a mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece
and of Egypt, before.”—
The Author of “The Christian Hypothesis.”
ONE YEAR IN HIS LIFE (CONCLUDED.)
Had she forgotten how 1 prayed her love ?
1 could not tell; she was so frank and sweet,
Had no embarrassment in talking just
In the old strain. I watched her every hour,
As doth a prisoner watch his jailer’s face
To catch the faintest forecast of his doom;
But 1 could learn nought from her bonnie eyes,
Save kindness, and a somewhat frightened glance,
Were we by chance left separate from the rest,
A pretty plaintive look, that seemed to ask
For yet a little longer, e’er I spoke.
Oh that I could have taken from iny life
Some of these weary hours, and added them
To that short week ; it was so short, oh God !
And life now is so long ! so long, so void.
But now I must not rave 1 my deepest grief
Forbids a questioning, I can only wait
For an hereafter that may teach them all,
Or leave me quiet in a silent grave
Beside my darling ; let it come, oh Lord 1
We talked one night, the night before the end,
�The Practical Idealist.
Just as we used at Holme; the August eve
Lay purple round us, and the great white moon
Shone glorious o’er the hills that slept in shade
All flecked by silver arrows from her bow,
The silence kept us silent, neither spake
Till Mary sang most quietly and sweet
Half to herself, the following little song:—
“ The birds have done their pairing and are wed,
The lovers whisper where the blooms are shed,
Upon their clasped hands, his love-bowed head.
The birds have done their pairing; yet I stay
And weary of the loneliness each day,
That I go quite alone upon my way.
The birds have done their pairing; say oh heart,
Is lonely grief for aye thy bitter part ? ’
Death is a friend 1 Oh may he heal the smart!
“ How sad your song is,” said I, “ but ’tis fit
For August surely, when the hopes of spring
Find their fulfilment or their emptiness.
The autumn’s turning, and the winter wind
Will try us all, unless we’re safely housed,
Most blessed in the warmth and love of home.”
“ Which of us three,” said Lady Mildred then,
Will have the warmest winter ? Mary, you,
And you, Sir Wilfrid will have empty nests,
And I my husband, and a home, yet void
As yours are; could three lonelier souls have met
Than we are ? Oh for comfort, oh for love!
“ Oh Lady Mildred,” said I, “you have love,
All love, love of your husband, of your friends,
And sure Miss Stanton could have love enough
If she had but needed it; I am all alone.”
“ Shall we dispute,” said Mary—“ half in sport.”
Which of us has the largest share of woe?—
Ah no ! life is too short, 1’11 change my note
And sing instead of light and love and flowers,
And quite forget the echo of the song
That caused your talk to take that bitter tone,
To-morrow we go home, to-morrow morn;
I have a fancy to explore your coast
With you, Sir Wilfred, you can teach me much,
And we’ll go early e’er the morn is high,
Aye, even watch the sun rise o’er the sea.”
“Agreed,” I answered, “only just that word,
�One Year in his Life concluded.
My heart leaped high and beat against my breast,
And questions crowded quiekly thro’ my brain,
Can she have learned at last to love my soul,
Or will she in her mercy gently crush
The hopes and longings that the summer nursed?
Or has she quite forgotten how I loved ?
Here do I pause, here shrink in actual pain,
At putting the last touches to the tale
Of this my living, yet oh, heart, be strong,
Tell all thy story and then close the book,
And let the past lay it within its breast,
And glide away into its shadowy home,—
The morning came, not clear and calmly bright,
But wild and glowring: still she kept the tryst,
And we walked towards the coast. I did not speak
Until we reached the shore; th’ uneasy waves
Moaned greyly ’mid the shadows, and the rocks
Loomed blackly o’er our heads, straight, sharp, and steep :
We wandered on, until a tiny cove,
Lit with the coming day, enticed our steps
To stay themselves, and so we rested there,
And watched the fitful wavelets come and go,—
“ Gloriously wild,” I said, half to myself,
“ Yet miserable, for it tells of winter’s hand,
That summer’s passing, all the sweets will go,
And I shall weary of the wiuter time,
And wonder in the gloom why things are so,
And cavil at the God who made them thus.
Miss Stanton ; all this week I’ve watched your face,
Yearning for sign or word to shew to me
That you are still remembring what I said
Before I left the river in the spring.—
Mary, I pause again ; my very soul
Sickens with aprehensión; nay, my dear,
l)o not be crying; I should hold my peace,
But hope is hard in dying—will not die
Till hell’s own touch makes us abandon it.
Child, I am happy but to see you, feel
Your presence round me, if I try once more
To keep you here regardless of the pain,—
You have in hearing me, forgive me then ?”
She answered not, but gazed away, and I
Cared not to break the silence, so we sat,
An hour or more, until the gathering light
Showed us the day—was here, and showed us more,—
102
�103
The Practical I dealist.
Here is the climax ; but I cannot paint
E’en for your eyes our agony, my pain:
A natural pain at losing sight of life
And facing fully all the facts of death,
For as we sat there, round had crept the waves
And hemmed us in, and we had scarce an hour
That we could call our own; God only knows
Why this was done; we climbed the steep black rocks
Until we could not climb another step,
A.nd then she spoke quiet quietly and slow,
“ Sir Wilfred, we are dead ! so I may speak
May tell you now, what never in this life
I fear me I’d have told you, face to face,
I love you 1—do not start and press me close,
Remember death knows neither bliss nor pain,
Nought but oblivion or a higher sphere
Where kisses do not come, or clasping arms,
But, chance, a fuller knowledge; now they creep
About us here, those cruel curling waves,
So soon to crush us in their deadly grasp.”—
“I can’t beliwe we’re dead! is there no hope?
“ Oh God,” I cried, “ is their no hope indeed,
Can we not live now I have won her soul
To love mine own, despite the cursed form
That hangs a burden on my feeble life ?
Oh God be merciful, nor dash the cup
I yearned so long for, from my thirsting lip,
Oh! Mary, if we die, and die we must—
Watch how those cruel waves grow at our feet,—
Meet death within mine arms; perchance, perchance
You’ll feel them round you; I may feel your form
Within them in the silence of the grave.—
These arms! oh God, misshapen as they are
It is impossible to know that swift
They’ll be all nerveless, that our tongues that speak
And call each other by our names to-day
Will never whisper more;—oh Mary, love,
Tell me you love me, once before we die.”
“ I love you,” said she, and she took my hands
And placed them round her, leaning down her head,
And blushing tenderly ; ay, even then ;
God has His purpose, “ let us hope, in this,”
She added slowly, “better thus to die
Than to live on a useless, loveless life,
I would have been loveless, for my soul I fear
Has not the nobleness to love yours quite
As ’twill when unencumbered by the mark
�One Year in his Life concluded.
You bear about you, of mishapenness,
Dear Wilfred, I shall love you when we’re dead,
It will be nought, if death is only sleep,
To sleep within your arms, but death is more,
’Tis painful, oh! 1 shudder, see the waves
Curl now about our feet, oh hold me fast 1
’Tis the unraveller sure of all our doubts,
The soother of our puzzled weary brain,”
She murmured, as she watched the rising tide,
“ How near death is, yet seems it Wondrous far,
Wondrous unreal, that we are standing here,
Quivering with life, yet trembling into death,
And Mildred waits and wonders why we stay.”
I held her to my breast, and clasped her close
And murmured little sentences of love
And death crept nearer, o’er our trembling feet,
Up to our knees it came, I had small strength,
—Due to my cursed shape,—to hold her there,
Yet we clung on, and hoped until the last,
A boat might come and take us from death’s jaws :
“ I’m trying hard,” said Mary, “ to be good,
To say the prayers our lips have ever prayed
But they are not for dying, parting 8ouls,
Our Father hangs in utterance, and my soul
Can but resign itself because it must,
With just a hope that God is over us,
To take us gently now our work is done,
To somewhere, where our living is not just
A groping after shadows, but a guest
For answers to the questions that have pressed
Since childhood wearily upon our hearts.”
“ Let it come quickly,” groaned I. “ Oh, my love,
My little love, kiss me upon the lips
And let your kiss baptise my soul anew;
In mercy kiss me.”—“ Oh good bye my dear,
Good bye but for a moment, whispered she,
Thank God we go together, here is death.”
E’en as she spoke, our lips met in one kiss,
And I remember nothing, save a shock,
A parting of my hold upon the cliff,
Until I came to life here,—save the mark !
To life, nay unto death—the bitterness
Had passed, the wrenching of the mental part
From the more sense of life that is such pain;
The real Death,—felt when I saw Mildred’s face
Looking upon me, turning into pain,
104
�1.05
The Practical Idealist.
When with a gasp, I asked for Mary’s hands
To smoothe my pillow, cool my throbbing brow.
“ Dead ! dead ! ” I whispered as my mera’ry came
Back from that dim mysterious shore, where none
Can trace the footsteps that oblivion made,
Or follow where sleep led at evening’s tide
When one returns one does return for aye
Without one fact traced on the dreaming brain,
Will it be thus I wonder when we’re dead?
Shall we awake as from a troubled dream,
With no remembrance, nothing save a thought,
That somewhere in the darkness we have met
With such a one, or somewhere else, one knew
What ’twas to love?’—God keep my memory clear,
And save me here from madness in the pause
That lies before me me till I meet my love.
I saw her dead, laid in her coffined peace
Smiling with upturned face; I realized
That she was gone, and yet I lived, and live.
(Some boat had come into the little cove
And rescued me, the first wave kdled my love;
She had no pain,—that all is left for me,
I had forgot to tell you how I lived.)
Here is my story, Arthur! read it o’er
Then mark it with a query, nought is solved,
Not one thing answered; here i3 this and that,
Facts upon facts, each laid in due array,
Such suffring, so much death, so little cause,
Yet people who are pious, simply sigh,
When they are asked the reason of this thing,
And think I take the comfort when they say,
With untried faith, “ Sure, God is very good.”
S. Panton.
Correction, In our May No.—Muriel's Story,
Author's copy runs—Up steep Parnassus, &c.
line 11,
page 62, the
NOTICE!
Competition for tiie Lavreatesiiip of tiie Association. 1870-1871.—The Author of
the best poem on the subject—Social Progress, shall be the Laureate for the ensuing year.
The Judges will be the Members of the Council, who will not be debarred from compet
ing, (present Laureates excepted). No limits are imposed as regards the length of the
Poems. They should be sent before the 1st of September, to the Hon. Assist. Secretary,
Augustus Villa, 90, Richmond Road, Hackney, N.
Erratum. Page 92. line 9. For—Turn me—read—turn we.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Practical Idealist
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: [82] -105 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Possibly from the journal of the Social Progress Association. {from KVK]. Contents: The idealist's code of faith -- A patched society (Digest:-continued) / Ernina Landon -- Large lobe, or Eros versus Aphrodite -- On prayer /Alex Teegen -- "Despised and dejected" / H.L.M. -- One year in his life (concluded) S. Panton.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[187-?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5293
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Philosophy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The Practical Idealist), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Idealism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/478278f3a27359dcbda4f41912d63127.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Qu4JEtYnokn1-WIOHcLk7pXN0M5Vbs06Jch7QbLOg-BGB35tJhemSJoqpH69Y0D4dVoUBK2IauWhSmUovxf-5SE4Z7QBuDN6E0LR9hejBNcPZUfwu2wwF5mNrO4lbz6dMab4G6jd27V3N6TErUtYA2RTxckSuuloCNm13BbocKs6TzLXXYqIlMhtDEwS%7E8SV%7Ejy1e701ulPxT0zK3L1b82QmKr1tYlD2qj7zEmijB-TdF4F6yp%7E2msqKxUyZNy84UQCuPPImxSJhmWZr1l-zCLSfgVgIa6u-gm%7EzOKRfViGjZREwysDLFd21zGzfSdjrrCJvrqvPhbD0POeJrU0C-g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
0e19b031fe89b64d4e24ead7219ee00d
PDF Text
Text
'flthe Jnidlectual
AND
NEW JERUSALEM MAGAZINE.
No. 254.]
'
FEBRUARY 1, 1875.
[Vol. XXII.
LIKE AND UNLIKE.
There are many things in this world that appear to he alike, and
some that are even supposed to be identical, which are yet very differ
ent from, and some of them even opposite to, each other. Charity and
benevolence are often confounded, but are by no means the same.
Although not in their nature antagonistic, they are not unfrequently
opposite in their results. Charity aims at the real and even the ever
lasting good of its objects, benevolence only consults their apparent
good, and not only leaves the eternal out of consideration, but often so
acts as to make the temporal hostile to it. Parental love and fondness
are not unfrequently mistaken for each other, or rather fondness is
sometimes mistaken for love. Yet they are far from being the same.
Love, like charity, constantly aims at the real good of the objects of
its affection and regard, and so treats them as to secure, as far as it can,
their true and lasting welfare. Fondness seeks its satisfaction in the
gratification of its own and of its objects’ feelings and desires, and
often sacrifices their true interests by ministering to their appetites and
passions.
Zeal and anger are not always distinguished, yet they are not only
different but opposite in their origin, in their nature, and in their
tendency. Zeal is the warmth of love, anger is the fire of hatred.
“ Externally zeal appears like anger, but inwardly they are different.
The differences are these. The zeal of a good love is like a heavenly
flame, which in no case bursts forth upon another, but only defends
itself against a wicked person. But the zeal of an evil love is like an
�54
Like and Unlike.
infernal flame, which of itself bursts forth and rushes on, and desires
to consume another. The zeal of a good love burns away, and is
allayed when the assailant ceases to assault; but the zeal of an evil
love continues, and is not extinguished. This is because the internal
of him who is in the love of goodness is in itself mild, soft, friendly and
benevolent; wherefore when his external, with a view of defending
itself, is fierce, harsh, and haughty, and thereby acts with rigour, still
it is tempered by the good in which he is internally. It is otherwise
with the evil. With them the internal is unfriendly, without pity,
harsh, breathing hatred and revenge, and feeding itself with their
delights ; and although it is reconciled, still these evils lie concealed as
fire in the wood under the embers; and these fires burst forth after
death, if not in this world.” (C. L. 365.) There are two lessons we
may learn from this outward similarity between the two essentially
different feelings of zeal and anger. We must not regard all warmth of
feeling which we meet with in debate, when a speaker is vindicating
his own opinions, or refuting or even declaiming against those of others,
as of necessity so much as allied to anger. Nor must we suppose that
a still more fiery denunciation of wrong and vindication of right has
any necessary relationship with wrath. There is a generous indigna
tion, which is sometimes called righteous anger; but such indignation
or anger is only zeal. It has in it no hatred except against evil. It
desires the welfare even of those who do the evil against which it is
directed. The angels, we are told, have indignation, but their indigna
tion “ is not of anger but of zeal, in which there is nothing of evil,
and which is as far removed from hatred or revenge, or from the spirit
of returning evil for evil, as heaven is from hell, for it originates in
good.” (A. C. 3839.) Another lesson we learn from the outward
similarity between zeal and anger has respect to God.
He is a zealous
God. And His Divine zeal, although it is the fire of infinite love, to a
certain class of His creatures has the appearance, and from that ap
pearance has in Scripture assumed the name, of anger and even of
wrath and vengeance. “ The zeal of the Lord, which in itself is love
and pity, appears to the evil as anger; for when the Lord out of love
and mercy protects His own in heaven, the wicked are indignant and
angry against the good, and rush into the sphere where Divine good
and Divine truth are, and attempt to destroy those who are there, and
■ in this case the Divine truth of the Divine good operates upon them,
and makes them feel such torments as exist in hell; hence they attri
bute to the Divine Being wrath and anger, whereas in Him there is
nothing at all of anger or of evil, but pure clemency and mercy.
Wrath and anger are attributed to the Lord, but they belong to those
who are in evil, or are angry against the Divine.” (A. C. 8875.) How
needful, then, the Lord’s exhortation—“ Judge not according to the
appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”
�55
SKETCH OF THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY
BASED ON SCRIPTURE AND REASON.
BY THE LATE REV. W. WOODMAN.
Chap. V.—The Relation of the Soul and Body—continued.
We now come to the final question, which, though last, is not least
in importance : “ What is the use of the material body in relation to
the soul?” or, “What is the ground, in the divine economy, of the
necessity of man being born into the natural world 1 ” That such a
necessity exists must be inferred from the fact: for Divine Wisdom
does nothing in vain. No provision which exists is superfluous.
Hence there must be an adequate reason for the phenomenon.
In the preceding chapter it was explained that, without an inert or
reactive basis, creation itself would have been impossible, and that the
creative energies would have dissipated themselves without result. It
was also shown by reference to those phenomena of the other world, of
which the Scriptures supply intimations, that the substances of that
world have an inherent activity which results in continual change,
many of the scenes described in the prophets and the Apocalypse being
like the shifting scenes of a drama. That objects and scenery of a
permanent character exist there is unquestionable, but, as will be
shown in a future part of this work, their continuance is due to their
connection with states derived from the fixedness of this world. Such
Would be the character of the human soul, had it not been provided,
in order to its preserving a permanent identity, that the spirit should
be allied to the inert substances of the world of nature, thence to
derive a kind of limbus—a selvidge, or fringe-work of fixedness, which
forms a substratum or fulcrum to the spiritual activities, and serves,
like the cutaneous integument of the body, to hold all its parts in their
connection.
The rudiment of this is laid at conception, and becomes actual at birth,
so soon as the material organization has been animated from the outer
world, by the inhalation of the external atmosphere. Life thus brought
down to the extreme verge of our nature—in other words, the influx of
life from which the embryo lived thus uniting itself with the afflux of
life from without—-the connection of the soul with the body, which
previously had been potential, now becomes actual.
Still, the base thus formed in the child, though real, is rudimentary,
and receives its full development in after life, the body then serving as
�56
Sketch of the Science of Psychology.
a plane into which the mental activities are determined, and where, by
being embodied in corresponding acts, they become fixed in actual life.
This explains why in the Scriptures so great an emphasis is placed on
works, and why we are to be judged according to the deeds done in th®
body. It is for this reason that the Lord insists on the doing of His
precepts as the foundation on which alone our spiritual house can
stand.
The importance of this subject affords a sufficient apology for
adducing a few of the more prominent instances in which this doctrine
is enforced, such as the following : “ Blessed are the dead which die in
the Lord from henceforth'; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest
from their labours, and their works do follow them ” (Rev. xiv. 13).
l( Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right
to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city ”
(Rev. xxii. 14). “ Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he who doeth the will of My
Father which is in heaven” (Matt. vii. 21). “ He that hath My com
mandments, and doeth them, he it is that loveth Me” (John xiv. 21).
“ Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit: so shall ye
be My disciples ” (John xv. 5). “ Say ye to the righteous, It shall
be well with him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings ” (Isa. iii.
10). And these are but a small fraction of the texts which bear on
the point.
The ground of these strong injunctions is obviously because love
together with faith, unless embodied in act, evaporate in mere senti
mentality. “ If,” as the Apostle James truly observes, “ a brother or
sister be naked, or destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto
them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye
give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth
it profit?” (chap. ii. 15, 16.) It is as profitless to him who contents
himself with the sentiment as to the object of it; it is equally desti
tute of fruit in the one case as in the other. In the act all purposes of
the will, with all the mental powers, both intellectual and affectional,
are concentrated. They are simultaneously present, and require a
consistency in the deed, whilst they leave their indelible impress on
the spirit.
It is not however to be inferred that there is any efficacy in mere
deeds. Actions, however pious or beneficent in their outward form,
when not the result of genuine religious principle, are destitute of
spiritual vitality. They are either formal or hypocritical—either like
�Sketch of the Science of Psychology.
57
a lk»dy without a soul, or a whited sepulchre, the receptacle of dead
Bien’s hones and all uncleanness. A mere act, considered abstractedly
from motive, is simply mechanical. It is qualified by the motive out of
which it springs; and the same act performed by different persons
may differ in all its essential characteristics, and indeed does so in
the degree in which the respective purposes and ends contemplated in
the performance of it respectively vary. In the mutual relation there
fore which the one bears to the other the inward motive impresses on
the deed its peculiar character, whilst this solidifies and renders
permanent the principles of thought and affection whence it springs.
It is also a fact, of which every one on reflection may convince him
self, that the principles of the mind, by derivation, become principles
of the body also. This is illustrated in the impress of the mental
characteristics on the countenance. I do not allude to those transitory
changes which are produced by the passing emotions; principles per
manently established within the soul imprint a lasting image of them
selves on the expression of the face.1
That there are instances where the secret workings of the soul are
sedulously concealed from observation is fully conceded; but this is
the result of long education of the features to conceal the real senti
ments of the mind, and simulate others which it does not feel.
It is an abnormal condition, and may be regarded as an exception,
which rather serves to prove the rule than furnish an argument against
it. Moreover, viewed in its essential character, the image of hypocrisy
will be found stamped on every one of its forms, although not so easily
detected by the external senses.2
The impress of the mental principles derived into the bodily
organization is not however confined to the face, although this is, par
1 The author witnessed a remarkable instance of this in comparing the portrait
of a gentleman taken at one period with the original some years afterwards, dur
ing which time a change had taken place in his religious sentiments. The like
ness was evidently an excellent one. Every feature was a perfect reproduction,
as far as to the general contour of the living face then preseent, but the expression
of the two was vastly different. That of the former, though not harsh, was cold
and rigid ; that of the latter beamed with benevolence and sympathy. A change
such as this could only be due to a correspondent change in the arrangement of
the interior fibres which underlie the surface, and which, as explained in the text,
primarily receive the impressions of the mental activities.
2 The author, and doubtless many who read these pages, has found how often
the impression spontaneously produced on first seeing an individual proves to be
the correct one. Even deceit, notwithstanding the consummate art resorted to for
the purpose of concealing the true sentiments, will thus frequently crop out.
/
�58
Sketch of the Science of Psychology.
excellence, the index of the mind. The manual dexterity acquired hy
practice in the more delicate operations of art or mechanics, rests on
the same ground. The soul not only thus educates its material
organism from the minutest fibres of which it is composed to its more
concrete organs, but a lasting impression is left upon them, a disposing
of the minute parts, whereby the operations are capable of almost
spontaneous reproduction ; many of the manual processes requiring no
ordinary skill being carried on without the effort of reflection. The
body has thus a species of automatic action, whence use becomes a
second nature. The retentive faculty of the organism of the im
pressions its activities may have received is most strikingly illustrated
by the circumstance, that what has been acquired in early youth, when
both mind and body are most plastic, is nevertheless so indelibly
fixed as never during life to be obliterated, but are capable of repro
duction at any subsequent period so long as our frame retains its
normal powers.
If this is the case with operations which lie relatively on the surface,
much more with the principles that stir the profounder depths of our
being. Manual dexterity, and even intellectual aptitude, may exist
independently of moral or spiritual character ; but that which springs
from the fountain of the life’s love, acting from a far deeper ground,
will exercise a proportionately more powerful influence; the inmost
motives, whatever their character, will inevitably transform the
whole organism inhabited by it into a perfect image of themselves,
and form a substratum, so to speak, on which the others rest.
It is then for this reason that the soul in its first stage is allied with
a material vesture; and that the natural universe has been created to
supply the elements necessary to form this external covering, and to
furnish a plane whereon these ultimate activities may be developed to
their utmost extent.
In the soul and body, then, are collated all the arcana of created
existence, and communication established with both worlds, so that
each may contribute its wealth to the human subject. The spiritual
supplies the active energies of his being, the material, the reactive base,
by means of which these become fixed and permanent. The lowest
being thus brought into the closest relationship with the highest, the
conditions are supplied for realizing the action of that law whereby
all true operation proceeds from first principles by ultimates into
intermediates. At birth there are only the two extremes, the soul and
a mere corporeity. The former, operating through the latter, rears the
�Shelch of the Science of Psychology.
59
mental superstructure lying between. The first plane rests on the
bodily senses; through these, by instruction, science is formed, and
the moral sentiments superadded; and if man becomes the subject of
& new birth, the centre of a new series is formed, a spiritual super
structure crowns the edifice. The soul is thus like a many-storied
house, rising from the lowest natural plane till it reaches the verge of
the spiritual, which, when formed and developed, brings it into com
munion and conjunction with the Supreme. In all these stages the
operation of the same law may be discovered. The principles and.
purposes formed within the mind acquire a mental consistency and
permanence only as they are determined to act. And whilst this im
parts a fixity to them, it also provides a solid mental basis for the
development and perfection of the religious life within.1
1 Three objections may possibly arise in some minds. It may appear that the
arguments employed in this chapter favour the conclusion that the existence of the
body is indispensable to the full exercise of the mental functions, and that at its
dissolution the soul is deprived of an essential element necessary to such exercise.
In the second place, it may seem as though those who died in infancy must lack
the full development of the natural base, and consequently remain imperfect.
The third difficulty which may probably suggest itself relates to the existence of
angels created such. On the first two points I must request the reader to suspend
his judgment till a future portion of this work, when they will more properly come
Under the full consideration they demand. As regards the third, I must beg
permission to remark that much misapprehension prevails on the subject. There
certainly is no direct intimation in the Scriptures of any existences being so
Created, and the doctrine rests entirely on inference, and this from passages con
fessedly obscure. The direct testimony of Holy Writ is fatal to the hypothesis.
A detailed account of the order of creation is given in the Book of Genesis from
th® “beginning :”—“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Th® process continued, in an ascending series, till it culminated in man, with
which, and the subordinating of all inferior beings to his dominion and control,
God, we are told, “ ended all His work which He had made.” It is unnecessary to
observe that not the slightest reference occurs to the creation of angels. As to
fallen angels the declaration that ‘ ‘ God saw everything that He had made, and,
behold, it was very good,” precludes the idea of such being then in existence.
Moreover, it is not possible rationally to conceive of a being higher than an
image and likeness of God save God Himself. There can be no relation closer
than that of an image and likeness to the original of which it is the copy save
identity, which it would be a misnomer to call relationship, and, in the case
under consideration, would involve the idea of a transfusion of the Deity—an idea
revolting to every Christian sentiment. In addition to this, where angels are
mentioned as having appeared to the patriarchs, and there is no record of such
an event prior to the time of Abraham, they are called “men.” The three who
visited Abraham, and the two who sojourned with Lot, are so called (Gen. xviii.
2 i xix. 10). So also the angel of the Lord that appeared to Manoah and his wife
(Judges xiii.). The angels that appeared at the Lord’s sepulchre, likewise, are so
�6o
EMERSON.
i.
The time was when our American consins were so completely our
imitators that it was only in the matter of Slaveholding and Con
stitution we could say they were distinct with a difference. Cooper
wrote novels after Scott; Washington Irving followed Goldsmith;
Bryant imitated the best things in Wordsworth and Byron; Prescott
walked upon the shadow of Robertson. In arts, science, and agricul
ture, it was the same : we made the Americans their tools, and
composed their manuals;—they were content to use them after our
fashion.
But this state of things had to cease. Territorial annexation
excited a spirit of innovation generally. Then first arose Emerson
with his Transcendentalism; a clock remarkable for its inexactitude
and its whirr in striking followed ; the Poughkeepsie Seer next dawned
upon the indefinable side of the Western horizon; finally, Walt Whit
man made his appearance. The clock has been replaced by a more
reliable chronometer; the Harmonial Philosopher has been overshot
by innumerable experts, mediumistic, thaumaturgic and clairvoyant;
Whitman’s song has been left to die away uncared for beneath the
overwhelming chorus of healthier and less inartistic singers; but
Emerson still remains unaffected by the Zeit-Geist.
In joyous
styled (Mark xvi. 5 ; Luke xxiv. 4 ; compare also John xx. 12), whilst the angel
attendant on John, whose glory was so transcendent that John would have fallen
before him in worship, declared that he was his fellow servant, of the apostles, and
of his brethren the prophets, and of them that kept the sayings of that book
(Rev. xxii. 9). As to the devil ever having been an angel of light, it is directly
contradicted by the declaration of our Lord, that “he was a murderer from the
beginning. ” From the direct testimony of Scripture, and from every rational con
sideration, the conclusion that both angels and internals are from the human
race appears inevitable. The portion of the Second Epistle of Peter, and of that
of Jude, where they speak of the angels who left their first estate, are often
quoted. But, surrounded as they admittedly are with the greatest obscurity, and
their meaning being a matter of conjecture, to urge them in opposition to the
clearly expressed statements on the other side, would be an inversion of all
legitimate reasoning. Similar remarks are applicable to the other texts usually
believed to favour the popular doctrine, as the poetical reference in Job to the
morning stars, and the sons of Gfod singing together at the laying of the corner
stone of the earth, the falling of Lucifer in Isaiah, etc. ; so far as their sense can be
intelligibly gathered, they are entirely irrelevant to the matter in point. On
this subject, however, the reader is referred to Noble’s Appeal.
�Emerson.
6i
severity, dreamy smartness, sagacious mother-wit, and subtle thought,
ha has steadily held his own amongst our Transatlantic brethren
during over forty years of literary activity, and still remains the most
American of Americans;—an incessant protestor against social stag
nation, servility, covetousness, heartlessness, and that conventional
superficiality which—in the domain of thought—brings us everywhere
face to face with mere s^m-dilettantes “peeping into microscopes
and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles to keep his courage up
“men who grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes
■out but what was put in.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born at Boston in the year 1803,
and in early manhood—after graduating at Harvard—was ordained
an Unitarian minister.
An objection to the Sacramental Rite sub
sequently arose in his mind, and gradually widened into difficulties
ending only with the resignation of his pastorate. He then betook
himself to farming at Concord, near the spot where the first soldier
fell at the beginning of the War of Independence. There he has
spent most of his time since—his winter lecturing in Boston excepted.
Erom 1836 until now public attention has been attracted to him at
intervals either by a new course of lectures or by a new book.
“Nature,” “Essays and Orations,” “Representative Men,” “Poems,”
“The Conduct of Life,” “Society and Solitude,” “English Traits,”—
such are his principal literary works. He has also written largely in
the North American Review. Of his works not literary, it may be
briefly stated that Moncure Conway credits him with having so
Completely unsettled the minds of numbers of American thinkers some
years ago, that the Brook Farm Community, and certain other forms
of Harmonism, sprang out of the agitation j1 while J. R. Lowell—
speaking of the late War of Emancipation—says that “to Emerson
more than to all other causes together, did the young martyrs of our
civil war owe the sustaining strength of thoughtful heroism that is so
touching in every record of their lives.”2 What have been the prin
cipal causes of this success ? Is this success overrated ?
When Emerson—speaking of Goethe’s extraordinary knowledge of
human nature—said that this man seemed to see through every pore
of his skin, he used a remark equally applicable to himself. In this
lies the chief secret of his popularity. Another reason of his success
fe, that finding his countrymen were sinking their individuality before
1 In introduction to Passages from Nath. Hawthorne’s Note-Books, p. ii.
2 Vide My Study Windows, p. 280.
�Ó2
Emerson.
the demands of business, creedism and fashion, he had the courage
and tact to shame them into the admission of the fact. He showed
them they were the slaves of an idea that could but degrade. There
was a smooth mediocrity, a squalid contentment, that unmanned men.
How mean—he would say—to go blazing a gaudy butterfly in fashion
able or political saloons, the fool of society, the fool of notoriety, a
topic for newspapers, a piece of the street, and forfeiting the real
prerogative of the russet coat, the privacy and the true warm heart of
the citizen!
11 The babe by its mother lies bathed in joy ;
Glides its hours uncounted, the sun is its toy—
Shines the peace of all being, without cloud, in its eyes,
And the sum of the world in soft miniature lies,
But man crouches and blushes ; absconds and conceals ;
He creepeth and peepeth, he palters and steals.
Infirm, melancholy, jealous, glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice, he poisons the ground.”
«
The world is his who can see through its pretension, he would say;—
why be timid and apologetic and no longer upright? Why dwarf
thyself beneath some great decorum, some fetish of a government,
some ephemeral trade, or war, or man ?
Addressing the leaders of thought, he showed them how com
pletely they had failed to meet the reasonable expectations of man
kind.
“Men looked when all feudal straps and bandages were
snapped asunder, that nature-—too long the mother of dwarfs—
should reimburse itself by a brood of Titans, who should laugh and
leap in the continent, and run up the mountains of the West with
the errand of genius and love : instead of this you are at best but
timid, imitative, tame —in painting, sculpture, poetry, fiction,
eloquence, there is grace without grandeur, and even that is not new,
but derivative. The great man makes the great thing. They are the
kings of the world who give the colour of the present thought to all
nature and all art, and persuade men by the cheerful serenity of
their carrying the matter, that this thing which they do is the apple
which the ages have desired to pluck, now at last ripe, and inviting
nations to the harvest.”
Young America won inspiration from his words, and lent itself
willingly to his teaching. His method was a sort of galvanic one,
and produced a like result. Little new was introduced into the
system,—the individual was led to feel himself. Stay at home in
thy own soul, Emerson would say,—are not Greece, Palestine, Italy,
�Emerson.
63
and ttte islands there in as far as the genius and active principle of
each and all is concerned? In silence, in steadiness, in severe
abstraction, hold by thyself. Add observation to observation. Be
patient of neglect, patient of reproach, and bide the fitting time 5
thou shalt see truly at last. The day is always his who works in it
with, serenity and great aims. As the world was plastic fluid in the
hands of God, so it is ever to so much of His attributes as we bring to
it: to ignorance it is flint.
Place not thy faith upon externals. The
sources of nature are in thy own mind if the sentiment of duty he
there. All thy strength, courage, hope, comes from within. Man is
spirit, and not a mere fleshly appetency. “ Every spirit builds itself
,a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world a
heaven. What we are that only can we see. All that Adam had,
all that Caesar could, you have, 0 countrymen, and can do. Adam
called his house heaven and earth; Caesar called his house Rome ;
you perhaps call yours a cobbler’s trade, a hundred acres of ploughed
land, or a scholar’s garret. Yet line for line and point for point,
your dominion is as great as theirs, though without their fine names.
Build therefore your own world ! ” But build wisely. Trust your
intuitions rather than custom, conventionality and the rule of the
mart. They pass ; God is ; so is your personality and yours. Trust
God with this and knowledge is yours; for “ the heart which aban
dons itself to the Supreme Mind finds itself related to all its works,
and will travel a royal road to particular knowledges and powers. In
ascending to this primary and aboriginal sentiment we have come from
our remote station on the circumference instantaneously to the centre
of the world, where—as in the closet of God—-we see causes and
anticipate the universe which is but a slow effect.”
This was news for Young America, already made conscious that
“the ways of trade were grown selfish to the borders of theft, and
supple to the borders of fraud.” Not without a need came the
warning voice—
“What boots thy zeal,
0 glowing friend,
That would indignant rend
The northland from the south ?
Wherefore ! to what good end ?
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
Would serve things still!
Things are of the snake.
The horseman serves the horse,
�64
Emerson.
' The neatherd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat.
’Tis the day of the chattel,
Web to weave and corn to grind ;
Things are in the saddle
And ride mankind.”
By Essays on Friendship, Prudence, Worship, Love, and other
subjects, Emerson sought to spiritualize man’s thoughts once more.
What a discovery these Essays must have proved to some only
half-enslaved traditionalist! There is that on “ Love,” for instance :
to learn that the “ foolish passion,” as one eminent divine called Love,
did really not only establish marriage, unite man to his race and
pledge him to domestic and civic relations, but did also carry him
with new sympathy into nature, did enhance the power of the senses,
did open the imagination, add to his character heroic and sacred attri
butes, and finally did secure to the true mind a personal conviction
that the purification of the intellect and heart from year to year is
the real marriage, foreseen and prepared from the first, and wholly
above their consciousness ! To think that all mankind love a lover ;
that love is a celestial rapture falling out of heaven to inheaven
humanity,—the remembrance of its visions outlasting all other
remembrances and remaining a wreath of flowers on the oldest brows!
“No man ever forgot the visitations of that power to his heart and
brain which created all things new; which was the dawn in him
of music, poetry and art; which made the face of nature radiant
with purple light, the morning and night varied enchantments; when
a single tone of one voice could make the heart bound, and the
most trivial circumstance associated with one form is put in the amber
of memory; when he became all eye when one was present, and all
memory when one was gone; when no place was too solitary and
none too silent for him who has richer company and sweeter conver
sation in his new thoughts than any old friends, though best and
purest, can give him;—for the figures, the motions, the words of
the beloved object are not like other images, written in water, but as
Plutarch says ‘ enamelled in fire.’ ”
And then the satisfaction some young Caleb would experience in
being told what he had previously learnt but could not shape into
words j—namely, that beauty is the flowering of virtue and that we
cannot approach it. “ Its nature is like opaline doves’-neck lustres,
hovering and evanescent. Herein it resembles the most excellent
�Emerson.
65
things, which all have this rainbow • character, defying all attempts
at appropriation and usethat like the statue it is then beautiful
when it begins to be incomprehensible,—when it is passing out of
criticism,—that it is not you, but your radiance one loves!
One will search far to find a more exquisite and manly piece of
thought than where Emerson in this Essay tells how, by conversa
tion with that which is in itself excellent, magnanimous, lovely and
just, the lover comes to a warmer love of these nobilities and a
Quicker apprehension of them. “ Then he passes from loving them
in one to loving them in all, and so is the one beautiful soul only the
door through which he enters to the society of all true and pure souls.
In the particular society of his mate he attains a clearer sight of
any spot, any taint, which her beauty has contracted from this
World, and is able to point it out, and this with mutual joy that
they are now able, without offence, to indicate blemishes and
hindrances in each other, and give to each all help and comfort in
curing the same. And, beholding in many souls the traits of the
divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is divine
from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover ascends
to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the Divinity, by
Steps in this ladder of created souls.” No wonder, if, after realisinosuch perceptions as these, Emerson persistently declaimed against that
“ subterranean prudence” which only too generally presides at
marriages “ with words that take hold of the upper world, whilst one
eye is prowling in the cellar, so that its gravest discourse has a
Savour of hams and powdering tubs.” Such thoughts as these are of
no mere ephemeral character.
But it is by his Transcendentalism, or Idealistic Philosophy, that
the character of this man’s mind is best discerned. Setting out
with the conviction that we must so far trust the perfection of the
creation as to believe that whatever curiosity the .'order of things
has awakened in our mind the order of things can satisfy, Emerson
shows that, philosophically considered, the universe is composed of
Nature and the Soul,—Nature being the Not-Me. Sensual objects
Conform to the premonitions of Reason and reflect the conscience;
thus every natural process is a version of a moral sentence. Nature
consequently exists for Uses ;—for Commodity, or the advantages of
sense ; Beauty, or eesthetical satisfactions ; Language, or the expres
sion of thought; and Discipline, or the education of the Understanding
and Reason. A proper appreciation of these excellences would
�66
Emerson.
lead us to see all things as continually hastening back to Unity. Our
globe as seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. We
may not implicitly believe our senses.
Nature conspires with spirit
to emancipate us.
The materialist respects sensible masses j the
idealist has another measure,—the Rank which things themselves take
in his consciousness. Mind is the only reality; of this men and all
other natures are better or worse reflectors. Matter does not exist :
Nature is an appendix of the Soul. Not that the sensuous fact is
denied, but that this is looked upon as a sequel or completion of a
spiritual fact. This manner of looking at things transfers every
object in nature from an independent and anomalous position
without into the consciousness.
All that you call the world__he
told his disciples—is the shadow of that substance which you are__
the perpetual creation of the powers of thought. The mould is
invisible, but the world betrays the shape of the mould. Seen in the
light of thought, the world always is phenomenal; and virtue
subordinates it to the mind. Idealism sees the world in God.
“If a man is at heart just, then in so far he is God ; the safety
of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter
into that man with justice,” from which words one understands how
possible it is that a man should raise his hat to—himself, <£ Transcen
dentalism,” says Emerson 11 is the Saturnalia or excess of faith.”
Such Idealism, we further learn, beholds the whole circle of persons
and things, of actions and events, of country and religion, not as
painfully accumulated, atom after atom, act after act, in an aged
creeping Past; hut as one vast picture which God paints on the
instant eternity, for the contemplation of the soul.
“ The great Pan
of old, who was clothed in a leopard skin to signify the beautiful
variety of things, and the firmament his coat of stars,—was but a
representative of thee, 0 rich and various man ! thou palace of sight
and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night and the
unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain the geometry of the City of God ;
in thy heart the bower of love and the realms of right and wrong.”
From these facts Emerson would lead us to see that the universal
essence—which is not wisdom, or love, or beauty, 'or power, but all
in one and each entirely—is that for which all things exist, and that
by which they are.
Spirit creates.
Behind nature, throughout
nature, spirit is present. One and not compound; it does not act
upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or
through ourselves. In other words, the Supreme Being does not build
�Emerson.
67
tip nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of
the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the
oli As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of
God; he is nourished by unfailing fountains, and draws at his need
inexhaustible power.
In all this Emerson refuses to recognize the doctrine of Discrete
Degrees, and, as a consequence, he is committed—like Professor
Tyndall—to that confusion of thought which accepts life in its activity
in nature, as Life Itself in God.
He interprets its law of action
there, as if this life in such action were the Primal Law-Maker.
He takes the stream, of influences for the source and calls it God.
K The world, ” he says, “ proceeds from the same spirit as the body of
man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God,—a projection
of God into the unconscious.” The Transcendentalist thus has no
difficulty in believing in one kind of miracle,—the perpetual
Openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power.
He has his Millenarianism too.
“ As far as you conform your life
to the pure idea in your mind,” says Emerson, “ that will unfold its
great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend
the influx of the spirit. So fast will disagreeable appearances, swine,
spiders, snakes, pests, madhouses, prisons, enemies, vanish ; they are
temporary, and shall be no more seen. The sordor and filths of nature
tike sun shall dry up and the wind exhale. As, when the summer
comes from the south, the snow-banks melt and the face of the earth
becomes green before it, so shall the advancing spirit create its
ornaments along its path, and carry with it the beauty it visits and
the song which enchants it. It shall draw beautiful faces, warm
hearts, wise discourse and heroic acts around its way, until evil is
no more seen. The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not
with observation—a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of
God—he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels
who is gradually restored to perfect sight.”
Erom thoughts like these numbers of young men won a sort of
rehabilitation for their intellect. They were without an ideal;
Emerson showed them one,—his own : a manhood scholarly, poetical,
individualistic, meditative, spontaneous. True, he was not always
understood, nor perhaps understandable : but this with youth is a
small matter if there be a truth-like shimmering splendour there. It
is said that certain of the auditory on one occasion were so stunned
with a flow of pretty incomprehensibilities from Emerson, that a
�68
Life Immediate and Mediate.
friend suggested that they should stand on their heads the remainder
of the lecture, and see if that course would lead to a better understand
ing of this new Franklin declaiming in Orphic phrase. Young
America listened, read, and believed it believed.
But Old America and the America of Middle Age ? These have not
remained with Emerson, for Emerson failed to satisfy their heart
wants ! That volume which begins with the command of the Eternal
Father, Let there be Light / and which closes with the proclamation
of an Everlasting Gospel and the revelation of an unending New
ITeaven and Earth, “ and there shall be no night there,” for “ the Lamb
is the Light thereof”—that volume was to Transcendentalism a sealed
book, for Emerson and his followers scorned to look to the Lord
Jesus, the only breaker of those seals. As the individual ripens away
from early manhood, and his experience of the depth of his inherent
corruptions becomes more vivid and intense, it is not Idealism will
assure him of a Divine Father who is “ a very present help in time
of trouble yet it is towards Him faith then looks for hearthold.
LIFE IMMEDIATE AND MEDIATE.
There is one only source of life, that is God. He is the sole vivifying,
animating, and sustaining cause of everything that lives. God in
Himself is substantial life, He being self-essent and self-existent.
Life from God, however, which is the life and support of every finite
existence, is not substantial, it is an active force. Were it substantial
it would be God from God, or God from Himself, which is an obvious
absurdity. If the proceeding life from God were substantial, then,
inasmuch as it exists only in what is finite, the Infinite would be
literally in the finite, which is an impossibility.
Of the Infinite
finite beings cannot by any means form an idea : after stretching the
thought to its utmost possible limit, nothing but what is finite is com
prehended, and all that can be said in respect to the Infinite is, that it
is not there, what is perceived is only finite, and therefore is no part
of the Infinite. The Infinite having no finite limit, it is not an object
of finite thought, it is consequently incomprehensible ; all we can know
respecting it is from revelation ; and it is there declared, that we may
believe and adore it as the origin of life, and the producer of all that
is good. It must ever be remembered that influx is a descent of life
from the spiritual to the natural world, or rather from God, through
the spiritual world to man; and also that there is no influx of sub
�Life Immediate and Mediate.
69
stance. This is of the utmost importance, and must never be forgotten.
Substance does not flow from God, nor from one plane to another ; all
the degrees of the created universe are retained in their places, and in
their relative positions, never being removed, nor any part of them,
which would not be the case if influx were substantial. By that
retention of the various degrees of substance, both spiritual and natural
order is preserved throughout the whole, and all confusion is thereby
prevented.
Pure heat and light from the spiritual sun is what is meant by im
mediate life. Immediate life pervades all things, and it is the operation
of the immediate life in the disposal and arrangement of things which
is called the Divine Providence. It is the cause of all order, and pre
serves it both in the spiritual and in the natural worlds ; and it is pre
sent in all things as their indispensable sustainer. ' It is consequently
by immediate life that the distinction between the heavens is main
tained, by which the angels are formed into societies, or by which
classifications are effected—which is one of the greatest blessings of
Providence, and without which heaven would not be a place of
happiness. It is also by immediate life that representatives exist in
one heaven from another, and by which they correspond to each. It
is also the cause of days and nights and the seasons in this world.
Immediate life is also the cause of all the involuntary motions in man
in both soul and body ; by it the heart propels the blood, the lungs
respire, and all the other viscera perform their functions. It is like
wise by immediate life that diseases are removed, and the body is
restored to health, and by which man is strengthened and refreshed
during sleep. Immediate life is the very life of mediate life ; therefore
where there is mediate life there is also immediate, mediate life being
the immediate clothed, and without which clothing the influx of life
would be altogether imperceptible. Indeed, what is done by mediate
life is but little in comparison with what is done by immediate life.
(A. C. 7004.)
Immediate life is life unaffected by human or angelic mediums. It
is not only life as it proceeds from the spiritual sun, in which state it
is too intense to be received even by the highest angels ; but it is also
that life as it is mercifully accommodated to angelic reception by
divinely appointed accommodated mediums ; by these its intensity is
diminished and its ardency tempered. These mediums are spiritual
atmospheres. But these do not render it mediate ; it is still immediate
life notwithstanding its having passed through and been tempered by
these media.
Life as it flows from the spiritual sun is absolute, having no
specific form, no moral or human quality ; it is also undefinable and
F
�70
Life Immediate and Mediate.
indeterminate. It creates a form, vivifies it, and assumes a nature
therein; it also receives a quality in such forms as possess voluntary
power, and as mankind, and the life is thereby rendered mediate.
Life as a proceeding from God being absolute and undefined, no idea
of it can be formed but as heat and light proceeding from the sun,
which can scarcely be called an idea, inasmuch as heat and light apart
from substantial existences arc never made manifest.
When considering the different kinds of life, we are not to confound
the life which man lives with the life
which he lives. The life by
which man lives is immediate; but the life which he lives, whilst it
implies both immediate and mediate, is itself neither, but voluntary life.
It is a remarkable fact, that the life of man, or of any other living
thing, can be seen only in the existence of that thing; for this obvious
reason, it is neither more nor less than the thing itself living. The
life of man is the life which he lives, and not the vivifying force by
which he is animated; this latter is the same in all things. Man’s
voluntary life is that particular mode which life assumes, or which is
given to it by his free determination, which is in all cases peculiar to
the man himself; hence there are as many lives, or modes of life, as
there are men. When we think of the life of man, we are necessitated
to associate therewith the idea of the man himself. For example—
when we think of him speaking, his speaking is not anything apart
from himself as a subject; the same with regard to the act of walking,
for whether he be talking or walking there is nothing but himself as a
substantial form, both these being actions of the man, they are only
the man acting; and whether acting or not, he is nothing more than
himself as substantial form. It is the same with any particular organ
or limb as it is with the aggregate; the foot when walking, or the
hand when manipulating, is simply a foot or a hand; walking being
the foot acting, and manipulating being the hand acting, and nothing'
more; action adding nothing to either, but, as said, the action of any
thing is only the thing acting. It is likewise the same with the
sentient organs of the body and their sensations; each sensation
being nothing more than the organ’s own consciousness of some varia
tion which has been produced in itself. For instance, sight is not
anything apart from the eye, but it is simply the eye seeing, and
whether seeing or not seeing, it is neither more nor less than an eye.
This affirmation will, no doubt, be a paradox to those who have been
accustomed to think of the life of man as something which flows into
him, and also to those who believe that influx is substantial. But the
life which flows into man is not substantial, nor is it his life; his life
does not enter into him at all, but comes out of him only; it originates
in his will, and proceeds thence to the extremities of his body, where
�Life Immediate and Mediate.
71
it terminates in action. This life is simply the exercise of man’s in
ternal aij^l external capabilities, or those of his mind and body, and it
must be obvious that such exercise is only those capabilities in action ;
and what are capabilities in action more than the capabilities them
selves ? A capability is the power which is peculiar to an organ, and
which is inherent therein; it is grounded in its form, and is made to
exist by the presence and action of immediate life. There are in man
two kinds of organs, and although each possesses its own peculiar
capability, yet the process of life in each is different, yea, opposite,
from the other; one being from without to within, and the other
from within to without; the former is sensitive, the latter motive
the former commences in the organs of sensation, and terminates in
the memory; the latter commences in the will, and terminates in the
actions of the body. The former is involuntary, the latter is voluntary.
This latter process is what is meant by wm’s K/e; it is so because it
is from man’s will, commencing with his determinations, and is con
tinued through his nerves and muscles into external action. For what
is done by this process he is responsible. Now, the will and its
capability to determine are a one; we may think of the will existing
as a substantial form without the capability, but we cannot think of
the capability of determining existing apart from the will; because it
is only the will’s power to determine. When the will’s capability of
acting is brought into action, it is by the will’s own effort, and the de
termination is nothing more than the will determining its own power
to the production of some effort. As it is with any one organ so it is
with their aggregate, or with the whole man; therefore, as the action
of an organ is only the organ acting, so the action of a man is only the
man acting, and as the man is substantial so is his action; not action
alone, there being no such thing, but action in the sense of its being
a subject acting. This view of the life of man, or of man living, will
account for certain remarks made by Swedenborg, which, without this
understanding of action or living, must appear extraordinary and
anomalous, and which have proved to some of the students of his
writings most perplexing, viz., that affections, perceptions, and
thoughts, “are actually and really the subjects themselves which undergo
changes according to the influences which affect them ” (D. L. W. 42).
Notwithstanding all this, the influx of life is not substantial, but
it is the result of a proceeding living force from the source of life.
Some have actually concluded that the influx of life is substantial,
and, as a consequence, have arrived at the notion, that the life of each
individual is a spark struck off from the Divinity; that each one
possesses in himself literally what is divine; and that God has no
personality, but is infinitesimally divided amongst all His creatures, and
�72
Life Immediate and Mediate.
therefore that He is universally diffused. These, however, are mere
hallucinations, altogether apart from the truth; and the more they
are indulged in, the further will they lead the mind from an under
standing of the true nature of life.
Mediate life is life together with the mode it has assumed in living
subjects in the spiritual world; it proceeds from those subjects, and
is continued to others who are recipients, and by which they are
affected. It is not influx by reason of its flowing to man ; as it flows
to him it is only afflux, and it becomes influx only when it flows
him. The influx of which we are now treating is that which takes
place with man. Besides this there is a general influx which flows
from a superior to an inferior heaven, and from the spiritual into the
natural world, into homogeneous substances, and arranges them into
an agreement with itself, producing such things and states as corre
spond, and which are called correspondences.
Life becomes mediate only by virtue of flowing through conscious
living beings who possess quality, good or evil. Those mediums are
good and evil spirits in the spiritual world. In consequence of life
passing through such mediums, it is brought under the denomination
of “mediate life.” Hence mediate life always possesses a quality,
being good or evil in agreement with the quality of the spirits through
which it has passed. Life is therefore properly called mediate only
when it is in such a condition. But still the flow of mediate life to
man is not, strictly speaking, influx ■ that alone being influx which
flows into him. Mediate life when it flows to man is only afflux.
When man is first made conscious of its presence, it is only objective,
and can be inspected, approved, or disapproved, at discretion, accord
ing to the free determination of his will, and it is only when it is
approved and accepted that it becomes influx. Although this distinc
tion between afflux and influx is not commonly pointed out, it must
be evident to every thinking mind that such a distinction exists.
That such is the case will be clear from the fact that evil influence
comes to the good as well as to the wicked, and that good influence
comes to the wicked as well as to the good; but still such influence
does not give to either a quality, which it would do if it flowed into
them; it simply flows to them, and is thereby a/flux, and if it sub
sequently flow’s into them, it is by their own approval and reception,
when, and not before, it is //¿flux. Respecting the difference between
afflux and influx Swedenborg is silent; still he makes use of phrases
which imply both. In A. C. he frequently uses the words “flow
in into,” which can mean only afflux and influx; by flowing in
he means flowing to, or afflux; and by flowing into, influx. He
also speaks of God flowing into man, and of His being received or
�Life Immediate and Mediate.
73
ejected; His flowing into also in this case means afflux, and His being
received, influx. The Scriptures are in some parts very explicit on
the difference between afflux and influx, anc? without naming the
Words, clearly point out the two fluxes, and also the difference between
them ; as for instance—“ Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any
man hear My voice and open the door,” etc. (Rev. iii. 20). The stand
ing at the door and knocking is evidently afflux, and His going in,
when the door is opened, is influx. Afflux only gives man an
opportunity to accept or reject, but influx yields a blessing.
Mediate life as it comes to man may be more properly styled
influence than influx. It may be called influence for a most obvious
reason; thus, when it flows to man it operates upon the forms in his
memory, and excites them, and arranges them into an agreement with
the state of the spirit or spirits whence the influence came, and that
arrangement is perceived by man in himself as the presence of such
spirits, whatever may be their qualities.
When influence comes from spirits to man, so far is it from giving
him a quality, that it may be made the means of his receiving an
opposite quality; for by evil influence his own evils are excited and
made to appear, which might otherwise have remained quiescent and
latent; and, when seen, they may be opposed and subdued; and so
far as that is done, he is elevated out of them, and is at the same time
brought into an opposite state of goodness.
Inasmuch as life does not become mediate by reason of flowing
through spirits, but by reason of what is assumed in them, it has been
a question as to whether the idea of mediate life ought not to be con
fined to that which is derived from the medium; that is, its quality,
good or evil, for take away its quality, and all sense of mediate life is
gone, nor would man be conscious of its presence; yet life is the
active principle, without which there could be neither influx nor
afflux. This being so, it would appear, that the word mediate life
involves the idea of an active principle to operate and assume, and
also the state which is assumed; and although there is a clear distinc
tion between the two, yet neither alone, but both together, constitute
mediate life.
We may here, without digression, introduce a correlative idea.
Previously to the development of man’s interior degrees by regenera
tion, he has communication only with spirits in the world of spirits
(H. H. 600), but afterwards with angels. But, notwithstanding this,
he is not sensible of his communication with spirits in the world of
spirits, nor can he be unless his spiritual senses be opened; his
evidence of such communication is affectional and mental: this is so
because his consciousness is on one plane and they are on another, or
<
�74
Life Immediate and Mediate.
he is in the natural world whilst they are in the spiritual ; they are
consequently inhabitants of different worlds. This being the case,
were it not for influx existing between the two worlds, and between
spirits and men, they could not communicate at all. Spirits do not
communicate with man from their voluntary principles, nor are they,
when in their normal states, conscious of such communication any
more than man is conscious of his communication with them (H. H.
249, 292). Why, it may be asked, cannot spirits in their normal
states consciously communicate with man in this world ? It is because
the two worlds which they inhabit are so different from each other as
to have nothing in common ; those who are in one cannot see, hear,
taste, smell, or feel anything that is in the other. Of this, so far as
man in this world is concerned, we have continual evidence, and as it
is with the inhabitants of one world, so it is with those of the other.
The communication which exists between the two worlds cannot be
sensibly perceived, but must be effected by an internal way. The
only ordinary communication is effected by influx, and such communi
cation is not felt. That communication is effected by the spheres of
spirits, which flow from them spontaneously, therefore without their
power of direction. Those spheres act upon all who are near to them,
and they are the means of associating or dissociating the inhabitants
of that world ; with those who are like-minded they effect conjunction,
but with those who are dissimilar as to state, they cause disjunction
and separation ; they are also the cause of distances in that world.
Spheres originate and terminate on the same plane—they never leave
the plane on which they originate ; they extend, but neither ascend
nor descend : and inasmuch as spirits and men exist upon distinct and
altogether different planes, the spheres of spirits cannot be made
manifest to man in this world.
The spheres of spirits do not affect men as they affect the spirits who
are on the same plane; spirits are.affected as to their bodies as well as
to their minds, because there are spheres from both their minds and
their bodies, and being on the same plane, they are affected as to both ;
but it is not so with men. The spheres of spirits affect the degrees in
others which are similar to those in the spirits themselves in whom
they originate, and from whom they proceed. There is a sphere from
each degree, internal as well as external ; the sphere from the spirit’s body
affects the bodies of other spirits, and they are sensibly perceived ; the
sphere from their understandings affect the understandings of others,
and the sphere from their wills affect the wills of others—not the
will as a capability, or the power of determination, but the will as a
substantial subject, the subject of the power to determine. But men
existing in a discrete degree below that of the spirits, their spheres
�Life Immediate and Mediate.
75
cannot affect them ; communication must therefore be effected in
another way. That way is as follows. Although man, whilst he is ii.
this world, is conscious only in the world, still he has in his constitu
tion degrees which are of the substances of the spiritual world, and
although whilst he is in this world he has no consciousness in them,
still they may be affected by what is on their plane, and are so affected
by the spirit’s spheres ; which affection is carried down by descendi-ng
life to man’s conscious degrees where it becomes inwardly manifested.
That descending life, together with its assumed state, is what is called
influx. The spheres of spirits which affect man’s spirit originate in
their vital parts—their wills and understandings, which contain
their qualities as to good or evil, and proceeding thence carry with
them these qualities ; and inasmuch as the sphere affects that degree
of man’s spirit which is on the same plane as that of the spirit whence
the sphere proceeded, it is manifested as an affection of the mind,
good or evil according to the quality of the spirit whence it emanated.
This is the ordinary communication which exists between spirits and
men in this world ; it therefore follows, that spirits are not conscious of
such communication, much less are they conscious of the particular
individuals with whom they are held in connection.
However,
whether they possess such consciousness or not, and whatever be their
qualities, their spheres proceed to and act upon man’s spirit ; nor can
they prevent it, neither can man avoid feeling the effects thereof, for
he feels them from the same necessity that the body feels whatever acts
upon- its skin. But, notwithstanding the mind being necessitated to
perceive the effects of spirits’ spheres, both good and evil, yet he is
not necessitated to yield to either, but receives or rejects them as a
matter of free choice. That to which he gives preference, and receives
into his will and thought, from afflux becomes influx, and he becomes
one with it in quality, and is conjoined with the spirits in which it
originated. Yet, we must observe that man’s quality is not from those
spheres, nor from the spirits whence they proceed, but it is from his
own free choice of good or evil. This is the way in which the first
human quality, whether good or evil, originated; it is the way in which
both angels and devils have acquired theirs, and in no other way could
human quality of any kind have been acquired. If man had originally
waited for evil influences from others, or from any extraneous source,
in order that he might procure for himself a quality, it is clear, that
he would never have procured one, because there then were no such
influences. Human quality originates only in man, each man origi
nating his own, just as the first evil was originated, whatever may be
the circumstances by which he is environed. We conclude that life
is a living force, and that it exists in two conditions ; firstly, as a pro-
�76
The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.
ceeding of spiritual heat and light from the sun of heaven; that this
passes through spiritual atmospheres, as accommodating mediums, by
■which it is tempered and made receptive by the highest and most per
fect human beings, viz., the celestial angels. That proceeding, even
when accommodated by those divinely appointed mediums, is imme
diate life. .That same proceeding, by entering into angels and spirits,
and also devils, assumes their qualities, and thereby becomes mediate
life. The proceeding life does not become mediate life by passing
through the accommodating mediums, but by passing through living,
voluntary mediums, which contain angelic or infernal qualities, which
are spirits in the spiritual world ; it therefore comes to man as good
or evil influence. There is always this distinction between immediate
and mediate life, the former enters man without his consent or his
consciousness, and without his power of interference; but of the latter
he is conscious, and he can interfere with it, and does so interfere,
it not being able to enter into him without his consent and reception.
By immediate life man is endued with capabilities, and by mediate
life he is furnished with objects on which these capabilities can be
exercised, by which under the influence of his free-will he forms
in himself a state which, in the future life, becomes the ground of
his everlasting happiness or misery.
S. S.
THE MIRACLE OF MULTIPLYING THE LOAVES
AND FISHES.
Addressed
to the
Sick and Aged
Matt.
in a
Union Workhouse.
xv. 32-39.
Our attention was drawn on a previous occasion to our Lord’s cure of
the lame, the blind, the dumb and the maimed, of which the account is
given in the preceding verses. By such wonderful cures the Lord
Jesus Christ proved to those who were willing to be convinced that
He was God as wrell as man. But so condescending was He to our
fallen and unbelieving state, that though the miracle of performing
such cures was enough to convince any teachable spirit that the Lord
was God, He yet added another equally wonderful proof of the truth
of St. John’s declaration, that “without Him was not anything made
that was made,” by showing that He could multiply food also, so that
seven loaves and a few little fishes fed four thousand men, besides
women and children. When we think how few could get a meal off
the same quantity of food when distributed by human hands, we see
that it was only One who could create food that could have fed so great
a multitude. When we were talking about the cure of those who
were sick of various diseases, you may remember that I told you, that
one lesson which we had to learn from it was, that we were to go to
Jesus Christ for the cure not only of our bodily ailments, but of what
is far more to be dreaded, the sickness of our souls. And the miracle
of feeding so many has a lesson for us too. Jesus says, “ Man shall not
�Modem Science and Revelation.
77
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God.” He says also, “ If any man thirst, let him come unto
Me and drink.” When we are sick we do not feel much appetite, but
a« our health returns our desire for food comes back; and so it is with
out souls. So long as we do not wish to live according to our Lord’s
commandments, we do not desire to be taught what we ought to do,
we have no appetite for the bread which cometh down from Heaven,
and will not drink of the “ Water of Life.” But when we have truly
come to Him, asking Him to take away our sins, and to give us a
“new heart and a right spirit,” then we desire to be all that He would
have us to be, and are constantly thinking, when any difficulty arises,
“I wonder what I ought to do?” Under the influence of such
thoughts we go to God in prayer, to ask Him to teach us, and we read
God’s Holy Word that we may learn His will. Then He sends His
Holy Spirit, to show us what our duty is, and so we are fed by Him.
It may be only a few words, or a short verse, but it is enough to feed
the soul. It is like a grain of mustard seed, which springeth up into a
great tree, or ‘‘'like a little leaven, that leavens the whole lump.” For,
suppose we feel angry with any one who has done us harm and desire
to revenge ourselves, we open the Bible, and see, “ Forgive your
enemies,” “ do good to them that hate you.” “ Render not evil for
evil,” or “ railing for railing.” Then we begin to hesitate, and perhaps
another text comes to our help, “ For if ye forgive not men their
trespasses, neither shall your Father in Heaven forgive you your
trespasses.” What a dreadful thought that is ! If we are not forgiven
then we cannot go to Heaven, and if we do not go there, there is only
other place. Oh, awful thought! Shall we sacrifice the hope of
eternal happiness for the sake of saying a few angry words, or doing
an unkind thing, which will give neither us nor our fellow-creatures
any real pleasure ? Then perhaps we remember having heard at church,
or read for ourselves, “ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy.” There is something in that word “Blessed” that seems so
attractive ! It is not only that we shall be forgiven, but we shall be
made happy into the bargain. Well, we think, it is only a little sacrifice
that I am required to make, and the gain is more than eternity can
tell, so I will pray to God to help me to forgive this time. Ah, now
we taste heavenly food, good affections flow into our hearts from the
Lord, and wTe not only feel the blessedness of “ the merciful,” but the
blessedness of “ the meek,” and of “ the poor in spirit; ” and so you see
how heavenly food is multiplied. Well may we pray, “ Lord, ever
more give us this Bread.”
M. S. B.
MODERN SCIENCE AND REVELATION.
The faculty of observation and the desire of knowing are the two im
portant principles which impart to the mind its progressive tendency.
Glancing back into the remote ages of the past, we can conceive
primaeval man calling these powers into exercise in recording his
�78
Modern Science and Revelation.
conceptions of the world and its phenomena. His notions of things
would be at first crude and wanting in accuracy. He would perceive
that the day was divided between light and darkness, and this he
would observe to be caused by the sun. Tracing that luminary from
its rising to its time of setting, and noting that the same phenomenon
was repeated from day to day, he would conclude that the sun moves
in an orbit around the earth. Also observing the position of the
fixed stars, he would infer from their apparent movement in the
direction of the sun that the whole sidereal heavens revolves around
the earth. Then following the bent of his inherent desire to know,
he would extend his investigation to the planets and their movements.
Successive observations of the phenomena of nature in her several de
partments would bring to his mind a considerable increment of facts.
The classification and arrangements of these facts under various heads
would form the first crude indications of the natural sciences. Suc
ceeding generations of thinkers, while making use of the records of
men who had gone before, and taking them as the basis of ex
tended observations, would, although perpetuating some of the errors
of previous observers, discern and correct many of their faults. Thus
the sciences are the recorded experiences of thinking minds in
dealing with nature. In their infancy the sciences are necessarily the
repositories of much that is erroneous and fallacious. The conceptions
of the Chaldeean astronomers cannot be compared with the discoveries
of a Herschel or a Newton. The anatomical deductions of Hippocrates
are extremely crude when placed side by side with the learned dis
quisitions of a Carpenter or a Huxley. Ideas which at one period
seemed to bear the impress of truth are shown to be more or less un
sound by thinkers of later times.
Subsequently to the investigations of Copernicus the world was
considered as a plane, and the stars were conceived to be fixed in the
revolving vault of the heavens. But that philosopher, about 1500 a.d.,
satisfied himself that the planets, including the earth, revolve around
the sun. In 1610 this hypothesis was confirmed by Galileo by the
aid of his newly invented telescope. This was the beginning of a new
era in the science of astronomy. But it was also the signal for the
commencement of a conflict between speculative minds and the digni
taries of the Romish Church. Galileo proved to a demonstration that
the earth revolves around the sun, and that the sun has no orbital
movement. Theologians, because of certain expressions in the Bible
implying the contrary, discredited this discovery, and maintained that
it had no foundation in fact. But the march of thought was irre
sistible, and the Church was powerless to arrest its onward progress.
Theologians could not then conceive, nor are they willing to accept the
conclusion to-day, that the Bible deals exclusively with man’s spiritual
nature, and does not lay down canons and laws of natural science. In
stead of receiving the Bible and the laws of nature as each pointing
upward to a Divine Author, instead of perceiving that there is no con
tradiction between the revealed Word and the truths of creation, because
each has a distinct mission to fulfil, they opposed the apparent truths of
�Modern Science and Revelation.
79
the Word to the rigid demonstrations of science. A similar conflict was
engendered in recent times when geology first threw light upon the
history of life upon the globe. That science made rapid strides. De
posited in the various strata which form the earth’s crust were dis
covered fossil remains of forms of life which have long since
become extinct. Numerous races of creatures it was seen had lived
and died. Low forms of life had been succeeded by higher and more
complicated organisms. Gigantic creatures had formed their homes on
the land and in the ocean, whose skeletons, preserved in the strata of
the earth’s crust, enable the geologist to read in the pages of the Stone
Book the history of periods long anterior to the existence of man;
while fossilized remains of vegetable life indicate that vast areas of
the earth’s surface were once covered by plants which attained to
enormous proportions, which, subsequently disappearing, formed our
coal-beds that lie far below the surface of the globe.
Thus investiga
tions and discoveries which geologists have made lead them to the
conclusion that the earth and its life-forms have arrived at their present
condition through countless ages. And the facts of astronomy also
prove that the vast cycles of time during which the universe has been in
existence surpass human powers of comprehension.
But how have these deductions been met by theologians ? Instead
of giving up the position of a literal interpretation of the early
chapters of Genesis as untenable, they have endeavoured to harmonize
the records of science with the higher truths of revelation by methods
that have excited derision and contempt. Before geology gained a
firm footing amongst thinking minds, it was generally believed that the
universe had existed only 6000 years, and that its creation had occupied
but six days. When it was rigidly shown that creation was an orderly
development embracing myriads of ages, some other mode of explain
ing the narrative in Genesis was looked for, and at length those who
professed to believe in a close literal conception of the word so far de
parted from their position as to call the days of creation not days, but
ages—unfortunately, however, the Sabbath is mentioned as the seventh
day, and therefore by that supposition the first Sabbath was not a period
of twenty-four hours, but an age. Again, a difficulty was found in the
Scripture narrative that light was created before the sun. It has been
suggested that the difficulty may be overcome by supposing a subtle
luminous vapour to have pervaded all space prior to the creation of the
greater luminary of heaven. Such an hypothesis is altogether un
tenable in the face of the fact that the sun is the sole source of light
to its planets.
But in thus endeavouring to reconcile the Bible
narrative with the facts of science, theologians have placed a con
struction upon the account in Genesis for which there is no justifica
tion ; for if it is to be taken literally, its letter ought not to be
departed from, nor must it be subjected to the gratuitous interpreta
tion of every capricious mind. The facts of science have suffered
nothing in this conflict of opinions; but the Bible, by the bigoted
zeal of its professed expositors, has been brought into contempt.
But the reasonable aspect of the question is one which should not
�8o
Modern Science and Revelation.
"be rejected without consideration. The facts of science are discover
able by man’s powers of observation and reason. The book of nature
is intimately connected with his mortal part; as such he may read and
study it, and discover in its pages unmistakeable indications of the
Divine author. But the Bible relates to his immortal part, and he
may, if he will, discover in it those spiritual laws and truths which
can reach us by revelation alone. Nature is the effect of God’s creative
power, the Bible is the expression of His infinite wisdom. The laws
of nature and the revelations of the Word having the same Divine
source, there can be no contradiction between them. When therefore
theologians are met by facts which invalidate a literal interpretation
of a certain portion of the Word, they should be prepared to look for
the deeper and purer sense of its spirit. Dr. Whewell says, “ The
meaning which any generation puts upon the phases of Scripture
depends more than is at first sight supposed upon the philosophy of
the time. Hence, when men imagine that they are contending for
revelation they are in fact contending for their own interpretation of
revelation, unconsciously adapted to what they believe to be rationally
probable. And the new interpretation which the new philosophy
requires, and which appears to the older school to be a fatal violence
done to the authority of religion, is accepted by their successors without
the dangerous results which were apprehended. At the present day
we can hardly conceive how reasonable men should have imagined
that religious reflections on the stability of the earth, and the beauty
and use of the luminaries which revolve around it, would be interfered
with by its being seen that this rest and motion are apparent only.
Those who adhere tenaciously to the traditionary or arbitrary mode
of understanding Scriptural expressions of physical events are always
strongly condemned by succeeding generations, and are looked upon
with pity by the more serious and considerate, who know how weak
and vain is the attempt to get rid of the difficulty by merely
denouncing the new tenets as inconsistent with religious belief.”1
Truly so. The Bible is the word of the Highest; and not in its
letter, but in its spirit must we seek for evidences of its divinity and
its power. And in the first chapter of Genesis, beneath the un
scientific form of the letter, we trace the development of the spiritual
side of our nature from the commencement of the re-creative work of
regeneration until we attain the beauty and perfection of the heavenly
state. The Bible is the Word of God, and He has told us that His
words “are spirit and life.” Let us then receive His revelation in
this sense, and while we search for its spirit, grow strong by its life
giving power.
In the learned disquisition recently given to the world by a pro
found philosopher this sentence appears :—“ Abandoning all disguise,
the confession that I feel bound to make before you is, that I pro
long the vision backward across the boundary of the experimental
evidence, and discern in that matter, which we in our ignorance, and
notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto
1 Indications of the Creator, p. 52, 2d ed.
�Modern Science and Revelation.
81
covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and
quality of life.”1 Does this conception land us in materialism? We
think not. It is the statement of a belief which may be true or false.
It contains no direct denial of a Creator, and as an hypothesis is ex
ceedingly plausible. The transcendentalism of Kant annihilated matter
and established a universe of ideas in the place of creation. But if,
With Tyndall, we view matter as the repository of power, which gives
v the promise of every form and quality of life,” we have but “ to pro
long our vision backward ” beyond the region of matter to see in the
Divine the source of that power, by virtue of which matter is enabled
to give the “ promise of every form and quality of life.”
It is a generally received hypothesis that matter is formed of atoms.
On the assumption of the truth of this theory it has been said that
“ they are the manufactured articles which, formed by the skill
of the Highest, produce by subsequent interaction all the pheno
mena of the natural world.” Dalton first established the atomic
hypothesis in reference to chemical combinations. It is found that
in a given compound the elements combine in a certain definite
and invariable ratio. Take water as an example. It can be shown
by experiment that two volumes of hydrogen always combine with
one volume of oxygen. Assuming the existence of atoms, it is evident
that two atoms of the hydrogen element combine with one atom
of the oxygen element. That atoms by combining in various pro
portions form compounds differing from each other is plainly shown
in the well-known nitrogen series. Whatever we touch or see in the
three kingdoms of nature bears testimony to the fact that “ atoms by
their interaction produce all the phenomena of nature.” But now the
question arises : Do atoms contribute to these results by any inherent
power of their own, independently of the Creator? Every natural
phenomenon, we are told, rests on a cause, but atoms by their “ inter
action produce natural phenomena;” are atoms then the primary cause of
their own effects? Atoms, we say, form by their interaction the
endless variety of compounds and substances in nature under the rule
of certain laws, from which it should seem they have no power to
■deviate. And it may be urged that new variations from established
forms are continually being produced both in the animal, vegetable,
and mineral kingdoms. But evidently atoms produce these effects
in obedience to certain conditions, or else if by their own free choice,
why were not these results forthcoming earlier? When a plant
Strikes out into varieties it does so by the operation of agencies
external to itself—a change in the conditions of soil or climate, or
the forced impregnation of its ovaries by the pollen of another plant.
A seed is placed in the ground, it germinates, develops, and assumes
the exquisite symmetry and beauty of the lily. Atoms have here been
built up, and have by their interaction produced leaves and flowers.
But before this building operation could proceed, certain external
conditions were necessary. A force exterior to the special atoms which
formed the lily came into play. That force is heat. Heat produces
1 Professor Tyndall’s Address in Nature.
�Modern Science and Revelation.
motion, and motion causes interaction of atoms. Suppose the seed
hermetically sealed in a glass tube, and, in absence of the necessary
conditions of soil and moisture, and of the main condition heat, and
no life movement would be observed. Given then soil, moisture, and
light, still in the absence of heat a seed fails' to germinate. Again,
admitting for a moment that all life-forms originated in a monad,
throw back your gaze into the bygone ages, and note that protoplasmic
substance—that combination of atoms lying on the solitary shore of
the unpeopled world, where no sound arises but the surging of the
waves upon the bare and solid granite, and the sweep of the wind
across the desert of the world, yet lifeless as the tomb. This monad
develops into a symmetrical form—it moves—there is the first trace
of life—there is the first species—the progenitor of all future existences.
But why did not that monad remain motionless as the rock upon
which it lay? Undoubtedly its movement was produced by the
agency of heat and light, forces external to itself. Here heat was
evidently a necessary condition. Now the grand source of heat is the
sun ; if the heat of that body could be withheld—all other conditions
remaining the same—we are justified in supposing that all life would
cease, consequently that all “interaction of atoms” would be suspended.
But the sun is composed of atoms. And it is maintained that heat is
an effect of motion. If, as we have endeavoured to show, no inter
action of special atoms can take place but by the agency of forces
exterior to them, so cannot motion be maintained as a condition of
heat in the atoms of the sun apart from external power or force.
Here we reach the barrier which the physicist cannot pass. Are we
to hesitate here? We think not. We conceive that we must transfer
ourselves to a region of causes beyond the domain of experiment.
Here we are aware the philosopher will be unwilling to follow. Still
we cannot lose sight of the fact that the interaction of atoms—and the
whole universe is the result of that interaction—is an effect, the cause
of which cannot be sought in the atoms themselves. We therefore
affirm that this cause is the power of the Divine operating through the
medium of a world which we call spiritual. Truly the nature of this
world cannot be demonstrated by experiment, but the evidences of revela
tion are powerful upon the characteristics of this spiritual region. The
Bible is that revelation. The proof of its being a revealed book is found
in the soundness of the chain of spiritual meaning which runs through
its letter. This spiritual sense shows, to a demonstration that the
letter of the Word has been framed according to a law as rigid and
plausible as the law of multiple proportions or the “interaction of
atoms.” Where then science ends we maintain that revelation steps
in to fill up the void, to conduct us into the world of primary causes
and to usher us into the presence of the Creator.
Another question which has occupied the minds of scientific men in
recent times, is the origin and development of life upon the globe.
And in the pursuit of this subject some of the finest minds have been
engaged. Theologians conclude that the positions which have been
taken up by our great scientific thinkers upon this question, militate
�Modern Science and Revelation.
83
against the teaching of the Word and the immortality of the soul.
We have shown that the literal interpretation of the first chapter of
Genesis is an unwarrantable assumption. However, therefore, life may
have originated upon the world, or what was the nature of man’s
beginning, can in no way affect the Biblical account of the origin of life,
seeing that it is an allegory investing spiritual truth of the highest
character. Now life originated upon the world in some mode; if
there is life on the planets, and we believe there is, it must have
originated on them in a similar mode. There may have been a
“ primordial substance ” as the first life germ—we cannot say; and
wre may deduce the origin of life from many forms or one form, yet
still the “ question will be inevitably asked,” as a learned professor has
said, “ How came that form there ? ” Thus again we are carried past
the “interaction of atoms,” and either landed in impenetrable mystery
or placed at the feet of the Divine.
That there has been a successive development in animal and vege
table forms, from lower to higher, is clearly established by the facts of
geology. This development has mainly been the result of external
conditions. Whether, in the case of the animal kingdom, this develop
ment proceeded in an increasing ratio from lower to higher, until a form
fittingly organized to be the seat of reason and the soul was produced,
we perhaps shall never be able to ascertain. It seems plain almost to
demonstration that there is a discrete degree between man and animals.
There are certainly low types of the human race which seem to be
closely allied with the ape tribe. An ape, however, has never yet in
the memory .of man, by any species of progress, or by the most happy
combination of circumstances, assumed the form and capabilities of the
very lowest specimen of the human family. In the case of the human
race, civilization has caused a continuous upward movement. The vast
hordes of barbarians that at one period roamed through the forests of
Europe have been supplanted by races of a more refined type of mind.
The brain of the Papuan, we are told, is not nearly so large as the brain
of a European. Consequently the apparatus for recording his experi
ences, and hence for the development of his mind, is imperfect. Under
the refining influences of civilization that defect would undoubtedly
disappear from the race, and the Papuan would ultimately be
capable of achieving the same wonderful results as the European.
Man differs from an animal especially in the capability which he
possesses of developing his mind to an unlimited extent; no bonds
can be set to the knowledge which his mind is adapted to grasp
ahd retain. So far as we at present know, no process of develop
ment has yet brought about the same result in animals even of
the highest order. The doctrine of the “survival of the fittest”
is as true in the case of man as in that of animals. Many races
of men have disappeared, and beings of finer parts have survived.
But this “survival of the fittest” we cannot conceive to militate
against the doctrine of the soul’s immortality. The more perfect the
instrument, the more accurate the results.
Hence the higher the
development of the body, the more perfect the action of the soul, and
�«4
Modern Science and Revelation.
therefore the greater its achievements. But it is asked what is it that
survives when sensation ceases in the body? We can find but one
answer. And that is, that the soul, the seat of sensation, has quitted
its tenement. Still we apprehend that it ean be proved indirectly
that the soul continues to exist. Using an illustration which has
recently been cited. Suppose a telegraph clerk is surrounded by his
instruments, he can communicate with a hundred places, and thus prove
his existence. But a thunderstorm arises, his instruments are dis
arranged, he is still in his room, but he cannot inform any one that
survives. Supposing the wires of his instruments to correspond to
the organs of sensation in man, and suppose a break occurs—an
accident resulting in death—he can no longer directly communicate
the fact of his existence to those around him. He knows he exists
equally as the clerk. But the one is as incapable of proving the fact
as the other, when we restrict the one to his wires and the other to
his nerves. But the clerk can prove his existence in other ways, it
may be said. So also can the soul, if we seek for our proof beyond the
region of nerves and crude experiment.
There are powerful evidences of design in creation. And design argues
an intelligent cause. The flower has exquisite organs adapted for
reproducing its species, but the faculty of foreseeing ends and providing
for their attainment is not an attribute of atoms. The end is attained
by the interaction of atoms, but they have no power of deviating from
that end, and they submit to influences beyond them. The “ survival
of the fittest ” is a doctrine substantially true. But there is an end to
be gained by this “survival,” and that end seems to be the most com
plete happiness of the fittest. This seems so in man’s case. Civiliza
tion brings its blessings, and will bring them more abundantly as man,
in the development of his more sacred faculties, is fitted to receive
them. Divine blessings reach us through media; the more perfect
these media in all departments of nature the richer and more
abundant the blessings. We therefore conceive it no unimportant
feature in the design of creation that the “fittest” survive.
But if design points to intelligence, where may we look for the
origin of things ? All nature when devoutly studied points silently
upward to an infinitely wise God. This is the conclusion at which we
must inevitably arrive. Creation is an effect, it cannot be the cause
of its own effect. Creation is also finite and limited in time. It
must therefore have a cause neither finite nor limited in time. While
then we thus trace upward from the creature to the Creator, and stand
in the presence of Him whose “ ways are not our ways, and whose
thoughts are not our thoughts,” let us bow the head and reverently adore.
Reverting again to the “ survival of the fittest,” we remark that this
doctrine is as true in mental as in animal life. In some departments
of thought this goes on more rapidly than in others. Development in
scientific truth has been rapid, but growth in clearness and purity of
theological thought has been slow. Scarcely a step has been made in
a forward direction since the time of the Fathers. The Bible is
acknowledged to be in great part utterly incomprehensible. The
�Correspondence,
8$
march of thought continues, and still theologians are found far behind
Hence it arises that in many minds biblical truth fades and scientific
truth survives. But as the mind becomes fitted to receive spiritual
truth of a higher order than that previously accepted, it is supplied by
to orderly revelation. Modes of interpretation of the Word that once
found implicit and ready assent are no longer tenable. Old creeds fail
to satisfy reflecting and intelligent minds. But a clearer light is
breaking in upon the field of theological thought, and by this light
we perceive the Word to have unmistakeable indications of a divine
origin; we perceive that it is an inexhaustable fountain, adequate to
supply and enrich all minds with the life-giving streams of its
spirit. In the new theology there is a consistency and clearness
which former systems have wanted; while the spiritual world and
the soul are dealt with philosophically and rationally. In con
clusion, we believe that no danger to religion can arise from the
advance of scientific thought, but rather from attempted resistance to
that advance by theologians. As the human mind grows in strength
by the influence of civilization and education, it leaves the traditions
and errors of former generations, and searches by the light of reason
for purer truths. There is a deep longing amongst men for more light
upon the divine Word and the immortal life. Wherever this light
breaks forth let us fearlessly receive it. For be assured that as the
falling leaves of autumn are swept away by the gale, so will error in
our conceptions of nature and of God be borne by the coming ages
into the oblivion of the past, and truth alone will survive.
L T.
(tarrspimtaix
MAURITIUS.
(To the, Editor of the Intellectual Repository.}
Port Louis, Mauritius, "Elth, September 1874.
Reverend and Dear Sir,—At the last meeting of our Society (that of the
New Jerusalem Church here) one of our members brought under notice a
Review in the August number of the Repository. This review comments
upon three publications of our president, Mr. Edmond de Ghazal.
A short conversation arose on the subject, and the undersigned were de
puted to write to you respecting it.
We thank you sincerely for the friendly terms in which you allude to
Mr. de Chazal’s publications, and we feel much gratified that any efforts
here to spread the truth should be noticed in your periodical, but there are
two or three errors in the reviewer’s account of our Society that we feel
bound to bring under your notice, feeling assured that they are involuntary,
and result from the circumstance that we have not such frequent and full
communication with the Church in other lands as we ought to have.
The errors we allude to are the following : After speaking of the efforts
of our Society to procure a minister, and of the difficulties it experienced in
this attempt, the writer proceeds thus :—“ They succeeded at last in obtain
ing one, unknown however to the Church in this country and in America.
G
�86
Correspondence.
He had belonged successively to the Greek and Roman Catholic Church,
but he seems to have pursued an eccentric course. He did not remain long
with them ; and we have since found him in India, in America, and recently
in Australia.” This statement is incorrect. The person alluded to, that is
Mr. Bugnion, never was our minister, and never conducted a single one of
our services, as we did not consider him to be a thorough New Churchman,
though possibly he -wishes to be received as such. It is quite unnecessary
for us to enter at any length into his history, but a few words on the subject
are perhaps required. We understand that he came to Mauritius in 1858
in connection with the Independents. He did not however agree with them
for any length of time, and towards the end of 1859 a separation ensued,
into the merits of which it is needless for us to enter. After this, it is true,
that he and his family received hospitality from Mr. de Chazal, but he
never was treated in any way by that gentleman as a minister of the New
Church or of our Society, of which he was never a member, for Mr.
Bugnion’s religious ideas and the manner in which he proclaimed them
were on many points unacceptable to our president and to our Society.
Mr. Bugnion formed a congregation of his own, to which he preached for
some time, then left for Europe, returned here, made a short stay, and then
proceeded to India, where he remained for about four years. After this he
travelled in America and Europe, and came back to Mauritius towards the
end of 1871. Here he renewed his relations with his former congregation,
but he never had anything to do with our Society either as a minister or
member. Towards the end of last year he went to Australia, where he still
is. As to the supposed fact of his having belonged at one time to the
Roman Catholic Church, we never heard of it, and we do not think it is
correct. We think it quite unnecessary for us to enter into further details
as to Mr. Bugnion’s act. We may however mention one which has in
duced our president not only not to consider Mr. Bugnion as a New
Churchman, but also to decline any social intercourse with him ; we allude
to his unwarrantable assumption of the title of Bishop. The Rev. J.
Bayley, to whom Mr. de Chazal wrote at the time, can, we believe, give you
more precise information on this subject should you desire it.
Another error we wish to point out is one contained in these words :
« Since the Bishop left Mauritius the service we believe has been conducted
by Mr. de Chazal; and we hope that, in their peculiar circumstances, he
exercises all the functions of a minister.” The truth is, that ever since our
Society has been founded Mr. de Chazal has conducted our monthly
services, and when he is unavoidably absent Mr. Lesage or Mr. G. Mayer
replaces him, quite irrespective of Mr. Bugnion’s presence in or absence
from this island. We use the term “monthly,” because, owing to our being
scattered over different parts of the island, we cannot meet oftener. On
-other Sundays each head of a family leads the services for his own people.
We have thought it necessary to trouble you with these details, since we
do not wish to pass in the Church as a Society that has had for its minister
a person whose writings bear, as you say, “evident traces of Harrisism and
Spiritism.”
We cannot, Mr. Editor, conclude a letter addressed to the organ of the
New Church in England without expressing our satisfaction at the steady
progress of the New Church ideas which we find recorded in its pages, and
our admiration of the ability with which these views are therein pro
claimed. We are also glad to see from the reviews it contains that many
interesting and instructive New Church works are published from time to
time.—We beg to remain your faithful brothers in the New Church,
T. H. Ackroyd.
P. E. de Chazad, Secretary.
�Review.
87
[We have also received a long letter from Mr. Bugnion, vindicating him
self from some charges which some of his friends had informed him our
reviewer had made against him. The only “ charge ” made against him was,
that “ his liturgy bears evident traces of Harrisism and Spiritism.” As this
is a simple fact, which Mr. Bugnion does not deny, but only endeavours to
justify, his letter, which does not deserve insertion, needs no reply.]
Sancta Ccena : or, the Holy Supper, explained on the Principles
taught BY Emanuel Swedenborg. By the Rev. Augustus Clissold,
M.A. London : Longmans, Green & Co.
The need of clearer and more worthy views on the subject of the Holy
Supper than are held in Christendom at the present day is made very
evident by the author in his preface. According to one writer “ the ordi
nance (considered as a sacrifice) is an absolute mystery. It involves a
paradox or apparent contradiction ; a seeming incompatibility of terms ; in
short, a mystery, whatever the exact nature and limits of that mystery may
be supposed to be. It remains a divinely stated paradox, irreconcilable by
man ; a mystery utterly beyond his power to clear up, and such it must
ever be.” The Holy Supper being represented by the Passover, involves
the law that by death alone can death be undone. “How this should be, in
what sense one death can act upon another death, so as to do away with it,
or with any of its consequences, we are absolutely devoid of faculties for
comprehending.”
And thus the Feast of the Christian Passover, which was intended to feed
the souls of the faithful with the flesh and blood of a Living and Divine
Body, becomes at best a mysterious ceremonial.
In the work itself the author shows the true nature and use of the Sacra
ment. “ The two fundamental ideas in the Holy Supper are, first of all,
that of The Word, whether living or written ; and secondly, that which the
Word effects, namely, the conjunction of the church on earth with the
church in heaven.” He had first pointed out the Scripture doctrine re
specting the Word, that from the beginning, before He was made flesh,
our Lord was the Word, mediating between the Father and all creatures.
But there is a written Word as well as a Living Word, and the written Word
is also called the Word of God. As being the Word of God there is a sense
in it in which the Word of God written mediates between the Father and
all creatures. This being the case, the written Word of God is like the
Living Word of God, the medium of communication between the Father
and the Church. Not that there are two Mediators, but One only; inas
much as the written Word mediates between God and man, only in virtue
of the Living or Eternal Word being in it ; and as such the written Word
is itself the medium by which we have life from the Eternal Word.
As the Word is the medium of conjunction between God and man, and
the Holy Supper is also said to be such a medium, what is the nature of
the relation and connection between them ? By extracts from Swedenborg
enlarged and simplified by his own commentary, the author presents the
subject in great clearness and beauty. “ It is not by any figure of speech
that the Living Word and the written Word are both spoken of as one, and
are both called the Word of God ; but because the Word of God written is
�88
Review.
the same essentially as the Word of God spoken, and the Word of God
spoken is the same essentially with the Word made flesh, and speaking.
It is in consequence of this essential identity that the history of the Word
of God written corresponds to that of the Word made flesh.” The Word
as the Divine Wisdom descends from God through all the heavens to the
earth, and becomes accommodated to the apprehensions of angels and men.
In its inmost it is Divine, in its intermediate it is celestial and spiritual, in
its ultimate it is natural. But the Eternal Word also descended through
all the heavens, and finally assumed a natural humanity on earth, when He
became incarnate for the redemption and salvation of the human race.
“The inmost sense of the Word,” says Swedenborg, “treats solely of the
Lord, describing all the states of the glorification of His Humanity, that is,
of its union with the essential Divinity ; and likewise all the states of the
subjugation of the hells, and the reducing to order all things therein as well
as in the heavens. Thus in the inmost sense is described the Lord’s whole
life upon earth, and thereby the Lord is continually present with angels.
Therefore the Lord alone is in the inmost part of the Word, and the
divinity and sanctity of the Word is thence derived.” This blending of the
Eternal Word with the written Word is the ground of their both being
described in Scripture by the same language, and of their both being the
mediums of the conjunction of man with God, and of God with man.
The author shows not only that there is a correspondence between the
written and the Eternal Word, but that they both suffer and are glorified
together. The Lord assumed a material humanity as the Word assumed
itself with a literal sense. But the Lord is believed to be still clothed with
such a body. For a Christian writer observes, “How it can be that a real
substantial Presence of Christ is possible on our altars while yet He abides
in the natural substance of His flesh and blood at the right hand of His
Father ; or how bread and wine, remaining in their natural substances,
become associated with a new and Divine substance, is not given us to
know.” The Lord’s humanity being thus supposed to be merely natural,
and the written Word being supposed to be also merely literal, how can the
Holy Supper be understood as other than a lifeless ceremonial ? “ In order
to a right understanding of the sacrament of the Holy Supper, the first
thing requisite is a right understanding of the doctrine of the Incarnation,
or of the Word made flesh.” This doctrine the author presents in a very
lucid aspect, bringing out in bold relief the New Church view of the Lord’s
glorification, w’hich shows that the Lord’s humanity became Divine, without,
however, ceasing to be human, so that His flesh and blood are necessarily
Divine, and therefore living and lifegiving. When the subject is viewed
in its true light, it will be seen that the Lord is actually and intimately
present in His Holy Supper; and that, as the most sacred solemnity of
worship, it is the means of bringing the Lord and the worshipper into the
closest connection, and the medium of conjunction between them.
This very meagre outline of the book will, wre trust, induce the members
of the Church to read it for themselves ; for although evidently designed
for the clergy of the Church of England, it will afford much to instruct and
delight those who already know in part. The author is too well known,
and his labours are too highly appreciated, to require or even to admit of
any approbation or recommendation from us.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine. Vol. XXII, No. 254, February 1, 1875
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 88 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Rev. W. Woodman - - an unsigned article on Ralph Waldo Emerson -- Modern science and revelation. Earlier Title: Intellectual Repository for the New Church, later Title: New Church Magazine.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1904
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5300
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Periodicals
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine. Vol. XXII, No. 254, February 1, 1875), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
New Jerusalem Church
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/bf855f7ba9b2401d2b4b2dc3e5c6c22a.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=DurppdUVmuVXI59-0xiTojlTtYxo8Ng1bhWkgR%7E33%7ENktcnAmBH4SMldUBJZ4lU1zy-oA8zjNCRCiHq%7Exfj31yezptTgpX1yEiPIpsGOxlIEcFmUo4QG%7EgV-Aq7PlnKya1joWac-073XxcXiH0o7OOOlMCxVCb0P3b7m5yck0bou3jFNl3tHNl-OI6ML61RMQPUA2w7yfb5Ptsn4w-2upG7yhlV0IB919W1t6G6b1FT9N-enCXPhIOyNVxJ4Rx4g-S4ofhIuotk018Hu63AtupLeOTs4zb5rc-c%7EroV9yoHVuFM3DQ2zhpyP97sgYu0qD1YVe9y7Gk8WsqhXb9gK0g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
7df3822a580986cf912e8f64fd86863d
PDF Text
Text
N the present day, we look back with a degree of wonder
on the belief in witchcraft, which may be said to have
formed an article of religious faith in every European
country throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth cen__ _■■ turies. A notion was universally entertained, that the
devil and subordinate evil spirits, in pursuance of their malevolent
ends, went about, sometimes in visible shape, seducing poor human
nature. To gain their wicked designs, they were supposed to tempt
men, but more particularly aged women, by conferring on them
supernatural powers ; as, for example, that of riding through the
air, and operating vengefully and secretly on the health and happi
ness of those against whom they had any real or imaginary cause of
offence. Such ‘trafficking with the powers of darkness,’ as it was
technically called, was witchcraft, and, according both to the letter
of Scripture and of the civil law, was a crime punishable with death.
Like all popular manias, the witchcraft delusion had its paroxysms.
No. 141.
!
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
It rose, existed for a time with great energy, then declined into
insignificance. What was exceedingly remarkable, the frenzy never
lacked victims : it followed the well-known law of supply and demandAs soon as witches were in request, they made their appearance.
Any severe denunciation, followed by a rigorous scrutiny, brought
them prominently into notice. Nor, what was still more curious,
did the newly discovered witches in all cases deny the accusations
against them. Many acknowledged, with a species of pride, that
they had entered into a compact with the devil. They seem, on
occasions, to have gloried in being the objects of so much interest,
and hastened to confess, although death at the stake or on thegallows was the consequence. It must be considered as in somedegree explanatory of this self-condemnation, that torture was always
at hand to enforce confession ; and as there was little chance, there
fore, of escape after accusation, the wish to die on the speediest
terms had probably no small share in inducing the alleged witches
to boast of their mysterious crimes. In the majority of cases, how
ever, there was stout denial; but this generally served no good
purpose, and we are painfully assured, that many thousands of
individuals, in almost every country, were sacrificed as victims to
the petty spite and vengeance of accusers. At the height of the
successive paroxysms, no one, whatever his rank or character, was
safe from an accusation of trafficking with evil spirits. If he lived
a profligate life, he was of course chargeable with the offence; if
he lived quietly and unobtrusively, and was seemingly pious in
character, he was only hypocritically concealing his diabolical prac
tices ; if he had acquired wealth somewhat rapidly, that was a sure
sign of his guilt ; and if he was poor, there was the greater reason
for believing that he was in league with the devil to become rich.
There was only one means of escaping suspicion, and that was to
become an accuser. The choice was before every man and woman,
of acting the part of accusers, or of being themselves accused. The
result may be anticipated. Perceiving the tremendous danger of
affecting to disbelieve witchcraft, people readily assumed the proper
degree of credulity ; and to mark their detestation of the crime, as
well as secure themselves from attack, they hastened to denounce
acquaintances and neighbours. Nothing could be more easy than
to do so in a manner perfectly satisfactory. Pretending to fall sick,
or to go into convulsions, or to have a strange pain in some part of
the body or limbs, people were doubtless bewitched ! Any sudden
storm at sea, causing the wreck of vessels, was another evidence
that witches were concerned ; and so far did these allegations
descend, that even so small a matter as a failure in churning milk
for butter, was a sure sign of diabolical agency. On the occasion
of every unforeseen catastrophe, therefore, or the occurrence of any
unaccountable malady, the question was immediately agitated : Who
was the witch ? Then was the time for querulous old men or women
2
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
in the neighbourhood to tremble. Long suspected of carrying on a
correspondence with demons, they were seized and brought to trial.
The accusations, as is now clearly understood, were for the most part
spiteful, or wantonly mischievous. In making these charges and
testifying to them, children and young women appear to have in
many places excelled ; the probability being that, besides a mere
spirit of mischief, they enjoyed amusement from the consternation
they were able to produce.
Strange how all this prejudice, imposture, and cruelty should
have received the solemn sanction of the most learned and devout
men : clergymen of every degree, from popes to presbyters ; kings,
legislators, and judges ; and private citizens of every quality and
profession ! The folly, while it lasted, was complete.
It only excites the greater horror to know, that the belief in witch
craft—essentially mean and vulgar in all its details—has been a
reproach to religious profession ; and that, while seemingly founded
on scriptural authority, it really rested, in its main features, on the
visionary superstitions of the pagan world. Historians make it
clear to the understanding, that the popular fancy respecting the
bodily aspect of the great Spirit of Evil is drawn from the descrip
tion of satyrs in the heathen mythology—a malicious monster, with
the hide, horns, tail, and cloven feet of a beast of the field, which
roamed about in the dark or in retired places, performing idle and
wicked tricks, and undoing schemes of benevolence. Sometimes, as
was alleged, this great enemy of man assumed disguises that were
exceedingly difficult to penetrate. It is recorded by an author of
talent, that the devil once delivered a course of lectures on magic at
Salamanca, habited in a professor’s gown and wig. Even Luther
entertained similar notions about the fiend; and in fact thought so
meanly of him, as to believe that he could come by night and steal
nuts, and that he cracked them against the bedposts, for the solacement of his monkey-like appetite.
That the delusion originated, to a great degree, in a misconception
of the real purport of allusions to the so-called witchcraft in various
parts of the Old Testament, is now universally acknowledged. By
biblical critics, as we understand, the term translated witch, properly
signifies a person who by vile deceptions practised on popular
credulity, and by means of poisoning, accomplished certain wicked
designs. ‘Leaving,’ as Sir Walter Scott remarks, ‘the further
discussion of this dark and difficult question to those whose studies
have qualified them to give judgment on so obscure a subject, it so
far appears clear, that the Witch of Endor was not a being such as
those believed in by our ancestors, who could transform themselves
and others into the appearance of the lower animals, raise and allay
tempests, frequent the company and join the revels of evil spirits,
and, by their counsel and assistance, destroy human lives, and waste
the fruits of the earth, or perform feats of such magnitude as to
3
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
alter the face of nature. The Witch of Endor was a mere fortune
teller, to whom, in despair of all aid or answer from the Almighty,
the unfortunate king of Israel had recourse in his despair, and by
whom, in some way or other, he obtained the awful certainty of his
own defeat and death. She was liable, indeed deservedly, to the
punishment of death, for intruding herself upon the task of the real
prophets, by whom the will of God was in that time regularly made
known. But her existence and her crimes can go no length to prove
the possibility that another class of witches, no otherwise resembling
her than as called by the same name, either existed at a more recent
period, or were liable to the same capital punishment, for a very
different and much more doubtful class of offences, which, however
odious, are nevertheless to be proved possible before they can be
received as a criminal charge.’ *
Originating in ignorance, a love of the marvellous, along with
the religious misconceptions to which we have referred, a belief in
witchcraft may be traced through the early ages of Christianity ; but
the modern prevalence of the delusion may be said to date from the
promulgation of an edict of Pope Innocent VIII. in 1484, declaring
witchcraft to be a crime punishable with death. This fixed the
subject deeply in the public mind, and the effect was deepened by
the prosecution of witches which followed. It is a curious law of
human nature, of which we have seen many modern illustrations,
that even crimes, real or imputed, when they excite much public
attention, tend to produce repetitions of themselves. In this way,
offences sometimes assume a character approaching that of epi
demical diseases. It was found, as has been remarked, that the
more energy there was displayed in seeking out and prosecuting
watches, the more apparent occasion for such prosecutions was
presented. In 1515, during the space of three months, 500 witches
w'ere burned in Geneva ; in a single year, in the diocese of Como,
in the north of Italy, 1000 were executed ; and it is related that,
altogether, more than 100,000 individuals perished in Germany
before the general mania terminated. In France, the belief in
witchcraft led to a remarkable variety of superstition, known in
French law as lycantliropy, or the transformation of a witch into a
wolf. It was currently believed by all classes, that witches assumed
at pleasure the wolfish form in order to work mischief—by ravaging
flocks of sheep. Many unfortunate persons, the victims of petty
prejudice, were tried and executed for this imaginary crime. At
length, by an edict of Louis XIV., all future proceedings on the
score of witchcraft were prohibited ; and from that time no more
was heard of village dames assuming the forms and habits of
wolves.
In England, to which we now turn, a belief in witchcraft was of
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft.
4
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
as respectable antiquity as on the continent of Europe, and, aselsewhere, drew particular attention in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, at which period the public mind was deeply affected with
religious distractions. Witchcraft, though always penal, now became
the subject of the express statutes of Henry VII., 1541, Elizabeth,
1562, and also of James I. This last monarch, who, we shall
afterwards see, was a great witch-fancier while in Scotland, brought
with him to England a keen sense of the duty of finding out and
punishing all sorts of diablcrv. The act passed in the first year of
his reign in England defines the crime with a degree of minuteness
worthy of the adept from whose pen it undoubtedly proceeded.
‘Any one that shall use, practise, or exercise any invocation of any
evil or wicked spirit, or consult or covenant with, entertain or
employ, feed or reward any evil or wicked spirit, to or for any pur
pose; or take up any dead man, &c. &c. &c. ; such offenders, duly
and lawfully convicted and attainted, shall suffer death.’ We havehere witchcraft first distinctly made, of itself, a capital crime. Many
years had not passed away after the passing of this statute, ere the
delusion, which had heretofore committed but occasional and local
mischief, became an epidemical frenzy, devastating every corner of
England. Leaving out of sight single executions, we find such
wholesale murders as the following in abundance on the record : In
1612, twelve persons were condemned at once at Lancaster, and
many more in 1613, when the whole kingdom rang with the fame of
the ‘ Lancashire witches in 1622, six at York ; in 1634, seventeen
in Lancashire; in 1644, sixteen at Yarmouth; in 1645, fifteen at
Chelmsford; and in 1645 and 1646, sixty persons perished in Suffolk,
and nearly an equal number at the same time in Huntingdon.
These are but a few selected cases. The poor creatures who usually
composed these ill-fated bands are thus described by an able
observer : ‘ An old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a
hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, or a
scolding tongue, having a ragged coat on her back, a spindle in her
hand, and a dog by her side—a wretched, infirm, and impotent
creature, pelted and persecuted by all the neighbourhood, because
the farmer’s cart had stuck in the gateway, or some idle boy had
pretended to spit needles and pins for the sake of a holiday from
school or work ’—such were the poor unfortunates selected to undergo
the last tests and tortures sanctioned by the laws, and which tests
were of a nature so severe, that no one would have dreamed of
inflictifig them on the vilest of murderers. They were administered
by a class of wretches, who, with one Matthew Hopkins at their
head, sprung up in England in the middle of the seventeenth
century, and took the professional name of witch-finders. The
practices of the monster Hopkins, who, with his assistants, moved
from place to place in the regular and authorised pursuit of his
trade, will give a full idea of the tests referred to, as well as of the
s
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
horrible fruits of the witchcraft frenzy in general. From each town
which he visited, Hopkins exacted the stated fee of twenty shillings,
and in consideration thereof, he cleared the locality of all suspected
persons, bringing them to confession and the stake in the following
manner: He stripped them naked, shaved them, and thrust pins
into their bodies, to discover the witch’s mark; he wrapped them
in sheets, with the great toes and thumbs tied together, and dragged
them through ponds or rivers, when, if they sunk, it was held as a
sign that the baptismal element did not reject them, and they were
cleared; but if they floated, as they usually would do for a time,
they were then set down as guilty, and doomed. He kept them
fasting and awake, and sometimes incessantly walking, for twentyfour or forty-eight hours, as an inducement to confession ; and, in
short, practised on the accused such abominable cruelties, that they
were glad to escape from life by confession. If a witch could not
shed tears at command, said the further items of this wretch’s creed,
or if she hesitated at a single word in repeating the Lord’s Prayer,
she was in league with the Evil One. The results of these and
such-like tests were actually and universally admitted as evidence
by the administrators of the law, who, acting upon them, condemned
all such as had the amazing constancy to hold out against the
tortures inflicted. Few gave the courts that trouble. Butler has
described Hopkins in his Hudibras as one
‘ Fully empowered to treat about
Finding revolted witches out.
And has he not, within this year,
Hanged threescore of them in one shire?
Some only for not being drowned,
And some for sitting above ground.’
After he had murdered hundreds, and pursued his trade for many
years (from 1644 downwards), the tide of popular opinion finally
turned against Hopkins, and he was subjected, by a party of indig
nant experimenters, to his own favourite test of swimming. It is
said that he escaped with life, but from that time forth, he was never
heard of again.
A belief in witchcraft, however, still continued virulent in England,
and was argumentatively supported by grave and pious men. The
grounds of credibility do not seem to have been earnestly investi
gated,. Richard Baxter, who wrote in 1651, founds his opinion of
the truth of witchcraft on the fact, that many persons had been
tried and put to death for the crime. It did not occur to him to
inquire whether the imputed crime were well or ill founded. Such
was the loose reasoning that prevailed in England and elsewhere
in the seventeenth century. Witchcraft was a truth, because
everybody had acted upon the conviction of its being a truth 1
How has the progress of society, with the reign of peace and
6
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
♦•
good-will on earth,’ been retarded by this accommodating method
of argument!
It is an undoubted fact, however to be accounted for or palliated,
that during the troublous seventeenth century, prosecutions for
witchcraft were prominent in some proportion to the ascendency
of the Puritanic cause. While, as during the time of the Civil War
-and Commonwealth, the ruling powers acted under strong religious
impulses, the scriptural maxim of ‘ Thou shalt not suffer a witch to
live,’ had the force of a commandment. In a time of indifference,
as in the reign of Charles II., rulers were disposed, so far as popular
prepossessions would permit, to let these poor old creatures cheaply
off. The era of the Long Parliament was that during which the
witch-mania attained its growth. Three thousand persons are said
to have perished during the continuance of the sittings of that body,
by legal executions, independently of summary deaths at the hands
of the mob. With the Restoration came a relaxation, but not a
cessation, of this severity. One noted case occurred in 1664, when
the enlightened and just Sir Matthew Hale tried and condemned
two women, Amy Dunny and Rose Callender, at Bury St Edmunds,
for bewitching children, and other similar offences. Some of the
items of the charge may be mentioned. Being capriciously refused
some herrings, which they desired to purchase, the two old women
expressed themselves in impatient language, and a child of the
herring-dealer soon afterwards fell ill—in consequence. A carter
•drove his wagon against the cottage of Amy Dunny, and drew from
her some not unnatural objurgations ; immediately after which, the
vehicle of the man stuck fast in a gate, without its wheels being
impeded by either of the posts, and the unfortunate Amy was
credited with the accident. Such accusations formed the burden
■of the ditty, in addition to the bewitching of the children. These
young accusers were produced in court, and, on being touched by
the old women, fell into fits. But on their eyes being covered, they
were thrown into the same convulsions by other persons, precisely
in the same way. In the face of this palpable proof of imposture,
and despite the general absurdity of the charges, Sir Matthew Hale
committed Amy Dunny and Rose Callender to the tender mercies
of the hangman. It is stated that the opinion of the learned Sir
Thomas Browne, who was accidentally present, had great weight
against the prisoners. He declared his belief that the children
were truly bewitched, and supported the possibility of such posses
sions by long and learned arguments, theological and metaphysical.
Yet Sir Matthew Hale was one of the wisest and best men of his
time, and Sir Thomas Browne had written an able work in exposition
of popular fallacies !
It was during the reign of Charles II. that many persons in high
station were found to express a doubt of the reality of witchcraft.
The first book treating the subject rationally, and trying to disprove
7
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
that the Scripture warranted either the crime or its punishment,
was that of Webster, published in 1677. It is amusing to observe
in this treatise the anxiety of the author to vindicate himself from
the charge of irreligion, which he foresaw would be brought against
him, for ‘ crossing the common stream of vulgar opinion.’ Chief
justices North and Holt, to their lasting credit, were the first
individuals occupying the high places of the law who had at once
the good sense and the courage to set their faces against the
continuance of this murderous delusion. In one case, by detecting’
a piece of gross imposture, Chief-justice North threw into disrepute,,
once for all, the trick ofpin-vomiting, one of the most striking and
convincing practices of the possessed. A male sorcerer stood at the
bar, and his supposed victim was in court, vomiting pins in profusion.
These pins were straight, a circumstance which made the greater
impression, as those commonly ejected in such cases were bent,
engendering frequently the suspicion of their having been previously
and purposely placed in the mouth. The chief-justice was led to
suspect something in this case by certain movements of the
bewitched woman ; and by closely cross-questioning one of her own
witnesses, he brought it fully out, that the woman placed pins in her
stomacher, and, by a dexterous dropping of her head in her simu
lated fits, picked up the articles for each successive ejection. The
man was found not guilty. The acquittal called forth such pointed
benedictions on the judge from a very old woman present, that he
was induced to ask the cause. ‘ O my lord,’ said she, ‘ twenty years
ago they would have hanged me for a witch if they could ; and now,
but for your lordship, they would have murdered my innocent son.’
The detected imposture in this case saved the accused. It was
under Holt’s justiceship, however, that the first acquittal is supposed
to have taken place, in despite of all evidence, and upon the fair
ground of the general absurdity of such a charge. In the case of
Mother Munnings, tried in 1694, the unfortunate prisoner would
assuredly have perished, had not Chief-justice Holt summed up in a
tone so decidedly adverse to the prosecution, that the verdict of Not
Guilty was called forth from the jury. In about ten other trials
before Holt, between the years 1694 and 1701, the result was the same,
through the same influences. It must be remembered, however, that
these were merely noted cases, in which the parties withstood all
preliminary inducements to confession, and came to the bar with the
plea of not guilty. About the same period—that is, during the latter
years of the seventeenth century—summary executions were still
common, in consequence of confessions extracted after the Hopkins
fashion, still too much in favour with the lower classes. The acquittals
mentioned only prove that the regular ministers of the law were
becoming too enlightened to countenance such barbarities. Cases
of possession, too, were latterly overlooked by the law, which would
have brought the parties concerned to a speedy end in earlier days,
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
even though they had done no injury to other people, and were
simply unfortunate enough to have made compacts with the demon
for the attainment of some purely personal advantages. For
example, in 1689, there occurred the famous case of a youth, named
Richard Dugdale, who sacrificed himself to the devil, on condition
of being made the best dancer in Lancashire. The dissenting clergy
took this youth under their charge, and a committee of them fasted
and prayed, publicly and almost incessantly, for a whole year, in
order to expel the dancing demon. The idea of this impostor leaping
for a twelvemonth, and playing fantastic tricks before these grave
divines, is extremely ludicrous. But the divines played tricks not
less fantastic. They became so contemptuously intimate with the
demon as to mock him on account of saltatory deficiencies. A
portion of their addresses to him on this score has been preserved,
but of too ridiculous a nature for quotation in these pages. If any
thing else than a mere impostor, it is probable that Dugdale was
affected with St Vitus's Dance ; and this is the more likely, as it
was after all a regular physician who brought his dancing to a close.
But the divines took care to claim the merit of the cure.
After the time of Holt, the ministers of the law went a step farther
in their course of improvement, and spared the accused in spite of
condemnatory verdicts. In 1711, Chief-justice Powell presided at a
trial where an old woman was pronounced guilty. The judge, who
had sneered openly at the whole proceedings, asked the jury if they
found the woman ‘guilty upon the indictment of conversing with the
devil in the shape of a cat.’ The reply was : ‘ We do find her guilty
of that but the question of the judge produced its intended effect
in casting ridicule on the whole charge, and the woman was
pardoned. An able writer in the Foreign Quarterly Review remarks,
after noticing this case: ‘Yet, frightful to think, after all this, in
1716, Mrs Hicks and her daughter, aged nine, were hanged at Hunt
ingdon for selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by
pulling off their stockings, and making a lather of soap ! With this
crowning atrocity, the catalogue of murders in England closes.’
And a long and a black catalogue it was. ‘ Barrington, in his obser
vations on the statute of Henry VI., docs not hesitate to estimate
the numbers of those put to death in England on this charge at
THIRTY THOUSAND !’
Notwithstanding that condemnations were no longer obtainable
after 1716, popular outrages on supposed witches continued to take
place in England for many years afterwards. On an occasion of
this kind, an aged female pauper was killed by a mob near Tring,
in Staffordshire ; and for the murder, one of the perpetrators was
tried and executed. The occurrence of such outrages having been
traced to the unrepealed statute of James I. against witchcraft, an
act was passed, in 1736 (10th George II. cap. 55), discharging all
legal proceedings on the ground of sorcery or witchcraft; and since
141
9
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
this period, prosecutions for following hidden arts have had no
higher aim than the punishing of a pretended skill in fortune
telling and other forms of practical knavery.
It has been said that James I. brought with him from Scotland
strong impressions on the subject of witchcraft, and, accordingly, we
now refer to the history of the delusion in that country. In the
reign of Queen Mary, the contemporary of Elizabeth, the public
mind in Scotland fell into the common frenzy, and an act was passed
by the Scottish parliament for the suppression and punishment of
witchcraft. In virtue of this law, great numbers were tried and exe
cuted. At this time, and subsequently, the Scottish witches were
nearly all aged women ; only a few men figured in the prosecutions.
On coming to exercise the functions of majesty, James made
numerous judicial investigations into alleged cases of witchcraft, and
derived a pleasure in questioning old women respecting their deal
ings with Satan. The depositions made at these formal inquests
are still preserved, and are among the most curious memorials of the
sixteenth century.
1 he witch mania in Scotland was, through these prosecutions,
brought to an extravagant height in the year 1591, when a large
number of unhappy beings were cruelly burned to death on the
Castle-hill of Edinburgh. About this period, some cases occurred
to shew that witchcraft was an art not confined to the vulgar. A
woman of high rank and family, Catherine Ross, Lady Fowlis, was
indicted at the instance of the king’s advocate for the practice of
witchcraft. On inquiry, it was clearly proved that this lady had
endeavoured, by the aid of witchcraft and poisons, to take away the
lives of three or more persons who stood between her and an object
she had at heart. She was desirous to make young Lady Fowlis
possessor of the property of Fowlis, and to marry her to the Laird
of Balnagown. Before this could be effected, Lady Fowlis had to
cut off her sons-in-law, Robert and Hector Munro, and the young
wife of Balnagown, besides several others. Having consulted with
witches, Lady Fowlis began her work by getting pictures of the
intended victims made in clay, which she hung up, and shot at with
arrows shod with flints of a particular kind, called elf arrow-heads.
No effect being thus produced, this really abandoned woman took
to poisoning ale and dishes, none of which cut off the proper per
sons, though others, who accidentally tasted them, lost their lives.
By the confession of some of the assistant hags, the purposes of
Lady Fowlis were discovered, and she was brought to trial; but a
local or provincial jury of dependants acquitted her. One of her
purposed victims, Hector Munro, was then tried in turn for con
spiring with witches against the life of his brother George. It was
proved that a curious ceremony had been practised to effect this
end. Hector, being sick, was carried abroad in blankets, and laid
in an open grave, on which his foster-mother ran the breadth o£
10
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
nine rigs, and, returning, was asked by the chief attendant witch
which she chose should live, Hector or George. She answered :
‘ Hector.’ George Munro did die soon afterwards, and Hector
recovered. The latter was also acquitted, by a provincial jury, on
his trial.
These disgraceful proceedings were not without their parallel in
other families of note of the day. Euphemia Macalzean, daughter
of an eminent judge, Lord Cliftonhall, was burned at the stake in
1591, having been convicted, if not of witchcraft, at least of a long
career of intercourse with pretenders to witchcraft, whom she
employed to remove obnoxious persons out of her way—tasks which
they accomplished by the very simple means of poisoning, where
they did accomplish them at all. The jury found this violent and
abandoned woman, for such she certainly was, guilty of participa
tion in the murder of her own godfather, of her husband’s nephew,
and another individual. They also found her guilty of having been
at the Wise Woman of Keith’s great witch-convention of North Ber
wick ; but every witch of the day was compelled to admit having
been there, out of compliment to the king, to whom it was a source
of agreeable terror to think himself of so much importance as to call
for a solemn convocation of the powers of evil to overthrow him.
Euphemia Macalzean was ‘ burnt in ashes, quick, to the death.’
This was a doom not assigned to the less guilty. Alluding to cases
of this latter class, a writer (already quoted) in the Foreign Quar
terly Review remarks : ‘ In the trials of Bessie Roy, of James Reid,
of Patrick Currie, of Isobel Grierson, and of Grizel Gardiner, the
charges are principally of taking off . and laying on diseases either
on men or cattle ; meetings with the devil in various shapes and
places ; raising and dismembering dead bodies for the purpose of
enchantments ; destroying crops ; scaring honest persons in the
shape of cats ; taking away women’s milk ; committing house
breaking and theft by means of enchantments ; and so on. South
running water, salt, rowan-tree, enchanted flints (probably elf arrow
heads), and doggerel verses, generally a translation of the Creed
or Lord’s Prayer, were the means employed for effecting a cure.’
Diseases, again, were laid on by forming pictures of clay or wax ;
by placing a dead hand, or some mutilated member, in the house of
the intended victim ; or by throwing enchanted articles at his door.
A good purpose did not save the witch ; intercourse with spirits in
any shape being the crime.
Of course, in the revelations of the various witches, inconsistencies
were abundant, and even plain and evident impossibilities were
frequently among the things averred. The sapient James, however,
in place of being led by these things to doubt the whole, was only
strengthened in his opinions, it being a maxim of his that the
witches were ‘ all extreme lyars.’ Other persons came to different
conclusions from the same premises; and before the close of James’s
II
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
reign, many men of sense began to weary of the torturings and
burnings that took place almost every day, in town or country, and
had done so for a period of thirty years (between 1590 and 1620).
Advocates now came forward to defend the accused, and in their
pleadings ventured even to arraign some of the received axioms of
4 Dzemonologie’ laid down by the king himself, in a book bearing
that name. The removal of James to England moderated, but did
not altogether stop, the witch prosecutions. After his death they
slackened more considerably. Only eight witchcraft cases are on
the record as having occurred between 1625 and 1640 in Scotland,
and in one of these cases, remarkable to tell, the accused escaped.
The mania, as it appears, was beginning to wear itself out.
As the spirit of puritanism gained strength, however, which it
■gradually did during the latter part of the reign of Charles I., the
partially cleared horizon became again overcast; and again was this
owing to ill-judged edicts, which, by indicating the belief of the
great and the educated in witchcraft, had the natural effect of
reviving the frenzy among the flexible populace. The General
Assembly was the body in fault on this occasion, and thenceforward
(the clergy were the great witch-hunters in Scotland. The Assembly
passed condemnatory acts in 1640, ’43, ’44, ’45, and ’49; and with
every successive act, the cases and convictions increased, with even
a deeper degree of attendant horrors than at any previous time.
‘ The old impossible and abominable fancies,’ says the Review
.formerly quoted, ‘ of the Malleus were revived. About thirty trials
appear on the record between 1649 and the Restoration, only one of
which seems to have terminated in an acquittal; while at a single
circuit, held at Glasgow, Stirling, and Ayr, in 1659, seventeen
persons were convicted and burnt for this crime.’ But it must be
remembered that the phrase, ‘ on the record,’ alludes only to justiciary
trials, which formed but a small proportion of the cases really tried.
The justiciary lists take no note of the commissions perpetually
given by the Privy-council to resident gentlemen and clergymen to
try and burn witches in their respective districts. These commissions
executed people over the whole country in multitudes. Wodrow,
Lamont, Mercer, and Whitelocke prove this but too satisfactorily.
The clergy continued, after the Restoration, to pursue these
imaginary criminals with a zeal altogether deplorable. The Jus
ticiary Court condemned twenty persons in the first year of Charles
II.’s reign (1661), and in one day of the same year the council issued
fourteen new provincial commissions, the aggregate doings of which
one shudders to guess at. To compute their condemnations would
be impossible, for victim after victim perished at the stake, unnamed
and unheard of. Morayshire became at this particular period the
■scene of a violent fit of the great moral frenzy, and some of the
most remarkable examinations, signalising the whole course of
•Scottish witchcraft, took place in that county. The details, though
12
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
occasionally ludicrous from their absurdity, are too horrible forr
narration in the present pages.
On the new government becoming thoroughly fixed in power,
this form of religious persecution—for in some degree such it was—
abated. From 1662, there is an interval of six years without a
single Justiciary trial for the crime of witchcraft, and one fellow was.
actually whipped for charging some person with it. After this
period, the dying embers of the delusion only burst out on occasions,
here and there, into a momentary flame. In 1678, several women
were condemned, ‘ on their own confession,’ says the Register; but
we suspect this only means, in reality, that one malicious beingmade voluntary admissions involving others, as must often havebeen the case, we fear, in these proceedings. Scattered cases took
place near the beginning of the eighteenth century—such as those
at Paisley in 1697, at Pittenweem in 1704, and at Spott about the
same time. It is curious, that as something like direct evidence
became necessary for condemnation, evidence did present itself, and
in the shape of possessed or enchanted young persons, who were
brought into court to play off their tricks. The most striking case
of this nature was that of Christian Shaw, a girl about eleven years,
old, and the daughter of Mr Shaw of Bargarran, in Renfrewshire.
This wretched girl, who seems to have been an accomplished
hypocrite, young as she was, quarrelled with a maid-servant, and, to.
be revenged, fell into convulsions, saw spirits, and, in short, feigned
herself bewitched. To sustain her story, she accused one person
after another, till not less than twenty were implicated, some of them
children of the ages of twelve and fourteen 1 They were tried on
the evidence of the girl, and five human beings perished through her
malicious impostures. It is remarkable that this very girl after
wards founded the thread manufacture in Renfrewshire. From a.
friend who had been in Holland, she learned some secrets in spin
ning, and, putting them skilfully in practice, she led the way to the
extensive operations carried on of late years in that department.
She became the wife of the minister of Kilmaurs, and, it is to be
hoped, had leisure and grace to repent of the wicked misapplication
in her youth of those talents which she undoubtedly possessed.
The last Justiciary trial for witchcraft in Scotland was in the case
of Elspeth Rule, who was convicted in 1708, and banished. A belief
in the crime was evidently expiring in the minds of the Scottish law
authorities; and the Lord Advocate, or public prosecutor, endea
voured to prevent the county courts from taking cognisance of the
subject. Notwithstanding his remonstrances, however, a case of
trial and execution for witchcraft was conducted by Captain David
Ross of Littledean, sheriff-depute of Sutherlandshire, in 1722. ‘The
victim,’ observes Sir Walter Scott, in his Letters on Demonology,
‘was an insane old woman belonging to the parish of Loth, who had
so little idea of her situation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire
13
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
which was destined to consume her. She had a daughter lame both
of hands and feet, a circumstance attributed to the witch’s having
been used to transform her into a pony, and get her shod by the
devil. It does not appear that any punishment was inflicted for this
cruel abuse of the law on the person of a creature so helpless.’ The
execution took place at Dornoch, and was the last that was inflicted
for witchcraft in Great Britain. Here may be said to end the
tragical annals of witchcraft in Scotland. The number of its
victims, from first to last, it would be difficult accurately to compute ;
but the black scroll would include, according to those who have
most attentively inquired into the subject, upwards of FOUR
thousand persons !
Having thus presented a historical sketch of witchcraft in England
and Scotland, we proceed to give an account of the mania as it
occurred in the North American colonies.
Carrying their religious opinions to an excess, and generally
ignorant of the economy of nature, the inhabitants of New England
yielded a remarkable credence to the popular superstition, and
carried it as far, in the way of judicial punishment, as it had gone
in any European nation. Their situation, perhaps, as colonists in
a pagan region helped to fan the flame of their fury against witches.
They regarded the Indians as worshippers of the devil, and practisers
of incantations ; they therefore felt it to be necessary to be doubly
on their guard, and to watch the first appearances of witchcraft
within the settlements. We learn from a respectable authority—
Chandler’s Criminal Trials—to which we are indebted for many
subsequent particulars, that the first suspicion of witchcraft among
the English in America was about the year 1645.
‘At Springfield, on the Connecticut river, several persons were
supposed to be under an evil hand ; but no one was convicted until
1650, when a poor wretch, Mary Oliver, after a long examination,
was brought to a confession of her guilt, but it does not appear
that she was executed. About the same time, three persons were
executed near Boston, all of whom at their death asserted their
innocence. In 1655, Anne Hibbins, the widow of a magistrate and
a man of note in Boston, was tried for this offence before the Court
of Assistants. The jury found her guilty, but the magistrates
refused to accept the verdict. The case was carried up to the
General Court, where the popular voice prevailed, and the prisoner
was executed. In 1662, at Hartford, Connecticut, a woman named
Greensmith confessed that she had been grossly familiar with a
demon, and she was executed. In 1669, Susanna Martin of Salis
bury was bound over to the court upon suspicion of witchcraft,
but escaped. She suffered death in 1692. In 1671, Elizabeth
Knap, who possessed ventriloquial powers, alarmed the people of
Groton ; but as her demon railed at the minister of the town, and
other persons of good character, the people would not believe him.
14
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
"Her fraud and imposture were soon discovered. In 1694, Philip
■Smith, a judge of the court, a military officer, and a representative
■of the town of Hadley, fancied himself under an evil hand, and
suspected an old woman, one of his neighbours, as the cause of his
sickness. She was dragged from her house by some young men,
who hung her up until she was nearly dead, then rolled her in
the snow, and at last buried her in it; but it happened that she
survived, and the melancholy man died. Trials for witchcraft out
of New England were not common. In 1665, Ralph Hall and his
wife were tried for the offence in New York, and acquitted. In
1660, in Queen’s County, Long Island, Mary Wright was suspected
of corresponding with the Author of Evil. She was arraigned, and
it was finally concluded to transport her to the General Court of
Massachusetts, “where charges of this kind were more common,
and the proofs necessary to support them better understood.” She
was accordingly arraigned there, and acquitted of witchcraft, but
was convicted of being a Quaker, and banished out of the jurisdic
tion. In Pennsylvania, when William Penn officiated as judge in
his new colony, two women, accused of witchcraft, were presented
by the grand-jury. Without treating the charge with contempt,
which the public mind would not have borne, he charged the jury
to bring them in guilty of being suspected of witchcraft, which
was not a crime that exposed them to the penalty of the law.
Notwithstanding the frequent instances of supposed witchcraft in
Massachusetts, no person had suffered death there on that account
for nearly thirty years after the execution of Anne Hibbins. The
sentence of this woman was disapproved of by many influential
men, and her fate probably prevented further prosecutions. But in
1685, a very circumstantial account of most of the cases above
mentioned was published, and many arguments were brought to
convince the country that they were no delusions or impostures, but
the effects of a familiarity between the devil and such as he found
fit for his instruments.’
Before going further with our account of these strange doings, it
is necessary to introduce to the reader a person who made himself
exceedingly prominent in exciting and keeping up the witchcraft
mania. This individual was the Rev. Cotton Mather—a noted
character in American biography.
Cotton Mather was descended from a respectable English family.
His grandfather and father were ministers of the Congregational
body, in which he also was destined to perform a distinguished
part. He was born at Boston in 1662 ; and his mother being a
daughter of John Cotton, an eminent nonconformist divine, he
received from him the name of Cotton. In his youth, he was con
sidered a prodigy of piety and devotion to study, and at an early
age he was raised to the ministry as assistant to his father. Later
in life, he did good service to the colony, as a zealous advocate of
15
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
popular rights during the struggles with the Stuarts and the estab1lishment of the revolution of 1688. Cotton Mather, however, is
chiefly remembered for his indefatigable zeal in seeking out and
getting witches tried and executed. This great work he felt to be
his mission : his mind was full of it. He seems to have considered
that in nothing could he do the commonwealth such good service
as in ridding it of traffickers with every order of demons. In order
to make known his opinion on the subject, he wrote various treatises,
expounding the nature of the invisible world, and all breathing an
earnest belief in the constant personal interference of Satan with
his ministerial prelections. Among his manuscripts, which have
been collected by the Massachusetts Historical Society, there is
a paper on which is endorsed the following curious record in his
handwriting: ‘■November 29, 1692.—While I was preaching at a
private fast (kept for a possessed young woman), on Mark ix. 28,
29, the devil in the damsel flew upon me, and tore the leaf, as it
is now torn, over against the text.’ For a fac-simile of this strange
record, we refer to Jared Sparks’s Life of Mather, from which we
derive the present account of this credulous and meddlesome
personage.
Several instances of alleged witchcraft, as has been seen, pre
pared the way for the great Salem tragedy, and these doubtless
stimulated the zeal of Cotton Mather. In 1688, a case occurred
which, being under his own eye, afforded materials for minute
investigation. The family of John Goodwin, a respectable and
devout man, living in the northern part of Boston, began to be
troubled with supernatural visitations. The children had all been
religiously educated, and were thought to be without guile. The
eldest was a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She had a quarrel
with a laundress, whom she had charged with taking away some
of the family linen. The mother of the laundress was an Irish
woman, who, resenting the imputations on her daughter’s character,
gave the girl harsh language. Shortly afterwards, the girl, her
sister, and two brothers, complained of being tormented with
strange pains in different parts of their bodies, and these affections
were pronounced to be diabolical by the physicians who happened
to be consulted. ‘ One or two things were said to be very remark
able : all their complaints were in the daytime, and they slept
comfortably all night; they were struck dead at the sight of the
Assembly s Catechism, Cotton's Milk for Babes, and some other
good books ; but could read in Oxford jests, Popish and Quaker
books, and the Common Prayer, without any difficulty. Sometimes
they would be deaf, then dumb, then blind ; and sometimes all
these disorders together would come upon them. Their tongues
would be drawn down their throats, then pulled out upon their
chins. Their jaws, necks, shoulders, elbows, and all their joints,
would appear to be dislocated ; and they would make most piteous
16
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
Outcries of burnings, of being cut with knifes, beat, &c., and the
marks of wounds were afterwards to be seen. The ministers of
Boston and Charlestown kept a day of fasting and prayer at the
troubled house ; after which, the youngest child made no more
complaints. The others continuing to be afflicted, the magistrates
interposed, and the old woman was apprehended ; but upon exami
nation, would neither confess nor deny, and appeared to be dis
ordered in her senses.’ In order to satisfy themselves on this latter
point, the magistrates appointed several physicians ‘to examine her
very strictly, whether she was no way crazed in her intellectuals.’
These sage inquisitors do not appear to have been acquainted with
the fact, that a person may be deranged on one subject, and yet
sane on all others. They conversed with the woman a good deal,
and, finding that she gave connected replies, agreed that she was
in full possession of her mind. She was then found guilty of witch
craft, and sentenced to die. Cotton Mather eagerly seized on this
admirable opportunity of conversing with a legally condemned
witch. He paid many visits to the poor woman while she was in
prison, and was vastly edified with her communications. She
described her interviews with the Prince of Darkness, and her
attendance upon his meetings, with a clearness that seems to have
filled him with perfect delight. No sentiments of compassion
appear to have been excited in his mind towards this unfortunate
woman. He accompanied her to the scaffold, and rejoiced in
seeing what he considered justice done upon her. To the moment
of her death, she continued to declare that the children should not
be relieved—an unequivocal proof of disordered intellect.
Sure enough, the execution did not stay the disorder. The
children complained of suffering as much as before. Some of these
facts are amusing. Mather, in his simplicity, says : ‘ “ They were
often near drowning or burning themselves, and they often strangled
themselves with their neckcloths; but the providence of God still
ordered the seasonable succours of them that looked after them.”
On the least reproof of their parents, “ they would roar excessively.”
It usually took abundance of time to dress or undress them, through
the strange postures into which they would be twisted on purpose to
hinder it. “ If they were bidden to do a needless thing, such as to
rub a clean table, they were able to do it unmolested ; but if to do a
useful thing, as to rub a dirty table, they would presently, with many
torments, be made incapable.” Such a choice opportunity as this
family afforded for inquiry into the physiology of witchcraft, was not
to be lost. In order to inspect the specimen more at leisure, he had
the eldest daughter brought to his own house. He wished “to
confute the Sadducism of that debauched age,” and the girl took care
that the materials should not be wanting.’
A number of cunningly devised tricks were performed by this
artful young creature, all of which imposed on Cotton, who resolved
’7
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
to give an account of her case in a sermon. This publicity, how
ever, was by no means pleasing to the victim of witchcraft. She
made many attempts to prevent the preaching of the sermon,
threatening Mather with the vengeance of the spirits, till he was
almost out of patience, and exorcised them in Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew. All these were perfectly intelligible to them; ‘ but the
Indian languages they did not seem so well to understand.’
The whole particulars of this amusing case were published in a
regular form, and afterwards reprinted in London, by Richard
Baxter, who confidingly says in the preface : ‘ This great instance
comes with such convincing evidence, that he must be a very
obdurate Sadducee that will not believe it.’ We may here explain,
that, during the seventeenth century, ‘ Sadducee ’ was the term
usually employed to denote any one who did not come up to a
certain standard of belief, and was employed often towards persons
of high ecclesiastical position.
That it was feasible to doubt the validity of the pretended coniplaints of Goodwin’s children, and yet not be a Sadducee, was
afterwards manifest. These young persons had, from first to last,
carried on a system of imposture; and the idea of doing so had been
suggested by the relation of tales of English witchcraft. ‘ Glanvil,’
observes Mr Chandler, ‘ not many years before, published his witch
stories in England ; Perkins and other nonconformists were earlier;
but the great authority was that of Sir Matthew Hale, revered in
New England, not only for his knowledge in the law, but for his
gravity and piety. The trial of the witches in Suffolk was published
in 1684. All these books were in New England ; and the con
formity between the behaviour of Goodwin’s children, and most of
the supposed bewitched at Salem, and the behaviour of those in
England, is so exact, as to leave no room to doubt the stories had
been read by the New England persons themselves, or had been
told to them by others who had read them.’
We now come to the great witch-battue at Salem, *a village in
Massachusetts, which at present forms a part of the town of
Danvers. The commencement of the Salem witchcraft was in
February 1692, and broke out in the family of Samuel Parris, the
minister of the village. There had been a bitter strife between Mr
Parris and a portion of his people; and the ‘ very active part he took
in the prosecutions for witchcraft, has been justly attributed, not less
to motives of revenge, than to a blind zeal in the performance of
what he considered his duty. A daughter of Mr Parris, nine years
of age, his niece, a girl of less than twelve, and two other girls in
the neighbourhood, began to make the same sort of complaints that
Goodwin’s children had made two or three years before. The
physicians, having no other way of accounting for their disorder,
pronounced them bewitched. An Indian woman, who had been
brought into the country from New Spain, and then lived with Mr
18
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
Parris, tried some experiments, which she pretended to have been
used to in her own country, in order to find out the witch. This
coming to the children’s knowledge, they cried out upon the poor
Indian as appearing to them, pinching, pricking, and tormenting
them; and they fell into fits. Tituba, the Indian, acknowledged
that she had learned how to find out a witch, but denied that she
was one herself. Several private fasts were kept at the minister’s
house, and several, more public, by the w’hole village ; and then
a general fast through the colony, to implore God to rebuke Satan.
The great notice taken of the children, together with the pity and
compassion of the persons by whom they were visited, not only
tended to confirm them in their conduct, but to draw others into the
like. Accordingly, the number of the sufferers soon increased ; and
among them, there were two or three women, and some girls old
enough for witnesses. These, too, had their fits, and, when in them,
cried out, not only against Tituba, but against Sarah Osburn,
a melancholy, distracted old woman, and Sarah Good, another old
woman, who was bedrid. Tituba having, as it is alleged, been
scourged by her master, at length confessed herself a witch, and that
the two old women were her confederates. The three were then
committed to prison ; and Tituba, upon search, was found to have
scars upon her back, which were called the devil’s marks. This
took place on the 1st of March. About three weeks afterwards, two
other women, of good character, and church members, Corey and
Nurse, were complained of, and brought to an examination ; on
which these children fell into fits, and the mother of one of them,
the wife of Thomas Putman, joined with the children, and complained
of Nurse as tormenting her : she made most terrible shrieks, to the
amazement of all the neighbourhood. The women, notwithstanding
they denied everything, were sent to prison ; and such was the
infatuation, that a child of Sarah Good, about four or five years old,
was also committed, being charged with biting some of the afflicted,
who shewed the print.of small teeth on their arms. On April 3d, Mr
Parris took for his text : “ Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of
you is a devil.” Sarah Cloyse, supposing it to be occasioned by
Nurse’s case, who was her sister, went out of meeting, and she was
thereupon complained of for a witch, examined, and committed.
Elizabeth Proctor was charged about the same time ; her husband
accompanied her to her examination, but it cost him his life. Some
of the afflicted cried out upon him also, and they were both com
mitted to prison.
‘ The subject acquired new interest; and, to examine Sarah
Cloyse and Elizabeth Proctor, the deputy-governor and five other
magistrates came to Salem. It was a great day ; several ministers
were present. Parris officiated, and, by his own record, it is plain
that he himself elicited every accusation. His first witness, John,
the Indian servant, husband to Tituba, was rebuked by Sarah
19
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
Cloyse, as a grievous liar. Abigail Williams, the niece of Parris,
was also at hand with her tales : the prisoner had been at the
witches’ sacrament. Struck with horror, Sarah Cloyse asked for
water, and sank down “in a dying fainting-fit.” “Her spirit,”
shouted the band of the afflicted, “is gone to prison to her sister
Nurse.” Against Elizabeth Proctor, the niece of Parris told stories
yet more foolish than false : the prisoner had invited her to sign
the devil’s book. “ Dear child,” exclaimed the accused in her
agony, “it is not so. There is another judgment, dear child and
her accusers, turning towards her husband, declared that he too
was a wizard. All three were committed.
‘ No wonder that the whole country was in a consternation, when
persons of sober lives and unblemished characters were committed
to prison upon such evidence. Nobody was safe. The most
effectual way to prevent an accusation was to become an accuser ;
and, accordingly, the number of the afflicted increased every day,
and the number of the accused in proportion. As yet no one had
confessed ; but at length Deliverance Hobbs owned everything that
was asked of her, and was left unharmed. Then it was that the
monstrous doctrine seems to have been first thought of, that “ the
gallows was to be set up, not for those who professed themselves
witches, but for those who rebuked the delusion not for the guilty,
but for the unbelieving. As might be expected, confessions rose
in importance. They were the avenue of safety. Examinations
and commitments were of daily occurrence, and the whole com
munity was in a state of terror and alarm, which can more easily
be imagined than described. The purest life, the strictest integrity,
the most solemn asseverations of innocence, were of no avail.
Husband was torn from wife, parents from children, brother from
sister, and, in some cases, the unhappy victims saw in their accusers
their nearest and dearest friends : in one instance, a wife and a
daughter accused the husband and father to save themselves ; and,
in another, a daughter seven years old testified against her mother.
‘ The manner in which the examinations were conducted was
eminently calculated to increase the number of the accused and of
the accusers. Mr Parris was present at all of them, and was overofficious, putting leading questions, and artfully entrapping the
witnesses into contradictions, by which they became confused, and
were eagerly cried out upon as guilty of the offence. The appear
ance of the persons accused was also carefully noted by the magis
trates, and was used in evidence against them at their trials. “As
to the method which the Salem justices do take,” says a contem
porary writer, “it is truly this: A warrant being issued out to
apprehend the persons that are charged and complained of by the
afflicted children, as they are called; said persons are brought
before the justices, the afflicted being present. The justices ask
the apprehended why they afflict these poor children, to which the
20
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
apprehended answer, they do not afflict them. The justices order
the apprehended to look upon the said children, which accordingly
they do ; and at the time of that look (I dare not say by that look,
as the Salem gentlemen do), the afflicted are cast into a fit. The
apprehended are then blinded, and ordered to touch the afflicted ;
and at that touch, though not by that touch (as above), the afflicted
do ordinarily come out of their fits. The afflicted persons then
declare and affirm that the apprehended have afflicted them ; upon
which the apprehended persons, though of never so good repute,
are forthwith committed to prison, on suspicion of witchcraft.”’
Cotton Mather was in his element during these transactions. He
recommended the magistrates to study his works on Witchcraft, and
to use all the enginery in their power to purify the land from the
wicked practices of necromancy. The authorities scarcely needed
these incitements. They carried on their examinations with much
vigour, and the manner in which they did so affords one a melancholy
insight into the minutiae of the delusion.
While various preliminary examinations had been made by the
authorities, the jails were gradually filling with persons awaiting
the commencement of the trials, which could not take place for
several months, in consequence of there being a kind of suspension
of the chartered rights of the colony. In May, a new royal charter
arrived, along with Sir William Phipps as governor—a person, as
it would appear, unfitted for this important trust ; he was a protege
of the Mathers, inclined to walk by their counsel, and a firm believer
in witchcraft. Finding on his arrival that the prisons were full of
victims charged with this offence, and urged on by the seeming
urgency of the occasion, he took it upon him to issue a special
commission, constituting the persons named in it a court to act
in and for the counties of Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex. This
court, beyond all question an illegal tribunal, because the governor
had no shadow of authority to constitute it, consisted of seven
judges. ‘At the opening of the court at Salem, on the 2d of June
1692, the commission of the governor was published, and the oath
of office was administered to Thomas Newton as attorney-general,
and to Stephen Sewall as clerk. The general course of proceedings
at these trials was entirely consistent with the character of the
court and the nature of their business. After pleading to the indict
ment, if the prisoner denied his guilt, the afflicted persons were
first brought into court and sworn as to who afflicted them. Then
the confessors, that is, those who had voluntarily acknowledged
themselves witches, were called upon to tell what they knew of the
accused. Proclamation was then made for all who could give any
testimony, however foreign to the charge, to come into court, and
whatever any one volunteered to tell, was admitted as evidence.
The next process was to search for “ witch-marks,” the doctrine
being, that the devil affixed his mark to those in alliance with him,
21
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
and that this point on the body became callous and dead. This
duty was performed by a jury of the same sex, who made a parti
cular return of the appearance of the body, and whether there was
any preternatural excrescence. A wart or a mole on the body of
a prisoner was often conclusive against him, when the evidence
was otherwise doubtful. These examinations in the case of women
were made by a jury of matrons, aided by a medical man as fore
man. They were very minute, and, in some respects, the most cruel
and disgusting part of the proceedings. The unhappy prisoners
were not only subjected to the mortification of a gross exposure
before the jury of examination, but when any witch-mark was found,
it was punctured with pins, to ascertain whether there was any
feeling. There were usually several examinations of the same
individual. In one instance, a woman was examined at ten o’clock
in the morning, and at four o’clock in the afternoon the jury certified
that they had again examined her, and that her breast, which “ in
the morning search appeared to us very full, the nibblis fresh and
starting, now at this search all lancke and pendent.” Of the nine
women who were on this jury, but one could write her name; the
remainder made their marks.
‘Evidence was also received respecting the appearance of the
accused at the preliminary examinations ; and the various signs of
witchcraft which then appeared were detailed with much particularity.
It was a great sign of witchcraft to make an error in the Lord’s
Prayer, which the accused on those occasions were required to
repeat, and if they made a single error, it was brought up at their
trial as evidence against them. Thus, one repeated the prayer
correctly in every particular, excepting that she said “ deliver us from
all evil,” “ which was looked upon as if she prayed against what she
was now justly under.” Upon making another attempt, she said
“hallowed be thy. name,” instead of “hallowed be thy name and
this “ was counted a depraving the words, as signifying to make
void, and so a curse, rather than a prayer.” The appearance of the
accused, and of those supposed to be bewitched, also had an effect
against the prisoner. Sometimes the witnesses were struck dumb
for a long time; at others, they would fall into terrible fits, and were
insensible to the touch of all but the accused, who, they declared,
tormented them. Sometimes the accused were ordered to look on
the afflicted, when the latter would be immediately thrown into fits.
It was thought that an invisible and impalpable fluid darted from
the eyes of the witch, and penetrated the brain of the bewitched.
A touch by the witch attracted back the malignant fluid, and the
sufferers recovered their senses. Another sign of witchcraft, of great
consideration, was an inability of the accused to shed tears.
‘ There was one species of evidence which was of great effect in
these prosecutions, and which it was impossible to rebut. Witnesses
were allowed to testify to certain acts of the accused, when the latter
22
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
were not present in the body ; that they were tormented by appari
tions or spectres of the accused, which pinched them, robbed them
of their goods, caused them to languish and pine away, pricked them ;
and they produced the identical pins which were used for this purpose?
The first session of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer was
held in June 1692, and at this time one trial only took place. ‘The
victim selected for this occasion was Bridget Bishop or Oliver, a
poor and friendless old woman, who had been charged with witch
craft twenty years before. The indictment against her set forth,
that on the 19th day of April, and at divers other days and times,
as well before as after, she used, practised, and exercised certain
detestable arts, called witchcrafts and sorceries, at and within the
township of Salem, in, upon, and against one Mercy Lewis, of Salem
village; by which wicked arts, the said Mercy Lewis “ was hurt,
tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted, and tormented, against
the peace of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, and
against the form of the statute in that case made and provided.”
There were four other indictments against the prisoner for the same
crime in afflicting other persons. On her arraignment, she pleaded
not guilty.
‘ The fact that the crime had been committed, or that certain
persons were bewitched by some one, was considered too notorious
to require much proof; and to fix the crime on the prisoner, the first
testimony adduced was that of the persons supposed to be bewitched.
Several of them testified, that the shape of the prisoner sometimes
very grievously pinched, choked, bit, and afflicted them, urging them
to write their names in a book, which the said spectre called “ ours.”
One of them further testified, that the shape of the prisoner, with
another, one day took her from her wheel, and, carrying her to the
river-side, threatened there to drown her, if she did not sign the
book. Others testified that the said shape did in her threats brag
to them that she had been the death of sundry persons, then by her
named. Another testified to the apparition of ghosts to the spectre
of the prisoner, crying out : “You murdered us.” “About the truth
whereof,” adds the reporter of this trial, “ there was, in the matter of
fact, but too much suspicion?”
The evidence given by John Louder on this ridiculous trial may
be taken as a fair sample of the nonsense which was uttered on the
occasion. ‘John Louder testified, that, upon some little controversy
with Bishop about her fowls, going well to bed, he awoke in the
night by moonlight, and saw clearly the likeness of this woman
grievously oppressing him ; in which miserable condition she held
him, unable to help himself, till near day. He told Bishop of this ;
but she utterly denied it, and threatened him very much. Quickly
after this, being at home on a Lord’s-day, with the doors shut about
him, he saw a black pig approach him, which endeavouring to kick,
it vanished away. Immediately after, sitting down, he saw a black
23
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
thing jump in at the window, and come and stand before him. The
body was like that of a monkey, the feet like a cock’s, but the face,
much like a man’s. Ide being so extremely affrighted that he could
not speak, this monster spoke to him, and said : “ I am a messenger
sent unto you, for I understand that you are in some trouble of
mind ; and if you will be ruled by me, you shall want for nothing in
this world.” Whereupon he endeavoured to clap his hands upon it,
but he could feel no substance, and it jumped out of the window
again, but immediately came in by the porch, though the doors were
shut, and said : “ You had better take my counsel.” He then struck
at it with a stick, but struck only the groundsel, and broke the stick.
The arm with which he struck was presently disabled, and it
vanished away. He presently went out at the back-door, and spied
this Bishop, in her orchard, going toward her house : but he had not
power to set one foot forward unto her. Whereupon, returning into
the house, he was immediately accosted by the monster he had seen
before, which goblin was going to fly at him ; whereat he cried out :
“ The whole armour of God be between me and you !” So it sprung
back, and flew over the apple-tree, shaking many apples off the tree
in its flying over. At its leap, it flung dirt with its feet against the
stomach of the man ; whereon he was then struck dumb, and so
continued for three days together. “ Upon the producing of this
testimony,” says Cotton Mather, “ Bishop denied that she knew this
deponent. Yet their two orchards joined, and they had often had
their little quarrels for some years together.’”
All this trash being gravely listened to and approved of by the
court, it was resolved, as a final step in the procedure, to have the
prisoner examined by a jury of women. This was accordingly
done ; the matrons reported that they found a preternatural ‘ tet ’
upon her body, and on making a second examination within three
or four hours, there was no such thing to be seen.
‘ The poor woman undertook to explain the circumstances which
had been related against her, but she was constantly harassed ; and
becoming confused, she apparently prevaricated somewhat, and all
she said made against her. She seems to have been a woman of
violent temper, who had lived on ill terms with her neighbours for
many years, and who had long had the reputation of being a witch.
Those of her neighbours who had suffered from her uncomfortable
disposition, were nothing loath to attribute all their misfortunes to
her ; and she thus stood little chance of a fair trial.
‘ She was convicted, and sentenced to be hanged, and was
remanded to prison to await her doom. “As she was under a
guard, passing by the great and spacious meeting-house of Salem”
—Cotton Mather relates this—“ she gave a look towards the house ;
and immediately a demon, invisibly entering the meeting-house,
tore down a part of it ; so that though there were no person to be
seen there, yet the people at the noise running in found a board,
34
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
which was strongly fastened with several nails, transported unto
another quarter of the house.” She was executed on the ioth of
June, solemnly protesting her innocence to the last.
‘After the trial and condemnation of Bridget Bishop, the court
adjourned to the 30th of June; and the governor and council
thought proper, in the meantime, to take the opinion of several
ministers upon the state of things as they then stood. Their return,
understood to have been drawn up by Cotton Mather, was as follows ;
“ 1. The afflicted state of our poor neighbours, that are now
suffering by molestations from the invisible world, we apprehend so
deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help
of all persons in their several capacities.
“2. We cannot but with all thankfulness acknowledge the success
which the merciful God has given to the sedulous and assiduous
endeavours of our honourable rulers, to defeat the abominable witch
crafts which have been committed in the country ; humbly praying,
that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses
may be perfected.
“3. We judge that in the prosecution of these and all such witch
crafts, there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest
by too much credulity for things received only upon the devil’s
authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable con
sequences, and Satan get an advantage over us ; for we should not
be ignorant of his devices.
“4. As in complaints upon witchcrafts there may be matters of
inquiry which do not amount unto matters of presumption, and
there may be matters of presumption which yet may not be matters
of conviction, so it is necessary that all proceedings thereabout be
managed with an exceeding tenderness towards those that mav be
complained of, especially if they have been persons formerly of an
unblemished reputation.
“5. When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of
such as may lie under the just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could
wish that there may be admitted as little as possible of such noise,
company, and openness, as may too hastily expose them that are
examined; and that there may be nothing used as a test for the
trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted by
the people of God ; but that the directions given by such judicious
writers as Perkins and Bernard may be observed.
“6. Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and,
much more, convictions whereupon persons may be condemned as
guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than
barely the accused person’s being represented by a spectre unto the
afflicted ; inasmuch as it is an undoubted and a notorious thing,
that a demon may, by God’s permission, appear, even to ill purposes,
in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man. Nor can we
esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the
?5
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to
be abused by the devil’s legerdemain.
“ 7. We know not whether some remarkable affronts given the
devils, by our disbelieving those testimonies whose whole force and
strength is from them alone, may not put a period unto the progress
of the dreadful calamity begun upon us, in the accusation of so
many persons, whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great
transgression laid to their charge.
“8. Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the
government, the speedy and vigorous prosecutions of such as have
rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the directions given in
the laws of God, and the wholesome statutes of the English nation,
for the detection of witchcrafts.” ’
These suggestions met with due attention. Accordingly, when
the court again met on the 30th of June, five women were brought
to trial—namely, Sarah Good and Rebecca Nurse, of Salem village,
Susannah Martin of Amesbury’, Elizabeth How of Ipswich, and
Sarah Wildes of Topsfield. They were condemned, and executed
on the 19th of July. There was no difficulty with any but Rebecca
Nurse. She was a member of the Church, and of a good character ;
as to her, the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. The accusers
made a great clamour, and the court expressed much dissatisfaction.
The jury again retired, and this time brought in a verdict of guilty.
On the next communion-day, the poor woman, declaring her
innocence, was taken in chains to the meeting-house, to be formally
excommunicated. She was hanged with the rest on the 19th of
July. In August, six persons were tried, and condemned to be
executed ; one of the unhappy prisoners on this occasion being a
person named Willard, who had formerly been employed to detect
witchcraft, but had latterly revolted at the office, and expressed a
disbelief of the crime.
The next trial was that of George.Burroughs, a person of educa
tion, who had formerly been a minister in Salem village. ‘ His trial
and condemnation form one of the darkest transactions which the
annals of crime in America present. There were at the time vague
hints, which became at length positive assertions, of difficulties
between him and Parris, which render his fate a terrible commentary
■on the power thrown into the hands of a few designing men, by the
excited state of public feeling. Moreover, he boldly denied that
there was or could be such a thing as witchcraft in the current sense
of the term. He was among the first who were accused, and, after
lying in jail several months, he was brought to trial on the 5th of
August. The indictment set forth that the prisoner, on the 9th day
of May, and divers other days, as well before as after, “certain
detestable arts, called witchcraft and sorceries, wickedly and
feloniously hath used, practised, and exercised, at and within the
township of Salem, in the county of Essex aforesaid, in, upon, and
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
against one Anne Putnam, single woman, by which said wicked arts,
the said Anne Putnam, the 9th day of May, and divers other days
and times, as well before as after, was and is tortured, afflicted,
pined, consumed, wasted, and tormented, against the peace of our
sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, and against the form
■of the statute in that case made and provided.”'
There were three other indictments against the prisoner, to all of
which, on his arraignment, he pleaded not guilty. The evidence
against him was of a very loose and general nature, consisting, in a
great measure, of things said and done by his shape or apparition,
when he was not present as to the body. The following is a
condensation of the absurd evidence of two of the witnesses :
Anne Putnam said : ‘ On the 9th of May 1692, in the evening, I
saw the apparition of George Burroughs, who grievously tortured
me, and urged me to write in his book ; which I refused. He then
told me that his two first wives would appear to me presently, and
tell me a great many lies ; but I should not believe them. Immedi
ately there appeared to me the forms of two women in winding
sheets, and napkins about their heads, at which I was greatly
affrighted. They turned their faces towards Mr Burroughs, and
looked very red and angry at him, telling him that he had been a
cruel man to them, and that their blood cried for vengeance against
him. They also told him they should be clothed with white robes
in heaven, when he should be cast into hell. Immediately he
vanished away; and as soon as he was gone, the two women turned
their faces towards me, looking as pale as a white wall. They said
they were Mr Burroughs’ first wives, and that he had murdered them.
One of them said she was his first wife, and he stabbed her under
the left arm, and put a piece of sealing-wax on the wound ; and she
pulled aside the winding-sheet, and shewed me the place; and also
told me that she was in the house where Mr Parris now lives, when it
was done. The other told me that Mr Burroughs and his present
wife killed her in the vessel as she was coming to see her friends,
because they would have one another ; and they both charged me
that I should tell these things to the magistrates before Mr
Burroughs’ face, and, if he did not own them, they did not know
but they should appear there this morning. Mrs Lawson and her
daughter also appeared to me, and told me that Mr Burroughs
murdered them. This morning there also appeared to me another
woman in a winding-sheet, and told me that she was goodman
Fuller’s first wife, and that Mr Burroughs killed her, because of
some difference between her husband and himself. The prisoner, on
the 9th of May, also, at his first examination, most grievously tor
mented and afflicted Mary Walcott, Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard,
and Abigail Williams, by pinching, pricking, and choking them.’
Elizabeth Hubbard said : ‘ One night there appeared to me a little
black-bearded man, in dark apparel, who told me his name was
27
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
Burroughs. He took a book out of his pocket, and bade me set my
hand to it. I refused. The lines in the book were as red as blood.
He then pinched me, and went away. He has often appeared to me
since, and threatened to kill me if I would not sign the book. He
tortured me very much by biting, pinching, and squeezing my body,
and running pins into me. At his first examination on 9th May, he
did most grievously afflict and torment the bodies of Mary Walcott,
Mercy Lewis, Anne Putnam, and Abigail Williams. If he did tyit
look upon them, he would strike them down, or almost choke them
to death. I believe in my heart that Mr George Burroughs is a
dreadful wizard.’
Other witnesses told similar stories, all so ridiculous, that it is
amazing how they should have been listened to by a court of justice.
The unfortunate prisoner said but little at his trial. He made some
attempt to explain away the testimony against him, but became
confused, and made contradictory statements. He also handed in
a paper to the jury, in which he utterly denied that there was any
truth in the received notions of witchcraft. The jury returned a
verdict of guilty, and he was sentenced to die.
On the 19th of August, he was carried in a cart through the
streets of Salem with the others who were to die. Upon the ladder
he made a calm and powerful address to the multitude, in which he
asserted his innocence ‘ with such solemn and serious expressions as
were to the admiration of all present.’ He then made a prayer,
concluding with the Lord’s Prayer, which he repeated in a clear,
sonorous tone, with entire exactness, and with a fervency that
astonished. Many were affected to tears, and it seemed as if the
spectators would hinder the execution. But the accusers cried that
the devil assisted him. The execution proceeded, and the husband,
the father, and the minister of God was violently sent to his long
home. Cotton Mather, on horseback in the crowd, addressed the
people, declaring that Burroughs was no ordained minister, insisted
on his guilt, and asserted that the devil had often been transformed
into an angel of light. When the body was cut down, it was dragged
by the halter to a hole, and there interred with every mark of
indignity.
A few weeks afterwards, fourteen persons of both sexes were tried,
condemned, and executed. One of these, Samuel Wardwell, had
confessed, and was safe ; but he retracted his confession, and was
executed—not for witchcraft, but for denying witchcraft. Another
victim, Martha Cory, protested her innocence to the last, and con
cluded her life with a prayer on the ladder. Her husband, Giles
Cory, an octogenarian, seeing that no one escaped—knowing that a
trial was but the form of convicting him of a felony, by which his
estate would be forfeited, refused to plead, and was condemned to
be pressed to death ; the only instance in which the horrible death
by the common-law judgment, for standing mute on arraignment,
28
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
has been inflicted in America. As the aged frame of the dying man
yielded to the dreadful pressure, his tongue protruded from his mouth,
•and the sheriff thrust it back again with the point of his cane !
The parting scene between Mary Easty and her husband, children,
and friends, is described as having been as serious, religious, dis
tinct, and affectionate as could well be expressed, drawing tears from
the eyes of almost all present. She was hanged with the others.
‘There hang eight firebrands of hell,’ said Noyes, the minister of
Salem, pointing to the bodies hanging on the gallows.
Although satisfactory to the malignant bigoted, these executions
did not meet with universal approbation. The atrocities were too
great to be endured, and served to raise a reaction against the
witchcraft delusion. ‘ The common mind of Massachusetts,’ observes
Chandler, ‘ more wise than those in authority and influence, became
concentrated against such monstrous proceedings, and jurors refused
to convict while the judicial-power was yet unsatisfied with victims.
Already twenty persons had suffered death ; more than fifty had
been tortured or terrified into confession ; the jails were full, and
hundreds were under suspicion. Where was this to end? More
over, the frauds and imposture attending these scenes began to be
apparent. It was observed, that no one of the condemned con
fessing witchcraft had been hanged ; no one who confessed and
retracted a confession escaped either hanging or imprisonment for
trial. Favouritism had been shewn in refusing to listen to accusa
tions which were directed against friends or partisans. Corrupt
means had been used to tempt people to become accusers, and
accusations began to be made against the most respectable inhabit
ants of the province and some ministers. It was also observed
that the trials were not fairly conducted: they were but a form to
condemn the accused. No one brought to the bar escaped, and all
who were cried out upon expected death. The wife of the wealthiest
person in Salem, a merchant, and a man of the highest respect
ability, being accused, the warrant was read to her in the evening in
her bed-chamber, and guards were placed round the house. In the
morning, she attended the devotions of her family, gave instructions
for the education of her children, kissed them, commended them
to God, bade them farewell, and committed herself to the sheriff,
declaring her readiness to die. Such a state of things could not
continue long in any age, whilst the essential elements of human
nature remain the same. No wonder the miserable creatures who
endured these sufferings felt that New England was indeed deserted
by God.’
The court made several attempts to go on with its trials, but the
grand-juries dismissed the cases, and the executions were accord
ingly stopped. ‘ The causes of this change in public opinion,’
proceeds our authority, ‘ are variously stated. Some attribute it to
the fact, that the wife of the minister of Beverly being accused, he
29
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
immediately changed his mind in regard to the propriety of the pro
secutions, and thenceforward opposed, as zealously as he had previ
ously encouraged them. Others relate that the wife of a gentleman
in Boston being accused, he brought an action for slander, claiming
a thousand pounds damages ; and that this turned back the current
of accusations. But such causes were inadequate to the effect.
These incidental facts were rather the result of the change that was
taking place, than the cause of it. The force of public sentiment,
which had hanged one minister, could scarcely have been resisted
by the efforts of another. An action at law, sounding in damages,
would hardly stop the mouths of accusing witnesses, who professed
to have given themselves to the powers of darkness. The cause of
the change is rather to be sought in the principles of our nature,
and is to be found partly in that instinctive effort for self-preserva
tion, which, in communities of individuals, unites the weak against
oppression, and gives courage to the feeble and unprotected. A
belief in witchcraft was one of the superstitions of the age ; and the
change of public sentiment, which now took place, was not so much
a loss of faith in its reality, as a conviction of the uselessness and
danger of punishing it by human laws. Of the causes of the tran
sient delusion, which rose so high, and terminated so fatally, among
the sober and godly people of N ew England, no definite explanation
can, at this distance of time, be given ; but their descendants may
be allowed, in the same spirit of trust in Providence which distin
guished them, to cherish the belief, that it was permitted for pur
poses of wisdom and benevolence, which could not otherwise have
been accomplished. When its work was done, it properly ceased.
Such moral desolations often pass over the face of society : the
thunder-storm does its work—the atmosphere becomes clear—the
sun shines forth, and reveals to all the work of death.
‘The change in the public mind was complete and universal.
Bitter was the lamentation of the whole community for the sad con
sequences of their rashness and delusion; contrite the repentance
of all who had been actors in the tragedy. The indignation of the
people, not loud, but deep and strong, was directed with resistless
force against those who had been particularly active in these insane
enormities. Parris, the minister who had been the chief agent in
these acts of frenzy and folly, and who, beyond all question, made
use of the popular feeling to gratify his own malignant feelings of
revenge against obnoxious individuals, was compelled to leave his
people. No entreaties were of any avail; the humblest confession
could not save him ; it was not fitting that he should minister at the
altar of a merciful God, within sight of the graves of those whose
entreaties for mercy he had despised. Noyes, the minister of Salem,
consecrated his life to deeds of mercy; made a full confession;
loved and blessed the survivors whom he had injured • asked for
giveness of all, and was by all forgiven. Cotton Mather, by artful
30
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
appeals and publications, in which he wilfully suppressed the truth,
succeeded for a while in deceiving the public, and perhaps himself,
as to the encouragement he had given to the proceedings at Salem.
Still eager “to lift up a standard against the infernal enemy,” he got
up a case of witchcraft in his own parish; but the imposture was
promptly exposed to ridicule, and came to nothing. Mather died in
1727; his latter years being imbittered by the contempt of many
persons for his frenzied zeal in the witch prosecutions ; and it would
appear that, before his death, he had occasional doubtings and
qualms of conscience on the same grave subject.’
The belief in witchcraft gradually died out in America, as it has
done in this country, and only lingered a clandestine existence
among the most ignorant in the community. Whether in England,
Wales, and Scotland, the belief is yet utterly gone, may perhaps
be doubted ; for paragraphs occasionally appear in the newspapers
descriptive of outrages committed on old women, who are supposed
by the ignorant to practise diabolical incantations. Within our own
recollection, which extends to the first decade of the present century,
a belief in witchcraft was to a certain degree entertained in a small
country town in Scotland. It was whispered about among children,
that a certain old woman was a witch, and in passing the thatched
cottage of this poor creature, we were instructed by companions to
put our thumb across one of our fingers, as a preservative from harm
—a curious relic of the old usage of making the figure of the cross.
As a crime recognised and punishable by law, witchcraft was
protracted till comparatively recent times in certain continental
countries. So lately as 1780, a woman was condemned and executed
for witchcraft in the Swiss canton of Glarus. In January 1853, an
account appeared in a foreign journal, significant of the superstitious
belief which still maintains its hold among the less-instructed classes
in the north of Italy; and with this strange record of witchcraft in
the nineteenth century, we may appropriately dismiss the subject:
‘A very singular case was a short time ago submitted to the Court
1 of Justice of Rovigo, in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. Several
of the inhabitants of the island of Cherso had constructed a lime
kiln ; but the fire, after burning constantly for twelve days, and
thereby giving a promise that the operation would be a successful
. one, became suddenly extinguished, and all attempts to relight it
\ failed. An old woman, named Anna Gurlan, who was considered a
\sorceress, was immediately suspected of having, by her charms,
extinguished the fire, and it was stated that she.had been seen walking
ma mysterious way round the kiln, and had passed a night in an
aajacent house. On this the people to whom the kiln belonged
resolved that they would make the old woman undo her charm and
relight the fire. In compliance with the request of one of them,
Giuseppe Micich, she one morning went to the kiln, carrying with
her a bottle of holy water. She then began blessing the kiln and
31
�THE OLD WITCHCRAFTS.
reciting litanies. While so engaged, a priest went to her, and told
her that if she would remain until the fire should spring up again he
would pay her well. She asked if he thought she was a sorceress, or
possessed of heavenly powers ; and he answered, that she might
probably be more favoured by grace than he was. He then left her,
and she continued her incantations. But as the fire did not return,
Micich and his companions swore that they would kill and burn her
if she did not succeed ; and they assured her that they had an axe
and a furnace ready. At the same time, they heaped maledictions
on her for having, by her infernal arts, extinguished the fire. Greatly
terrified, she implored them to have pity on her, and, when a favour
able opportunity presented itself, she took to flight. The house to
which she went was closed against her, and Micich and his com
panions, having gone in pursuit, seized her with great brutality, and
threatened more violently than before to kill her if she would not put
an end to the charm. She then began reciting prayers, but as no
effect was produced, the men deliberated as to what they should do.
They at length resolved to consult a retired sea-captain, called the
“American,” from his having been to America, who possessed a
great reputation in the neighbourhood as an authority in matters of
witchcraft. He refused to go, lest, as he said, the sorceress should
bewitch his children, but he directed what should be done. In
execution of his instructions, the old woman was placed on a chair
close to the kiln ; Micich then cut off a piece of her garments and a
lock of her hair, and threw them both in the kiln, retaining, however,
a portion of the hair, which he placed in his pocket ; half an hour
was then allowed to elapse; Micich then took his knife and made
three cuts on her forehead, causing blood to flow abundantly ; then
another half-hour elapsed, and he made three cuts in the back part
of the head; then another half-hour was suffered to pass, and he
made three cuts in the cartilage of her left ear. While all this was
going on, she begged them, in the name of God, to kill her at once,
sooner than subject her to such torture. At length, when they had,
as she supposed, executed to the letter all the instructions of the
American, they ceased to hold her, and she fled to a wood, where she
wandered about all night. The next morning she went home ; but
the injuries she had sustained were such, that she was obliged to
keep her bed for twenty-six days. After the facts had been proved,
Micich, being called on by the court for his defence, gravely asserted
that the kiln had been burning well enough until the old woman had
been seen hanging about it; and he brought witnesses to prove that
she was fond of talking in a mysterious way, and of meddling in her
neighbours’ affairs ; that when she could not get what she wished
for, she was accustomed to make threats of death against adults and
children; and that more than once, chance apparently caused her
menaces to be fulfilled. The court condemned Micich to three
months’ imprisonment, and to pay an indemnity to the old woman.’
32
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The old witchcrafts
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 32 p. : ill. ; 18 cm.
Notes: "Probably extracted from The horror of New England witchcraft."--OCLC WorldCat. Date of publication from KVK (OCLC). Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1878?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N515
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Witchcraft
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The old witchcrafts), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
NSS
Witchcraft
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/1475a548da722f298870a78cf253f0e7.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=a8LoxNa3ID0aLLr0J%7Ehpyjf3GD1s3jgl5uc5dzkezbq1aSQt%7EGZwvRw2NggIdpf8D6uyuJt--eOSqcWFvMthPzkwiSyAGRpfUXLGJ8XrtBLOQBOq6N2fA61uCFSrIpot6HbVXfEIMBYdOMGzgCuqCrFDkQYgBGyE-cJd3-rWZYbUo9pELXIDBO44wFeANF4tENYY4Tl0-qfa0P-Ls3ao9aMN2CBGxJAvZWYH-FKf9hDfehYJM0LM9vaD4PMxWPKyNs2BiQ8-RgA6H1oVhsx6lkaCEaBaY-OmsAMcXRcMdnWLqZk84AziPZAd96qVkKuRSC2z-zxumyRc363hqZdQ7w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
f01f82da3429e68b9a93b454f040ade0
PDF Text
Text
����������������
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Leith Hill and Wotton House
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 9 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Extensively annotated in ink (dated April 1871) and includes a letter folded and tipped inside the front cover headed 'Leith Hill and Wotton'.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1871
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT72
G5679
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Architecture
History
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Leith Hill and Wotton House), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Architecture
Conway Tracts
De Vere Wotton House
Leith Hill
Surrey
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/1465639cfd51fde5bef3e1ddeebf56a1.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=BrXOE05BDrd7xw%7E2DJdlPgNOfa8yEBHiV87ddN557jElNCA4nr48uDzht7jYzgPeRC-TeoQbcgmbPNf8nO-ZfxkgHs314DtTlLb4T8BMtB-sI9VyIdvbiZhiAotf9-zItrKOsoKXT5kB9RO4AwCTYp9MaSq6w%7EfV0cmEPQThlrU8Hg7oeQn7mh93PMDv4VZE2CI%7E8Q69HJ59DqYzmrjFNuhk01mFV5Y9A7kDr0bFTbsOQFcCw8oLXucbFX6CKmN1jZOoFPmPPmjxQHuveg0WY3Jnz2NIhzXEOZslp7YhPI5nIsRiiAJX01gG-18SViNZg%7ECAiW3jqX4mkvRDc0YN%7Eg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
b1173fdaa70d80265dd5fb4ae42a90c1
PDF Text
Text
Mr. Edward Fordham Flower.
The subject of this sketch was born in 1805, at Marden Hall,
Hertfordshire. His father, Mr. Richard Flower, an ardent agri
culturist, and a politician of the old school, shared the then not un
common alarm with regard to the future of England at the conclu
sion of the Napoleonic Wars, and in the year 1817, he sold his
property, and emigrated to Illinois. Edward Flower was then a
lad of twelve, and had already markedly developed the strong
affection for dumb animals which in later years led him to make such
strenuous exertions on their behalf. Accustomed to horses from his
earliest childhood, his experience in the Far West gave him that
complete knowledge of the animal which is not so frequently attained
in civilized states. The settler in the back woods is more at home in
the saddle than on his feet, and young Flower frequently passed whole
days in cross country rides, with his horse for his sole companion. He
returned to England at the age of nineteen, and one of the first
things that struck him was the different manner of treating horses to
that which he had been used to; but he had not then either the
means or position to bring before the public his views on this matter.
Mr, Flower, in 1827, married and settled at Stratford-on-Avon,
and in 1828 he opened a brewery, which was so successful that after
thirty years he was able to retire and leave the business to his sons.
His popularity in the town was evidenced by his having four times
held the office of Mayor, the last occasion being in 1864, the year of
the famous Shakespeare Tercentenary. In this celebration Mr. Flower
took the most earnest interest, and indeed to his personal exertions
�68
Mr. Edward Fordham Flower.
and very considerable pecuniary assistance no small share of the
splendid success achieved was mainly due.
It is, however, principally as the indefatigable advocate of the
horse, that Mr. Flower’s name will recur to the minds of our readers.
His letters, pamphlets, and speeches on the senseless and cruel gag
bearing-rein would fill a thick volume. He has been ridiculed, con
demned, argued with; but he holds his ground with the steadiness of
purpose that has always characterised him throughout his life. It has
even been said that he was a novice on the subject, whereas probably
no man in England understands horses better. His perseverance, and
the obvious truth of his allegations against the gag-bit and bearing
rein, have enlisted on his side not only the vast majority of veterinary
surgeons, and a large number of fashionable owners of carriages, but
also many of the leading whips of the day. At the second turn out of
the Four-in-Hand Club, last year, eleven out of thirty-two drags were
driven without the aid of this barbarous instrument of torture, and since
agitation was first commenced there has been a yearly diminution of
horses in the park afflicted with the obnoxious gag and rein. In thus
contending for his dumb friends, Mr. Flower cannot at least be
charged with self-seeking, for he is working for those who cannot
recompense again, and his own feeling in the matter is expressed by
the remark, made both in public and private, that all he wishes for is
success ; and he should be not only content but proud to be re
membered simply as the man who abolished the bit and gag-bearing-
rein.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mr Edward Fordham Flower
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: [67]-68 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Tear at bottom of page. Author and name of magazine in which the item appeared are unknown. Edward Fordham Flower was an English brewer and author who campaigned for a Shakespeare memorial theatre and against cruelty to animals. The article deals with the inappropriate use of harness in tight-bearing reins and the use of gag-bits.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1904
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5456
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Animal rights
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Mr Edward Fordham Flower), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Animal Welfare
Conway Tracts
Edward Flower Fordham
Horses
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/0d9e005f2013af3036be50e87e88803f.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=r8DIwh8KtCKNwDKvq6%7END7Q1-6VzAF%7E6yUWbRfqLQclp1I2lfKB9NH4sO6hflBSXvTb8vLCWNL2mpi%7EC5sq19GkV%7EvWZgNC9wQZORQ4ZieoL%7ErDRP8IrXturbM%7ENCZOtCcPJ8H5-JffiucNdjuYbmzX9zsVozIVkuoh-4mEV1-L0rQ%7EBW8XJd9fhH7s8S%7EaX9CTO2rX-YHkrIg1lmylxWPNbsHt%7EzlDIQYolyZcgaZsuvrLs%7E3j-H3WekpN2hUuUnFAUnIS2ujpmaMWX0wU7prNeaVkWIoGRvXmqpcqIVyjxk4LuzPTxbK6tGIK%7EHdc2TWVdVX3TKGuDR6Is4eBQOg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
bba64d19124a0b6b3e4c3e25998085f1
PDF Text
Text
/
U
(No, 59. New Series, No. 23.)
THE JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE, OCTOBER, 1866.
[Published by authority of the Medico-Psychological Association."}
CONTENTS.
PART I,-ORIGINAL ARTICLES.
PAGE
Mi*. Commissioner Browne.—-Address ; on Medico-Psychology. Head by the
President at the Annual Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Asso
ciation, held at Edinburgh, July 31st, 1866 ....
309
John Webster, M.D., F.R.S.—The Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited
.
327
J. Bruce Thomson, L.C.R.S. Edin.—The Effects of the Present System of
Prison Discipline on the Body and Mind
....
340
Franz Meschede, M.D.—Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature. Abridged
from ‘ Virchow’s Archives,’ 1865, by G. F. Blandford, M.B. Oxon ;
with a Prefatory Note
......
348
J. Keith Anderson, M.D. Edin.—Clinical Cases. Remarks on Aphasia, with
Cases
........
367
J. Mackenzie Bacon, M.D.— Clinical Cases. Cases illustrating the Diagnosis
of Paralytic Insanity, with Remarks (partly translated from the French)
381
PART II.-REVIEWS.
1. On Consanguineous Marriages. By Arthur Mitchell, M.D., DeputyCommissioner in Lunacy for Scotland. 2. Consanguinity in Marriage.
By William Adam. 3. Du Danger des Manages consanguins sous
le rapport sanitaire. Par Francis Devay. 4. Étude sur les Mariages
consanguins et sur les Croisements dans les Règnes Animal et Végétal.
Par Antony Chippault. 5. Sur la Consanguinité. Par Jules
Falret
........
389
�Con lents.
Il
PART
II I.-QUARTERLY REPORT ON THE PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL
MEDICINE.
PAGE
English Psychological Literature. By S. W. D. Williams, M.D., L.R.C.P.L.
—On the Morbid Anatomy of the Nervous Centres in General Paralysis
of the Insane. By J. Lockhart Clarke, F.R.S., &c.—Practical
Observations on Insanity of Feeling and of Action. By Henry
Maudsley, M.D. Lond.—On the Functions of the Cerebellum.—
Notes of Lectures on Insanity. Delivered at St. George’s Hospital,
by George Fielding Blandford, M.B. Oxon.
.
.
401—410
PART IV.-NOTES AND NEWS.
The Medico-Psychological Association. Proceedings at the Annual Meeting
of the Association, held at the Rooms of the Royal Society, Edinburgh,
on Tuesday, July 31st, 1866.—The Want of Education in Physical
Science.—The Medico-Psychological Association.— Recent Contri
butions to Mental Philosophy.—Visions of Heaven and Hell.—Mr.
Carlyle on the Education of the Future.—Publications Received, 1866.
—Reports of County and District Asylums.—American Reports.—
Appointments.—Obituary
.....
415—455
Notice to Correspondents
.....••
List of Members of the Medico-Psychological Association
.
No. 60 {new series No. 24) n-ZZZ be published on the
lsZ of January 1867
•
456
457
�THE JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE.
No. 59.
OCTOBER, 1866.
Vol. Nil.
PART I.--ORIGINAL ARTICLES.
Address; on Medico-Psychology. By W. A. E. Browne,
Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland.
(Read by the President at the Annual Meeting of the Medico-Psychological
Association, held at Edinburgh, July 31j/, 1866.)
This is the first occasion upon which we have assembled under
the title of the Medico-Psychological Association.
The event
appears to me auspicious both as inaugurating a more correct desig
nation, and as pointing to a wider and more legitimate destiny.
Me can no longer be mistaken for a mere friendly club or a mutual
defence society. We may now claim as among our objects the
investigation of all subjects bearing upon the science of mind in
connection with health and disease, as well as those which affect our
personal interests or the interests of those committed to our charge.
We claim even a wider, almost a universal range for the science
of Medico-Psychology, and we claim for it a distinct position in
science. The difficulty is to assign and to restrain it within limits.
The multiform phases of actual insanity will be confessed by
all to fall legitimately within its province. The still larger and
more proteiform affections, unequivocally morbid, but compatible
with such an amount of health and work-a-day self-control as
neither to violate law, nor decorum nor delicacy, may be tacitly
conceded, and, at a certain stage, naturally and inevitably come
within the same category. But it is held to be a corollary of the
definition of medico-psychology now accepted, that all physical
diseases, all changes in structure, have a psychical, and often a
morbid psychical side ; that to overlook the mental condition of
VOL. XII.
¿1
�310
Address ; on Medico-Psychology,
[Oct.,
the fever- or consumption-stricken patient because the disease is
corporeal, would be as absurd as to disregard the bodily condition of
the melancholic or of the general paralytic because the disease is
mental.
It would not be enough, according to this estimate, for the psy
chologist to interpret delirium as an indication of cerebral disturb
ance, to allay fear or to sympathise with suffering—acts which might
be performed by the humane and the uneducated ; but it would be
incumbent to connect the special mental condition with the particular
changes going on in the organisation, to employ the mind as a
medium of treatment, or, conversely, to act through the body upon
the mind—and, in short, to embrace all the phenomena presented,
and precisely in the same manner, as if they wyere of equal import
ance or demanded the same consideration.
A glance of the idiotic, imbecile, backward, hebete, criminal por
tions of our population will infallibly suggest the advantages of
bringing such views to bear upon the education and training of the
young, to such an extent, at least, as that the attempts to impart
knowledge should be in harmony with the laws of health, and with
the temper and temperament of the individual as affected by struc
ture. Tor in the errors of education may lurk the poison which grows
into insanity -or eccentricity, and, in like manner, into sound training
may be introduced the preservative against eventual latent mental
incapacity.
The conservative mission of our science in anticipating, prevent
ing, and modifying mental maladies is hitherto an unworked,
and, it is matter for regret, a neglected problem. The laws of
hérédité, moral and intellectual degeneration, and of intermar
riage, constitute a science in themselves; and, perhaps, contain
the basis of the future development and utility of prophylactic
medicine. The importance of due attention to transmitted ten
dencies, not merely in connection with alienation, but with cha
racter and conduct, where no open interference of medicine or
law could be thought of, and with other affections which are not
brought within our cognisance, illustrate the usefulness of such an
application of our science. There is a vast class of instances of
mental unsoundness, perversity, obliquity, extravagance, which
place the sufferer at nearly an equal distance from health and disease,
from insanity and crime, and which, undoubtedly, depend upon phy
sical causes, tend to modify other forms of disease, are the sources
of incalculable social, domestic, and personal evil, and may originate
the pronounced and palpable instances of alienation. The same
observation applies when epidemics of mental disease, of theomania,
or of suicidal impulse, arise, and even now agitate large communi
ties, in the broad, bright sunshine of modern intelligence, and in
what are styled, it may be ironically, the centres of civilisation. It
�1866.]
by W. A. E. Browne.
311
cannot be doubted that the ravages of such moral plagues, although,
like cholera or fever, they may select their victims from the predis
posed and susceptive, must owe their origin to some common cause
or causes, it may be political or religious commotion or excitement,
or imitation, or social conditions, or atmospherical changes, which,
if they cannot be counteracted, deserve to be studied. Even the
mental phases, the panic, the temerity, the fatalism which so often
accompany and aggravate the disasters of ordinary epidemics, claim
our consideration.
We may obtain a better view of the fair proportions of the subject
by clearing away the rubbish and obstructions which have gathered
around it, and by showing what it is not. The mere custody and
care of lunatics certainly do not constitute a man a psychologist.
Even where the physical wants and diseases of the class are attended
to, and where an intuitive penetration into character imparts a
certain suavity and address to the management, there may not be
even a remote or indistinct conception that it is the immortal part of
our nature, the godlike attributes of reason and imagination, and
even of faith itself, and their ultimate destiny in time, which are
dealt with, and which are, as the case may be, ignorantly neglected,
unconsciously tampered with, or rashly and ruthlessly invaded and
disturbed. It is true that, in many well-constituted and well-pre
pared minds, the experience which grows from mere contact with
and observation of the objects of care and solicitude—the actual
shortcomings and failures which experimentalisation involves—sug
gest, obtrude, necessitate the origin and growth of a philosophy, an
analysis of the laws of mind as influenced by disease, which, though
crude, is invaluable as affording a basis for moral treatment, and for
systematising the relations and responsibilities which connect the
physician with his patient. It is beginning at the wrong end to
learn the physiology from the pathology of mind; but it is better
to do this than to stagger and stumble blindly on without a physio
logy at all.
But could we realise the absurdity of a pure metaphysician being
entrusted with the study or reconstruction of the mind diseased, the
anomaly would be as egregious and disastrous. It would be vain
for such an expert to ponder over the states of consciousness as
presented in himself, or to form his opinions or his course of prac
tice upon abstract principles or the subjective analysis of intellect,
emotion, or impulse; and, though the unwelcome facts might be
forced upon his attention that his most delicate crux failed to detect
the elements of which a morbid act was constituted, or that a ten
dency handed down through and by a long line of ancestors—
“Through all the blood of all the Howards”—
perhaps, or that an attack of catarrh, or that a fit of indigestion
�312
Address ; on Medico-Psychology,
[Oct.,
introduced new and inappreciable relations into the mental pheno
mena, he would fail altogether in comprehending or combating the
difficulty.
It is not with the view of exciting a smile that I ask you to con
ceive a disciple of the “ pure reason” face to face with a furious
maniac, or an animist, exorcising the demon delusions that spring
from diseased lungs, liver, or ovaries.
Nor would the mere drug-worshipper fare more successfully.
Perhaps the recognition of insanity as a bodily disease, while it con
ferred incalculable benefits upon the patient, contributed to divert
the attention of the physician from the psychical side of the diagnosis;
and while he trusted to opium and tartar emetic, he was tempted to
forget the “ dietetics of the soul,” as Feuchtersleben designates our
dealings with the moral nature. There is, however, the greater and
more unpardonable fallacy in the proceedings of this class of pre
scribing, and over-prescribing, for the mental condition, of giving
opium to cure mania, or iron to cure melancholia; worse than the
old and inextinguishable error of treating a symptom, in place of
the disease; in so far as the morbid operations of mind are further
removed from the reach of remedies, and are actually the expressions
of changes in consciousness, depending upon the influence of im
pressions conveyed through altered structure. Such a view does
not exclude enlightened therapeutical treatment; it enhances its
value, and gives not only a wider scope, but a more precise and
intelligible aim, in its employment. If our knowledge of the
physical changes upon which the different forms of alienation de
pend was more extensive and sound, the limits and effects of reme
dies might be as much relied upon as in other maladies; but even
at the present stage of our science, when treatment is founded and
judiciously conducted on the principle of restoring to health the
organisation generally with which mind is connected and upon the
normal state of which its soundness depends, success attends the
attempt in a large proportion of cases. There is, consequently,
ground for regret that the millifidianism which has gained a footing
in the profession has contaminated the alienists, and that the con
sumption of drugs in asylum practice presents infinitesimal quantities,
even where these are not exhibited in infinitesimal doses ; that the
active medication of the insane is relinquished so early, that large
communities are consigned to the limbo of expectancy, and that so
many of our brethren entrust their charges to the kind but some
what dubious and unregulated influences of food, air, water, light.
He who refuses the aid of medicine is as much a heretic to the
true faith as he who doubts the efficacy of moral agents.
The pure hygienist—powerful handmaids and coadjutors although
food and air, &c., must be confessed to be—is likewise one-sided and
weak-sided, and restrained by self-imposed bonds. He who, with
�1866.]
by W. A. F. Browne.
313
that potent instrument, a well-appointed, smoothly moving asylum
at his command, contemplates, with self-complacency, exquisitely
clean, well-arranged, well-aired, and well-lighted and heated wards;
and has exhausted his resources when the meals are well served,
the baths sufficiently frequent, and the routine of exercise and occu
pation meets no shock nor hindrance—who marshals his trades, and
marches out his squadrons, and subjects all uninvalided patients to
the same discipline—is, perhaps, a good superintendent and a
splendid drill; but he has failed to embrace the entirety and the
grandeur of his mission.
Even he who addresses the aesthetical and imaginative part of our
nature-—-who seeks to reach the highest and purest qualities, and to
evoke their influence in spreading calm and order in the agitated and
confused spirit through our sense of the beautiful and symmetrical—
though wise, is only partially wise, if he trusts exclusively to deco
ration, and music, and distraction; miles of walls may be covered
with pictures and statues, his charges may be enabled to see scenes
of natural beauty or the wonders of art, and every succeeding day
and hour may have its appointed recreation and enjoyment; and
asylum life may be rendered more cheerful and gay, and more devoid
of care and duty, than home life; and still this humane system must
be characterised as incomplete, and when weighed against the
claims and necessities of the mind diseased, must be regarded as
frivolous.
In short, the man of one remedy or class of remedies, or who
elects such to the undue disparagement or disuse of others, is nearly
as rash and in as great danger of defeat as he who fights his anta
gonist with one hand, or as the physician with no remedy at all,
who consoles himself with the antiquated dogma that diseases have
a tendency to cure themselves.
We do not undervalue these fellow-labourers; for, humble and
limited although some of these approximations to medico-psychology
may be, there is involved such an amount of force and dignity of
character, such self-possession and self-denial, that neither the public
nor our profession know of, think of, and, from their ignorance of
the situation and the requirements necessary, cannot realise. There
is, however, now no excuse for partial knowledge, since public in
struction in medico-psychology may be obtained in conjunction with
almost every medical curriculum in Britain.
We are disposed to include in the same category those who con
ceived that they were curators of the health of the body, and left
the mind to its own devices ; those who neither courted nor could
conceive intercommunion, nor friendship, nor confidence between the
physician and his charges; nor who understood the sanatory influ
ence of the healthy over the disordered, of the clear and educated
over the ignorant and clouded intelligence, or of sympathy in bring-
�314
Address ; on Medico-P'sychoJogy,
[Oct.,
ing back the erring sentiments to calm and sobriety. These con
tracted modes of action have passed away, or are rapidly passing
away, not so much because we have become wiser philosophers or
better physicians, but because we have been brought experimen
tally into contact with the diseases we have to treat—because we
now regard the condition as a disease, and not as a superstition, or
an abstraction or a bugbear, and because our treatment is founded
upon a more just estimate of the laws of the nervous system.
In referring the origin of these opinions to a comparatively recent
date which are now recognised as the basis of medico-psychology,
my course has not been dictated by any supposition that the philo
sophers of antiquity were ignorant of the laws of mind. They are,
perhaps, open to the animadversion that each individual was a school,
a system, a philosophy to himself;—a result, it is probable, of their
depending more upon reflection than upon observation—of having
devoted their inquiries more to subtleties and to verbal abstractions
than to the analysis of mental phenomena; and, above all, they may
be arraigned of having neglected or omitted the study of insanity,
either because it did not come legitimately within the sphere of their
inquiry, or that it did not subserve as a mean of illustrating the
objects to which that inquiry was directed. They described as divi
nation or possession what was not “ dreamed of in their philosophy,”
but was actually, and what is now, admitted to be departures from
the ordinary laws of healthy mind■ and to the malign influence of
this theory may be attributed the cruel persecutions and punishments
to which certain classes of madmen have been exposed down almost
to our own time. There are, of course, many illustrious exceptions
to this condemnation. Aretseus seems to have anticipated the views
prevalent during last century ■ to have accurately described the two
grand categories, mania and melancholia, under which even now
many practical men would place all mental diseases; tracing them
to vitiation of the humours and fluids; secondly, to have distin
guished, with great ingenuity and delicacy, these typical forms from
transitory conditions, such as delirium, intoxication, and natural
depression; and, lastly, to have been the originator of moral treat
ment, although a foe to pictorial ornamentation.
In a still nobler mind there appears to have been a foreshadowing
of convictions which have coloured or interpenetrated the doctrines
and school so long in the ascendant in Germany, and which has
still its representatives. “ This internal physician, this councillor
and aid, is the power itself which, in every individual being, binds
and holds together, in a suitable manner, the finite and the infinite—
the soul. It cannot have the knowledge which it evinces from its
body, of whose existence and life it is the cause; nor from expe
rience which it has had in common with the body, for-that know
ledge, in fact, preceded this experience, and in the first instance made
�1866.]
by W. A. F. Browne.
315
it possible.” So spake Plato. I quote from Feuchtersleben, and so,
twenty centuries afterwards, spoke Stahl, very nearly in the same
words.
The views of alienation will correspond to and be a reflexion
from the popular or established opinions and creeds of the time.
They will be somatic or psychological as materialistic or idealistic
opinions prevail. All, however, will be disposed to admit that
Plato and Aretseus represent two great schools, lines of thought,
or modes of belief, which run through all history, and may, under
certain modifications, be as distinctly traceable in the present as in
any former age.
Out of the incubation of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
centuries there sprang, after many abortive attempts, in full and mature
development, the doctrine of theVitalists. The proposition of Van Helmont was, that all changes, structural or functional, in the body, whether
resulting from its own spontaneous action, or from the effects of food,
remedies, &c., are under the guidance and governance of a specific
agent connected with, but distinct from, the living system. This agent
is either an abstract principle or power distinct from matter, or matter
so endowed with new qualities and energies as to be entitled to be
regarded as an entity. Stahl designated this archseus, or intelligent
but unconscious principle, Anima, and recognised it as building up
the system, as detecting the presence of all noxious or destructive
influences and disorders, and as providing against their effects by
exciting such conservative molecular and other changes in the body
as may counteract or repair the injury threatened or inflicted.
Dr. Stahl, says Cullen, “ has explicitly founded his system on the
supposition that the power of nature is entirely in the rational soul.
The soul acts independently of the state of the body, and that
without any physical necessity from that state : the soul acts purely
in consequence of its intelligence perceiving the tendency of noxious
powers threatening or of disorders arising in the system, immediately
excites motions in the body as are suited to obviate the hurtful
or pernicious consequences which might otherwise take place.”—
Vol. i, p. 6, Preface to Cullen's ‘ First Series' (Gregory’s edition),
1829.
But, in addition to the recognition of this principle, which mani
fests the attributes of what may be called instinctive reason, and is
now dignified by the name of coenesthesis, or common feeling, and
is referred to the ganglionic system, but especially to the phrenic
focus; Stahl undoubtedly founded the German psychological school
in advocating the dogma that morality, independent of external in
fluences (more or less accidental), is the principle of order in the
corporeal and intellectual life, and stands in the same relation to
mental integrity and development that the anima does to nutrition
and growth ; and, on the other hand, that immorality is the sole
�316
Address ; on Medico-Pyschology,
[Oct.,
cause of perturbation and disease. And to this point may be traced
back, in modern times at least, the application of moral agents as
remedies.
Heinroth, who forms the next link in this series, held that man
lives, as far as he is man, by reason ; that the highest point of
human activity is gradual progression : that the first degree of this
is sense, or individualism; the second is where the individuality,
the me, is placed in opposition to the phenomena outside of it.
Between these intermediate stages, and in the essence of me,
grows up the third term, conscience, which is at this point nothing
more than the germ of a higher power, which is derived from a still
more elevated source. Health, again, is the equilibrium or har
mony of our thoughts and our desires, accompanied by the pleasure
which attends the complete exercise of a function. Disease is the
destruction of this unity in the suspension of one or more of the
vital forces; and its origin cannot be found in the body, but in
reason. We suffer, we fear, and the result is passion, which, as a
disorder of sensibility, reacts upon the other faculties ; throws reason
into grievous errors, influences the will, leads to extravagance and
dangerous delusions, and crime; which, however, Heinroth attempts
to distinguish from derangement.
To this disturbance of the spirit, or diathesis, all insanity is
traced; and somatic accidents, violent impressions—even educa
tion itself—are regarded as prejudicial or destructive to mental
health and serenity by and through this medium. This theory has in
the process of condensation, and in the attempt to eliminate obscu
rity and vagueness, been stripped of much of its attractiveness. And,
moreover, it would be unfair to measure HeinrotlTs precepts of
moral treatment by such cloudy magniloquence as “ the neutralisa
tion of sensibility is a new product, madness,” nor even by the
epitome now presented.
The precepts themselves form a code of moral management:—
I. Combat excitement or depression by recalling them within
their just limits.
II. If imagination suffer, abandoning itself to reveries and
unrealities, have recourse to sensible impressions and lively revul
sions.
III. When reason is perverted, it must be combated, not by direct
arguments or syllogisms, which irritate the patient, but by indirect
appeals through other powers—by tact and discrimination.
IV. If sensibility be blunted, it may be roused by joy or pain.
V. In partial insanity, utilise the healthy faculties in treating and
guiding those diseased through the influence of occupation, education,
and amusement.
The philosophy of Tdeler may be summed up in the propositions—
T. The knowledge of insanity should originate in that of the pheno-
�18G6J
by AV. A. T. Browne.
317
mena of the normal psychical state. II. Psychology stands in the same
relation to mental affections that anatomy and physiology do to phy
sical diseases. III. The want of correspondence between morbid ap
pearances and symptoms opposes the supposition that mental diseases
originate in organic changes. IV. Derangement is nota symptom—
it is a result of the moral organisation, in a state of change, of the un
equal growth and unequal rapidity of growth in the individual faculties.
Here is reproduced the equilibrium supposed by his predecessors
necessary to health. Ideler is better known, however, as the pupil
and biographer and the incarnation of the genius of Langerman, who
is said, epigramaticallv, to have written no book, but to have left a
living book in his disciple behind him. Their conjoined doctrine
was, that the lunatic mistakes the real end of life, and subverts the
true subordination which should regulate the relations of the facul
ties, not by an error of logic, but by the unhealthy exercise of the
will, and of the desires which precede volition ; states which together
regulate all human acts ; in other words, by the emancipation of
these powers from conscience.—Secondly, that the great objects of
the psychologists should not be reason, attention, but the moral
forces or character ; or the tendencies, sentiments, and general dis
positions of the mind, and of the passions, either singly or in rela
tion.—Thirdly, that the passions, or the product of sensibility, act
as the stimulators of our activity; morality merely modifies or
moderates their development. In their predominance and dispro
portion insanity consists. Joy is an index and measure of activity;
pain is the proof of an ungratified tendency. Pain is to the ten
dencies of the soul what vice is to morality. If passion gives time
for the exercise of reason, vice follows—if not madness. Spon
taneity determines the action of reason and of passion, which may
resist, or modify, or nullify its power. A symptomatic insanity is
admitted, as in fever, but the origin of genuine idiopathic mental
disease must be sought for in passion, l’état maladif, and in dis
turbance of the primitive instincts.—Lastly, not merely the intel
lect and sentiments, but even the physical forces, mould themselves
upon the type of passion ; an assertion which may be accepted as
the modern phasis of Stahlianism.
*
One whose name and fame still cling to the walls of our university
may be regarded as having passed the boundary line—or, perhaps,
more correctly, as forming the connecting link between the animists
and the modified doctrine which now prevails. Robert AVhytt is
claimed, and with apparent reason, as a partisan of their respective
opinions by the animists, the semi-animists, and the medico-psycho
logists. No higher tribute could be paid to his memory, or to the
judiciousness and moderation, or anticipative soundness of his views.
* “ Etudes Historiques sur l’Alienation mentale,” par Ch. Lasègne et Aug.
Morel,’ t. iii et v, ‘ Ann. Médico-Psychologiques,’ 1844.
�318
Address; on Medico-Psychology,
[Oct.,
lie was a physiologist of modern convictions, living and distinguished
in past time. With the Stahlians, he held that impressions con
veyed to the nervous centres excited, by a “ physiological necessity”
and according to certain laws indicating design and plan and pur
pose, animal movements—in other words, vital functions, such as
digestion, nutrition, circulation; and this without reason, attention,
or consciousness. It is very possible that he did not identify this
“physiological necessity ” with a psyche or anima ; but he apparently
viewed it as different from the rational intelligence—as never rising
into consciousness, as self-acting, and as productive of results in the
construction, maintenance, or reproduction of that machine, or or
ganisation, upon the integrity and health of which mentalisation
depends. His most recent and distinguished biographer seems to
be conscious of this; for, while vindicating Whytt from the allega
tion of Haller that he was a semi-animist, he writes, “ There is still
room in modern science for a psyche : when the inquirer, not content
with mere law, seeks the causes of organic phenomena, he cannot
dispense with such an active force. As human intelligence is required
to combine and regulate the natural forces which man avails himself
of to produce his own works upon earth, so with all the new-found
activity of matter derived from the interchange of such forces as
light, heat, aggregation, affinity, electricity, polarity, a psyche is in
dispensable to direct the order and course of these forces in the
development and working of organic bodies. Deduct the effects of
all these natural forces in the development and working of organic
bodies, and the residual force found to be necessary constitutes the
psyche—a force just as essential in a protococcus as in the human
frame. If it be otherwise sought for, it is nowhere else to be met
with, except in the potentialities existing in the reproductive cells
derived from the first parent or the first parents of every species in
the organic world.” He adds further, “ such a psyche as is held
essential by many modern physiologists—such a psyche as was upheld
with much force of argument by the present Professor of Anatomy,
in« a discourse which he has not yet published, delivered to the
Royal Medical Society.
*
While we most fully admit, however, that the mind of Whytt
was the bridge between the theory of a vital unconscious reason, and
those of unconscious cerebration and reflex action of the brain;
if he did not, according to Brown-Sequard, initiate or foreshadow
them; and, in addition to this, and more important than this, that
he advocated, and in his own experience carried into effect, the study
of vital and mental phenomena as affected by and observed through
organisation, in opposition to all purely chemical and mathematical
philosophies,—we cannot resist the conviction that, even as con
* ‘Transactions, Royal Society Edin.,’ vol. xxiii, part i, pp. 107-8.
�1866.]
l>y W. A. F. Browne.
319
veyed in the following lucid and definite words of Dr. Sellers, and
still more palpably in those of Whytt himself, there is a very
distinct adumbration of animism, and to which I do not object:
“ That the peripheral extremity of an afferent nerve being affected
by an impression, there results a corresponding condition of the
nervous centre, whence, ‘ in accordance with the constitution of the
living frame,’ a motor influence is determined through afferent nervous
filaments to particular organs which are thrown into movement.”*
It is highly probable that this determination of certain messages
to particular obedient organs, which act unconsciously for a useful
end, and this without any act or interference or cognisance of mind,
would have been accepted by Van Helmont and Stahl as an instal
ment, if not as a fair and accurate exposition, of their cherished
dogma. Even the theory suggested by the word co-ordination, now
in such constant use, involves a similar conclusion. This considera
tion has been largely insisted upon, because in it is, in my convic
tion, contained the true theory of the relation between our physical
and psychical nature—that the power which regulates must be dif
ferent from, independent of, superior to the forces regulated.
Running parallel to, mingling at various points, and ultimately
merging into one confluence with the school which we have described,
was that of which Friederich and Jacobi were the representatives,
which held—1. That the spiritualists erroneously regarded exorcism
and superstitious ceremonies as among the rational means of moral
treatment.
2. That the doctrine of the spiritualists is immoral, as placing
disease, and consequently the eventuality of destruction, in the
soul, which is one and indivisible.
3. That it is false, as it confounds moral error, delinquency, with
the mental state of lunatics. The untenability of such a proposition
being demonstrated by the facts—
(1) That large numbers of criminals have not beenunsound
of mind.
(2) Children are insane before they can distinguish right
from wrong.
(3) Upright individuals have been attacked with insanity.
4. That mental diseases originate as often in physical as in moral
causes.
5. That they are cured by physical remedies.
6. That our moral nature is superadded to the functions of
matter.
About the opening of this century, the opinions of writers and
thinkers upon this subject were capable of being divided into three
classes :
* ‘ Phil. Trans.,’ ut supra, p. 124.
�320
Address ; on Medico-Psychology,
[Oct.,
I. Where the mental operations were regarded as the functions of
matter, and mental diseases as bodily diseases.
II. Where the mind was held to have existence independent of
the body, and its diseases as resulting from the want or loss of equi
librium, or of due culture in its powers, or as the effects of immo
rality or crime. And,
III. Where an independent operation or life of mind was believed
in, and where its derangements were represented as partly psychical
and partly corporeal.
*
These represented, in fact, the schools into which physiologists
were divided. The recent establishment of sounder and broader
views, the result of more accurate observation, and, above all, of
the careful practical study of mental disease by educated meD,
have lessened the distance between these conflicting opinions, and
have so diminished the difficulties by which they were separated,
that mind is now admitted as having an independent existence, but
to be so intimately connected with organisation that its operations
.may be facilitated, impeded, or abrogated through this connection ;
and that mental diseases are the consequences of the disturbance
of that nervous power or influence which, under present circum
stances, connects mind and matter. Even Friederich, whom we
have cited as the champion of the pure somatic school, is de
tected by Feuchtersleben in propounding as “ one of the arguments
for the somatic nature of all mental derangements, that the mind
is an independent indivisible energy, and incapable of becoming
diseased.”
And we may triumphantly point to Griesinger, the pathologist,
as holding similar opinions : “ Entre ces deux actes fondamentaux
de la vie physique il s’entrepose toujours quelque chose excité par
sensation, un troisième élément, etc. Cette sphère, c’est l’intelli
gence.”—Pp. 28, 29.
Even the doctrines of Gall and many of the phrenologists, by a
route which seemed to end in materialism, led to the same proposi
tion. The assertion that the brain was the organ of the faculties of the
mind, by and through which it acted, involved its distinct existence,
as well as the proposition which constitutes the basis of medico
psychology.
The course of thought among German psychologists has been
introduced and pursued, because if it did not actually form the
channel through which all that is true and valuable of the philo
sophies of early times has descended to us, it certainly has con
tributed many of the materials of which modern belief has been
built up and composed ; and this whether we regard the firm and
substantial observations of the pathologists, or the more subtle and
* ‘ Feuclitersleben,’ p. 68.
�1866.]
by AV. A. F. Browne.
321
plastic experience derived from consciousness. The prevalent opinions
are a union, a harmonisation, a compromise, perhaps, between the ma
terialists and the vitalists; and the general consensus of living medico
psychologists in Europe who have thought out the subject, or thought
upon it at all, after making ample allowance for individualisations
and idiosyncrasies, may be represented as consisting of convictions
that the mind, whatever its nature may be, is intimately connected
with, but is not a property of, nervous structure ; that its laws, and
the relations of those states of consciousness which are named
faculties, feelings, instincts, can only be studied and understood in
relation to, and as influenced by, the conditions of organisation ; that
its disorders and diseases must be recognised as expressions of arrested
or undue development, or of molecular or other changes—even
healthy changes—or of degeneration and destruction of structure;
that the remedies when material act by influencing these changes
towards health, and thus establishing the normal relation between
mind and nervous matter; and when moral, or acting more directly
on the intelligence and feelings, they stimulate or repress, or alter,
as the case may be, the functional process upon which healthy mentalisation depends. It may be further observed, that this analysis
would not express the prevailing doctrine did it limit the relations
subsisting between mind and matter to the cerebro-spinal axis. The
great characteristic of current opinion appears to be, that wherever
there is nerve, there is psychical function, actual or potential, which
may act dynamically, or through the influence of nutrition, or rise
through pain or morbid activity into the range of consciousness.
This is the stage at which the archaeus of our predecessors ceases its
specific instinctive operation, and comes within human cognisance.
The nervous influence of the great mass of physiologists, the
coenesthesis of Feuchtersleben, the law of others which is repre
sented as acting altogether irrespectively if not independently
of intelligence, becomes part and parcel, and permanently so, of
our intelligent being, and furnishes materials for thought—or,
more correctly, thought itself. Such propositions as this, and more
especially that every mental process must be judged of and treated
in reference to the nervous structure and frame in general, and their
functions, enormously increase the domain and importance of psy
chology. If it discloses the innumerable sources of mental dis
turbance, and that the boasted supremacy of mind is a fable—that
it is really dependent for its activity, and integrity, and responsibility,
upon the laws and health of the general economy,—it further demon
strates that no circumstance, no impression internal or external,
which through these laws reaches our instinctive or conscious nature,
but is accompanied with molecular changes, and cannot and should
not be excluded from our philosophy. The construction of an
asylum—the dietary, the clothing of the insane—the laws under which
�322
Address ; on Medico-Psychology,
[Oct.,
they are disposed of and managed—are in this view as rightfully, if
not as much, within the province of medico-psychology as the rela
tion of reason to volition; of the evils of concentration, monoidealism,
or excitement upon the circulation in the brain ; or as the effects of
sleep, amusement, religious teaching, in bringing about the equili
brium of the faculties.
We are not open to accusation that the co-ordination of these
fragments, and the formation of a consistent and what promises to
be a mature view of the whole subject has been late in development.
The causes of the delay are to be found first in the late period at
which the insane were subjected to close and clinical observation,
and regarded through any other medium than that of superstition
and fear; and, secondly, in there being no body of observers spe
cially prepared or devoted to the investigation, or, indeed, as having
power and opportunity to devote themselves.
It is not asserted that to the German school or to any particular
class of authorities we exclusively owe the principles upon which our
science and treatment are founded or regulated. Such views grow
up under all systems, and without system, in every class of minds.
Every practical man, even he who boasts of his freedom from the
shackles of hypothesis and the vagaries of speculation, has a theory ;
and wherever that is true and sound, or to the extent to which it is
true and sound, and has led to a judicious and humane course, it
may be confidently claimed as a contribution to the science which
its possessor may scorn.
Pinel was an actor rather than a thinker. His writings contain, how
ever, valuable clinical observations. He records his inability to trace
mental disease to lesions in the nervous structure, and yet he calls
mania “ an act of the living principle which must change organisa
tion
but his habits of thinking and his treatment, though far from
heroic, and, in fact, a protest against the sanguinary and exhaustive
processes of his contemporaries, were in keeping with the principles
then and ever since triumphant in France. His fame depends greatly
on reposing unbounded and loyal faith in the law of love and kindness
as a mean of cure, amelioration, and management. It would be
vain to connect this revelation with the philosophy of his country
man Descartes, or with the lurid dawn of that sun of liberty which
was supposed to have disclosed for the first time the destiny of our
race ; suffice it that Pinel burst the fetters, levelled the oubliettes,
proclaimed humanity, and established rational paternal ministrations
as the right of the insane, because they remained men although they
were mad, and were susceptible of cure, or of improvement, though
labouring under the greatest and most grievous, but not the most
incurable, of diseases. He was born in 1742, the contemporary of
Langerman, born 1768; and they may be regarded as types of the
menial tone and tendencies of the races to which they respectively
�1866.]
l>n W. A. F. Browne.
323
belonged, and which were ultimately to converge and culminate into
a more catholic creed. Langerinan is rich and recondite in the
metaphysical and ethical aspects of alienation; Pinel is perspicuous,
practical, philanthropical, but not psychological.
The successor of Pinel was more of an observer than a philoso
pher, and he was more of a philanthropist than either of these.
The writings of Esquirol even now form an inexhaustible treasure
house of carefully noted facts, and when published new to the pro
fession, because the insane had scarcely until his time been submitted
to the observation of scientific men, and were placed in circum
stances calculated to change and aggravate the character of their
malady, and to render them dangerous and formidable, and to
suggest grotesque and erroneous ideas of their condition. The
achievements of Esquirol consisted in feeling in his gentle and
Christian heart, and developing in his practice, what Pinel had hoped
and initiated, but much more than he had dreamed of. To his
personal manners and example, as much as to the principles he had
laid down, are to be traced the rational views of insanity which now
prevail. His life was a long clinique, instigated and animated by
charity and sympathy. He built up no theory of his own ; but, so
far as he theorised at all, he may be claimed by the present gene
ration as holding their opinions. His immediate representatives,
pupils, and admirers have now for twenty-three years embodied
and developed these opinions in the ‘AnnalesMedico-Psychologiques?
Our science is of long and tardy growth; our name is due to the
school and the invaluable series of papers to which we are now
referring. From the prefatory address or profession of faith by
Cerise, in which the mixed or psycho-somatic view is expiscated
until now, with such deviation and diversity as are inseparable from
free discussion and the co-operation of different minds, the same
principles may be traced. This may be, in part, attributable to the
work having been conducted by the same editors ; but it is much
more due to the general acceptance and predominance of the prin
ciples themselves. How far this splendid record of the thoughts
and deeds of a section of our department may have exerted an in
fluence upon the convictions and literature of the profession in this
country, it would be presumptuous in me to say ; but we may pass
on to another topic with the remark that such an example is de
serving of all honour and of imitation.
The study of the literature of our department has become abso
lutely imperative, were it for nothing else than to prevent redis
coveries and the prosecution of inquiries long since exhausted.
American literature appears to justify the supposition that our
fellow-labourers in that country concur in the theory which now
prevails in Europe. No systematic works have reached us from the
United States since those by Caldwell, Brigham, and Ray ; and, in
�324
Address; on Medico-Psychology.
[Oct.,
speaking of American literature, reference is made to the ‘ Journal
of Insanity/ and to those valuable contributions which appear in
the form of annual reports from different asylums. These papers,
adopting a practice introduced but not generally followed in this
country, contain to a great extent the personal experience and re
flections of the writer. Although, being addressed to many non
professional readers for the very purpose of dispelling gross and
grievous errors, and of substituting sound and benevolent views,
they are so far popularised as to be freed from many unnecessary
technicalities; they preserve the dignity of the subject, and in no
degree derogate from the professional position of the writer, and
contain a body of important information and philosophical induc
tion so valuable, that the ephemeral nature of the vehicle to which
they are committed is to be lamented. The monographs of Drs.
Bay, Butler, Kilbride, Chipley, <kc., are of the highest order.
An examination of our own authorities, from the anticipative essay
of Beattie, published a century since, to the last profound analysis by
Professor Laycock, although they may be found to incline less or
more to one side or other, will justify the conclusion that the
psycho-somatic theory is here, as elsewhere, in the ascendant. Two
illustrations may suffice. Of the classifications now in use, one is
founded upon the mental phenomena as indications or symptoms of
mental disease; another refers mental diseases to the supposed
organic cause, and names them accordingly, but describes them by
the mental phenomena; and in a third, the attempt is made to dis
tinguish and arrange the morbid affections according to the primitive
instincts and powers involved. But in all the correlation of the
psychical and somatic aspects are either taken for granted or de
signedly recognised. The prevalence and sincerity of this belief
may be further exemplified in the principles which guide our therapeia.
Morphia is prescribed to produce sleep, and thereby to lessen mental
activity and to economise force, to check the metamorphosis of
nervous tissue, to facilitate nutrition, and, in these ways, to induce
healthy mental action. Cannabis Indica is resorted to in melancliolia as producing the same result, by reversing the order of the
process. Happy and joyous thoughts, and dreams, and even delu
sions, are suggested. Artificial and temporary convalescence, a
lucid interval, are created; active and healthy nervation ensues ; the
effect on nutrition and sanguifaction is such, that anaemia, generally
the origin of the moral suffering and other psychical phenomena,
are removed. All moral means, again, act perhaps through their
influence upon structure, or, at all events, less by direct operation
on the intellect and emotions than by stimulating the nervous struc
ture to that degree of activity which is necessary to the normal
exercise of the faculties. And, in contradistinction to this, the
shower-bath, counter-irritation, occupation, prove chiefly beneficial
�1866.]
by W. A. F. Browne.
325
by appeals to fear, suffering, and the sense of discipline. Iron,
iodine, bromine, all important agents in the removal of insanity,
are supposed to reach the mind through the blood; whereas joy
and other moral impressions reach the blood through the mind.
These are considerations which point emphatically to medical
men, as the only class who have even partially embraced such prin
ciples, and who are entitled to be autocratic in their exposition
and application.
Among those who have contributed largely and lovingly to the
promotion of medico-psychology, and to its organisation into the form
which it has latterly assumed, but have passed away since we last
met, must be remembered I. Jean Parchappe de Vinay. Prepared
by having passed through and distinguished himself in the offices of
lecturer, practitioner, medical superintendent for thirteen years, he
was elevated to the position of inspector-general of the insane and
of prisons; a combination which, though natural and appropriate in
itself, has not yet found a place in the British mind. The elevation
was, in one sense, a bauble dignity, as barren as the cross of the
legion of honour with which it was accompanied, as he left ample
emoluments and a large practice at the call of government. He is
described, by those familiar with his life, as simple and industrious
in his habits—as a learned physician, a profound philosopher, an able
administrator, and master of the most minute details. We, how
ever, know him chiefly as the author of f Treatises on the Brain, its
Structure, Functions, and Diseases / in which he advocated the
psycho-somatic doctrine, and discriminated the cerebral changes
found in the bodies of the insane, into those connected with and
those unconnected with the mental disease; as the architect of several
of the asylums recently erected in France ; and as the patron, pro
tector, and friend of those who, as he once was, are placed in the
trying circumstances inseparable from the due discharge of the
duties of a medical superintendent.
Ripe in years and wisdom, Sir A. Morrison recently died. Though
of a generation that has passed or is rapidly passing away, and
designated by one of his biographers as a patriarch—and though
living in the quiet suitable to the twilight of years—he never severed
the ties which connected him with our department. It must have
been among his latest acts to endow a lectureship in connection with
the Royal College of Physicians, now held by our honorary member
Dr. Sellers. He has other claims upon our memory and respect.
He was, perhaps, the first who, in this country, delivered a course of
lectures upon mental science. His attention was chiefly directed to
the physiognomy of insanity; and, I believe, these lectures, and the
drawings by which they were illustrated, now form a large portion
of his work upon this subject. The physician of two large hospitals
for the insane, and personally and practically acquainted with the
VOL. XII.
%%
�326
Address ; on Medico-Psychology.
[Oct.,
imperfections of the human instruments by which those who minister
to the insane are compelled to work out their plans of treatment,
he founded an association for the purpose of rewarding bv honours
and prizes the long-tried and faithful among the attendants in asy
lums, and thus to hold out encouragements to candidates of a higher
order of qualifications.
John Conolly displayed, within the university of this town, and
in the arena of the Royal Medical Society—:dear to many of those who
hear me—those predilections and preferences which ultimately deter
mined his destiny, and gave him a position of nearly equal rank
among physicians and philanthropists. His thesis was on Insanity,
and formed the foundation of that work by which he is most popu
larly known. A physician in increasing practice, one of the
editors and originators of the ‘ British and Foreign Medical Review
and Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine/ and a teacher in a Uni
versity, John Conolly, 1 know, never felt that he had secured
his true position, or that he had found a fair field for the
exercise of his head and heart, until he was appointed medical
superintendent of Hanwell. It is not affirmed that he made per
sonal sacrifices in order to accept this distinction; but, like that
of many other great and good men, his life was one of much sacri
fice and much suffering. It is not my province here, however much
it may be my inclination, to speak of more of his good deeds than
of the assistance he afforded in the grand revolution effected in the
management, and of the effects of his teaching in the propagation
of sound views in the treatment, of the insane and of the idiotic.
I cannot refrain from claiming him as an advocate—and as a philo
sophical advocate—of a medico-psychology founded upon induction.
His ideas, it is true, seemed to have passed through his heart, and
his feelings to have raised and rarefied his intellect. Perhaps it is
because of the elegance and popular attractions of his style that
his habits of thinking have been regarded as less logical than illus
trative ; but his “ Indications of Insanity” show a familiarity with the
laws of file human mind, and especially with the peculiarities and
subtle defects by which it is disturbed and unhinged, requiring
great perspicacity and penetration, as well as careful analysis.
Sensitive in his rectitude, gentle and genial, ho was to all men
conciliating and courteous; to his friends, and I judge after an
experience of thirty years, lie was almost chivalrously faithful and
generous; and the insane he positively loved.
It would be trite to say merely that these men, “ though dead,
yet speak.” We repeat their very words, we think their very
thoughts ; are, or ought to be, animated by their very spirit; and
so far as we carry into our daily work lofty aspirations as to science
and duty, but humble pretensions as to ourselves, a severe and self
sacrificing sense of the peculiar nature of our professional obliga
�1866.]
The Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited.
327
tions, and sympathy for those committed to our care, we shall best
do honour to their memory, and best serve our country, our profes
sion, and our God.
The Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited.
M.D., F.R.S.
By John Webster,
(Read at the Annual Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association, held in
Edinburgh, July 31«4 1866.)
Nearly ten years ago I visited the very ancient establishment
above named, whereof notes appeared in Dr. Winslow’s ‘ Journal
of Psychological Medicine’ for 1857, and which, I was led to
believe, by the discussion that ensued, rendered this interesting
institution better known in Great Britain than heretofore. Since
that period, various professional and other travellers, as well English
as foreign, have paid visits to Gheel, and also subsequently pub
lished valuable reports, with remarks on improvements recently
accomplished. Being anxious to inspect a second time this colony,
and observe the ameliorations which Dr. Bulkens, its able medical
superintendent, had effected, I again visited Gheel during May
last; and thinking some account thereof may interest members of
the distinguished Society I have the honour to address, my present
communication has been drawn up, trusting, at least, it may excite
some attention from philanthropists and psychological physicians.
However, I would first briefly notice the ancient legend whereon
the reputation of that far-famed retreat for insane persons is asserted
to rest, and which, I hope, will not prove wholly uninteresting,
although likely familiar to members of this learned Association.
According to tradition, late in the sixth century, Dymphna,
a daughter of an Irish king, was converted to Christianity by an
anchorite named Gerebert. The father of this young lady felt
greatly enraged at her conversion; and being also enamoured of
his own child, threatened dire vengeance. As the noviciate remained
obstinate to parental authority, accompanied by her spiritual adviser
she fled across the ocean, and ultimately arrived at Gheel, in which
remote district of western Europe, Dymphna then resolved to dedi
cate herself in future to devotion and celibacy, along with St.
Gerebert.
But the old pagan sovereign having subsequently discovered the
fugitives’ retreat, followed in their track, and insisted upon his
daughter again changing her adopted faith; but to such proposal
she still refused compliance. This continued obstinacy made the
savage monarch so furious, that at one blow with a sword he cut
�328
The Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited,
[Oct.,
off his daughter’s head, having also mercilessly beheaded St. Gerebert a short time previously. These cruel deeds, it is further
reported, so greatly frightened several lunatics then present, and
likewise produced such strong impressions upon their excited feel
ings, that they became cured as if by enchantment. Immediately
the cry a A miracle, a miracle ! ” was raised by wondering by
standers ; and thus “ Dymphna,” “ saint and martyr,” has ever
afterwards been the patron of all demented victims, in Gheelois
estimation. This belief having spread abroad, not only in Campine
but to other countries, lunatics hence flocked to Gheel, in order to
get cured through St. Dymphna’s intercession. About a.d. 1200,
a church was erected on the spot where the two murders just de
scribed had been perpetrated, in which the female saint’s bones
were subsequently deposited, and are still preserved in this sacred
temple, according to popular opinion.
Nevertheless, leaving that disputed question for casuists to
settle, it will suffice to state, that the tabernacle said to contain
St. Dymphna’s remains usually stands on four stone pillars behind
the church altar, and has a passage under it of about three feet in
height, through which lunatics formerly brought to Gheel were
accustomed to pass on bended knees. Poets say, “ the palace
stairs of great personages were often worn away in ancient times
by beggars asking favours.” Here that sarcasm is really verified,
since the stone floor of this much-revered locality is indented to
some extent by the crawling limbs of devotees, who came thither
to be freed from their mental malady. Similar genuflexions are
indubitably now much more rare than in ancient superstitious times,
although examples of such ceremonies have occurred in years not
long by-gone, where maniacs devoutly crawled through this hallowed
precinct, as well as some persons desirous themselves to obviate the
contingency of being subsequently attacked by mental aberration.
When these formalities took place, the parties accompanying a
lunatic continued singing hymns and praying during the whole time,
so as to assure more certainly the saint’s favorable intercession. Near
the central part of St. Dymphna’s church, and on the left of its
choir, a large case like a sentry-box contains the saint’s figure,
gorgeously clothed in velvet, with lace, gold, and other ornaments.
On the other side of this choir is placed, as if by way of counter
poise, nearly the half of what had formed a stone coffin, wherein,
tradition says, were found the saint’s mortal remains. But the most
singular portion of this sacred edifice is a dark dungeon-looking
apartment, in a small house attached to the principal church tower,
and apparently used as the present occupants’ kitchen, where
maniacs formerly brought to Gheel were first lodged, during at least
nine days consecutively. Throughout that period, persons reputed
insane remained during day-time closely bound to the fireplace by
�1866.]
by Dr. John Webster.
329
an iron chain connected with a ring, also iron, on one wrist, besides
having another attached to their ankle; while, at night, the wretched
victim was tied down in a wooden bed, containing straw instead of
a mattress, by strong iron chains, to prevent movement. Besides
such harsh treatment, during the entire nine days considered
essential to ensure recovery, nine young virgins, hired for that
specific purpose, made a daily procession round the church aisles,
passing nine times on bended knees under St. Dyinphna’s taber
nacle ; invocations being likewise offered up for the patient’s re
covery ; at the same time that a priest recited certain prayers, held
essential on these occasions. At one side of this room, close under
its roof, there is a small gallery, from whence relatives and curious
spectators could witness whatever mystical ceremonies might be
going on below. But proceedings like those described being now
rare, a stranger’s curiosity can be very seldom gratified.
The commune of Gheel, strictly speaking, constitutes part of a
province designated Campine, or “ Kempen-land,” which signifies
flat, or plain, without trees. It is fifty miles from Brussels, and
forms a level but somewhat elevated portion of eastern Belgium,
when compared with adjacent low-lying lands. Gardens and fertile
fields occupy the vicinity; but on several sides beyond, these often
pretty enclosures are surrounded by sandy steppes, or wastes of con
siderable extent, having quite a different character. The environs
are, however, much more productive than outlying districts ; while
the town itself occupies a moderately elevated position, lying betwixt
the river named “ Great Nethe ” and two tributaries, but much
smaller, called the Eastern or Little Nethes. Although not very
salubrious—intermittent fevers and typhus being sometimes frequent,
while during winter pectoral diseases often prevail—still the district
is not deemed so unhealthy as various portions of Belgium, where
damp soils and malarious emanations act injuriously on the human
frame. The entire commune has nearly 11,000 inhabitants, of
whom about 4000 reside in Gheel itself. The principal street is
long, broad, and possesses some good houses, with several shops and
comfortable hotels, especially the “ Turnhout Arms.” On one side
of its central Place stands the cathedral church of St. Amand, St.
Dymphna’s being in another quarter; besides which, adjacent streets
and hedge-enclosed gardens make Gheel resemble most Belgium
towns of the same magnitude.
The entire colony in superficial extent comprises 27,000 acres;
its greatest length, from north to south, being nearly fourteen miles;
the breadth, from east to west, eight and a half miles; and alto
gether may be reckoned at from thirty-seven to thirty-eight miles in
circumference. The commune is divided into four sections, within
which there are seventeen hamlets, some being almost little villages.
Each section has a physician, under whose special charge all lunatics
�330
The Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited,
[Oct.,
dwelling within its limits are placed, while the superintending phy
sician overlooks the whole establishment. The latter also receives
every new patient or lunatic transferred from any private dwelling
. to the central infirmary, either because the party’s physical health
had become seriously affected, or mental malady required special
medical attention ; and further, if temporary seclusion was deemed
necessary in particular cases, but which could not be properly
carried out at an ordinary residence by the patient’s usual at
tendant.
On the 20th of last May, the total insane residents in Gheel and
commune amounted to 1025, being 512 male and 513 female
lunatics, or an equality of both sexes, who were divided into four
separate classés, with reference to the respective sums paid for their
maintenance ; but, first, into indigent paupers ; and second, pen
sioners, or private patients, according to ordinary language. The
former class comprised 908, of whom 432 were male and 476
female lunatics ; the male pensioners being 80, with only 37
females in that category. Again, of the entire number, 867 were
native Belgians, the remaining 158 being born in other countries.
Throughout the district where lunatics are only allowed to reside,
the total licensed houses are 726, classified into four divisions; and
seeing the commune contains about 2100 different residences, it
hence follows, at least one in every three has a resident lunatic.
Houses of the best class amount to 72, where from 1000 to 2500
francs are paid annually ; the second comprises 148 residences,
in which from 500 to 1000 francs is the remuneration; the third
consists of 382 houses, the payment being beyond 200 and up to
500 francs; while dwellings in the fourth list are only 124, and in
these 200 francs is the usual allowance. Unless under particular
circumstances, not more than three lunatics can residç under one
roof; and two demented inmates cannot occupy the same room.
Special sanction may, however, be granted by the managing com
mittee, in concurrence with the superintending physician, for a
larger number of patients being received, but only after he
has reported that the locality and all essential appliances are
properly adapted for the proposed augmentation. Usually the
sexes are lodged in separate houses; nevertheless, with regard
to aged persons, whose malady may be chronic and deemed in
offensive, a male lunatic is occasionally allowed to live in the
same family where an insane old woman analogous in character
also resides. All suicidal, dangerous, homicidal, or mischievously
disposed insane persons are, however, rarely received, or allowed to
remain after they decidedly manifest such characteristics ; and when
patients so become, they are usually sent home, or transferred to
some asylum elsewhere. Further, the authorities generally place
boisterous and agitated maniacs at remotely situated cottages, or
�1866.]
by Dr. John Webster.
331
farmhouses located in open heaths distant from the town, where,
having few neighbours, they cannot disturb any insane patient or
cause much annoyance. Again, such parties, if much excited, may
walk about in gardens or fields adjacent without danger to others
or themselves. Being also thereby placed beyond the observation
of strangers, and not likely to come in contact with similarly afflicted
fellow-creatures, evil consequences seldom result from such arrange
ments.
Tranquil patients and ipany of the highest paying pensioners
live in Gheel, the total cases of that description being upwards of
230, or beyond one fifth of the whole insane population residing
within the commune.
On making inquiry, I learned only one house contained five
lunatic inmates ; several had four, or more frequently two, but one
was most common. It should be stated, however, that recently a
large mansion has been constructed in the chief street of Gheel, at
an expense of more than 50,000 francs, which will be adequate for
eight patients, each having separate bedrooms, and also several a
sitting apartment, should such additional accommodation be required.
There is likewise an extensive and well-laid-out garden adjoining,
with various other appliances deemed essential for the amusement
or occupation of lunatics. In short, this new dwelling forms an
excellent “maison de santé” of a superior description. Only four
insane patients lodged at this house when 1 visited its interior, all
being foreigners, viz., one English, two French, and one Swiss.
In consequence of varied improvements lately effected at Gheel,
every class, especially those designated pensioners, or who pay a high
annual board, have augmented in number since 1856, when the
aggregate insane population was 774, or 251 less than at present.
In other words, there are now one third more lunatics inhabiting
the commune than ten years ago, when I first visited “ Kempenland.” Such facts prove the increased repute which this colony has
acquired, and the more favorable opinion it has obtained among the
Belgian people, as also the constituted authorities, who now transfer
thither a greater number of insane patients, contrasted with pre
vious periods.
Through this large augmentation of resident
lunatics, the money received at least amounts to £15,000
annually, besides various collateral sources of revenue. In truth,
the town and vicinity almost exclusively depend upon such means
of income, especially as the commune has little or no trade, except
ing what its peculiar population may require for their necessary
wants and maintenance.
During five years ending 31st December, 1865, the total insane
patients admitted at Gheel amounted to 926, 500 being male and
426 female lunatics. The number of recoveries reported were 228,
or 24-62 per cent., calculated according to the aggregate admissions.
�332
The Insane Colony of Gheel 'Revisited,
[Oct.,
the deaths were, however, more numerous, viz. 409, or 43’06 per
cent. ; but this large mortality may be easily accounted for by the
chronic types of mental maladies which affected numerous inmates,
as likewise the long period many had been insane. Besides these
results, it should be also stated that a number of patients left the
colony ameliorated, in addition to others removed by relatives, or
the communes who had sent them to Gheel originally. According
to the authority already quoted, 141 male and female lunatics, after
being some time resident, left either uncured, or before they had
derived benefit.
Respecting this point, and likewise to illustrate further the Gheelois
system, I would refer to another instructive table, also kindly sup
plied by Dr. Bulkens. According to that valuable return, which
comprises ten years ending 31st December, 1865, among a total of
1623 insane patients of all categories, 45, or less than 3 per 100
escaped; while 133 were subsequently removed, either from being
dangerous or likely to disturb public tranquillity, and whose malady
was deemed incompatible with the regime, free-air liberty, and
family mode of management pursued. Remarking, however, that
only 133 lunatics, or about 8 per cent, of the whole admissions, were
so discharged, it cannot be consequently asserted, with justice, that
any extensive or special selection of cases different from the
practice prevailing at asylums was made during the period
specified.
Another important feature in reference to patients received at
Gheel during the same ten years, and also up to the 20th of last
May, equally deserves mention ; namely, the types of mental disease
which were noticed among 1696 cases it comprehends, besides the
actual recoveries registered under each category. Bv Dr. Bulkens’s
classification of these 1696 patients, 91 male and 127 female lunatics
laboured under “ melancholia,” being 218 altogether, or 12’85 per
cent, of the admissions. Among these, 46 males and 56 females
recovered, giving a ratio of more than 46 cures per 100, or
50 per cent, in males and 44 in females. “Mania” affected 586
individuals, or upwards of one third the whole admissions ; com
prising 298 male and 288 female lunatics, of whom 140 males and
114 females were cured; being 43’17 per cent, in that division, or
47 percent, in males, but only 39 in females. By “delirium”
96 patients were attacked, the sexes being equal, or 48 cases of each ;
among whom 17 females but only 11 males were cured, or 35’40
per cent, of the former against about 23 per cent, of the latter.
“ Dementia,” like mania, characterised a large proportion of the
admissions, viz., 242 males and 275 females, or 517 altogether,
forming nearly one third the total cases received ; but of whom not
more than 31 males and 19 females recovered ; that is, 12’80 per cent,
of the former and only 8’87 per cent, of the latter sex. In short,
�1866.]
by Dr. John Webster.
333
most of the patients thus classified were incurable, which opinion is
even more applicable to the 136 cases of general paralysis then
admitted, comprising 103 men and 33 women, of whom not one
recovered. This remark likewise applies strictly to 143 cases of
epilepsy, including 101 male and 42 female patients, seeing no case
ended in convalescence. Therefore, deducting these 279 instances
of general paralysis and epilepsy from the 1696 cases above enu
merated, it follows that among 1417 lunatics remaining, and
comprehending every other variety of mental disease, the total re
coveries being 434, the general ratio of cures amounted to 30'69
per 100 admissions; while, it should be further remembered,
many of the patients had remained a long time insane. But another
important fact deserves also special regard, viz., among 436 insane
patients deemed curable when admitted, and of whom some reason
able hope was then entertained respecting their ultimate recovery,
302, or 69 per cent., left Gheel convalescent. Such favorable
results speak strongly in support of the Gheelois system, and may
well bear comparison with statements given in official annual reports
emanating from various public institutions for lunatics both in Great
Britain as elsewhere.
Notwithstanding great freedom characterises the treatment pur
sued, objectors still assert that numerous lunatics residing in the
colony are confined within their domiciles, often wear straps, ma
nacles, and even have hobbles to prevent escape. In 1856, when
I formerly visited Gheel, the total patients then restrained in any
form were 69 among 774 lunatics at that period under treatment.
During my recent visit, among upwards of 1000 lunatic patients,
I learned that the daily average of persons under even temporary
restraint by manacles seldom if ever exceeded 20 examples; while
those who had hobbles, to prevent straying in fields adjacent,
by records kept rarely amounted to five instances. But even then
such patients could often promenade in the gardens attached to their
dwelling; and I heard of none being confined by strait-waistcoats
or analogous appliances. At the new infirmary, where seclusion
rooms have been constructed, only one patient, a female, was in
temporary confinement when I inspected that recent addition to the
colony; but, it should be added, this refractory case would ilkely so
remain during a few hours. Indeed, she had speedily become tran
quil after entry, and was very quiet when I visited her apartment.
The infirmary just noticed constitutes a novel feature in the im
proved appliances introduced at Gheel.
It forms a handsome
building in the immediate vicinity; has two storeys, with a frontage
of fifteen large windows, and every appendage usually seen at similar
structures. Indeed, the ventilation, amplitude of dormitories, court
yards for recreation, baths, sitting-rooms, with other appliances, are
all of a superior description, and prove highly creditable to Dr.
�334
The Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited,
[Oct.,
Bulkens, who, along with the architect, were the chief directing
authorities while it was in progress. About 60 lunatics can be
accommodated as patients should their physical ailments, mental con
dition, or recent arrival in the colony render a lengthened residence
necessary. At my visit, besides the female already mentioned under
temporary seclusion, 1 recognised a dozen other patients, of whom
several had been brought from their customary dwellings on account
of bodily infirmities requiring special treatment. In addition to
these objects, when a lunatic first arrives at Gheel the party is
always placed in an appropriate ward, so that the type and symptoms
of each individual case may be specially observed; as likewise thus
to enable the superintending physician to determine, among what
particular class or section the patient should be ranked. Again,
whenever any lunatic became bodily diseased, or if an access of mental
malady supervened which required special attention, or it was
deemed advisable to place the sufferer under more immediate ob
servation, than at a rural cottage or in town, then removal to the
infirmary was ordered by the sectional physician.
The recently opened infirmary, and licensing private houses of a
superior description for receiving pensioners, paying higher annual
boards than formerly, constitute important changes in the improved
arrangements at Gheel. Seeing this infirmary—often recommended
by physicians both native and foreign—has been finally established,
particularly through Dr. Bulkens's exertions, I suggested to a high
official authority in Belgium that it should be designated by a name
of much repute among European medical men and philanthropists.
During my former visit to the various lunatic establishments in
Belgium, I made an analogous suggestion respecting the new asylum
then constructing near Ghent, and which was built especially under
the immediate direction of Dr. Guislain, the eminent psychologist
and physician. As that proposition was ultimately adopted, and the
establishment is now officially called “Hospice Guislainf I hope a
similar resolution may be taken by the Belgian authorities, so that
the Gheel Infirmary shall be known in future as “Hospice Bulkens.”
Among a community comprising numerous lunatics, the police
and other arrangements must, of course, be strict and various, in
order to meet contingencies. Thus, during summer months patients
cannot leave their residence before 6 in the morning or after 8
in the evening; and during winter, before 8 a.m., or beyond 4
in the afternoon; while only tranquil lunatics and those who con
duct themselves decently, or seem not likely to annoy other parties,
are permitted to frequent entertainments and places of public resort
where they can drink beer, smoke, or enjoy themselves like ordinary
frequenters, unless with reference to spirituous liquors. In con
sequence of existing regulations, as also doubtless originating from
other causes, great tranquillity prevails throughout the town : and,
�1866.]
by Dr. John Webster.
335
speaking from my own personal observation during the period I
lately remained at Gheel, as likewise when formerly visiting the
colony, few towns of the same population, where the residents were
rational beings, seemed to contain better conducted inhabitants, or
appeared altogether so quiet as in the peculiarly constituted capital
of Campine, whether at night or daytime.
During recent years, much more care has been enforced respecting
the accommodation and general treatment, which insane residents
should receive from host or hostess. The licences of several have
been withdrawn, in consequence of not fully complying with the rules
established, or through negligence towards inmates. Many new
houses have also been licensed, in consequence of the augmented
number of lunatics sent to Gheel. Further, as the pensioner class,
who pay often larger sums than in former years, have also increased,
and as those houses where inmates were comfortable now more likely
obtain patients paying higher rates of board than otherwise, this
circumstance has produced emulation among householders, which
the authorities' very properly encourage. The accommodation af
forded is generally good,“considering tiie class of patients or their
previous mode of life; and the treatment indigent residents fre
quently receive from parties with whom they are placed, to my mind
seemed often more than commensurate with the established remu
neration. Nay, according to various statements, I firmly believe,
were it not on account of the labour and assistance many recipients
of insane boarders thereby obtain in their respective trades or occu
pations, having to lodge, feed, and maintain demented residents for
the very small payments allowed, cannot always prove profitable,
or even remunerative.
Irrespective of several other important features characterising the
Gheel system, this fact deserves special notice—viz., that it becomes
more easy, than sometimes at public asylums, to place patients under
circumstances where they can be employed in occupations analogous
to those they had pursued previously. A large proportion being
labourers, mechanics, domestic servants, and the like, the authorities
can at once transfer, for instance, an operative shoemaker, a black
smith, agricultural labourer, or dairy-servant, to dwellings wherein
they may be occupied much in the same manner as when enjoying
good mental health.
Further, being also under proper sur
veillance, whatever treatment is deemed judicious can likewise
be adopted.
Seeing a large proportion of insane residents at
Gheel are agricultural labourers—indeed, they usually constitute
about one fourth of the entire number—while persons employed in
household work are even more numerous, besides many dressmakers
and milliners, as also carpenters, tailors, with other handicrafts, it
thence becomes among the ordinary Gheelois population not difficult
to place lunatics with hosts where useful arrangements in that
�336
The Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited,
Oct.,
respect can be accomplished. Still, at Gheel numerous patients are
unwilling or unable to work through various causes, the proportion
being about 30 per cent, in that category, which therefore leaves
seventy among every hundred lunatics occupied according to their
respective capabilities.
Although proceedings of the kind mentioned are easily adopted
at this insane colony, impartial observers must admit, however
much the Gheelois method may meet approval in many respects, and
deserves imitation, it will often prove a difficult undertaking to in
stitute an analogous procedure elsewhere, especially in localities
whose general population has neither been accustomed to asso
ciate with, nor ever had any experience in managing lunatics, or
imbecile fellow-creatures. At Gheel the domestic arrangements and
customs are dissimilar to those in most other countries, while an
experience of many centuries has rendered its inhabitants like here
ditary attendants upon the insane, but which attribute is rare, or
would not be easily created among any large community. Hence the
obstacles which must always exist, whenever a similar colony on an
extensive scale is proposed. Further, it cannot be denied, for luna
tics belonging to the upper or middle classes, the discipline, em
ployments, and mode of life necessarily followed according to the
Gheelois method could be seldom enforced among ladies and gentle
men. For lunatics belonging to the lower orders the system there
adopted assumes, however, quite another aspect, and is entirely free
from several objections enunciated by adverse critics.
Occasionally writers entertain the opinion, that insanity is oftener
met with among persons born in the Gheelois commune, than through
out districts having a sane population. Both Dr. Parigot, late of
Gheel, and Dr. Bulkens especially, who has investigated the point,
think such idea erroneous. Indeed, the latter says,“ Mental diseases do
not prevail so frequently among Gheel natives, as in various localities
belonging to the province of Antwerp f while he has likewise ascer
tained that, in the adjacent canton of Herenthals and Turnhout,
where no lunatics are received, the proportion of insane among the
native population attains even a higher ratio than characterises
Gheel. Another feature should also be noticed, namely, Gheel be
ing situated in a plain extending a great distance, and having no
hills or mountains to protect it from any wind which blows, the
streets are often very dusty in summer, while during winter northerly
or easterly winds are not salubrious. Still, longevity occasionally
prevails among insane residents, several having been patients up
wards of half a century, others during forty or thirty years, and
some had become nonagenarians ; but I heard of no individual who
could be truly considered a centenarian.
The great annual fête or “Kermis”—viz., “wake” or fair, in
English—appointed for the Gheel commune, having taken place
�1866.]
by Dr. John Webster,
837
during my stay, I was therefore able to witness the manners and
customs of its general population, but more especially the effects
which public festivities, ecclesiastical ceremonies of unusual pomp,
much popular excitement, and the great crowds assembled from ad
jacent districts, produced among many lunatics who participated in
the varied proceedings of the four days dedicated, in the first instance
to religious duties, but afterwards to dancing, beer-drinking, and
frequenting various “ herb ergs/-’ estaminets, &c. On Whit-Sunday,
the 20th of May, or Pentecost, St. Dymphna’s church was crammed
with upwards of a thousand worshippers at one time, but always
changing, and of whom many had apparently come to see its gorgeous
decorations, or prostrate themselves before the patron-saint’s image
and tabernacle containing her relics, which was now placed in the
centre aisle on an elevated pedestal or throne.
Interiorly, the church was profusely decorated with flowers, gay
festoons, canopies, orange and other trees, besides a diversity of
ornaments specially prepared for this grand occasion. Over the
saint’s tabernacle, the figure of a little winged angel, having a laurel
sprig in its right hand, with a crown of flowers in the left, seemed
as if descending from above, in order to deposit both on the recep
tacle of St. Dymphna’s venerated remains. High mass was also
being performed by splendidly attired priests and many officials. An
organ pealed forth impressive music, accompanied by numerous
voices, whose singing was so good that altogether, I have seldom
heard any church service better performed, even in Italian or Spanish
cathedrals. Around St. Dymphna’s tabernacle, numerous devotees
were praying on bended knees, and appearing to invoke the saint’s
intercession. Many had strings of beads in their extended hands ;
and after praying during a few minutes, they walked round the pre
cinct several times, but finally resumed their former kneeling posi
tion, yet still praying, although inaudibly.
At one time I counted at least twenty-five persons so employed;
and whatever some critics may think of such superstitious devotions
addressed to what seemed only a covered box, but said to contain
the relics of an Irish maiden, none can doubt the sincerity of feeling
actuating parties who appeared thus to pray for their own recovery,
or of mentally afflicted relatives. After making these genuflexions,
generally three times, but occasionally oftener, a number went next
before an image of the Virgin Mary having Christ in her arms, both
gorgeously apparelled, with jewelled crowns on their heads, and
placed under an elegant canopy, having bouquets of flowers around,
to perform further devotions.
Subsequently, many of the same individuals also worshipped at St.
Dymphna’s image, much after the style enacted near her relics. As
additional indications of the veneration entertained respecting the
martyr whose shrine had here attracted such crowds, the numerous
�338
,
The Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited,
[Oct.,
silver offerings attached to her attire unmistakably demonstrate,
whilst indicating the great ignorance prevalent among a Campine
populace. Moreover, in order that such sentiments might not be
forgotten, or perhaps to proclaim the saint’s merits, on the border
of her bespangled velvet robe this inscription was embroidered
in golden letters so large as to make the words easily readable by
even distant spectators—viz., “ St. Rymphna, Hoop der Krankzinnigen ” (St. Dymphna, the hope of lunatics).
Sceptics may ridicule the absurd notions actuating apparently
numerous persons assembled in St. Dymphna’s church at this day’s
festival, which lasted several hours consecutively. That view is,
however, incorrect, seeing various individuals who had taken part in
the ceremonies acknowledge, they purposely visited St. Dymphna’s
Church, to pray for the saint’s intercession in favour of afflicted rela
tives or patients in the colony. Among several instances of this
description, I may mention that of a Belgian serjeant whose insane
wife had been some time in the commune. This otherwise intelli
gent soldier, although admitting the kind treatment received, never
theless felt faith in St. Dymphna’s influence, and had specially visited
her shrine on the present, as during a former occasion, in order
that he might, by imitating other devotees, promote his wife’s con
valescence.
At St. Amand’s, the chief or communal church of Gheel, a great
crowd was likewise assembled, its interior being also profusely deco
rated with flowers, flags, orange-trees, and numerous ornaments, at
the same time that high mass and so-forth. was performed. There,
as at St. Dymphna’s, I recognised various lunatics who, both in
this and the former sacred edifice, conducted themselves like rational
beings. However, as the services were purely ecclesiastical, although
conducted in grand style and really pompous, while many fashionably
attired ladies were noticed among a very crowded congregation, no
ordinary observer, ignorant of the fact, would have surmised that a
number of persons then present were actually insane. Indeed, I
have scarcely or ever observed more decorum than that which uni
formly prevailed during my protracted visits to both the churches
designated. Considering the multitude of persons congregated, the
consequent pressure occasioned by many people anxious to get near,
and the lengthened period they virtually remained, it is no exaggera
tion to say, the quietude and order which everywhere prevailed were
remarkable.
Next day, or Monday, similar services again took place at St.
Dymphna’s and St. Amand’s churches ; while the number of kneel
ing worshippers near the martyr’s sarcophagus was even larger than
the previous day, or Sunday. On this occasion, the silver receptacle
of the saint’s bones was now uncovered, which may account for the
much greater crowds who were constantly surrounding, and evidently
�1866.]
by Dr. John Webster.
339
contemplating with deep devotional feelings, what was really a splen
did specimen of art in the form of a temple, and which, from its size
as also elaborate workmanship, must have been very costly. Appa
rently, many of the votaries present had come from some distance
in order to invoke St. Dymphnaks aid in favour of a demented rela
tive or friend; while others were patients, as on the day previous.
Here, again, and throughout the whole time I remained, the greatest
order prevailed; and no one could have inferred from outward ap
pearances, or the behaviour of any individual, that lunatics formed a
portion of this large assemblage.
Another phase of quite a different character yet remains to be
described, so as to illustrate still further the popular proceedings and
festivities in which sane as likewise insane residents of Gheel, with
other spectators, took an active part during its kermis. Soon after five
in the afternoon, accompanied by Dr. Bulkens as cicerone, we visited
several “ herbergs ”—estaminets which had large rooms attached,
where many persons previously engaged in religious services at St.
Dymphna’s and St. Amand’s churches were dancing, or drinking
beer; while gay music and talking of numerous parties made the
whole scene highly exciting, but not disorderly or uproarious. In
one spacious apartment, at least 300 persons were assembled—several
being lunatics—who seemed to enjoy the spectacle quite as much as
any party present, and conducted themselves like their more rational
companions at this reunion. Indeed, had my conductor not pointed
out several male and female insane residents at Gheel, I should not
otherwise have known any patients were in that festive assembly. We
afterwards visited other dancing parties, where much hilarity also
prevailed; but in no instance could I recognise by their conduct
that any guest laboured under mental aberration. Similar amuse
ments took place next evening, while there was a grand pro
cession of St. DymphnaJs relics within her church and vicinity in
the forenoon; but everything went off satisfactorily. At least, I have
not since heard of any conduct which indicated that the varied pro
ceedings peculiar to the annual kermis then celebrated had caused
unpleasant consequences among the Gheelois lunatic population.
In concluding my sketches of the insane colony at Gheel, which
some gentlemen whom I have the honour to address may perhaps
think rather discursive, I would nevertheless beg leave to remark
finally, whether frequenting the dwellings of resident lunatics, peram
bulating streets, visiting churches, sauntering in secluded highhedged footpaths, gardens or fields; and notwithstanding I often
recognised insane patients as well idle as occupied, even sometimes
without an attendant, I never noticed any unpleasant occurrence.
On the contrary, I can confidently assert, from personal observation,
Gheel and its immediate neighbourhood seemed generally quieter,
than most localities having an equally numerous population, more
�340
The Effects of the Present System of Prison Discipline [Oct-,
especially where lunatics seldom if ever promenade public thorough
fares. Consequently, the idea of then residing in a town where mad
people were numerous, and lived almost like ordinary inhabitants,
appeared to my mind of doubtful realisation.
The Effects of the Present System of Prison Discipline on the Body
and Mind. By J. Bruce Thomson, L.C.R.S., Edin.; Resi
dent Surgeon, General Prison for Scotland at Perth.
(Read at the Annual Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association,
held in Edinburgh^ July 31i/, I860.)
_ Mr. President,—My first duty on rising to address this Asso
ciation is to thank you, sir, personally, for your kindness in propos
ing me, and the members for electing me, to the honour of being a
member of the Medico-Psychological Association.
This paper is due chiefly to your own suggestion; and I do now
feel that it was somewhat bold in me to accept your hint, and ven
ture upon an inquiry so difficult, and of such paramount social and
psychological interest. I hope the subject may be found not alto
gether aside from the proper functions of this learned body, as I
certainly regard it opportune for my having the benefit of any
opinions that may emerge, in the minds of those I now’ address,
many of whom are eminent for ability and experience in mental
diseases so prevalent in prison life.
Can long sentences to penal servitude in prisons be carried through
without serious detriment to the bodily and mental condition of
prisoners ? This was the proposition propounded only a few years
ago, when the transportation of convicts was set aside, and the
present system, called the separate system of prison discipline, was
introduced. In this paper, what I propose is, to examine the
results of this sanitary experiment; and how far we are enabled
to judge of its success and solve the grave problem as to the effects
of long imprisonment on body and mind. The study of the cha
racter and diseases of the criminal population has become a specialty
confined to but a few ; and I feel it all the more incumbent to
tabulate my observations, which have been continuously given to
the subject for nearly ten years.
Physical suffering, as you know, for the last quarter of a century
has been almost wholly ignored in prison discipline. Howard and
Romilly did for criminals what Conolly and Pinel have done for the
�1866.]
on the Body and Mind, by J. Bruce Thomson.
341
insane; and the benign influence of criminal legislation has long
been and still professes to be chiefly reformatory—curative rather
than punitive—on the principles long ago enunciated by Cicero :
“ Omnis et animadversio et castigatio contumelia vacare debet.
Prohibenda autem maxima est in puniendo." Legislation has
been, like Penelope's web, a system of doing and undoing; but,
however much social reformers may differ as to the physical punish
ments of prisoners, I think that you will all agree as medical men that
it is our duty to return the criminal to society as well in body and
mind, if possible, as when he entered upon his sentence of imprison
ment.
I have said that the study of prison life is a specialty, and it
seems to me, therefore, necessary that I should offer you a few
prefatory remarks on criminals as a class distinguished peculiarly
from civilians.
All who have seen much of criminals agree that they have a
singular family likeness or caste. Prison officials and detectives
know them at a glance. An accomplished writer who is well
qualified to speak on this subject says, “ I believe I have looked as
many scoundrels in the face as any man alive, and I think I should
know all such wherever I should happen to meet them. The thief
appears to me as completely marked off from honest working people
as black-faced sheep are from other breeds." In this statement I
quite concur.
Their physique is coarse and repulsive ; their complexion dingy,
almost atrabilious; their face, figure, and mien, disagreeable.
The women are painfully ugly ; and the men look stolid, and many
of them brutal, indicating physical and moral deterioration. In
fact, there is a stamp upon them in form and expression which
seems to me the heritage of the class.
II The physical, being," as I take it, “ the foundation of the moral
man," the criminals as a class exhibit a low state of intellect com
pared with the industrial classes. A large proportion of prisoners,
as I shall afterwards show by figures, are weak-minded congenitally,
and give a large proportion of insanity compared with the civil
population. I know this is in the face of popular prejudice, encou
raged by the drama and sensational romance, which makes heroes of
criminals, endowing them wondrously—as some one said, “ with rare
abilities, of which God has given the use and the devil the applica
tion." These are drawn from exceptional cases for dramatic effect.
On the contrary, teachers say prisoners are slow to learn. Officials
find it a hard task to train them to the plainest industrial work.
Taste in any art or mechanical ingenuity we seldom see among
them. Sir W. K. Shuttleworth observed, what is plain to all in
telligent observers, that the juveniles at Parkhurst were defective in
vol. xii.
23
�312
The Effects of the Present System of Prison Discipline [Oct.,
physical organisation—from hereditary causes, probably, and early
neglect and privation.
These remarks in limine on the characteristics of the criminal
class it is necessary to carry along with us in our inquiry as to the
effects of imprisonment, so as to judge what belongs to caste and
what to imprisonment.
It seems necessary to premise also a few words on the separate
system of discipline in present operation.
The separate is a modification of the solitary system, which has
been everywhere almost wholly abandoned as injurious to the mind.
It is singular enough that Howard, the great friend of the prisoner,
and true philanthropist, was himself the author of the solitary
system, the most severe of all penal systems. The object was to
prevent the evils of association; but insanity was the frequent
result.
Even the original separate system has been much modified. At
first, the prisoner was strictly confined to his cell, which was his
workshop and dormitory. He had little or no communication with
officers. The exercise was short, and in isolated cages under abso
lute silence. A mask was worn to avoid personal recognition. The
chapel was cellularly divided ; or the chaplain stood in the corridors
of a gallery, each prisoner only hearing, not seeing him, through the
cell-door upon the bolt. The food was passed through a small
service door, so that even the warder was not seen. Two purposes
were aimed at by this—viz., entire isolation, and seclusion to en
courage self-communion and lead to reform.
As you may well believe, it was ’ not long until relaxations were
called for of the severities of separation. After a confinement of nine
months male convicts, and after twelve months female convicts are
partially associated. Exercise is had more freely in open airing
grounds. The chapels are not cellular, but open-seated. Masks are
abolished. Warders see and speak to prisoners at least twelve tines
daily. Silence is not strictly enforced ; and medical officers have free
power to associate all who are regarded unfit to bear the separate
system : such are juveniles, epileptics, weakminded, and suicidals,
Highlanders who cannot speak English, and all the sick.
I hasten to consider now—
I. The effects of the separate system of prison discipline on the body.
II. The effects upon the mind of prisoners.
I. Of the general health, sickness, and death-rate of prisoners.
The general health has of late been very good in Scotland, espe
cially during the last decennial period. During the decennial period
1844 to 1853 it was not so. General debility, scrofula, and scurvy
were found to prevail among our prisoners, in consequence of a de
�1866.]
on the Body and Mind, l>y J. Bruce Thomson.
343
fective dietary. The truth is, the dietary of prisoners must be good
for two obvious reasons : their systems are deteriorated by heredi
tary and habitual vices ; and in prisons, the same amount of assi
milation of food does not take place in imprisonment as in freedom.
This latter, I suspect,applies to asylum and hospital patients generally.
I am satisfied that a bare minimum of subsistence is a dan
gerous allowance to prisoners, and a liberal dietary is the truest
economy in prison. Hence, during the decennial period 1854
to 1863, an improved dietary proved more economic than the lower
dietary, there being reduced sickness and death-rate, and, conse
quently, more labour from prisoners. A good diet and careful
hygiene, also, I think, help to explain our singular exemption from
epidemics.
A table before me shows all the cases of disease (noting the dis
eases) which occurred during the decennial period 1856 to 1856,
inclusive, in the General Prison for Scotland under my charge.
The total ten years’ population was 646, of whom 1 out of 72
were placed on the sick register ; the sickness being, therefore, at
the rate of 14 per cent.
The prison rule for registering sickness is, “ The surgeon shall
enter in his register every case of illness which is sufficient to pre
vent a prisoner from working, or which is infectious.”
A few months ago, in a joint report by Professor Christison and
myself, the following statements in regard to our death-rate and
sickness of prisoners in the different prisons of Scotland are given :
“ In consequence of an improved dietary during the last ten years,
the death-rate (notwithstanding the substitution of long imprison
ments for transportation) has fallen from 1 *1 to 1T5 per cent.
4
“ Diseases from defective nutrition have disappeared.
“ Diseases contracted after admission to prisons have decreased
from 27 to 15 per cent.
“ Prisoners off work from sickness have been reduced from 41 to
31 days on the total average daily prison population.
“The amount of sickness has fallen from 65 to 45 per cent, over
all Scottish prisons.”
To this very favorable account of the general health, sickness,
and death-rate of prisoners, I must offer some exceptions.
1. Juveniles and those at the growing periods of life suffer much
from stiffness of limbs; and a standing rule is, to associate all under
fourteen years of age, and even sixteen, the governor and surgeon
concurring ; also juveniles are drilled to military manœuvres and
exercises, as precautions against stiffness of limbs.
2. Untried prisoners, partly from their recent dissipations, and
partly from being tossed betwixt hope and fear as to their trial and
sentence, fall off, but revive again after their trial.
3. Convicts, a few months befoie liberation, become anxious,
�341
The Effects of the Present System of Prison Discipline [Oct.,
sleepless, and lose health and strength from their anxieties as to the
future. Convicts say the most irksome period of imprisonment is
immediately preceding liberation.
4. Out-door labourers, shepherds, poachers, fishermen, as a
general rule, fall off' under imprisonment.
I am bound further to make this general observation, that more or
less in all prisoners there is a slow and torpid state of the locomo
tive organs (partly, perhaps, mental), which seems to be the result of
seclusion.
Upon the whole, the foregoing facts and figures satisfy us that
the effects of imprisonment do not materially injure the body ; but
rather that the general health is well sustained, and certain diseases,
phthisis and scrofula, are ameliorated or arrested. I look upon the
hygienic and sanatory treatment of prisoners as one of the best
triumphs of medical science ; and looking to the condition of paupers
when contrasted with prisoners, I do not wonder that some have
sneered at our care of criminals, like Rochefoucault, when he says,
“ 11 s’en faut bien que l’innocence trouve autant de protection que le
crime/'’
II. Effects of imprisonment on the mind.—What I have advanced
seems sufficient to relieve all anxiety as to the effects of imprison
ment on the mind. But, remembering the effects of the solitary
and silent systems, of which the separate is but a modification;
keeping in view the necessary ameliorations lately introduced into
the separate system ; and further, considering the sources, physical
and moral, of insanity belonging to the criminal class—there appears
a foregone conclusion that there is danger to the mental condition
from the separate system of prison discipline.
Let me bring before you figures showing the amount of mental
disease which is found to prevail in the General Prison for Scotland,
and compare this with the ratio found among the civil population.
I observe that among criminals there is a large amount of weakmindedness, not regarded as insanity, viz.:
Prisoners weakminded, but not in the lunatic department—of two
kinds : Separate, but under special observation; not separate, but
whose mental condition does not bring them within the category of
the insane.
Perhaps there are few see so much of this class as I do of various
grades, verging upon and lapsing at times into insanity, reminding
one of Hamlet’s description of falling
“ Into sadness—then into a fast;
Thence to a watch—thence to a weakness;
Thence to a lightness ; and by this declension,
Into the madness wherein madmen rave.”
Here is a decennial table, 1856 to 1865, showing the number of
�1866 .]
on the Body and Mind, by J. Bruce Thomson.
345
those associated, as unfit to bear the separate system of imprison
ment:—
1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 Total.
Mental Condition—
Imbecile or Weakminded... 22 34
Ditto, and Suicidal ........... 3
2
Epileptic ............................ 4
7
29
43
14 21
2
4
4 11
20
7
2
16
9
7
26
6
13
13
2
6
17
4
15
15
1
7
198
40
76
20
29
32
45
21
36
23
314
36
For the last decennial period, we have had at the average of forty
per annum who, in addition to the above, have been placed under
special observation, expected to suffer from separation.
We have therefore had
Associated, as unfit for separation .......................
Separate, but specially observed .....................
314
400
Total.....................................................
714
The average daily population having been 6468, or 646 per
annum, we thus show that mental weakness (but not insanity) be
longed to about 11 per cent, (nearly 1 out of every 9) of the general
prison population. This is probably much within the actual mark.
In a paper I lately published in the ‘ Edinburgh Monthly Journal/
being an analysis of fifty-nine epileptic prisoners’ cases, it appeared
that all, with the exception of fourteen of these, were noted for
mental weakness; that prisoner epileptics were 1 per cent, of the
prison population, while the ratio in civil and army populations
was estimated at a mere fraction of this, viz., 0-009.
I proceed to give a table of the number of prisoners who have
become insane in the General Prison during the last decennial period :
1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 Total.
From the General Prison... 244664
2339
43
In the form of an equation this gives-1—
The average daily population................................
The number becoming insane ............................
6468
43
1
150
One out of every 150 became insane during the last ten years.
The average daily population 1 speak of is the sum of all who during
the year have passed through the prison divided by 365. I should
add that I am aware of several who went out of our prison weakminded, and shortly afterwards went to asylums; so that 1 out of
150 is probably a small enough calculation of those becoming
insane under imprisonment.
Let me extend this inquiry beyond the General Prison for Scot
land, and show as near as I can the number of existing insane
�346
The Effects of the Present System of Prison Discipline [Oct.,
among the total prison population of ^Scotland. The criminal luna
tics of Scotland are nearly all placed in the lunatic department of
the General Prison for Scotland, under the authority of the Secretary
of State and during Pier Majesty’s pleasure.
Some years ago, the Medical Superintendents of Asylums objected
to the reception of criminal lunatics. It was not considered fair or
favorable to insane patients that they should be classed with crimi
nal lunatics, many of whom had committed heinous and violent
crimes ; and the Medical Superintendents objected to come under
the obligation called for by the Secretary of State, to keep the crimi
nal lunatics in “ close and safe custody”—a condition not only
highly responsible, but detrimental to the curative treatment of
milder and ordinary cases, admitting of considerable freedom within
and even without the asylum precincts. Lunatic asylums, therefore,
being found unfit places of detention for criminal lunatics, the late
General Board of Directors of. Prisons made arrangements, under
statutory powers, for the present lunatic department of the General
Prison to be fitted up for the custody, treatment, and maintenance of
all criminal prisoners unfit to be brought to trial, found upon their
trial to be insane, or at the time of committing the offence charged;
also prisoners who have become insane while undergoing punish
ment. The hospital for lunatics was opened in October, 1846, and
contains, with few exceptions, all the insane belonging to the criminal
population.
The following shows the existing insane in the lunatic department
for criminals during the last five years :—
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
No.................... 33
34
34
40
51
The entire prison population of Scotland, annually averaged for
flic last five years, amounted to 2,316; and the above would show—
Annual average number of criminal lunatics 38 _
Number of criminals ......................................... 2316
1
60
One out of 60 existing criminal insane.
Criminal insanity is on the increase, however, and my report of
1865 shows—
Criminals insane......................................... 51
Total criminals of Scotland ................... 2416
1
47
One out of 47 existing criminal insane, as reported for 1865.
Compare this ratio with what is found in this and other countries.
The materials are by no means satisfactory, but I offer some of
them :
In
In
In
In
France the number of lunatics has been recently estimated at
England and Wales at ..............................................................
Scotland, about .................................................................... • ....
Ireland, at .................................................... . .....................
1
1
1
1
in
in
in
in
1028
824
473
1291
�1866.]
on the Body and Mind, ly J. Bruce Thomson.
347
The lowest calculation for England I have ever met with is made
by Drs. Bucknill and Tuke in their work on ‘ Psychology/ which is
an estimate made by adding a supposed number of lunatics and
idiots to the reported number given by the Commissioners in Lu
nacy ; and this lowest estimate supposes that 1 out of 300 is the
ratio of insane to sane in the population of England.
The foregoing prison statistics lead to the following conclusions :—
1. That weakmindedness is very prominent in the criminal popu
lation as a class.
2. That in the General Prison for Scotland about 1 out of 9, or
about 11 per cent, are weakminded.
3. That epilepsy shows a much larger proportion among prisoners
than among the army or civil populations.
4. That prisoners are noticed on admission in considerable num
bers to be weakminded; rendering it doubtful whether their mental
peculiarities are the result of hereditary influences, or may be due
to the seclusion of cell-life and frequent imprisonment.
5. That individual prisoners (not of the criminal class) suffer
much mentally from the seclusion, want of intercourse, and inaction
of mind as well as body under the separate system of imprisonment;
these effects being shown chiefly in juveniles, foreigners especially,
and Highlanders, who cannot converse in English, and those gene
rally who do not belong to the criminal class.
6. That the ratio of those who become insane in the General
Prison for Scotland has been 1 in 150.
7. That the existing criminal insane have been, during the last
five years, at the ratio of 1 out of every 60 of the prison population
in Scotland; and in 1865, 1 in every 47 of the prison population
were criminal lunatics; i. e., existing at the time.
The important corollary from these statistics is, that, with all its
recent relaxations, the separate system of prison discipline is trying
upon the mind and demands the most careful attention on the part
of medical officers, inasmuch as mental diseases are most prominent
among criminals in prisons, and seem to be on the increase.
I bring forward these facts and figures asking for further inquiry
and regular statistical information from the surgeons of English
convict prisons, especially on two points :
a. What is the proportion of insane (becoming insane or existing
insane) among the criminals of England ?
What proofs, if any, are there of this insanity being the result
of imprisonment ?
These statements seem to me extremely interesting, and I should
like your free comments upon them.
The number of weakminded renders it probable that much crime,
�318
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature,
[Oct.,
when committed, is done by persons labouring under mental disease,
crime and insanity having clearly a natural alliance which puzzled
the old classic philosophers as well as modern psychologists, in re
gard especially to the question of responsibility. “A knave is
always a fool ” says the proverb; and Hale had an axiom, that “ all
criminals are insane.” It has almost been asserted in as many
words by eminent psychologists, that “ all murderers are insane.”
Without going this length, 1 must admit that I am satisfied that, as
a class, criminals are extremely liable to mental disorders and dis
eases, apart altogether from imprisonment.
Hear the divine Plato on this subject:—“ All disgraceful conduct
is not properly blamed as the consequence of voluntary guilt; for
no one is voluntarily bad ; but he who is depraved becomes so
through a certain habit of body and ill-governed education. All the
vicious are vicious through two most involuntary causes, which we
always ascribe rather to the planters than the things planted, and to
the trainers rather than those trained.” Such doctrines, whatever
truth may underlie them, are not tenable to the extent which this
philosopher held; otherwise we must in a great measure set aside all
moral responsibility.
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature.
By Dr. Franz
Meschede. Abridged from ‘ Virchow's Archives/ 1865, by
G. F. Blandford, M.B. Oxon.; with a Prefatory Note.
The disorder commonly called “ general paralysis of the insane”
presents so many points of interest to the pathologist and the phy
sician, that as a necessary consequence it forms the commonest topic
among the writings of those who specially study insanity. But
after so much observation and so many treatises, it is disheartening to
find that even now scarcely more than one fact with regard to it is
laid down as settled and established beyond the possibility of doubt.
One there is, the saddest that can be. It is, that for this malady we
hitherto have found no cure; that to diagnose it is to pronounce
the sentence, not only of incurable insanity, but also of speedy
death. The marvel of the whole is, that although death occurs in
every case at no very distant period, though post-mortem examina
tions of general paralytics are made by hundreds every year in this
and other countries, yet even at this day no two observers are agreed
as to the pathology and morbid anatomy, as to the part in which it
has its origin, or which constitutes its peculiar and proper seat. No
�1866.]
by Dr. Franz Meschede.
349
wonder that the whole of the morbid anatomy of insane brain is
vague and ill-defined, when this, the specially fatal form of mental
disease, still hides itself from us—still wraps itself in the mystery
which envelopes all that relates to mind. I make no apology for
drawing the attention of the readers of this Journal to a paper on
the subject, published in the October and November numbers of
‘Virchow's Archives,' 1865, and for giving a short and necessarily
imperfect summary of its contents, it being too long for repro
duction. But as every outline must needs be unsatisfactory, I trust
my readers will go themselves to the original. In default of oppor
tunity of examining many brains of paralytic patients, I present as
a contribution to the English treatises on the subject these obser
vations of another.
First of all, however, I wish to make a few remarks; one upon
the nomenclature of this disease, and especially upon the new name
lately bestowed upon it. This, “ general paresis," was introduced
to us by Dr. Ernst Salomon, a translation of whose paper appeared
in this Journal in 1862. Paresis is not a new word; it is an old
medical term familiar to the readers of the ‘ Zoonomia' and other
works of that time. In barbarous Latin, worthy of the days of
Sprenger rather than of the era of the microscope, Dr. Salomon ex
plains paresis as “ insania paresans,” “ paresifying mental disease."
At the same time, he enumerates a great many but not all of the
synonyms of various authors. The term most universally known,
which has been, we may almost say, officially adopted, is the timehonoured “ general paralysis," or “ general paralysis of the insane."
There needs some strong reason for changing this. The name we
substitute ought certainly to be a better and not a worse. But is
there a single reason why paresis should be preferred to paralysis ?
Is there any meaning of the verb -rrapirip-i which squares with,the
symptoms of the disorder more than that of the verb TrapaXvto ?
Physicians in ordinary practice, who have seen with me patients in
the earliest stage of the disease, have objected to the term “ general
paralytic" as inapplicable to men who showed no diminution of
bodily strength. Yet the only meaning which paresis has which
makes it in the slightest degree available is that of slackness or
weakness. And not only is this word substituted for general para
lysis, but it is applied to ordinary hemiplegia, being usually con
verted into pareesis. An old gentleman the other day lost the use
of one side, and I was rebuked by the family for calling his malady
paralysis, and told that the most eminent of the faculty had pro
nounced it to be only pareesis. But are there no other names ? If
we object to the term “ general paralysis " as vague and unscientific,
must we go back a hundred years and rout out a disused word from
the garret of our great-grandfathers, and apply it to a new disease
unknown to them? We generally give M. Calmed the credit for
�350
Paralytic Insanity and Its Organic Nature,
[Oct.,
havingfirst fully described the disease with accuracy and clearness. No
work even now surpasses his own, or that part devoted to it in his
treatise on the inflammatory diseases of the brain. M. Calmeil de
nominates it “ periencephalite chronique diffuse.” Here we have a
definite appellation, almost a definition. It conveys a pathological
theory, true or false. It would be well, I think, to adhere to such
a term as this till we have reason to reject the theory and can sub
stitute another and a better in the place thereof. I have seen it
stated that M. Calmed considers it to be a meningitis. Dr. E.
Salomon says, “ Calmeil makes it a peri-encephalo-meningitis chro
nica diffusa.” Calmeil does nothing of the sort. In his ‘ Maladies
Inflammatoires/ i, 4-86, he says distinctly, “ Sans nier l’influence
réactive que l’état inflammatoire des méninges est à même d’exercer
sur les centres nerveux encéphaliques, dans les cas où se manifestent
les symptômes que nous venons de passer en revue, nous croyons
bien plus rationnel de les attribuer principalement à l’état d’inflam
mation permanent où se trouve elle-même la substance corticale des
hémisphères cérébraux.” The article of Dr. Meschede of which I
propose to give a summary will bring strong testimony to corrobo
rate this view of M. Calmeil, and will vindicate the propriety of still
maintaining the name he has originated, viz, “ periencephalitis
chronica diffusa.”
Much discussion has arisen as to whether the symptoms of gene
ral paralysis are simply added to ordinary insanity—epiphenomena,
as they are called—or whether it is altogether a distinct and special
disease. Here it would seem that we are drifting back to old doc
trines, according to which diseases are to be looked upon as entities.
If we put aside the question whether general paralysis be or be not
a special disease, and consider only what that is which is diseased,
what is the “ pars affecta,” we shall arrive at greater certainty.
The readers of this Journal do not require to be told that the
“ pars affecta ” in general paralysis and in non-paralytic insanity is
one and the same. We may arrive at this conclusion apart from
the post-mortem examination of diseased brain. The symptoms of
the two forms in life will indicate, I think, that the seat is the same,
and will aid us in interpreting the pathology of the disorder. Al
though, speaking generally, the exalted notions, the délire ambitieux,
stamp with a certain distinctiveness the mental disorder in general
paralysis, as the stutter marks the bodily affection, yet it is not to
be forgotten that in many cases these arc both absent. On the
other hand, there is not a single delusion of ordinary insanity that
we do not find in paralytic patients. “ Believes himself given over
to the devil”—“Thinks poison is put in his food”—“Believes he
has committed sins too enormous to be forgiven ”—“ Thinks he is
going to be arrested.” These are from four cases of general para
lysis. And in cases of ordinary curable mania we const ant ft find
�1866.]
by Dk. Franz Mesciiede.
351
exalted delusions of being kings, inventors, millionaires. All this
shows that the line of demarcation between ordinary insanity and
general paralysis is excessively fine, and the whole history and pro
gress of the latter points rather to a difference in degree than in
kind. That general paralysis is intractable, malignant, is the one
fact we are certain of. Probably the distinction between it and
other curable forms of insanity is analogous to the difference between
certain innocent and malignant growths. There is a tendency to
depart more or less from healthy structure. This tendency in some
is strong, and the growth is malignant; in others it is weak, and the
new formation is not so far removed from what is normal, and if
excised does not return.
It may be objected that the paralytic symptoms, the inarticulate
speech and quivering lips, point to a different seat of disease. It
may be said that in ordinary mania there are no paralytic symptoms,
that in progressive dementia following upon mania there is no loss
of muscular power. These objections do not, I think, point to any
different seat of disease, but only to a gradually advancing degene
ration and decay of the parts originally attacked. That these parts
are the same in both ordinary mania and in general paralysis, seems
indicated by these considerations :—
1. General paralysis constantly exists, and is evidenced beyond
any doubt by the mental symptoms without any perceptible defect
of articulation or other lesion of motility. This is a fact which
must be familiar to all my readers, and I therefore shall not stop
to adduce cases. It constitutes one of the difficulties of diagnosis
in this class of patients.
2. The defect connected with the inarticulate speech seems as if
it lav in the highest nerve-ganglia which impel the muscles and
supply force to them along the conducting fibres. The fault lies at
the origin, not in the course of the transmission, not in the trans
mitting organs. This appears if we closely examine the phenomena
of the defective articulation. The patient by an effort can correct
it. When he exerts himself—when he shouts, for example, he
speaks clearly. I am now speaking of the early stages. \\ lien, by
a violent effort of will, he forces all his nervous energy in one direc
tion, he does that which he wishes to do. The defect appears to be
in the nerve-centres which supply the volitional power. And this
will account for the absence of unilateral symptoms, which are often
absent throughout, and which, when they are found, are chiefly the
sequelae of apoplectiform or epileptiform attacks. Up to the last,
many patients seem to have nothing the matter with their limbs and
muscles except a deficient supply of force.
If we take other forms of abnormal muscular action, we may find
in a similar way that the defect arises not in the parts themselves or
iu the conducting nervous organs, but in what wc must call the
�352
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature,
[Oct.,
highest mental originators of nerve-force. An instance is at once
suggested by general paralysis. This is ordinary stammering. In
spite of all that has been said about the action of the laryngeal
muscles, &c., it is now, I believe, generally held that stammering
depends on mental emotion; that the mental centres are the seat of
the disorder, and that to avoid it we must, as Dr. Carpenter says—
1. Reduce mental emotion; 2. Avoid exciting mental emotion;
3. Elude mental emotion. This has been well urged by Dr. Monro
in a pamphlet entitled i Stammering and its Treatment/ by Bacc.
Med. Oxon., 1850. General paralytics do not stammer always—do
not always lisp over the same word. This would appear to be an
affection of a very high nervous centre. And probably the same
may be said of some forms of chorea. Certainly it may, of all the
quiverings and shakings that depend on terror or the like. Poor
/Eneas says—
“ Obstupui, steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus haesit.”
3. Another reason for thinking that the seat of the disease we
call “ general paralysis ” is identical with ordinary insanity, is that
the cause is so often the same. Although it sometimes appears as
if the former were more often due to physical causes than the latter—
due to drinking, sexual excess, and the like,—yet it very frequently
is clearly attributable entirely to mental causes. Dr. Sankey gives
several cases, and every one will recollect some such. Now that
great mental emotion is capable of producing not only ordinary in
sanity, but actual organic lesion, whether of general paralysis or of
other kinds, is a fact, I believe, much overlooked. We are so apt
to think that organic lesion is the cause of the mental derangement,
that we overlook the fact that mental disturbance may produce
organic lesion. Yet, while writing this, I happened to take up the
May number of the (Medical Mirror,’ which contains a case related
by Dr. Broadbent:—“A servant-girl, set. 24, in perfect health, goes
for a holiday on September 24th to the British Museum: she meets
her sweetheart walking with another woman; a violent scene ensues,
the young man tearing a brooch containing his portrait out of
her shawl. Next day she fretted very much; on the following day
she became violent and delirious—in fact, maniacal. She then fell
into a state of stupor, and was admitted into St. Mary’s Hospital on
the 29th. She evidently heard and saw, but all the mental faculties
were oppressed. No paralysis. She was noisy all the night. Next
day she was delirious, constantly talking; not answering when
spoken to. On October 2nd she became rather suddenly comatose,
and died. P.M. exam.—The convolutions appeared to be slightly
flattened, and the surface of the hemispheres was paler and the veins
less full than usual. Brain-substance firm and pale : in the left
hemisphere, external to the thalamus and corpus striatum, and slightly
�1866.]
by Dr. Franz Meschede.
353
above their level, was found a very large recent clot, estimated to
weigh at least an ounce.” Here we have a healthy young woman
dying very rapidly of an apoplectic clot after violent emotional ex
citement at an age when apoplexy is rare, especially in women.
There was no paralysis, and the symptoms throughout were mental
as well as the cause. This case seems valuable to those who arc
considering the relations of functional and structural disorder in
mental diseases. General paralysis, then, may begin in the same
centres as ordinary insanity, and be produced by the same causes;
but it may go on progressively till it causes degeneration and de
struction of those parts—not remaining stationary, like chronic mania
or dementia.
One word as to the nature of the disease. Not long ago, general
paralysis was considered an inflammatory affection, and treated as
such by the remedies then supposed to be efficacious in such cases.
1 have seen many patients treated by a course of bichloride cf mer
cury, but without good result. It is possible, however, that the
theory was more correct than the mode of treatment. General
paralysis seems to be the peculiar degenerative inflammation of the
cortical part of the brain, ending in total annihilation of the life—
that is, the functional activity—of the part. It seems as if each of
the viscera has its own peculiar degenerative disease; other dis
orders, as cancer, tubercle, abscess, &c., being more or less inciden
tal and depending on extraneous causes. Thus, the liver has its
proper disease destroying its excreting and secreting function. So
have the spleen and the kidney. Dr. Salomon has noticed the ana
logy between general paralysis and Bright’s disease. And probably
the adhesion of the capsule of the kidney, the tearing of the granu
lar surface, and the disappearance of the cortical portion, may have
suggested a comparison even to superficial observers.
When we say that general paralysis is an inflammation, we must
clearly understand what we mean by this. In Mr. Simon’s admi
rable article in Holmes’ ‘ System of Surgery,’ we read that “the
phenomena of inflammation are modified phenomena of textural life.
There is an excess but an incompleteness of textural change, shown,
on the one hand, by effete material unremoved, softened and degerated tissue; on the other, by nascent forms unapplied, which have
either perished before maturity, or definitely ripened into mere abor
tions of texture.” And further he says, “ The action whereby in
flammation begins is one which physiologically cannot be distin
guished from hypertrophy. The line of distinction is drawn where
the effort of hypertrophy becomes abortive, and where the forms of
increased growth are mixed with palpable refuse of increased decay.
.............. Cancer and inflammation have the most intimate morpho
logical affinity; and probably what is distinctive of cancer lies
far less in the nature of its textural phenomena, than in the
�35 1
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature,
[Oct.,
hitherto unknown causes which give them their fatally continuous
progress.”
A nodule of cancer continues to spread, returns where excised,
and progresses till it destroys life; while a similar non-cancerous
nodule is removed, and does not return. The cause of the ineradicability of the former, however, is not explained by any known
laws. In the same way, the hypersemic and hyperactive condition
of the brain in simple acute mania subsides, perhaps recurs, sub
sides again, and so on; while the hyperaemic condition of general
paralysis leads us at once to textural change and death. But we
cannot as yet discriminate the origins of the two conditions. Truly
we may call general paralysis the malignant disease, the true
morbus malejicus of the gray matter of the hemispheres.
I have presumed to offer these remarks as a preface to the sum
mary of Dr. Meschede’s paper. His strictly inductive observations
serve to test the accuracy of these views, which arc as much deduc
tive as inductive. The whole, I think, points to that unity of dis
ease which modern science teaches, rather than to the special entities
which diseases were thought to be in the days of nosological classifi
cations. Specific remedies are almost abandoned: probably specific
diseases will share the same fate.
I now proceed to the article by Dr. Meschede.
I. General view of the disease.
General paralysis appears to have greatly increased during the
last ten years. It is interesting to us, because it chooses its victims
as a rule from amongst the males of the better classes; it prostrates
those organisms which appear the strongest, and at a time when they
are at the height and zenith of life and activity. It is a problem
worth solving, the discovery of the nature, causes, and cure of this
fatal disease, which is as yet a psychological puzzle.
While the mental powers are sinking to destruction, the self
feeling swells to a pitch of grandeur. The patient, as he declines
to the condition of the brutes, feels himself lifted up to the dignity
of a god, thinks himself God and above God. The phenomena of
a violent storm pass before our eyes, agitating the depths of the
mind with fierce eruptions and never-ceasing force. Sometimes the
symptoms are milder; the mind-organ wastes with less sparkling
glow. The victims of this form appear in a state of beatific rest;
their life floats on as in an Olympus of the happy. If we only
observed these easy dreaming “ emperors of the world” and “ higher
gods,” we might be inclined to look on the disease as an exquisite
passive atony, to deny the first active symptoms, and to consider
the image of an overwhelming storm as an extravagant phrase—
only that suddenly outbreaks of mania flash out to tell us that
�1866.]
by Dr. Franz Mesciiede.
355
even here a consuming fire still burns under this covering, and
carries on slowly, but surely, the work of destruction.
Certain epochs in this work of destruction are prominently
marked out by the attacks of paralysis, in which the patient sud
denly collapses in convulsive movements in the midst of the appa
rent harmony of his existence. In cases running an acute course,
these attacks come on in the height of the fury, after the rush of
ideas and the tempest of emotion have been getting more and more
intense for some days. But even in the more chronic cases they
give notice of their advent by an increased agitation, and are
accompanied by a heightened temperature and unmistakable signs
of cerebral congestion. With and after each attack, the mental
and bodily strength declines. The motor ¡lowers are impaired so
that the central influence is withdrawn, and inharmonious irregular
muscular movements follow. Parts of the mental acquisitions, too,
are destroyed, and fade from the memory. So the world of mind,
step by step, sinks to ruin. Even if the patient after a few days
recovers somewhat, so as to leave his bed, if the connection of body
and mind is somewhat restored, yet it is evident that the cohesion
of the life of the mind is thrust down a step lower, and cannot
again be raised to the former level. So these attacks mark out the
steps by which the paralytic process goes on to complete annihila
tion. The actual cause of these attacks is not yet clearly made out.
There is not always a haemorrhage in conjunction with them. They
are the co-effects of the paralytic process, but are worthy of note
because even in the slower cases tfcey indicate an active organic
process of destruction, and draw attention to the decay which step
by step advances.
II. The exalted delirium, and the progressive destruction of the
mental strength, symptoms of organic processes going on in the
brain.
The exaltation which is so characteristic of general paralysis
arises not out of weakness of intellect; it is not only a disturbance
of the imaginative activity, but its essential point is an exorbitant
expansion of the feeling of self. The life of ideas is influenced by
the dominant emotion, and shapes itself so as to correspond. The
feeling is not the consequence of the ideas ; for often we find in
general paralysis the feeling of grandeur without any delusions of
greatness—also the feeling generally precedes the outbreak of the
peculiar delusions. The ideas vary, changing from minute to
minute; the feeling is constant, and forms the ground of the ideas.
Now the causes which bring about a change of feeling are partly
mental and partly bodily, and both work upon and through the
brain. The effect of sudden and violent passions is well known;
�356
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature,
[Oct.»
it extends to tlie nervous system, to the secretions, ¿cc. On the
other hand, organic diseases of any part have a deep influence on
the emotional condition of the mind, and that without the interven
tion of ideas. Now everything which promotes the feeling of self
calls up pleasure, everything which thwarts calls up pain. The
brain is the organ through which the mental influences work upon
the remaining organisation, and vice versa, through which or
ganic conditions affect the feelings, being itself a part of the
organism and subject to organic changes. Therefore, we must con
clude that organic changes of the brain affect both the feelings and
ideas. The life and activity of mind and feeling ebb and flow
according- to the strength of the organic excitation. We see this
in the influence which exciting substances, as wine, exercise on the
emotional activity. We also observe that a certain degree of turgescence and of organic tension calls up a feeling of pleasure and
contentment. The turgescence and tension of the brain will pro
duce this feeling of pleasure, and affect the emotions and ideas
more than that of any other organ, because there is no intermediate
step. Out of the importance of the excitation by means of arterial
blood, arises the necessity for recognising the importance of changes
of the tissues. These principally take place in the inner layer of
the cortical substance of the cerebrum, which is provided with an
ample capillary network. On this we must particularly bestow our
attention.
The excitation which is produced by vital stimuli may in the
brain attain a strength which
e
*xceeds
the limit of health. In this
case the mental activity, especially the emotions, must also undergo
an increase. We see such an excess of excitation in intoxication.
In "eneral paralysis we see this heightened condition accompanied
by irritative turgescence and an accelerated change of tissue, which
awaken in the patient the feeling of an energy of life never known
before, of indescribable pleasure and delight, which, however, through
the consumption of the ‘ oleum vitae’ and the nerve-force, lead to
the annihilation of the organic elements. In this way we may ex
plain both the immense expansion of the self-feeling and emotional
impulses, and also the final disruption of the mental life. Certain
particles of the mind-organ on whose vitality the mental functions
depend are in a constant condition of heightened vital activity, and
so the ideas also undergo an increase, the idea of self gains in inten
sity, and the patient leads a life of greater power and greater plea
sure, and constructs his ideas accordingly.
Now, as the organic changes in the brain are chiefly brought
about by the nerve-cells, we conclude that the delusions of grandeur
of the paralytic are a manifestation of the disturbance of the cell-life.
The relation of his “ego ” to the outer world is altered, his “ ego ” be
coming continually greater and mightier. He feels himself hurried
�1866.]
by Dr. Franz Meschede.
357
along by the impetus of the organic processes, and free from all
hindrances and incumbrances such as usually influence the emotions,
but which now are no longer taken into account. There is now no
longer the oppressed feeling of a trouble-laden pilgrim of earth. He
is released from earthly bounds, and is a god. The consciousness of
insufficiency which always floats before our eyes, exists no longer
for the paralytic, All the old ideas which once were present in the
mind merely as wishes or imaginary thoughts, or ideal fancies, are
now revived, and acquire life and the appearance of reality; and
whatever ideas are started in the organ of ideation, are produced
only in the dominant note of the exalted feeling.
A new life and a new view of the world starts up to the patient
with the morbid and increased action of the nerve-cells. Out of a
new fountain of mental strength established in his organism he has
visions never before known.
Beautiful thoughts and ideas stream along and overleap all oppos
ing conceptions arising from external facts. The world needs re
forming. Of the relations of earthly life he takes no notice. Where
these really oppose his doings or wishes, his self-feeling reacts in
rage, which does not, however, last long. It vents itself in furious
mania and dangerous attacks, or in a volley of threats.
The destructive nature of the process is soon apparent. In the
intellect we see not only a stormy disturbance, but also striking de
fects. There is an extraordinary forgetfulness, an inability to take in
outer perceptions and occurrences, and fix and engrave them. All the
activity of the mind is centrifugal, not centripetal. And so the
mind gets worn out, and all the exaltation comes to an end, and
often intense depression follows. There is such a rapid metamor
phosis of the organic part, that the idea-images are wiped away and
are only of ephemeral duration. There is no fixed delusion except
in certain chronic and hybrid cases.
III. Different opinions of authors as to the seat and nature of the
organ ic process.
We have hitherto considered the phenomena of the distorted
mind. The deductions we have reached require completion by
means of pathological anatomy. This will determine whether, when
the storm has ceased and the fire is extinguished, real organic pro
ducts of this fire are to be found. We shall have to test our view
of the organic foundation of the “ megalomania” by the microscope
and micro-chemistry. We arrive at two questions: What is the
seat, and what is the nature of the anatomical change, which is at
the bottom of the paralytic process ? In the works of authors since
Haslam we find a jumble of contradictory opinions, arbitrary hy
potheses, and the strangest explanations. Almost every part of the
brain has been assigned as the seat—cerebrum and cerebellum, white
vol. xii.
24
�358
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature,
[Oct.,
and gray matter, ventricles and cortex, membranes and cranium,
cellular tissue and vessels ; and every kind of change has been called
the cause—hardening and softening, oedema, sclerosis, hypertrophy
and atrophy; luemorrhagic, fibrinous, and albuminous exudations ;
meningitis, congestion, and extravasation; atony, rheumatism, athe
roma, stasis, &c.
This divergence of opinion leads us to think that the real organic
change is not yet known; and this is conceded by such men as
Esquirol, Calineil, Guislain, Falret, Conolly, and Griesinger.
IV. Parenchymatous inflammation of the cortical substance, the
basis ofparalytic insanity.
Looking at the series of phenomena thus briefly sketched out at
the time—the intensity, the progressive rise and fall of the storm
which bursts upon both mental and vital powers,—we cannot help
feeling that the so-called general paralysis of the insane is not a
mere negative state like other paralyses, but an active process, the
expression of an independent activity consuming the mind, and so
reducing the patient to a passive existence. Observation, not of the
dementia of the final stage, but of the behaviour in the acute and
early period, teaches that here all is fire and flame, storm and tu
mult, even in the bodily functions. Hasty eagerness, excesses in eating
and drinking, and profusion of secretions and excretions, salivation,
erections and ejaculations, accompany the first outbreak. And con
tinual and excessive play of the emotions is no less common. If
this be the character of the first stage, consideration of the final
state leads us to the a priori conclusion that the total confusion or
destruction of the mental life cannot come to pass without deeply
ravaging changes occurring to the organ which carries on the mental
processes.
A series of investigations earned on since 1857, by the eye and
the microscope, have led me to the conviction that degeneration of
the nerve cells of the hemispheres of the cerebrum, especially of the
cortical portion, constitutes the peculiar intrinsic pathologico-anatomical change in paralytic insanity. The alteration of the cells is
found in different degrees from mere parenchymatous swelling down
to their reduction to molecular detritus. In advanced cases all the
transition forms may be seen. There may be an aggregate of fat
globules with the characteristic outline and nucleus of nerve-cells.
The nucleus will be surrounded closely by small fat-globules highly
refracting, and also with pigment-granules yellowish and shining;
or the outline will be seen only round one half of the cell, the other
half being replaced by a margin of globules. And besides cells
with a perfect outline, but filled with fat- and pigment-granules,
there are others which have completely lost all outline, and are a
mere collection of granules round a nucleus, as to the nature of
�1866.]
by Dr. Franz Meschede.
359
which we should be in doubt if we met with them elsewhere or iso
lated. In acute cases running on quickly to death, we do not always
perceive these stages of degeneration so completely defined. The
granulated cells occur more rarely, and we find more with a definite
outline and with only a moderate amount of fat-granules and pig
ment. There is, however, a general swelling, a congestive turgescence and succulence of the cortical part. On section, it appears
wet and darker than it ought. Often we may notice with the naked
eye a bright red appearance, not so much of the surface or the pia
mater as in the inner layer. This redness only penetrates to the
surface in the more advanced stages and in certain spots. It is of
different degrees, ranging from pale rose to dark violet; sometimes
of as bright a red as a phlegmon or conjunctivitis. It is not due to
post-mortem causes, to blood-gravitation or imbibition, for it is
chiefly observed in the anterior parts of the cerebrum, especially on
the convexity and in the temporal lobes, and also the parts which
are most intensely red are frequently marked by punctiform capillary
apoplexies. The microscope shows us in this portion a highly de
veloped capillary network filled to excess with blood-corpuscles, with
here and there points of extravasation and elongated vessels. The
nerve-cells in this appear softened, more voluminous and more iso
lated. We seldom see this stage, because death does not usually
occur till much later.
So then we have hypersemia and parenchymatous swelling of the
inner layer of the cortical substance on the one hand, and fatty pigmentous degeneration on the other, as the beginning and the end of
the organic changes in general paralysis. Between these poles lies
the destructive process, which by analogy we conclude to be a
parenchymatous inflammation. Although the identification of hypermmia or redness with inflammation is a much-disputed point, yet
a marked and pronounced red injection and congestion are always
strong indications of inflammatory action. And if we go through
the cardinal symptoms of inflammation, we shall find not unfrequently that we may recognise swelling in the firm tension of the
sac of the dura mater. The next requisite, heat, is not to be proved
by the thermometer in loco ; but the investigations of Dr. Ludwig
Meyer have shown an actual increase of the general bodily tempera
ture, whilst my own prove that during congestive exacerbations the
heat is above the normal, whilst at times of collapse it is below.
And we are warned by the redness and turgescence of the face, the
hot temples, the reddened ears, that an increased cerebral congestion
is present, and that the proper heat of the brain undergoes an ad
vance. The fourth symptom, /mA, we must not look for, because
the malady attacks the organ of intellect, not that part of the brain
which perceives pain. Patients protest they never felt so well. But
they feel sensations in their heads which indicate what is going on
�360
Paralytic Insanity, and its Organic Nature,
[Oct.,
there, and in the premonitory period they often complain of actual
pain. These have been cases where traumatic or syphilitic affections
were at work, where meningeal irritation prevailed. And the ab
sence of pain in the best-marked stages of general paralysis is an
argument against the theory of its being a meningitis.
The passive character of the final stage in general paralysis must
not make us think that the whole is a passive process; neither must
we be misled by the diminution of the volume and weight of the
brain-substance. The brain-atrophy is only one of the results of
the disease; it is not the cause of the paralytic insanity. In the
outset, not the atrophic, but the hypertrophic, are the victims of this.
We have only to look at the strong athletic frames, with their full
muscles, the well-formed skulls and florid faces. Here we have an
excess of nutrition and over-stimulation. A primary atrophy cannot
produce the phenomena of excessive activity. The exaltation of the
self-feeling cannot be a consequence of depression of the nutritive
process.
In cases of some duration the degeneration of the nerve-cells is
visible even with the naked eye. We have no longer the redness
of the inner layer of the cortical structure, not even the light rose
tint, but a peculiar dark, dull yellow; and on trial with the scalpel
or finger the consistence of this layer appears altered—sometimes
softer, more frequently harder, like leather or felt. This is brought
about by the shrinking of the tissue on the destruction of the cells,
by condensation of the connective tissue, Virchow’s glia, and by
wasting of the vessels. In this yellow layer blackish-brown or rust
coloured spots, caused by pigment accumulations, are met with, the
result of capillary extravasations, of active processes connected with
an afflux of blood.
For the examination of the nerve-cells I have used preparations,
either fresh and wetted with cerebro-spinal fluid, albumenised water,
hydrochloric acid, glycerine, carmine solution, weak chromic acid, or
pieces macerated a long time in these media so as to isolate the
cells. I have also allowed pieces of the cortical substance to dry in
a dry chamber, so that thin transparent slices could be cut off with
a knife. With a low power, 40 to 120, we can survey at once the
whole thickness of the cortical part, and detect the change in the
integrity and size of the cells. I usually compare preparations
taken from parts of the brain which appear normal with those visibly
affected; and I also compare portions of the brain of paralytic patients
with others from the brain of the insane who are not paralytic, and
also with those from the brain of the sane. A favorable opportunity
for such an instructive comparison was afforded me by two patients
who died on the same day, one of whom suffered from paralytic
dementia, the other from epileptic dementia with hemiplegia. The
difference in the nerve-cells was most striking. In the general para
�1866.]
by Dr. Franz Meschede.
361
lytic, the cells appeared large, and, in very advanced stages of de
generation, filled with fat- and pigment- granules; the sharp outline
was partly obliterated, so that they often appeared only as heaps of
granules with a nucleus. In the epileptic, the cells were smaller,
sharper; the outline more perfect, much clearer and more transpaparent; very few fat- or pigment-granules. The capillaries here
appeared slender and delicate, and the network they formed
was but scanty; while in the paralytic patient the capillary network
was much developed, and the walls of the vessels thickened and
convoluted.
The degeneration of the inner layer is not uniform over the whole
of the cerebrum, but prevails in certain definite localities. It is
tolerably constant in the convolutions of the temporal lobes, and on
the convexity, along the longitudinal fissure, and also in the frontal
lobes; much less on the basilar surface, and least of all in the con
volutions of the posterior lobes. I have also found the cells of the
gray matter in the interior of the brain altered; e. g. the corpora
quadrigemina. My researches, however, in this direction are too
few to enable me to form a final judgment.
This much appears to me certain—that the changes in the inner
layer of the cortical substance constitute the peculiar and intrinsic
organic ground of paralytic insanity. This assertion, arrived at by
comparative pathological observation, tallies with physiological in
vestigations as to the functions of the different parts of the brain,
which, without discussing them here, amount to this—that the
convolutions of the great hemispheres, especially the cortical
part, have a closer relation to the functions of the mind, particularly
to the operations of ideas and thought, than any other part of the
encephalon.
The other cranial and cerebral changes which we meet with are
too variable and too inconstant to be able of themselves to consti
tute the essential pathological lesion of general paralysis. The
ventricles are often distended with fluid; but often they are of
normal size, or even contracted. The ependyma may be granular
and full of amyloid corpuscles. The choroid plexus may be hypersemic and full of cysts. The white substance of the hemispheres may
be dry and inclined to sclerosis, or oedcmatous and softer than it
ought to be; of dull colour, with stains of rose or yellowish hue.
The soft meninges are in many cases partially thickened, oedematous,
with stains of ecchymosis, occasionally with true thin blood extrava
sations. The vessels of the pia mater are often hyperaemic upon the
convexity, in places atheromatous, in a few cases blocked by emboli.
The arachnoid is, over a greater or less extent, milky and thickened,
studded with Pacchionian granules, and by these united to the dura
mater; also so luted with the pia mater to the surface of the brain,
that on removing the meninges the cortical substance comes away
�36.2
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature,
[Oct.,
with them. On the inner surface of the dura mater we find in
many cases a thin, gelatinous, soft, haemorrhagic, pseudo-membranous
layer, reddened by points of extravasation, or by fine vessels, espe
cially on the parts corresponding to those of the inner layer usually
attacked by inflammation, viz., the temporal fossae, the convexity,
and anterior fossae. These layers are mostly thin, sometimes strati
fied, often only consisting of a rust-brown or blackish pigment.
They are the residua of an afflux of blood to the brain. Of them
selves they constitute no process of meningitis.
The condition of the skull varies. The dura mater is often
closely adherent to it. The condition of the connective tissue is not
clearly made out. It is easy to understand that this, especially its
cell elements, must undergo change, as a consequence of the inflam
matory parenchymatous degeneration.
Although no one of these changes can be looked upon as the
essential condition of paralytic insanity, yet they play their part,
albeit a minor one, in the psycho-paralytic drama. Their import
ance varies; they may be starting-points or predisposing influences,
or modifications of the process, or co-effects or consequences of
secondary significance. If the nerve-cells of the inner cortical
layer come into a chronic condition of irritation and altered nutri
tion ; if the organic vital motion of the same is altered and accele
rated, running on to dissolution and disorganisation; if the inflamma
tory state which was once outside the nerve-cells has extended to
them—then first do we have distinct general paralysis.
People are too fond of looking upon the nerve-cells and fibres as
a kind of privileged class of cell elements, whose higher dignity
cannot be subjected to the processes of vegetative life and disease,
and which can only undergo functional disturbance. Some think,
with reference to the nerve-cells, that there must be either perfect
integrity or total annihilation of their action. This is a mistake.
The nerve-cells are developed out of embryo-cells. They have a
common origin with all other cells. Their existence is prolonged
along with the whole living organism. From this they imbibe their
nutrition; cut off from this, they perish. Though through differen
tiation they have a specific mode of existence, yet they never cease
to depend on the continuous vegetative force of the organism, or
cease to take part, to live and move, therein. They have their de
velopment, their history, their different ages—their adolescence,
decrepitude, and premature old age. They depend on the arterial
blood, so that pressure on the carotids interferes with their function,
which is restored when the flow of thejoaiw/«^ vita is allowed to go
on again. If, then, the nerve-cells partake of the vegetative life,
they must be subject to the disturbances of it. Though they are
endowed with special energies and functions of a higher order, vet
their nutrition may undergo a degeneration which may pervert their
�1866.]
by Dr. Franz Meschede.
363
function, and lead it out of its accustomed track without reducing it
utterly to inaction. In this vegetative life there are many degrees
between perfect health and death. The nutritive functions may un
dergo a shock by which they may be brought into an anomalous
state, and a conflict of heterogeneous phenomena may result, exhibit
ing that condition which we call disease. We must here recall
Virchow’s stand-point of cellular pathology—the independence of the
individual cell-life, the relative autonomy of cells. If we grant this
to cells, so must we also presume a greater possibility of disturbance
of their vital movements, a greater capacity for disease; and we must
assign certainly not the lowest place to the cells of the central
nervous system, presiding as it does over muscular movement, and
receiving from all sides excitation.
The capillary network in which the nerve-cells of the cortical
substance are imbedded not only mechanically regulates the blood
flow, like the pendulum of the brain-clock, but it is the bearer of a
vital vegetative process; it is the canal system which conducts the
heating material which the nerve-cells need for their life and
strength. In the inner layer of the cortical substance the system of
conducting arteries resolves itself into a thick network of the finest
capillaries, and here the chief seat of the organic nutritive phenomena
is to be looked for. Here the vegetative life of the brain is most con
centrated, the interchange is most active; and if by irritation it is
forced, it must undergo an excitation which will exceed the bounds
of health. If severe mental distress inflames and breaks in upon
the mind, both the bounds of the vegetative life and of the functional
activity will be broken down, and then follows destruction of mental
strength. This violent action is inharmonious, turbulent, confused,
presenting the characteristics of destruction and annihilation, bring
ing into jeopardy the stability of the organ. Both the centripetal
and also the centrifugal energy of the cerebrum is weakened, the
receptivity and recollection, and also the expression of ideas and
wishes. This shows that not only dynamic or functional disorder
exists, but also organic disease—that the mind-organ is attacked at
its very core.
These views are confirmed by observation of the (etiology of the
disorder. It is favoured by everything which causes cerebral con
gestion and irritation. Men are attacked whose activity of brain
life and brain-circulation is in excess, whose feelings are much
excited, who are harassed by business, and who, by reason of a
kind of psychical hypersesthesia, feel keenly the weight of strokes of
fortune; men who eat a strong flesh diet, much meat and drink—who fully taste life’s troubles and joys, excitements and delights—whose brain is much irritated, somatically and psychically, and whose
�361
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature,
[Oct.,
power of resisting is weakened by hereditary taint or illnesses. The
slower kind of men are seldom attacked.
Sex, too, confirms it. I have found seventy-seven men attacked,
while only twelve women were sufferers. Women have no business,
and less cerebral irritation; they are not injured by alcohol or
tobacco.
Age proves the same thing. General paralysis is a disease of
prime manhood. Few cases happen before the age of twenty-eight
or after sixty. It comes on when the brain is at the climax of
development and its maximum of weight. The average age is about
forty-one and a half years. Just before the brain reaches its highest
weight, there appears to be great nutritive excitation going on, and
great attraction of nutritive material to bring the development to
perfection. Any forced nutrition or over-stimulation at this period
will bring about parenchymatous swelling, and lead later to disor
ganisation. The inflammatory process goes on in a series of exa
cerbations, one following another, and attacking one set of cells after
another. The downfall of the mind is gradual, marked out by
apoplectiform or epileptiform attacks.
[Dr. Meschede then gives the result of four post-mortem exami
nations of typical cases to illustrate his theory.]
I. The first is that of F. G—, who when admitted was sixty-two
years of age, and had shown symptoms of general paralysis for three
and a half years. After nine or ten months he died. Post-mortem
examination thirty-six hours after death. The heart was enlarged,
the muscular substance soft and fatty; the aorta was thickened and
atheromatous; the arch was dilated like an aneurism; the spleen
contained many small calcareous concretions; the kidneys showed
traces of fatty degeneration; the skull was thick and heavy, the
diploe vascular; on the inner surface of the dura mater was a thin
pseudo-membranous layer, of a rusty colour, in the right temporal
fossa; the arachnoid was here and there milky and thickened, with
oedema of the pia mater and subarachnoid space; the pia mater was
adherent in places to the cortical substance; the arteria foss. Sylv.
dextr. was obstructed by an embolus. The cerebrum was oedematous
and soft; the white substance yellowish, with yellow and rosecoloured stains; the gray matter soft, dark, and yellowish—in certain
places reddened. Both ventricles distended and full of opaque serum.
The microscope showed on the surface of the left corpus striatum
a patch of softening, consisting of granular detritus, fatty particles,
fatty and degenerate nerve-cells, and cells in a state of transition.
The vessels were partially diseased, and one small capillary was
blocked by an embolus.
In the inner layer of the cortical substance of the cerebral con
volutions, the microscope showed considerable degeneration of the
�1866.]
ty
Dr. Franz Meschede.
365
nerve-cells, while in the outer layer little was to be seen. The cells
appeared to consist of fat- and pigment-granules. Many had lost
the sharpness of their outline; many were mere rudiments of cells;
many were larger than usual. Here and there were collections of
granules in the shape of cells. A portion of the inner layer, magni
fied from fifty to sixty-five times showed hundreds of opaque,
yellowish-brown, pyriform granules, standing out against the clear
connective substance. These appeared like miniatures of the de
generate nerve-cells, and were arranged with tolerable regularity,
increasing in number and size from the periphery to the white
matter. The vessels of the inner layer formed a thick network, and
were somewhat dilated, atheromatous, and fatty. These changes
were most noticeable in the discoloured portions. In the outer
layer this development of vessels was not to be seen.
In the gray substance of the corpora striata and quadrigemina
advanced fatty degeneration of the nerve-cells was visible.
II. E— was admitted when forty-three years of age, after a
month’s illness, with symptoms of acute general paralysis. In a
fortnight after admission he had an apoplectic-paralytic attack, and
died the following day.
Post-mortem examination forty hours after death.—The heart was
somewhat large and covered with fat. The muscular structure
showed commencing fatty degeneration. There was thickening and
atheroma of the aorta. There was congestion and hypersemia of
most of the viscera. The skull was rather thin. The sac of the
dura mater was completely filled by the brain. In the right half
of the basis cranii, chiefly in the temporal fossa between the dura
mater and arachnoid, was a dark, half-liquid, recent blood extrava
sation, from one half to one and a half line in thickness. Neither
the pia mater nor the arachnoid were perceptibly thickened.
Nowhere were there any pseudo-membranous formations. There
were some spots of atheroma on some of the arteries of the base.
' The whole of the right temporal lobe, especially the inner layer of
the cortical portion, was completely softened and almost gelatinous.
The cortical part, when cut through, displayed an outer layer of a
whitish-gray colour, and an inner very highly reddened. The first
varied little from the normal tint. The inner was of a dark red
colour, and showed, even to the naked eye, a highly developed
network of vessels, and many capillary apoplexies. The microscope
showed in the softened portions of this inner layer extravasated
blood-corpuscles, granular masses, nuclei, softened and fatty nerve
cells, and transition forms.
This was a case of paralytic insanity running an acute course.
The inflammatory character of the disorder is manifest, and it is
�366
Paralytic Insanity and its Organic Nature.
[Oct.,
the inner and not the outer portion of the cortical substance that is
softened and degenerate.
III. The next may be termed a subacute case. N—•, 53 years of
age, was admitted September 16th. Before he was attacked, he had
become religious and somewhat gloomy. In August his speech was
affected, and exalted ideas showed themselves. These were chiefly of
a religious character. In November he had two paralytic attacks,
and died November 24th.
Post-mortem examination thirty-one hours after death.—Skull
small, thickened. Dura mater adherent. The soft meninges thin
and delicate; the arachnoid atrophied and perforated. Here and
there the pia mater was adherent to the brain. The substance of
the cerebrum was soft and somewhat moist. In the posterior lobes,
the inner layer of the cortical portion was slightly reddened. The
change of texture was unmistakable; it was soft and pappy. - In
the temporal lobes and in the anterior part of the frontal lobes, the
inner layer was highly reddened, vascular, and very soft. The corti
cal substance was everywhere of its normal thickness, and presented
no appearance of atrophy.
The microscope showed in the reddened portions of the cortical
substance aggregates of fatty granules, either in the form of nerve
cells or in amorphous collections. In places the cells appeared full
of fat-granules, in others the cell-outline was lost. The network of
vessels was highly developed, the walls in a moderate stite of fatty
degeneration. The viscera of the body presented nothing remark
able. There was atheroma of the ascending aorta and its arch.
In this case, which may be called subacute, there was no marked
atrophy of the convolutions, nor sign of meningitis; but there was
great injection, softening, discoloration, fatty degeneration, and de
struction of the nerve-cells of the inner layer of the cortical sub
stance. There was some amount of alteration in the gray matter of
the optic thalami; very little in that of the corpora striata.
IV. The fourth was a chronic case of a man of great muscular
development, who had indulged in both sexual and alcoholic excesses.
X—, admitted October 1, 1855. His malady had commenced in the
first half of 1854, when 48 years of age. He displayed inarticulate
speech, kleptomania, and loss of memory. The course of the disease
was remitting, without active symptoms. Sometimes there was de
pression. He had hallucinations both of hearing and sight. After
a gradual decline, he died of pneumonia after an apoplectiform attack,
February 18, 1859.
Post-mortem, examination thirty-six hours after death.—The right
lung showed pneumonic infiltration and yellowish softening. The
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
367
heart was healthy; atheromatous thickening at the commencemout
of the aorta. The other organs presented nothing very remarkable.
The skull was hard and thick. The soft membranes upon the
convexity, especially on the anterior half of the cerebral hemi
spheres, were thickened and adherent to the brain-substance. The
cortical substance was discoloured and soft, the nerve-cells were in a
state of fatty degeneration. There were many granule cells and
others m a state of transformation. The vessels were tolerably free
from fatty change. On the floor of the fourth ventricle were some
amyloid corpuscles.
. In conclusion, we observe that in these four cases the skull, me
ninges, and consistence of the brain differ. All four agree in there
being one constant and identical modification, a parenchymatous de
generation of the inner layer of the cortical substance, which we
must look upon as the essential change in general paralysis. AVe
find it in remitting and chronic cases, in acute and subacute. In
chronic cases we find residua of the active process, pigment-stains,
alterations of the membranes, regressive destruction of the cell
elements ; but without undervaluing the significance of the changes
of the meninges, we must look upon the parenchymatous inflammation
as the essential cause of paralytic insanity.
CLINICAL
CASES.
Remarks on Aphasia, with Cases. By J. Keith Anderson, M.D.
Edin.; President of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh.
(Read before the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, Mh March, 1866.)
In the following remarks I have endeavoured to combine and
arrange the opinions expressed by recent writers on the loss of
speech which depends on disease of the brain, and which is fre
quently present in cases of paralysis. This cerebral loss of speech
has been designated by the various names of alalia, aphemia,
aphasia, and verbal amnesia. As aphasia is the term generally
employed, I shall make use of it in this paper.
Aphasia is a disease, or a collection of symptoms, which it is
difficult strictly to define; but its leading features may be shortly
stated as follows:—Aphasia is distinguished from all other forms of
�368
Clinical Cases.
[Oct.,
loss of speech by its being due to a cerebral lesion alone, and not to
any paralysis or defect of the organs of voice or of speech. It
differs entirely from the silence of deaf-mutism, insanity, and defec
tive intelligence. The patient has ideas which he in vain labours to
express in words, although his organs of vocalisation and articula
tion are perfect. An inability to express thoughts by writing coin
cides, in most cases, with the loss of speech; and reading and cal
culation are also frequently lost. Loss of the power of articulate
speech is, however, the principal characteristic of aphasia. Tn most
cases the loss of speech is not complete; but there exists such an
impairment of that function as to render the expression of thought
by its means difficult or impossible. The impairment may exist in
all degrees, from that in which there is merely an inability to recol
lect or to cause to be pronounced certain words, to that in which
speech is altogether unintelligible.
In place of attempting a further definition of aphasia, I think it
better to give such a selection of cases as will suffice to convey an
idea of its principal characteristics.
Case I.—In 1863 a young man was brought to Professor Trousseau.
Four years previously he had had a hemiplegic attack of the right side. He
had recovered in a great measure the use of his limbs, but since the attack he
had never said any other words than “ Non,” and “Maman.” When asked
his name, he replied “ Mamanhis age, “ Maman, Non.” To all questions
he replied thus. He had learned to write with his left hand, but could only
write his surname. He was ordered to pronounce it, but he said “ Maman.”
He was asked to write this, but he wrote his surname. Thus this man had
only two words which he could say, and one which he could write; yet he
was able to play well enough at cards and at draughts. He appeared to
read; but as he kept the book for only a few minutes at a time, it was doubt
ful whether or not he could really do so. His intelligence appeared to be
tolerably good.
*
Case II.—A gentleman, ant. 46, had a hemiplegic attack, after which he
entirely lost the power of speech. The only articulate sounds which he
could utter were, “ ee—o.” He varied the tone of these so well, that, with
the aid of expressive gestures, he was able to convey to those about him his
meaning upon ordinary subjects. He perfectly comprehended what was said
to him, and clearly understood what he meant to answer, but was only able
to utter these sounds, “ee—o, ee—o.” He believed, however, that he used
the proper words for the expression of his ideas, and often appeared surprised
and displeased when he was not understood. He sometimes tried to explain
his meaning by writing on a slate; but he generally substituted one word
for another, and almost always erred in spelling what he wrote.f
Case III.—A lady, affected with cancer of the left anterior lobe of the
brain, was frequently unable to recall the names of the most familiar objects,
and was reduced to express them by signs, or to point to them with her
* Trousseau, ‘ Clinique Medicale de l’Hotel-Dieu de Paris,’ 2nd edition, p. 590.
+ Cooke ‘On Nervous Diseases,’ quoted in Forbes Winslow’s ‘ Obscure Diseases
of the Brain and Disorders of the Mind,’ p. 412.
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
369
finger. When the word which she wanted was pronounced before her, she
recognised it, and could repeat it.
*
Case IV.—A man, set. 40, was attacked with hemiplegia of the right side.
The attack occurred during the night, and, when he was found in the
morning, the only articulate sounds which he uttered were, “ Cou si si,”
“ Cousisi.” For four months he could utter no other syllable, except, in
moments of anger, an oath. When he came under the observation of
M. Trousseau, he was able to write his name with his left hand. He was
asked to pronounce his name; he said, “Cousisi.” He was then asked to
write his name, and he wrote it correctly, “ Paquet.” The next request
was to write his address, and he again wrote “ Paquet.” Perceiving, how
ever, that this was an error, he turned away his head impatiently, saying
“ Cousisi.” He was made to copy the word “ billet,” and he wrote it cor
rectly ; but, being again asked to write his name, he wrote instead, “billet.”
He had good enough intelligence, and was able not only to play at dominoes
and draughts, but even to cheat at those games. He read books; but it was
observed that he read the same thing day after day, and even many times in
the same day.f
Case V.—A man, set. 60, had hemiplegia of the right side. The only
words which he could utter were, “ Ah! fou;” and these he used on every
occasion.J
Case VI.—Dr. Hughlings Jackson records the following case. E. H—,
set. 34, who had generally had good health, and who still looked healthy, was
seized suddenly whilst walking across a room. He staggered, and then fell;
and when put to bed it was found that the right arm and leg were paralysed,
and that he could not speak. For a year he could not speak at all, except
to say “yes” and “no
but about that time he began to talk, if such interjectional expressions could be called talking. He relearned to say “ d
n,
“ d___ n your eyes.” He had been in the habit of swearing, but now can
say nothing else except “ yes,” “ no,” and “ aye.” I think he can now make
signs, but not always correctly. He tried to tell me his age by his fingers,
but was not quite correct. His writing—the penmanship of which, con
sidering that it is written with his left hand, is pretty good—does not really
consist of words at all—scarcely, indeed, of letters. It appears to me to
resemble the word “ damn,” rather suspiciously.§
Case VII.—A boy, set. 18, had an attack of hemiplegia of the right side.
The paralysis rapidly disappeared, but for three weeks he was unable to
speak at all. After that time he was able to speak, but he made constant
mistakes in words. His mistakes in speaking were of this kind :—“I hear
quite wetty,” instead of “quite well.” “I can witter it in my ear” He
called a book a “ totano,” and a chair a “ handkerchief.” When reading, he
called farmer “ farming,” and consistent “ constant.” ||
Case VIII.—Dr. Graves gives the following case :—A farmer in the
County of Wicklow, set. 50, had a paralytic fit in the year 1839; since*
§
* “ A Case of Amnesia,” by Thomas Hun, M.D., ‘ American Journal of Insanity,’
1850-51, p. 358, quoted in ‘Archives Générales de Médecine,’ 1864, vol. i, p. 343.
f Trousseau, ‘ Clinique Médicale,’ p. 581.
J Ibid., p. 592.
§ Hughlings Jackson, ‘ London Hospital Reports,’ vol. i, 1864, p. 452.
|| Ibid., p. 415.
�370
Clinical Cases.
that time he never recovered the use of the affected side, and still labours
under a painful degree of hesitation of speech. He is, however, able to
walk about, take a great deal of active exercise, and superintend the business
of his farm. His memory seems to be tolerably good for all parts of speech
except noun-substantives and proper names; the latter he cannot at all
retain, and this defect is accompanied by the following singular peculiarity:
that he perfectly recollects the initial letter of every substantive or proper
name for which he has occasion in conversation, though he cannot recall to
his memory the word itself. Experience, therefore, has taught him the
utility of having written in manuscript a list of the things he is in the habit
of calling for or speaking about, including the proper names of his children,
servants, and acquaintances ; all these he has arranged alphabetically in a
little pocket dictionary, which he uses as follows:—If he wishes to ask any
thing about a cow, before he commences the sentence he turns to the letter C,
and looks out for the word “ cow,” and keeps his finger and eye fixed on the
word until he has finished the sentence. He can pronounce the word “ cow,”
in its proper place, as long as he has his eye fixed on the written letters;
but the moment he shuts the book it passes out of his memory and cannot
be recalled, although he recollects its initial, and can refer to it again when
necessary. ... He cannot recollect his own name unless he looks out
for it, nor the name of any person of his.acquaintance ; but he is never for a
moment at a loss for the initial which is to guide him in his search for the
word he seeks.
*
Case IX.—M. Bouillaud records an interesting case, in which the patient
was quite unintelligible by reason of a want of words, or.from using words
which did not apply to the objects which he wished to indicate. In writing,
the letters were well formed, but were placed without order, not forming
words, and their meaning could not be guessed at. The patient could
understand what he read, but could not read aloud more than two or three
lines at a time, and even then only by an extreme effort of attention and will.
He could sum up two lines of figures, and, most surprising fact of all, he was
able whilst in this condition to compose and write down a piece of original
music. He was then able to sing the air, without words.j"
Case X.—Dr. Hughlings Jackson mentions the case of an aphasic patient
who could sing “ I’m off to Charleston,” and “ So early in the morning,”
though he could say nothing else, except “ Don’t know,” and “ How d ye
do?” and some devotional phrases.j
Various attempts have been made to determine the situation of
that part of the brain to a lesion of which aphasia is due. I shall
mention the principal of these, with the arguments which have been
adduced in their support.
In 1808, Gall, the founder of phrenology, from observing the
peculiar position and appearance of the eyes in certain persons who
had a marked aptitude for learning and reciting by heart, was in
duced to place the seat of the faculties of the sense of words and
the language of speech in that part of the anterior lobes of the brain
* “ Observations on the Nature and Treatment of Various Diseases,” by Robert
J. Graves, M.D., F.R.S., * Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science,’ vol. xi,
1851, P- 1f ‘ Bulletin de l'Acadé nie Impériale de Médecine,’ 1865, p. 752.
j * London Hospital Reports,’ vol i, 1864, p. 418.
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
371
which rests on the orbital plates. He regarded as the organ of the
memory of words that part of the brain which rests on the posterior
half of the orbital plates.
Professor Bouillaud, of Paris, in his ‘ Traité de FEncéphalite/ *
and in various memoirs read before the Academy of Medicine,t
brought forward evidence to show that the faculty of articulate lan
guage resides in the anterior lobes of the brain. He has collected
the records of from 75 to 850 cases of cerebral disease, in 116 of
which there was aphasia with a lesion of the anterior lobes only ;
in the others there was no aphasia, and the anterior lobes were found
healthy. Trousseau J has put this localisation to the test by count
ing only those cases with autopsy observed during four years, as
these have all the necessary conditions of exactitude. These cases
are thirty-four in number, and of them eighteen are in favour of
BouiHauPs view, and sixteen against it. The numbers are thus
nearly equal ; but it is worthy of remark that, while all of the cases
favorable to Bouillaud’s doctrine are cases of aphasia, only four of
the contrary cases are of that character. Adding these four to the
eighteen cases favorable to Bouillaud, we have twenty-two cases of
aphasia, in eighteen of which the lesion was in the anterior lobes
only, making Bouillaud right in 82 per cent, of the cases of
aphasia. Various objections have been urged against the twelve
cases which were not aphasic, but it is needless to mention them.§
The next attempt to localise the cerebral faculty of language was
made by M. Marc Dax, of Sommières. He had been struck by the
fact that, in all of the cases of hemiplegia with loss of speech which
came under his notice, the paralysis was invariably on the right side,
indicating a lesion of the left half of the brain. He compiled these
cases in a memoir read before the Medical Congress held at Mont
pellier in 1836,|| in which he related forty cases of loss of speech,
the cerebral lesion being to the left in all. He therefore concluded
that in aphasia the lesion was invariably seated in the left half of
the brain. M. Baillarger has combined the statistics for and
against this doctrine with the following result :—He has collected
155 carefully reported cases of hemiplegia with aphasia, and he finds
that in 145 the hemiplegia was on the right side, and in the remaining
ten on the left.^f
In 1865 the son of M. Dax wrote a paper in which, after sup**
* ‘ Traité de l’Encéphalite,’ Paris, 1825.
f ‘Archives Générales de Médecine,’ 1825, t. viii, p. 25.
‘Bulletin de
l’Académie de Médecine,’ t. iv, p. 282, 1839. Ibid., 1848, t. xiii, p. 699. Ibid.,
1865, t. xxx, p. 613 and p. 735.
J ‘ Bulletin de l’Académie Impériale,’ 1865, p. 668.
§ See ‘ Bulletin de l’Académie Impériale de Médecine,’ 1865, p. 842.
Il “ Lesions de la Moitié gauche de l’Encéphale coïncidant avec l’oubli des signes
de la pensée,” ‘ Gazette Hébdomadaire de Médecine et de Chirurgie,’ p. 259.
V ‘ Bulletin de l’Académie Impériale,’ 1865.
** Ibid., p. 260.
�372
Clinical Cases.
[Oct.,
porting his father’s view, he attempted a still finer localisation. He
assigned the seat of the faculty of articulate language to the external
and anterior part of the left half of the middle lobe of the brain.
This localisation rested on very feeble evidence, and has not been
supported by further observations.
In 1861 M. Broca, of Paris, who had been an opponent of the
principle of cerebral localisations, was converted into its most earnest
advocate, under the following circumstances :—A discussion had
taken place, before the Society of Anthropology, between M. Gratiolet,
who maintained that the principle of cerebral localisations was false,
and M. Auburtin, who affirmed that Bouillaud’s localisation was at
least proved. In this discussion Broca took the side of Gratiolet.
A few days afterwards Broca found one morning, in his wards at the
Bicêtre, a patient in whom he recognised a typical case of loss of
speech from a cerebral cause. I shall give an abridgment of his
account of the case, as it is one of extreme interest, and gives a fair
idea of the condition of one class of aphasic patients.
A man, æt. 55, named Leborgne, attacked with diffuse gangrenous ery
sipelas of all the right lower limb. His history was as follows :—He had
been subject to attacks of epilepsy from his youth upwards, but had been
able to work till he reached the age of thirty. At that time he lost his
speech, and two or three months afterwards was admitted to the Bicêtre,
where he remained for the rest of his life. On his admission there, he pre
sented no symptom whatever, except the loss of speech. He could say
nothing except “ Tan,” and by this name he was known. He understood
whatever was said to him, but replied nothing except “Tan, Tan,” accom
panied with very significant gestures. When he was not understood, he
became excited, and swore, the oath being invariably, “ Sacré nom de Dieu.”
He bore a bad character, but was always considered responsible for his
actions. After he had been ten years in the hospital, a new symptom
supervened. The right arm became gradually weak, and finished by
becoming completely paralysed. Little by little, the paralysis extended to
the right leg, till it also became entirely paralysed, and the patient had to
remain constantly in bed. He reached this condition four years after the
beginning of the paralysis of the arm, and fourteen after the loss of speech.
During the next seven years no fresh symptoms showed themselves, with the
exception of some weakness of sight. At the end of this period he came
under the care of M. Broca.
From the weakness of the patient, Broca was unable to make a thorough
examination of the state of his intellectual powers, but the following details
were ascertained :—He appeared to comprehend all that was said to him, but,
being only able to manifest his ideas by the movements of his left hand, his
meaning could not be well comprehended. Numerical replies were those
which he made best, by opening and closing his fingers. He was asked how
many days he had been ill, and he sometimes replied five days, sometimes six.
He indicated, exactly, how many years he had been at the Bicêtre. When
this question was repeated, he again answered correctly; but the third time
he lost his temper, and emitted the oath already mentioned. He could tell
correctly the time on the clock, and could point out the order of succession
of his different lesions. Frequently, however, questions to which a man of
ordinary intelligence could have replied by a gesture, remained unanswered.
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
373
Sometimes the meaning of his replies could not be made out, while at other
times the reply, though clear, was wrong. It was therefore evident that his
intellect was profoundly affected ; but he undoubtedly possessed a degree of
intelligence sufficient for the act of speech.
It was clear that in this case there had been a progressive cerebral lesion,
affecting at first only a limited portion of the brain substance, and gradually
extending till it caused the lesions of motility. That this lesion occupied
principally the left half of the brain was evident from the paralysis of the
opposite side of the body.
At the examination of the brain, which was not made till the organ had
been hardened by immersion in spirit for two or three months, a great loss
of substance was detected in the left anterior lobe, consequent on a chronic
softening which had originated there, and had spread to the corpus striatum
of the same side. By a careful analysis of the appearances, Broca satisfied
himself that the beginning of the softening had been most probably in the
posterior part of the third left frontal convolution, or, if not there, in the
second left frontal convolution. As for ten years the sole symptom had been
the loss of speech, he concluded that this was due to the initial lesion ; in
other words, that the loss of speech was caused by the softening of the second
or third left frontal convolution—most probably the latter.
*
Shortly after the’examination of this case, Broca met with another,
in which the loss of speech was the sole symptom, and in which the
intelligence appeared unimpaired. The patient had only three or
four words at his command; but by means of these and of expressive
gestures he managed to make himself perfectly understood. He
could not write from the trembling of his hand, so that it remains
uncertain whether or not he could express ideas by writing. At the
autopsy there was found an old apoplectic cyst occupying the pos
terior parts of the second and third left frontal convolutions, the
brain being otherwise healthy. The second convolution was much
less profoundly altered than the third ; Broca therefore concluded
that to the lesion of the latter convolution the loss of speech was
due.f
A number of subsequent observations have shown that there is a
remarkable connection between aphasia and lesions of this convolu
tion on the left side. So far as I know, no case has been published
in which there was a lesion of this convolution on the left side
without aphasia.
Several cases, however, have been recorded which show that
aphasia may occur independently of disease of this particular con
volution. These I shall briefly mention. M. Charcot had a case in
which there was aphasia with a lesion of the left parietal lobe. The
lesion was prolonged across the fissure of Rolando as far as the
transverse frontal convolution, which was diseased just at the point
where it joins the convolution of Broca. In the latter convolution
* Broca, ‘ Sur le Siège de la Faculté du Langage Articulé, avec deux obser
vations d’Aphémie (perte de la parole),’ Paris, 1861, p. 16.
f Broca, op. cit., p. 32.
VOL. XII.
25
�374
Clinical Cases.
[Oct.,
there was no appearance of disease, with the exception of a few
“compound granular corpuscles,” detected by the microscope
*
This case has induced Broca to modify his opinion, and to admit
that lesions of the left transverse frontal convolution may affect
articulate speech. This convolution is directly continuous with
that of Broca, and many anatomists class them as one. A somewhat
similar case is given by Vulpian.f Several cases of aphasia with a
lesion of the right side of the brain have been recorded. Boyer
mentions a case in which a man received a thrust of an umbrella in
the right eye, penetrating the orbital plate, and lacerating the right
anterior lobe of the brain. The patient instantly lost the power of
speech.J Several instances of aphasia with left hemiplegia are on
record; but such cases are not worth much without post-mortem
details. One case is, however, too important to be omitted, as a
careful autopsy was made. A woman with left hemiplegia was also
aphasic. After death, the right Sylvian artery was found obliterated
by a clot, and the posterior part of the third right frontal convolu
tion highly softened. The left side of the brain was healthy.§
That this convolution on the right side may be injured without
causing aphasia is shown by a case of M. Parrot's. In this case
the speech was perfect, and after death the third right frontal con
volution was found destroyed in all its posterior part. [| Similar
cases have been placed on record by Bernet and Charcot.*1
1
Having thus discussed the various anatomical sites which have
been assigned to the lesion causing aphasia, I shall now review the
different theories which have been proposed as to its nature. And,
first, it will be expedient to consider the nature of language
itself.
Language consists essentially in the establishment of a definite
relation between an idea and a sign by which that idea is manifested.
This sign may be verbal, vocal, graphic, or mimic. Language may
thus be divided into vocal language, written language, Ac. We
may speak, therefore, of the general faculty of language, meaning
thereby all the different modes of expressing thought, and of the
different special faculties of spoken language, written language, &c.
It is held by Bouillaud and others that all these special faculties
**
of language are distinct and independent.*
**
§
* See Trousseau, ‘Clin. Méd.,’ p.600; also ‘ Gazette Hebdomadaire,’ 17 Juillet,
1863 ; Auburtin, ‘ Considérations sur les Localisations Cérébrales,’ Paris, 1863,
p. 59; and Broca, ‘Remarques sur le Siège, le Diagnostique, et la Nature de
l’Aphémie,’ Paris, 1863, p. 6.
+ Trousseau, ‘ Clin. Méd.,’ p. 601.
J Auburtin, op. cit., p. 56.
§ ‘Bulletin de l’Académie Impériale,’ 1865, p. 665.
|| ‘ Gazette Hebdomadaire,’ 31 Juillet, 1863.
Trousseau, ‘Clin. Méd.,’ p. 601.
** ‘Bulletin de l’Académie Impériale, 1865, p. 605.
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
375
Human speech or articulate language consists in the voluntary
production of a series of articulate sounds associated in words, and
has as its object the representation of a series of ideas corresponding
to these words, and joined together in such a manner as to express a
*
thought
The expression of thought by speech requires—1. The
intellectual possession of a language susceptible of being spoken ;
2. A proper conception of the relation between an idea and the
words which express it; 3. The will of expressing this idea by arti
culate sounds; 4. The possession of means of communication be
tween the will and the muscles concerned in articulation; and, 5.
The power of so co-ordinating the movements of these muscles as to
produce a scries of articulate sounds corresponding to the series of
ideas. Speech is, therefore, accomplished by the employment of
three distinct kinds of psychical force:—1. Of intellectual force, in
the formation of a thought capable of being expressed in words; 2.
Of voluntary force, in the determination to utter these words; and,
3. Of motor force, in the realisation of the movements necessary to
the articulation of the words.f All of these forces, though necessary
to the expression of thought by speech, are not necessary to the act
of speech itself. In moments of emotion, the first and second may
be dispensed with, and an oath or an ejaculation may be uttered
without any exercise of the intellect or the will.
It is probable that a number of cerebral co-ordinations are also
necessary to the proper expression of thought by speech. In ordei
that speech may be intelligent and fluent, the ideas and the words
require to be arranged in a certain order. In health the words may
be arranged properly by an exercise of the intellect and the will by
the speaker thinking over the words which he is about to use. In
such a case the utterance of words is slow and deliberate, as the
speaker requires to make a double effort of his attention in finding
first the idea, and then the words by which most clearly or elegantly
to express it. Where the speaker is engaged in ordinary conversa
tion, or where he is deeply interested and excited with the subject
on which he is talking, his words come quickly, and without his
bestowing any attention on them. In such cases speech woidd
appear to be automatic. To give a better illustration -An orator
is called on suddenly to speak on a subject on which he has not
prepared any remarks. On first rising he speaks slowly, and hesi
tates as to the words to be used. His ideas are confused, and he
has a difficulty in expressing himself in appropriate language. Gra
dually, as he warms with his subject, he finds his words come more
and more readily, and his ideas arrange themselves in more regular
order, till at length, in the full swing of his oration. Ins ideas and
his words appear to come spontaneously. There is here, 1 believe,
* See Parchappe, ‘ Bulletin de l’Academie Imperiale, 1865, p. 679.
f Ibid., p. 681.
�n T» p
oib
Clinical Cases.
[Od.7
an example of cerebral co-ordination—a co-ordination not merely of
the actions necessary to the furnishing and proper arrangement of
words, but also a co-ordination of those actions necessary for the
formation and arrangement of ideas.
For the consideration of aphasia, it will be convenient to adopt a
simple division of articulate language suggested by Bouillaud. He
divides articulate language into two distinct elements, viz., 1st,
the faculty of creating or of learning words as signs of our ideas,
and of preserving the recollection of them, which he calls interior'
speech; and, 2nd, the faculty of pronouncing, of articulating these
same words, which he calls exterior speech. Exterior speech is thus
only the expression of interior speech.
*
The simplest and plainest division of aphasia is that of Baillarger.f
lie divides it into simple aphasia, in which there is merely an in
ability to make use of words as signs of our ideas—and perversion of
speech, in which words are used to represent ideas with which they
have no connection in ordinary language. Although in actual
practice these two conditions are frequently found combined, it is
expedient to consider them separately.
To begin with the consideration of simple aphasia. At the first
glance, it is evident that in this division there are two chief groups.
In the first, there is loss of both speech and writing; in the second,
there is loss of speech only. By some ■writers these have been
designated respectively amnesic and ataxic aphasia.J
In amnesic aphasia, or that form in which there is loss of both
speech and writing, the easiest hypothesis is to suppose that there is
a loss of the memory of words—or, as it has been called, verbal
amnesia. Did the patient possess the memory of words, it is natural
to suppose that he would be able to express himself by writing ; but
such is not the case. Some writers have supposed that there are
special cerebral co-ordinating centres for speech and writing, and
that both of these have been injured to such an extent as to render
both speech and writing impossible, by reason of the co-ordinated
movements necessary to each being inefficiently performed. It
appears to me that such an explanation is very far-fetched, and
quite unnecessary, as the theory of forgetfulness of words, though
perhaps not altogether a satisfactory explanation of certain cases, is
sufficiently plausible. Trousseau § has argued that a person cannot
think without words ; but the statement of Professor Lordat, of
Montpellier, who was himself aphasic, is conclusive to the contrary.
* ‘ Bulletin de l’Académie Impériale, 1865, p. 618.
f Ibid., p. 818.
X See ‘ Edin. Med. Journal,’ March,1866: “Case illustrating the supposed con
nection of Aphasia (loss of the cerebral faculty of speech) with right Hemiplegia
and Lesion of the external left frontal Convolution of the Brain,” by William
R. Sanders, M.D., F.R.C.P.
§ ‘Clinique Médicale,’ p. 624.
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
377
Lordat, after Iris recovery, stated that he was in the habit of com
posing lectures in his own mind, without being able to put a single
idea into words.
*
In the second or ataxic group of simple aphasia—viz., that class
in which the patient, though unable to speak properly, has still the
power to express his thoughts by writing—the explanation is more
difficult. And, first, in examining and considering such cases, it is
necessary to distinguish clearly between the mere mechanical act of
writing and the expression of thought by written language. It is
possible for some patients belonging to that class in which I assume
there is mere forgetfulness of words, to write clearly and distinctly
certain words which they possess, or which they have just heard
repeated, or which they have copied; but this is merely the art of
writing—it is not the expression of thought by that means. In the
group of cases of which I am now speaking, the patients, though
unable to express themselves by articulate language, remain perfectly
capable of expressing their ideas by writing.t In such cases it is
clear that the patients have not lost the memory of words. What,
then, is the particular lesion in such cases ? Several hypotheses
have been brought forward. Trousseau]: maintains that they re
semble the first class in their being due to a loss of memory. This
is a loss of the memory, not of words, but of the means of co-ordi
nating the movements necessary for articulate speech: in other
words, the patients have forgotten how to speak.
“The infant speaks,” says M. Trousseau, “only because it has
learned to speak; and one can comprehend that it can forget what it
has learned, and that aphasia can be the consequence of the loss of
the memory of the complicated movements necessary for the articu
lation of words.
Broca, who also holds this view, thinks that
the successive degrees of perfection which we observe in the speech
of children are to be explained by the successive degrees of per
fection of a particular kind of memory, which is not the memory of
words, but that of the movements necessary to the articulation of
words ; and that it is the latter kind of memory which is lost in this
form of aphasia.
Now, the movements necessary to the articulation of words,
though started by the will, are only incompletely directed by it.
When we wish to utter a certain word, or to pronounce it in a cer
tain manner, we do not consider how this is to be done. We only
look to the end to be attained; we do not trouble ourselves as to*
§
* ‘ Clinique Médicale,’ p. 621 ; also Lordat, ‘ Analyse de la Parole pour servir à
Ja Théorie de divers cas d’Alalie et de Paralalie,’ Montpellier, 1843.
+ An excellent example of this is given by Trousseau at page 615 of bis
‘Clinique Médicale.’
X ‘Clinique Médicale,’ p. 625.
§ Quoted by Baillarger.
See ‘ Bulletin de l’Academie Impériale,' 1865,
p. 819.
�378
Clinical Cases.
[Oct.,
the means. We do not know all the different movements required
for the articulation of words ; how, then, can we remember them ?
How can we recollect acts of which we have not been conscious ?
If we adopt this explanation of loss of speech, we may as well apply
it to all cases of partial or complete palsy in which the muscles
are in a normal condition. I therefore consider this theory of for
getfulness of co-ordinated movements as more than doubtful.
Another explanation is that of M. Bouillaud. Bouillaud believes,
and since 1825 has laboured to make others believe, that some
where in the anterior lobes of the brain there is placed a faculty
which presides directly over the co-ordinated movements necessary
for speech. He designates the seat of this faculty, the legislative or
*
co-ordinating organ of speech. He holds that, while some cases of
aphasia may be due to a loss of memory of words, the majority are
owing to a lesion of that part of the brain in which is seated this
co-ordinating organ of speech. This theory is a very tempting one,
inasmuch as it explains the phenomena of ataxic aphasia in an ex
tremely simple manner. It rests on the fact that, in complicated
voluntary movements, the will is only the point of departure. And,
since the most complex muscular co-ordinations can be accomplished
without being submitted to our examination or combined by our
reason, it is natural to explain this by supposing the existence of co
ordinating centres for these movements. But, granting the exist
ence of a separate co-ordinating centre for the movements of speech,
why place it in the brain ? The doctrine that the gray matter of
the cerebral hemispheres is the seat of intellectual power is univer
sally admitted. If, then, we accept the theory that a portion of
this gray matter is subservient to a purpose which cannot be con
sidered as in the least degree intellectual, we run counter to all our
former ideas of cerebral physiology. Is it not much more probable
that the co-ordinating centre of speech is seated in the medulla ob
longata ? Are not the olivary bodies much more likely, as supposed
by Schroeder Van der Kolk, to be the co-ordinating centres of
speech, than the gray matter of the anterior lobes of the brain ? M.
Bouillaud, it is true, has made a suggestion that this principle may
reside in the white substance of the anterior lobes, and that the
gray matter immediately in contact with it may be the seat of the
intellectual element of interior speech.t In other words, M. Bouil
laud believes that the white or conducting part of the brain substance
can regulate muscular co-ordinations. This theory is quite opposed
to modern physiology. Again, if there is a cerebral co-ordinating
centre for speech, does it reside on one or both sides of the brain ?
—in other words, is it single or double ? If single, how does it
* ‘ Bulletin de l’/Vcadémie Impériale,’ 30 Avril et 15 Mai, 1865, p. 617.
t ‘Archives Generales de Médecine/ 1825, t. viii -, quoted in Bulletin de
l'Académie Impériale/ 1865, p. 618, note.
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
379
govern the muscles of both sides ? In those cases in which motor
organs are under the special control of certain parts of the ence
phalon, the muscles of each side receive their nervous supply from
separate sides of the encephalon; but here we should have an example
of a cerebral centre seated on one side of the body, governing mus
cular motions on both sides. On the other hand, if this cerebral
centre of Bouillaud is double, how is it that the majority of cases of
aphasia are caused by a lesion of one side of the brain only ? Were
the organ a double one, we should expect that its destruction on one
side alone would interfere only with the muscular motions of a single
side, leaving those of the other side unimpeded. In such a case
speech would not be greatly interfered with, for patients with parao
*f
lysis
one side of the tongue talk quite intelligibly.
The original authorship of the next theory I cannot ascertain; it
is upheld in France by M. Parchappe, and in this country by Dr.
Sanders. This theory maintains that, in those aphasic patients who
can write, the motor impulse to speech cannot be properly conveyed
to the articulating muscles, or to the co-ordinating centre of articu
lation, by reason of some injury of the voluntary initiating or con
necting apparatus. Of course in aphasia, which consists in a loss of
speech from cerebral causes, the lesion must be somewhere in the
brain. Supposing the memory of words and other faculties neces
sary to speech to reside in the anterior lobes, a lesion of the white
matter of those lobes might separate and cut them off from the
muscles of articulation. Thus the individual might have the
memory of words intact, and have all the inclination to pronounce
them, but, by reason of the interruption of the nervous current, he
might be unable to cause these muscles to act. This theory some
what resembles that of Bouillaud, but differs from the latter in this—
that it does away with the difficulty of establishing a cerebral co
ordinating centre for articulation. The co-ordinating centre might
be in the medulla oblongata or elsewhere, and the voluntary impulse
might be conveyed thither from the anterior lobes of the brain.
This theory may also suit those cases in which words are pronounced,
but in an imperfect manner. Supposing the conducting apparatus
to be in bad working order, the impressions conveyed by it might
be so altered and distorted as to give rise to altered and distorted
muscular motions.
I come now to the last theory or suggestion. It has occurred to
me, while considering the various phenomena of aphasia, that possibly
these, or some of these, may be due to a deficiency or impairment of
those cerebral co-ordinations, of which, in a previous part of this
paper, I have stated the probability. It is unnecessary here to
repeat the arguments which were brought forward to show that in
thought and in speech cerebral co-ordinations are necessary. If the
concurrence of many different parts of the brain is essential to the
�380
Clinical Cases.
[Oct.,
act of speech—an opinion held by many psychologists—then many
different lesions might give rise to aphasia by cutting off the com
munication between these different parts, and so preventing the
proper combination of their actions. In the present state of our
knowledge of cerebral actions, very little can be said with regard to
these co-ordinations; but it is conceivable that an interruption of
them, or of some of them, might give rise to a difficulty or an im
possibility of pronouncing, or of properly arranging, the series of
articulate sounds which constitutes speech. This theory would
allow greater latitude to the position of the lesion than Broca’s views
assert.
Having now mentioned the various theories with regard to the
simple aphasia, or that form in which there is merely a loss or im
pairment of speech, I come to the other division of aphasia—viz.,
that form in which there is perversion of speech, and words are used
to express ideas with which they have no connection in ordinary
language.
This form admits of division into two classes. In the one, the
patients believe themselves to be talking correctly ; in the other, they
are conscious of their errors of language as soon as the words are
uttered.
In that class in which the patient utters words totally at variance
with his meaning, without being conscious of the error, it is evident
that he has lost the proper sense of the relation of words to ideas.
The memory of words does not seem, in many such cases at least,
to be greatly deficient; it is the memory of their meaning that has
failed. There is, however, more than this. A false relation has
taken the place of the proper one. When a patient calls for his
boots, meaning his razor, and is astonished that his boots are brought
to him, his sense of the settled relation of words to things must have
become so perverted that he imagines words to express meanings
quite different from those assigned to them.
In the other class, or that in which the patient, when he gives
wrong names to objects, is immediately conscious of his error, it
would appear that the proper conception of the relation of words to
ideas or things, though impaired, is not altogether lost. The two
classes of patients may be compared to persons of different degrees
of education. The one person spells altogether badly, and is uncon
scious of his errors. The other also spells badly; but as soon as he
sees the words written down, he perceives that something is wrong,
and rectifies his spelling immediately. In like manner, the patient
in whom the relation of words to objects is lost in the minor degree,
as soon as he hears himself pronounce a word becomes aware that it
is the wrong one. The bad spelling is detected by the eye, the
wrong word by the ear.
Having now discussed the different classes into which I have
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
381
divided aphasia, I shall speak shortly of those patients who, having
only a very few words at their command, are still enabled to swear
or utter ejaculations when under the influence of passion. The ex
planation of such cases appears to me very simple. Oaths are, under
such circumstances, emotional and automatic, being uttered without
the interference of the intellect or the will. They partake of the
nature of reflex phenomena, being excited by stimuli from without,
and being uttered without the consent of the individual.
In conclusion, I have only to make a single remark on the intellec
tual condition of aphasics. In all of the cases of aphasia which I have
seen, the intellect was decidedly weakened, but certainly not to such
an extent that the abolition of speech could have been due to an
abolition of ideas. I believe, therefore, that the loss of intelligence
does not necessarily enter into the definition of aphasia, as it is pro
bably due to the extensive softening of the cerebral gray matter
which is found in most confirmed cases of the affection.
II. Cam illustrating the Diagnosis of Paralytic Insanity,
with Demarks (partly translated from the French).
By G.
Mackenzie Bacon, M.D., Assistant Medical Officer of the
Cambridgeshire Lunatic Asylum, Fulbourne.
The ordinary features of so-called “ general paralysis” are so
familiar to those who treat the insane in numbers, that they are apt
to regard its diagnosis as a transparent and very easy matter. It
happens, however, sometimes that cases arise which offer all the
prominent early signs of the disease, and yet do not go on to a fatal
termination. In such instances the mental symptoms are not merely
arrested for a time, but the patient to all appearance recovers. It
is not unimportant to bear this fact in mind for other than patholo
gical reasons, as a too positive prognosis might recoil unpleasantly
on the giver were it refuted by an unexpected recovery, lhere is,
probably, no disease of the brain about which we should be more
ready to give a positive opinion than general paralysis, for its symptoms
are as a rule, easily recognised, and its course is so uniform ; yet
this very fact is liable to produce a false security, and so sometimes
to favour error. The most distinctive signs of this disease are allowed
to be the grand or optimist illusions and incoherence which precede
any actual palsy ; and, knowing that these symptoms are most fre
quently followed by certain destructive changes m the brain, we are
�3S2
Clinical Cases.
[Oct,
apt to assume that the former must always terminate in the latter.
This, however, is not an infallible rule; but one seldom hears of
the exceptions. The following cases occur to me as illustrating this
view of the subject: they have no special features of interest except
as representing the minority, and for that reason are the more
instructive.
Case 1.—John S—, set. 40, a tailor, was admitted into the Cambridge
shire Asylum May 1st, 1863.
This was stated to be his first attack, and of only a fortnight’s dura
tion. His mother and brother died insane. When admitted, he was de
scribed as “ a fine, well-made man, suffering from much excitement, very
talkative, and with excessive optimism, without signs of paralysis. Talks of
being the cleverest man in the world, possessing great wealth, great
strength, &c. AU his remarks consist of exaggerations . Health not much
impaired.” He was, during the first few weeks, very violent and excited at
times, and anxious to display the extraordinary powers he thought he
possessed; but by the end of June he was more quiet, and worked at his
trade, at which he was very skilful. At that time, however, he talked with
the greatest amount of optimism, as to the quality of his work and the
amount he could do, &c.
He improved gradually, becoming more quiet and steady in his habits,
and not showing the same caprices of conduct; but he continued to talk
in the same exaggerated style—not a mere boasting on his part, but a genuine
belief in his strength and abilities. After a period of probation, he was
discharged recovered in November 1863. He has since earned his living as
a tailor ; but his conduct has been marked by extravagances and oddities
difficult to reconcile with a sound state of mind. He is now (June, 1866)
in good health, living at large, and much the same in mind.
Case 2.—Edward M—, a?t. 49, married, a wheelwright by trade, was
admitted into the Cambridgeshire Asylum August 18th, 1864.
There was some hereditary taint, and a previous attack was said to have
occurred. An outbreak of violence led to his being sent away from home.
The certificate mentioned “ extreme restlessness and excitability. Incohe
rence, and threatened violence to those about him. Destruction of house
hold furniture, cruelty to his children, robbing his neighbours of their poultry
and rabbits, &c.”
At first he showed no signs of insanity, but after a month he became in
coherent and talkative. He had then unequal pupils, tremor of the facial
muscles, and talked in an incoherent and exaggerated style. He afterwards
got destructive, tore up the bed-clothes, and collected rubbish of all sorts, such
as pieces of wood, string, glass, rags, and useless articles ; he also said he was
well off, and offered to write cheques for large sums of money. He was
always repeating that ffie felt very strong and never was better in his life,
and would write incoherent letters every day. Sometimes he was very
abusive, and after swearing and declaiming about his ill usage, would begin to
cry, and then give way to some fresh emotional disturbance. About April,
1865, he improved, ceased to be mischievous, and employed himself steadily.
In July he was discharged, on the application of his wife, after a month’s
probation, and has not reurned to the asylum.
In the first case the exaggerated delusions were very remarkable,
and would have led many people to anticipate general paralysis; vet,
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
383
though these remained in a greater or less degree, the patient im
proved in other respects, and sufficient time has now elapsed—setting
other reasons aside—to prove that the case was not what it seemed
likely to be at first.
The second case, perhaps, more nearly resembled ordinary general
paralysis; the partial dementia, destructiveness, tremor, and delu
sions as to wealth, &c., all pointing to such a conclusion. The
man has, however, since his discharge, returned to his business and
continued well. It is also curious that he had, according to his wife,
shown similar symptoms two years previously, and quite recovered
from them. It must be admitted that persistent optimism is hardly
known in any other disease than general paralysis, which is neces
sarily fatal; and this makes the anomalous cases the more striking.
In connection with this subject, I have read with interest an
article lately published in the f Annales Medico-Psychologiques/ by
Dr. Munoz, who has had charge of the asylum at Cuba. Familiar
with general paralysis as seen in this country, he mentions a class of
cases which have occurred to him, in which, though all the early
signs of this disease have been developed, the subsequent history
has belied his unfavorable anticipations. His experiences on this
point are valuable and clearly recorded. In Cuba, the differences
in race, climate, and in the conditions of life are so considerable as
to make a comparison of general paralysis as observed there and in
Europe a matter of some interest, and the author’s conclusions as
to the relative frequency with which the mixed races in the island
are attacked are rather striking.
I subjoin a translation of Dr. Munoz’s paper, which tells its own
tale too ably to require any further introduction:—
“ The population of the island of Cuba is composed of a mixture
of several races—of native and European whites, both of whom are
for the most part Spaniards; of African negroes, of native blacks
and creoles; and, lastly, of Chinese, who were introduced into the
country some fifteen years ago in great numbers, in order to stimu
late colonisation. This circumstance, as may be supposed, has given
me the opportunity to make a comparative study of insanity among
all these different people. I have thus been enabled to study the.
forms under which insanity shows itself among the negroes, the
Chinese, and the native whites; the relative frequency of these
forms, their course, termination, and variation.
“ For the present I will confine myself to an explanation of those
facts relating to general paralysis that I have observed in Cuba.
The population of Cuba is about 1,200,000, and this total is thus
composed—viz., 700,000 negroes and creoles (of whom 400,000 are
natives), 300,000 native whites, 150,000 European whites (mostly
Spaniards), and 50,000 Chinese. Among the natives (including
whites, negroes, and creoles) the proportion of the sexes is nearly
�384
Clinical Cases.
[Oct.,
equal. Among the negroes imported from Africa there is a dispro
portion between the sexes, the women being to the men as one to
two; but among the whites who come and settle in the country the
disproportion is much more considerable, the men being to the
women at least as four to one. As regards the Chinese, they are all
of the male sex. From these facts it results, of course, that the
women are much less numerous than the men in the whole popula
tion of the island. The numbers in the .asylum at Havana (the only
one for the island) were, on January 1st, 1865, as follows
men
334, women 136—total 470. Of the men, 120 were native white
*
94 foreign whites (Spaniards and Canadians for the most part), 96
negroes and creoles, and 24 were Chinese, while of the negroes 24
were Africans. Of the women, 46 were whites (natives mostly), and
90 were negresses, of whom 34 came from Africa. The enormous
difference existing between the number of male and female insane is
explained, not only by the disproportion existing between the two
seAes m the general population of the island, but also by the custom
which obtains in the country of keeping insane women at home,
the idea of placing such patients in a public hospital being opposed
to the general feeling. It is also to be remarked—and this is still
more curious—that the number of the white population insane is
nearly one fourth of the whole larger than that of the black, the
negro population of the island being nearly twice as large as that of
the white; for the insane negroes are to the sane as 1 to 3500,
whilst the insane whites are to the sane in the proportion of 1 in
“ From these facts we may conclude that insanity is twice as com
mon among the whites as it is among the blacks.
Having established these facts, I shall now give the results of my
observations relative to the frequency of general paralysis among
these different people.
°
“In order to thoroughly understand the conclusions that I shall
draw from this paper, I must remind the reader of the opinion held
by some distinguished authors as to the intimate connection existin'
*
between the ordinary commencement of general paralysis and
ambitious mania.
I believe also that the majority of alienists now hold this
opinion—viz., that general paralysis usually commences with marked
exaltation of the faculties, delirium of a grand or ambitious charac
ter, embarrassed speech, tremor of the lips, inequality of the
pupils, Ac. Ibis fact being established, we must admit that in
the case of a patient in whom these symptoms are well marked,
every physician must give an unfavorable prognosis, suspecting
the probable existence of commencing general paralysis. We
shall see, however, that this opinion mav sometimes be quite
wrong.
“
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
385
“ This is what happened to me at an early period of my residence
in Havana, and further experience at the asylum of which I have had
charge has enabled me to confirm it. In June, 1862, I was sum
moned to a rich proprietor of Havana, a native of the country, and
about forty-eight years of age, who was attacked, for the first time,
with ambitious mania, hesitating speech, tremor of the lips, inequality
of the pupils, and weakness of the legs. The disease had existed for
more than a month, and did not seem in any way influenced by the
different modes of treatment already adopted. In view of the symp
toms presented by the patient, my prognosis was entirely unfavor
able; and the friends, alarmed thereat, had recourse to another
physician. I cannot say what treatment was adopted in this case;
but of this I am sure, that in September, 1864,1 saw this individual
in a most satisfactory state. This is not the only case of this sort
that I can mention, for in the same year (1863) I saw two other
patients also attacked with ambitious mania, combined with some
symptoms of general paralysis; the one aged thirty-eight and the
other forty-two, both natives of Cuba, and neither having had a
previous attack. I made the same prognosis as in the preceding
case; and, to my great astonishment, I saw the former of these
patients recover at the end of about three months, and this satisfac
tory state of health has continued; indeed, I saw him about eight
months ago perfectly well. As regards the other patient, who was
placed, like the former, under private care, his state improved at the
end of four months' confinement; but the friends, whose means were
rather restricted, determined to place him in the public asylum. He
remained in the asylum about two months and a half, and, upon
being thought, well, was discharged. Eight months after, a second
attack, of the same nature as the former one, came on, and he was
brought back to the asylum. The simple dementia became confirmed
in a short time; but no symptom of general paralysis showed itself
until April, 1864, at which date the patient was attacked by internal
inflammation, which carried him off.
“ The autopsy showed us decided injection of the cerebral mass,
a certain amount of serous effusion, and slight adhesion of the mem
branes. During the years 1863-64, I registered at the asylum
eight cases, on the male side, of ambitious mania, accompanied by
signs of paralysis, among the native whites. Three of these patients,
admitted in 1863, left in good health after four or five months
residence in the asylum. They have not returned during 1864 and
the first eight months of 1865. Of the five other patients, one died
of acute delirium, which came on in the course of a paroxysm of
mania; three remained in the hospital, although improved; the
fifth fell into paralytic dementia, and, at the time of my leaving the
island, was almost dying, with diarrhoea, extreme wasting, sloughing
sores on the sacrum and thighs, Ac- This is the only well-developed
�386
Clinical Cases.
[Oct.,
case of paralytic dementia that has come under my observation,
either in or out of the asylum, among the native whites, since I have
practised in the island. I should mention here that these indi
viduals are generally very sober, their only drink consisting of
water, sometimes mixed with a little red wine, and that taken with
the meals. In point of excesses, the only ones they indulge in are
of a venereal nature—the climate predisposing to an increased ani
mal temperature, which is a frequent cause of excitement of the
genital organs. The repeated exposure to the sun (to which so
many are liable in the island) may also have a certain influence in
determining the attacks of mania, this form of insanity being that
most commonly observed amongst those subjects; but I have met
with several cases of general paralysis among the white natives of
Europe and North America. Thus, I had the care of, at the asy
lum, two Frenchmen, who died in a state of paralytic dementia: the
first of these was only six months in the hospital, the second suc
cumbed after a year’s residence, and both had, from the first, wellmarked ambitious delirium, hesitating speech, tremor of the lips, &c.
I have also seen two North Americans die at the asylum from
general paralysis, the disease being prolonged for eight or ten months.
These patients had, from the commencement of the disease, excessive
excitement, ambitious delirium, and embarrassed speech. An Italian,
fifty years of age, entered the asylum attacked with paralytic dementia.
He had maniacal excitement, with incoherence and embarrassment
of speech, tremor of the lips and also of the limbs, unsteady gait,
unequal pupils, ambitious delirium, and excessive emaciation. He
had had, at first, an attack of cerebral congestion. At the end of
five weeks’ residence in the asylum he became more calm, and boils
then appeared on different parts of his body, on the back, the left
arm and leg. These had the character of true carbuncles, and in
creased to the size of a five-franc piece. They ended in a free sup
puration; and, as this proceeded, the symptoms, at first undecided,
progressive^ diminished. The treatment followed m this case con
sisted in the use of repeated purgatives (aloetic pills), lemonade
alternating with sarsaparilla, and, generally, warm baths during the
paroxysm of excitement. The patient, after the fourth month of his
residence, was evidently better; he had gained flesh, slept well,
was more reasonable, and asked to see his son, the only relation he
had in the country. I do not know what was the fate of this patient,
having left him in this state on my departure from Havana. Among
the native Spaniards that we received at the asylum during three
years, I have noted about ten who were attacked with paralytic de
mentia; most of them presented at the commencement maniacal
excitement, and in all of them, without exception, I have found, from
the beginning, embarrassed speech and extreme ambitious delirium.
“ Among the white women I have only had two cases of paralytic
�1866.]
Clinical Cases.
387
dementia, and both these women were natives of the Canary Islands.
The disease had commenced, in both cases, with an attack of am
bitious mania and embarrassed speech. One of these women died
at the end of ten months' residence in the asylum; the other was
still there when I left Havana. I have also observed general
paralysis among negroes, but much less frequently than among
the native whites of the north. In a considerable number of
coloured people that I have had to treat during my three years'
residence at the Havana asylum, numbering about 300, I have noted
nine cases of general paralysis—three men and six women. I
should mention that these people are generally less sober than the
whites; the drink that they generally take is tafia (spirit from the
sugar-cane). On the other hand, they take little food, and commit
excesses of all sorts. Paralytic dementia among the negroes presents
constantly the same symptoms, progress, and termination as among
the whites. In the three well-marked cases of this affection I have
noticed among coloured men, there was from the first maniacal excite
ment, ambitious delirium, tremor of the lips, and embarrassed speech.
The disease had lasted in one case eleven months, in another thirteen,
and in another fifteen. If the sphincters have been paralysed early,
the disease has always terminated with diarrhoea, marasmus, and
gangrenous sores. In these three patients there was muscular con
traction, the neck being bent forward, with permanent flexure of the
legs on the thighs, and of the thighs on the pelvis. The autopsy
revealed, in these three subjects, the same appearances as those
mentioned by authors in ordinary paralytic dementia—viz., softening
of the cortical layer of the brain, most distinct in the anterior lobes ;
adhesion of the membranes, abundant effusion of serum, granular
state of the gray substance, and visible diminution in volume of the cere
bral mass, &c. I should remark here, that among the native negroes,
as well as among the native whites, I have observed ambitious mania,
combined with tremor of the lips and embarrassed ,speech, and it
has always terminated in paralytic dementia. I could cite two
examples of this sort which occurred to me at the Havana asylum.
It is common to find among the negroes grand delusions, not com
bined with excitement nor depression of the faculties, and without
incoherence, preserving for years the same character, and terminating
nevertheless by a weakness of the intellectual faculties. There is
often to be observed in these cases a little lassitude in the movements,
in great contrast to the natural excitement of character, which offers
a certain analogy to that of epileptics. The patient becomes more
violent, sullen, and sometimes ill-disposed. According to the figures
which I have given above, it seems that, in the black race, contrary
to what is observed in the white population, dementia is more
common among women than men. I should also remark that, of the
nine negro patients that I have noted, two thirds were natives of
�388
Clinical Cases.
[Oct.,
Africa. From this observation, we may infer that among negroes, as
among the whites, general paralysis is in Cuba much less frequent
than among foreigners. I have observed in the case of two para
lytic negresses, congestive phenomena, unusual at the commencement
as well as in the course of the disease ; a profound stupor, swelling
and redness of the face, full and frequent pulse, and absolute
mutism. These phenomena lasted some days, and then disappeared,
to return later ; but the symptoms of paralysis became more and
more marked at the end of each attack. This form of congestion
and paralysis, which is much more common in women, has been
pointed out by M. Baillarger in his clinical lectures at the Sal
pêtrière. Of six cases of ambitious mania accompanied, from the
beginning, by embarrassed speech, that I have observed in coloured
people, two thirds were of the male sex. This fact seems to me the
more curious, as I have proved the contrary to be the case in para
lytic dementia. I think I can, for the present, make from this short
paper, as far as regards paralytic dementia, the following con
clusions :—
“ 1. That paralytic dementia is, in a general way, rare in the island
of Cuba.
“2. That almost all the cases of this nature observed in this
country occur in foreign whites, and in a much smaller proportion
than that which has appeared to be the case in temperate climates.
“ 3. That among the natives this disease is rare.
“ 4. That we often find cases of ambitious mania which do not
terminate in general paralysis.
“ 5. That paralytic dementia is more common among the negroes
than the native whites, although it is more rare among them than
it is with whites of temperate countries.
“ 6. That in the black race paralytic dementia is, contrary to what
is observed in the white race, more frequent among women than
men ; while ambitious mania not followed by general paralysis is
more frequent among the latter than the former.”
�1866.]
389
PART IL—REVIEWS.
1. On Consanguineous Marriages. By Arthur Mitchell, M.D.,
Deputy-Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland. (‘ Edinburgh
Medical Journal/ March, April, June, 1865.)
2. Consanguinity in Marriage.
By William Adam.
(fThe
Fortnightly Review/ Nov. 1st and 15th, 1865.)
3. Du Danger des Manages consanguins sous le rapport sanitaire.
Par Francis Devay. Deuxième edition, refondue et aug
mentée. Paris, 1862.
4. Etude sur les Manages consanguins et sur les Croisements dans
les Règnes Animal et Végétal.
Par Antony Ciiippault.
Paris, 1863.
5. Sur la Consanguinité. Par Jules Falret. (f Archives Géné
rales de Médecine/ Février, Mars, Avril, 1865.)
One might fairly suppose that a question so commonly arising
and so often discussed as the influence of consanguine marriages
would have been definitely settled by this time. Settled, indeed, it has
been by the public long since, that such marriages are injurious; but
the insufficiency of the grounds on which this opinion has been
based is shown by the frequent appearance of opponents to this
dogma. The question seems to have lost none of its attractions by
age, and, indeed, the heretical side has displayed of late a fresh
vitality, stimulated, perhaps, by the favour that scepticism on any
subject has met with in recent times. All must admit that the in
fluence of such marriages on the offspring has a grave social impor
tance, but it is very doubtful whether, if it could be absolutely
demonstrated to be as injurious as is alleged, the world would pay
much heed to the conclusion. The large majority of marriages is
determined merely by personal attraction or passion, neither pru
dence nor a regard for future consequences entering into the ques
tion at all, and possibly the moral results are as fortunate as if
experience and age had a voice in the matter. In a few cases, and
those among the rich or titled, as a rule, the interests of wealth and
property are the main considerations ; but probably the simple
record that occurs in the sixth chapter of Genesis, “ that the sons of
vol. xii.
26
�390
Reviews.
[Oct.,
God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took
them wives of all which they chose/" represents in this day, as it
did six thousand years ago, at once the most natural and the truest
explanation.
If it were needful to point out how little influence the most ordi
nary considerations of prudence have when weighed against inclina
tion, even amongst the educated classes, it would suffice to refer to
the statistics, either of phthisis or insanity, to show, that the most
positive proof of the hereditary nature of these diseases, does not
deter the heirs of these affections from transmitting tlie seeds of
scrofula, madness, or many other evils, to not only one but any
number of future generations. Be this, however, as it may, the
problem of the influence of consanguine marriages is one which
ought to be determined in the interests of science, and there are
many, happily, who are content to work it out for its own sake,
leaving the results as a legacy by which future generations may
learn to benefit. One cannot but feel some surprise that the
physiological aspects of matrimony are at the present time so en
tirely ignored, for it is extremely rare that anything save the imme
diate welfare of the contracting parties is taken into consideration;
yet it is abundantly clear that the fate of the probable offspring is
seriously involved. M. Devay, fully alive to the importance of this
subject, commences his book by the following remarks:—
“ There exists an almost universal blindness as regards what may
be called the organic constitution of the family—that is to say, the
health of future generations. Great efforts are made to transmit to
them wealth, but little thought is given to place them under suitable
conditions for enjoying it. Great importance is attached to the
appearance of the surface, but very little to the real quality of the
ground, that is to say, the blood. The observer must feel pained
when he considers the almost constant violation of hygienic laws in
marriage ....’" This point, however, will be admitted by all;
the difficulty is to apply the remedy, and the first step in this direc
tion is to acquire more accurate knowledge bearing on the subject.
As the controversy on cousin-marriages has been revived very
lately, we propose to give some account of the more recent views put
forth on either side. It will be needful in the first place to settle
what degree of consanguinity is allowable. Mr. Adam says in his
paper—
“ On the common assumption that the human race has sprung from one
pair, all mankind, without exception, must be consanguineous either in the
direct or in the collateral line ; and if consanguinity is an absolute bar to
marriage, then marriage as an institution must cease. If the abolition of
that institution is a notion that can enter only into the reveries of fanaticism,
then there must be some limit beyond which consanguinity shall be held to
be inoperative as an objection to the marriage union, and the question is,
where is that limit to be placed ?”
�1866.]
Reviews.
391
Let ns look first at the custom of various nations in different
ages. Turning to the Old Testament history, it seems clear that
“ Cain and Seth, the sons of Adam, must each have married his own
sister ’ that Abram married his half-sister, and that “ Moses and
Aaron were the fruits of a union between Amram and Jochebed, the
sister of Amram’s father ; that is, the nephew married the aunt.”
The Levitical law, representing a different stage of civilisation,
expressly prohibited the union of son with mother and of stepson
with stepmother ; of brother with sister, whether of whole or halfblood ; and of nephew with aunt; the penalty of transgression being
the excision of the disobedient from among the people. In profane
history several writers refer to the customs prevalent among bar
barous nations, as, for instance, Euripides, in the fifth century b.c.,
who affirmed “ that amongst all barbarians the father married the
daughter, the son the mother, and the sister the brother, and that
no law forbad such connections.” Ptolemy in the second, and St.
Jerome in the fourth century, bring forward the same allegations,
but it seems doubtful whether they were quite correct.
The Assyrians, of individual nations, are expressly accused of
close consanguineous marriages, but the Persians were, it is agreed,
the greatest offenders in this respect, some writers ascribing the
practice in question to the Persians generally, others to the Magians
or ruling class, and others to individual persons of rank and
authority.
Coming down to more modern times, we find that “ in Peru the
succession to the throne of the Incas in the line of Manco Capac
was sought to be secured by the authorised marriage of brother and
sister among his descendants. Of existing savage tribes, amongst
the Maories, in New Zealand, marriages between near relatives are
said to be not infrequent, but they are not usual between brothers
and sisters. Captain Speke relates that Mtesa, the King of Uganda,
was attended at a levée by ladies ‘ who were at once his sisters and
wives.’ ”
In China consanguineous marriages are prohibited ad infinitum,
as in Roman law, and even two persons of the same surname are
forbidden to marry.
“ The Levitical law of the Jews is,” continues Mr. Adam, “ the basis of
the ecclesiastical or canon law of Christian nations, and the Roman law
contained in the institutes, code, and digest of Justinian, is the basis of
modern civil law. In the computation of degrees of consanguinity there is
a difference between these two systems of law. The canon law counts the
degrees only up to the common ancestor, the civil law also down to the
Propositus. Hence those who according to the canon law are in the first
degree are placed by the civil law in the second degree, and those who
according to the former are in the second degree are placed in the latter in
the fourth degree. The substitution of the provisions of the civil law for
those of the canon law was effected in England by the Marriage Act of
�392
Reviews.
[Oct.,
1549 in the reign of Henry VIII. The degrees prohibited by the canon
law are all within the fourth degree of consanguinity, according to the com
putation of the civil law. All collaterals, therefore, in that degree or be
yond it may marry. First cousins are in the fourth degree by the civil law,
and, therefore, may marry. Nephew and great-aunt, or niece and greatuncle, are in the fourth degree, and may marry. For the same reason, as
Burge quaintly remarks, though a man may not marry his grandmother, he
may marry her sister. Such in brief is the existing law of England, Scot
land, Ireland, and the British colonies, in regard to consanguineous mar
riages.
“According to the present law of France marriage is prohibited in the
direct line between ancestors and their descendants, whether legitimate or
illegitimate, to the remotest degree. In the collateral line marriage is pro
hibited between brothers and sisters, whether legitimate or illegitimate.
Marriage is also prohibited between uncle and niece, aunt and nephew ; but
in these cases, as in regard to the age of marriage, Government possesses
the power, on serious grounds of expediency, of dispensing with the pro
hibition.
“ In Spain and Portugal the canon law is still in full force, prohibiting
the intermarriage of those related to each other in the fourth degree, but
for special reasons permitting dispensation from that prohibition.”
In most of the United States of America marriage between an
uncle and a niece is, we read, valid, but in Louisiana and Indiana
the law is assimilated to the English.
This subject is one which, as involving the descent of property,
lias engaged the attention of jurists, some of whom have spoken very
emphatically upon it. The opinion of Dr. Taylor, the author of
‘ Elements of the Civil Law/ is stated to be as follows :—
“ AVith respect to marriages in the direct line, that is, in the line
of ascendants and descendants, he says that though some limit the
prohibition to the first degree, others to the third, the canon law
to the fourth, and others again to the twentieth, yet in his judg
ment the voice of nature interposes absolutely and indeterminately,
and such marriages are prohibited in infinitum. The principle of
this rule he holds to be, that in such cases an exclusion is laid
against those who are parentwm in numero. Nature has set a per
petual bar to every such conjunction as shall damage or confound
the consideration of parentage.”
Mr. Burge, another great authority, thought the prohibition by
the canon and civil law “ prevents that confusion of civil duties
which would be the necessary result of such marriages.” And
Chancellor Kent, of New York, considered such prohibitions to be
iC founded in the law of nature.”
Mr. Adam, however, is by no means content to accept the theory
of a natural law as sufficient ground for objection, remarking—
“ The allegation of such a law is an unsupported assumption. Where,
when, how, to whom, has nature thus spoken ? In what language has nature
declared that a man may not marry his grandmother, but has left him at
liberty to marry his grandmother’s sister ? When nature speaks, she directs
�1866.]
Reviews.
393
her authority against possible evils. But who ever thought of marrying his
grandmother, his great-grandmother, his great-great-grandmother, and so
on, without limit ? The thing is impossible; and the impossibility consti
tutes the all-sufficient reason for its not being done, without any added
prohibition or penalty. Human laws often express human folly, but nature
does not issue frivolous edicts against imaginary evils.”
This writer thinks that consanguineous marriages must be un
equivocally condemned, though not for the reasons usually held
sufficient, and sums up the question in these words :—
“ In the absence of any natural or revealed law against them, the legiti
mate inquiries will be—Do they embarrass the descent of property ? Do
they confuse our judgments of the relations of life ? Do they vitiate our
perceptions of domestic and social obligations? In reply to the first and
second of these inquiries, the answer, as far as I am able to judge, must be
that they do not embarrass the descent of property, and that they do not
confuse our judgments of the relations of life. In reply to the third, the
answer must be more doubtful. The marriage union between uncle and
niece, between nephew and aunt, and between cousins, would seem to tend
to lessen the purity and mutual confidence which for the happiness of fami
lies and the benefit of society should subsist between those near relations.
There is, however, the utmost danger of pressing this consideration with too
great rigour, for at every successive remove from the first degree in the direct
and collateral lines the confusion of relation and duty becomes less, until at
last it entirely disappears, and exists only in a morbid imagination.”
The proofs of the evils resulting from consanguine marriages most
generally relied on are those drawn from the records of disease, and
it is on this ground that the battle of opinion has been so often
fought. There are, moreover, certain morbid conditions which are
supposed to result especially from these marriages, and so firmly
established is this opinion in the public mind that it has become
quite a tradition. Knowing this, authors are apt to commence with
a foregone conclusion, and, assuming the point at issue, announce a
triumph over all objections. Thus, M. Chippault opens his first
chapter in these terms :—“ Many authors have given their opinion
in favour of the injurious nature of these marriages; some few only
have taken the opposite view, Both have brought forward proofs
in support of their opinion, but up to the present time the anticonsanguinists alone have furnished convincing proofs ! According
to these proofs it does not seem possible to me to deny the danger
of these marriages, and still, to see the ardour with which some
doctors set to work to defend them, one must needs believe that the
problem is not settled.'” Brom such a horrible conclusion he en
deavours to save his fellow-creatures by bringing up all the cases of
disease which he can ascribe to such a cause. Mere denunciation
such as this carries no weight as argument, and is enough to pre
judice most people against the writer. The facts adduced by the
anti-consanguinists are by no means numerous, many of them rest
ing on very slight proof, and these have been ([noted again and
�394
Reviews.
[Oct.,
again by every fresh writer till we begin to wonder whether a new
idea on the subject is possible. Dr. Mitchell, though himself con
vinced of the evil effects of such marriages, discusses the question
with the greatest fairness, and early in his pamphlet makes the
following remarks:—
“Both general and professional opinions on this subject rest, in no small
degree, on a peculiar and faulty kind of evidence. When we are presented
with the question, “Does consanguinity in parentage appear to injure the
offspring ?” memory searches for instances of unions of kinship, from the
history of which the answer is to be framed. Now, it is certain that all
those cases which have been marked by misfortune will be first called up,
while many of those which have exhibited no evil effect or no peculiarity of
any sort will be passed over or forgotten. The attention, in all likelihood,
has been frequently drawn to the first, while nothing may have occurred in
the progress of the last to keep alive the recollection of relationship in the
union. I need scarcely say that facts collected in this manner are almost
sure to lead to inferences beyond the truth, yet it is from such data that
conclusions on this subject have frequently, if not usually, been drawn. .
. . . Startling illustrations of calamitous sequences to cousin-marriages
have been detailed, and pointed at with a finger of warning, the relation of
cause and effect being assumed. Such a relation may have existed, but it is
equally possible that it may not, for it must always be remembered that a
blood-alliance between the parents is far from being the only cause of defective
offspring.
“ Supposing the proof complete that it is a cause, it is still only one of
many, and we cannot therefore point with confidence to a particular case,
and say positively that the calamity there is due to consanguinity of
parentage, for it may really be due to injuries in parturition, to hoopingcough, to a blow on the head, or to starvation in infancy. Consanguinity in
the parents may very decidedly tend to injure the offspring, yet it by no
means follows that every defect in the children born of blood-related parents
is an expression of this tendency, for the general causes of defect will exist
among them as among other children, anil will give results at least equally
disastrous. It is clear, therefore, that isolated cases cannot be used in this
or in any similar question to indicate the measure of the evil which may be
expected, nor even to prove its existence.”
It is often objected, that the defects so generally attributed to
these marriages arc in reality due to hereditary transmission, and not
to mere consanguinity; but Dr. Mitchell justly observes that, if
certain tendencies are liable to descend to the offspring from the first
cause, the danger is still greater when both parents are related, and
that for this reason such unions should be avoided by the prudent.
He says—“If relations by blood are liable to possess the same
morbid tendencies, and if, by pairing among themselves for procrea
tion, they are likely to transmit these tendencies in a dangerously
increased form to their children, then it is surely their duty to avoid
such unions, and to seek among strangers alliances with individuals
wore likely to possess qualities calculated to modify or counteract
the morbid predispositions in question. It may be that there is
absolutely nothing whatever in the bare fact of consanguinity, and
�1866.]
Reviews.
395
that a marriage of kinship should be avoided on the same grounds
as a marriage between any man and woman both predisposed say to
insanity. In the case of cousins, though there may be nothing
common to them of so marked a character as a declared tendency to
insanity, still there may be common to them any one of a hundred
transmissible peculiarities, which it would be very undesirable to
send down to their children in an exaggerated form. Even a strong
temperament common to both might thus be intensified into disease
in their offspring.'”
It may happen, of course, that in the case of two cousins one
may possess qualities the best suited to neutralize those peculiarities
in the other which it would be undesirable to have transmitted to
their children; but the chances are the other way, as the inherited
qualities of relations must be in great measure derived from a common
source.
The chief defects commonly held to result from consanguine
marriages are insanity, idiocy, and deaf-mutism; at least, these are
the most important, and it is to them we would direct our attention.
It would be easy to collect a number of startling cases in proof of
the ill consequences of these marriages, but such evidence is worth
very little for a general conclusion. The fairest method of investi
gation seems to be, 1st, to take, as Dr. Mitchell proposes, a large
number of cases of the defects ascribed to kin marriages, and deter
mine in what proportion the parents were related; 2nd, to investi
gate the family history of every marriage in a given locality,
comparing the results of those in which the parents were related with
those in which there was no such kinship. In the first case the
number examined must be very large in order to make the inquiry
fair, and in the second the investigation should be carried over
a large field, and with scrupulous exactness.
Dr. Mitchell’s official position has enabled him to investigate the
subject in both these methods, in a way that private individuals
could hardly attain, and, though he modestly announces he has
“succeeded in doing a little,” other people will probably consider
that he has done a great deal, and has at considerable cost of time
and labour collected a mass of most valuable information.
He
says that, in visiting lunatics in private dwellings, the relationship
of the parents has been generally inquired into, and that, during
1860 and 1861, he made careful inquiry in every case in nine
counties, viz., in Aberdeen, Bute, Clackmannan, Fife, Kincardine,
Kinross, Perth, Ross and Cromarty, and Wigtown. These districts
include a large portion of Scotland, and represent a population of
716,210. The investigation was attended with great difficulties,
it may be easily imagined, and the result is given as follows :
“The whole number of idiots examined was 711, including those in receipt
as well as those not in receipt, of parochial aid. Of these, 421 were aster-
�396
Reviews.
[Oct.,
tained to be the children of parents not related by blood, and 98 were the
offspring of parents between whom there was a more or less close kinship.
In 84 instances the relationship was not known, and 108 of the whole
number were born out of wedlock. In a tabular form the results stand
thus:
(1) Whole uumber of idiots and imbeciles examined
(2) Of these—illegitimate ......
„
parentage not known
....
(3) Total number whose parentage was known
Of these—parents not related
....
„
parents related...................................
711
. 108
. 84
— 192
519
. 421
. 98
..
519
“ Taking the whole number of idiots examined, including both the ille
gitimate and those of whose parentage I could learn nothing, we have 13’6
per cent, of the entire number born of parents between whom there was a
blood relationship. In order, therefore, to believe that such relationship
does not influence the amount of idiocy, marriages of kinship would require
in these counties to be to other marriages in the ratio of 1 to 7, which they
notoriously are not, though, unfortunately, no facts exist to show precisely
their relative frequency. I think, however, that it may be regarded as
certain that such a ratio is about ten times higher than the reality.
“ But in order properly to test this influence of consanguinity, we must at
least deduct the cases of whose parentage I could obtain no information.
Those acquainted with the difficulties of such investigations will admit that
the number of these is not great. This deduction then being made, the pro
portion rises at once to 15 6 per cent. This last may be regarded as refer
ring to the whole community, since there is no reason for supposing that
among the 84 of whose parentage nothing was ascertained a greatly different
proportion would be found to be the offspring of blood-alliances.
“ It may appear to some that a further deduction should be made. The
paternity of the illegitimate is practically an unknown thing, and I have else
where shown that illegitimacy itself tends to produce defective children.
The illegitimate idiots should, therefore, be deducted, so that those idiots
born in marriage of parents related by blood may be compared with those
born in marriage of parents not so related. If this be done it will be found
that the former constitute 18'9 per cent, of the latter. Instead, therefore,
of every seventh or eighth marriage in the community, we should require
every fifth or sixth, to be between persons related by blood to each other, in
order to show that consanguinity of parentage does not influence the amount
of idiocy. *
“ Of the 98 idiots whose parents were related, the degree of relationship
was as follows:
Cousins in
........ 42 cases.
Second cousins in . .
.
.
.
.
. 35 ,,
Third cousins in
. .
.
.
.
.
. 21 ,,
98 „
“During the course of these investigations 64 cases came to my know
ledge in which more than one idiot existed in the family. In all of these
but 5 I obtained the history of the parents. In the remaining 59 no less
than 26 instances of blood-relationship occurred, or 44 per cent. This is an
instructive fact, showing that when we select cases in which the tendency to
�1866.]
Reviews.
397
idiocy appears with force, then kinship of parentage also presents itself with
a marked increase of frequency. Thus, while it appears that in nearly 1
out of every 2 cases in which more than one idiot, occurs in a family, con
sanguinity of parentage is found; in those cases, on the other hand, where
only one idiot occurs, such relationship only exists in 1 out of 5 or 6 cases.”
Of these 59 cases, the parents were related in twenty-six in
stances, giving 74 idiot children ; while in 33 the parents were
not related, and produced 76 idiots.
He adds:
“ The idiocy of our country is not due to one but to a great many things,
each of which contributes its share to make up the whole; one cause may
be more powerful than another, but each influences the total amount. The
facts which have been detailed render it very probable, if they do not prove,
that a blood alliance between parents is one of these causes, influencing
unfavorably the amount of idiocy in the land, but they do not exhibit
definitely the measure of this influence, though they may aid us in esti
mating it.
“There are many causes of idiocy which are undoubtedly of greater
power than kinship of parentage. Hooping-cough, scarlatina, and measles,
for instance, produce a large amount of the idiocy of Scotland, as they do
probably of other countries. Hooping-cough, in particular, is often followed
by imbecility or idiocy. We are too apt to think of idiocy as a congenital
condition. In point of fact, however, a large proportion of the idiocy of the
country has an extra-uterine origin, and, strictly speaking, is acquired and
not congenital.”
Deaf-mutism is perhaps the most notorious consequence of such
marriages, and the most easily traced out. According to M. Chip*
pault, there are about 250,000 deaf-mutes in Europe, and in
France there were (at the census of 1858) 21,321, 12,101 being
males, and 9,220 females. These statistics have been well analysed
by French authors, who conclude that it is impossible to deny the
fact that more deaf-mutes are born from related than from non
related parents, and M. Boudin is prepared to specify the pro
portion, viz., twelve to fifteen times greater in the former than in
the latter.
Inquiry into the statistics of ten of the Scotch and English deaf
and dumb institutions, showed a total of 544 pupils, representing
504 families, and among these the number of pupils whose parents
were related was 28, from 24 families.
Deducting 25 per
cent, for cases of acquired deaf-mutism, we have about one in
twenty resulting from consanguine marriages :
“ It will be observed,” says Dr. Mitchell, “ that the 24 cousin-marriages
yielded 28 deaf-mutes. Had the same proportion existed through the entire
number of pupils, they ought to have been represented by 466 instead of
504 families. There is therefore a greater frequency of two defective
members in one family when dealing with the offspring of blood-relations
* ‘ Etude sur les Mariagcs consanguins,’ p. 17.
�I
I
398
Reviews.
[Oct.,
than when dealing with others. In the Irish returns (1851) this is still
more evident. 154 cousin-marriages, in which deaf-mutism occurred, yielded
no less than 235 mute members.
“Dr. Peet, in his thirty-fifth annual report, in analysing Wilde’s ‘ Statics
of Disease,’ says, that it appears that ‘ of the Irish deaf and dumb, from
birth, about 1 in 16 were the offspring of parents who were related within
the degrees of first, second, or third cousins.’ This does not differ greatly
from the estimate which I have formed for Great Britain. Supposing
cousin-marriages to be to others as 1 to 70, it will follow, Dr. Peet says,
that congenital deafness appears at least four times, perhaps five times, as
often from a marriage between cousins as from a marriage between persons
not related.
“Of the 235 deaf-mutes in Ireland who were the offspring of cousins,
only 7 were cases of acquired deafness. This is greatly below the proportion
in the deaf-mute population of all Ireland, which shows 11 per cent, of
acquired deafness and 7 per cent, uncertain. Instead of 7, therefore, there
should have been 26 cases of acquired deafness. In other words, deafmutism, as it appears among the children of cousins, seems to be to a larger
extent congenital than when it appears among the children of persons not
related to each other by blood.”
This gentleman goes on to relate the results of his inquiries into
the history of the families in certain districts he visited, and the
places chosen are particularly suited for the purpose, being isolated,
and having but little communication with the general population.
As an instance, we will take the island of Scalpay. It has been
supposed that marriages of consanguinity were very prevalent in
the western highlands and islands, but the official ret urns of Scalpay
do not at all support the idea. Dr. Mitchell is of opinion that
popular report exaggerates, and official returns understate, the facts.
He reported on thirty-five cases of insanity in the island, and of
these, thirty-one were idiots or imbeciles, while twelve of the whole
were the offspring of parents related in different degrees. He
remarks—
“ On the supposition that this relationship has no influence on the pro
duction of idiocy, we should expect to find it in one third of all unions in
the island. This, however, would greatly exaggerate the frequency of such
marriages. So that, after deducting freely for other causes of idiocy, many
of which are unusually strong in this island, there still remains a large
measure of this calamity, which with good reason we may regard as due to
consanguineous marriages.
“Bodily malformations are frequent in the Lewis. In the parish of Uig
harelip is very common. Nine cases were brought to my own knowledge.
In the Lewis, and the parishes opposite to it on the mainland, I saw five
cases in which there were supernumerary little fingers, one in which there
were two thumbs, and one in which the fingers and toes were webbed.
Curvature of the spine, deformity, and lameness, were often seen in the
island. Cases of congenital blindness and deaf-mutism are also numerous.
I saw seven epileptics, several instances of chorea, and many of paralysis.”
In another page lie gives an account of the population of a small
town on the north-east coast of Scotland, the details of which are
very instructive :
�Tieviews.
399
“The fishing population is estimated at 779, and contains 119 married
couples, and about 60 widows and widowers with or without families.
“ Of the 119 married couples, in 11 cases the union is between full cousins,
and in 16 between second consins; or, in other words, in 27 instances there
is a blood-relationship. This is in the proportion of 1 to 4'4 of all marriages.
Of these 27 marriages, including 3 which are barren, 105 children have been
born. Of these children, 38 are dead (35 having died in childhood), 4 are
deaf-mute, 4 are imbecile, 4 are slightly silly (‘ want a cast ’), 1 is paralytic,
and 11 are scrofulous and weakly. In other words, 24 out of the 67 living
children labour under defects of body or mind, while 1 in 17 is an avowed
imbecile, and 1 in 8’4 is weak in mind. These facts are of such a character
as to lead us to suspect that more than one of the causes of idiocy must be
strong in this community.
“The children of those who are full cousins are described as being ‘all
of them neither strong in mind nor in body,’ and the fishers of this place, as
a class, are said to be ‘ below par in intellect.’ In this last opinion I am
inclined to concur. It is true, I believe, not of this locality alone, but of
nearly all the fishing villages which fringe the north-east coast of Scotland.
There is a general lowering of the physical and mental strength in these
communities, which is popularly attributed to this system of in-and-in
breeding. When compared with the agricultural population, or with the
tradespeople of the small towns in the neighbourhood, they are, as a race,
inferior both in bodily vigour and intellectual capacity, while their thrift
lessness and want of foresight are notorious. This opinion is founded
on personal observation, as well as on the testimony of others.”
The conclusions Dr. Mitchell has arrived at, as the result of his
most laborious investigations, are as follows :—
“ 1. That consanguinity in parentage tends to injure the offspring.
That this injury assumes various forms. That it may show itself
in diminished viability at birth; in feeble constitutions, increasing
the risk of danger from the invasion of strumous disease in
after-life; in bodily defects and malformations; in deprivation or
impairment of the senses, especially those of hearing and sight;
and, more frequently than in any other way, in errors and dis
turbances of the nervous system, as in epilepsy, chorea, paralysis,
imbecility, idiocy, and moral and intellectual insanity.
That
sterility or impaired reproductiveness is another result of consan
guinity in marriage, but not one of such frequent occurrence as has
been thought.
“ 2. That when the children seem to escape, the injury may show
itself in the grandchildren; so that there may be given to the
offspring by the kinship of their parents a potential defect which
may become actual in their children, and thenceforward perhaps
appear as an hereditary disease.
“ 3. That many isolated cases, and even groups of cases, present
themselves in which no injurious result can be detected. That this
may occur even when all other circumstances are of an unfavorable
character.
“ 4. That, as regards mental disease, unions between blood
relations influence idiocy and imbecility more than they do the
�400
Reviews.
[Oct.,
acquired forms of insanity, or those which show themselves after
childhood.
“ 5. That the amount of idiocy in Scotland is to some extent
increased by the prevalence of consanguine marriages, but that the
frequency of these marriages does not appear to be so great as has
been generally supposed?'’
There are other peculiarities besides the above recognised as due
to the same influences; for instance, harelip, epilepsy, &c. M.
Liebreich, of Berlin, too, has described a disease by the name of
pigmentary retinitis, which he found among the deaf-mutes, and
particularly among those whose parents were related, one half of the
cases coming under the latter category. His observations have been
carried on in Paris and other places, and always with the same
results. But perhaps the most curious anomaly illustrating this
subject is found in the pages of M. Devay ; it is as follows :—
*
“There is in the department of Isère, not far from the Côte-Saint-André
et de Rives, quite a small village, called Izeaux, isolated and lost, as it
were, in the midst of the uncultivated plain of Bièvre. The roads and
means of communication in this unfertile spot were difficult, if not imprac
ticable. The inhabitants of Izeaux, simple and almost abandoned to them
selves, had very little to do with the surrounding population, and inter
married constantly and frequently within the limits of the same family. At
the end of the last century, as a consequence of these marriages of relations,
a singular abnormality arose, which some forty years ago affected nearly all
the inhabitants. In this community, both men and women acquired a sixth
digit, i. e. a supplementary one both on the feet and hands.
“ ‘When, in 1829 and in 1836,’ says M. Pottou, ‘ I observed this strange
phenomenon, it only existed in a more or less rudimentary condition ; with
some it was only a large tubercle, in the centre of which was a hard bony
substance, terminated by a nail more or less formed, and fixed to the outer
side of the base of the thumb. The person who accompanied me, although
non-medical, pointed out to me that a happy change was observable in this
defect of growth since the habits of the people bad been modified, since the
roads had improved, and communication had become more frequent with
other places, in a word, since the races had mixed more freely. In 1847 I
saw a native of this locality, who had settled at Lyons. He had the pecu
liarity mentioned, but had four children who were without their father’s
defect. At the present time this anomaly has almost completely dis
appeared.’ ”
Another curious fact in connection with this subject is mentioned
by M. Chippault (p. 76) :—
“In a report addressed to the Minister of the Interior in 1861, M. de
Watteville stated that the number of deaf-mutes varied in France according
to the district, and that he found in twenty-two departments of a mountain
ous nature there was 1 deaf-mute in 1158 inhabitants, and in twenty-five
departments in which the country was flat and cultivated there was 1 in
every 2285. There were, then, twice as many deaf-mutes in the mountain
ous as there were in the flat country. The explanation is easy, for in the
* ‘ Du Danger des Mari iges consanguins,’ p. 95.
�18G6.J
Report on the Progress of Psychological Medicine.
401
mountainous districts the inhabitants have, so to speak, no relations with
the outer world ; in certain places they even remain attached to their
native place and never leave it. Under these conditions the marriage field
is very restricted, and the evil results of consanguinity are very numerous.”
M. Chippault is so impressed with this view of the subject that
he urges that consanguine marriages should be prohibited by law.
M. Jules Falret, on the other hand, "who has given a most able
résumé of the recent views on this question, thinks that fresh
researches are needed before the question can be considered as
settled in a scientific point of view, and adds—
“ To form a legitimate conclusion, by exclusion, on the real influence of
consanguinity as a cause of particular infirmities or diseases in descendants,
we must first have eliminated all other physical or moral causes which,
either in parents or children, may account for the production of these
diseases or anomalies of organisation.”
Such is the present state of the question, and it seems to us the
balance of evidence is certainly in favour of the popular notion, but
the strict proof is far from being as complete as it is generally
considered to be.
G. Mackenzie Bacon.
PART III.—QUARTERLY REPORT ON THE PROGRESS
OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE.
English Psychological Literature.
By S. W. D. Williams, M.D., L.R.C.P.L., Assistant Medical
Officer of the Sussex Lunatic Asylum, Hayward's Heath.
On the Morbid Anatomy of the Nervous Centres in General Paralysis
of the Insane.
By J. Lockhart Clarke, F.R.S., &c.
(‘ Lancet,’ September 1st, 1866.)
We give this essay of Mr. Lockhart Clarke's on the Morbid Ana
tomy of the Brain in Paralytic Insanity in full. It does not admit
of abbreviation.
“The principal morbid appearance (he writes) that has been
�402
Report on the Progress
[Oct.,
described by pathologists as constant in general paralysis, is to be
found in the blood-vessels of the brain. It was first pointed out by
Wedl and Rokitansky, and has since been more fully described by
Drs. Salomon and Sankey. These observers have shown that many
of the capillaries and smaller arteries become wavy, more or less
tortuous, or convoluted into knots. ‘ There appears/ says Dr.
Sankey, ‘ to be some amount of tortuosity in the capillaries of every
case of general paresis. This tortuosity in places amounts to a
simple sharp curve or twist; in places to a kinking of the vessel;
in others, to a more complete twisting, until it forms, in fact, little
knots of varicose vessels of very complicated kind/ * These appear
ances are well seen in preparations which Dr. Sankey was kind
enough to show me, as well as in my own, and I have found them,
to a certain extent, in the brain of every case of general paresis that
I have examined; but they are much more striking in some cases
than in others, and I agree with Dr. Sankey so far, that the amount
of alteration is not always in proportion to the length of date, degree
of imbecility, or of impaired motility. In an old woman who had
been for a great many years an inmate of Hanwell Asylum, and
whom I saw only two or three weeks before her death, I found the
vessels of the cerebral hemispheres less altered in shape than in most
other cases of much shorter duration.
“ But the capillaries and small arteries which are thus thrown out
of their usual course are also surrounded by a fibrous and cellular
covering, or kind of sheath, which invests them somewhat loosely,
and frequently contains grouped or isolated nuclei, fatty particles,
and granules or grains of hannatoidin, of a brown or yellowish tint.
This secondary sheath is described by Rokitansky, Wedl, Sankey,
and others, as an abnormal deposit of hypertrophied connective
tissue, ‘ fitting, as it were, more or less closely to the vessel, in
greater or less degree of transparency and extent, in some cases
approaching a brownish hue, and marked by transverse lines like
commencing contractions .... Whether this excess (of connective
tissue fibres) is from what Rokitansky calls overgrowth of the origi
nal connective medium, or is thrown out by the capillaries, or is
formed conjointly by both, is, and must probably remain, hypo
thetical/ f
“ Rokitansky and Wedl believe that this investing substance is
formed from a material thrown out by the capillaries, and that in
the first stage the material is hyaline; that it afterwards contracts;
that in contracting it throws the capillaries into bends or kinks;
that as it goes on contracting it becomes less hyaline, more fibrous,
and at length like a sheath, f They do not, however, consider it as
* ‘Journal of Mental Science,’ No. 48, 1864; and ‘Lectures on Mental Dis
eases.’
f Sankey, loc. cit.
+ Ibid.
�1866.]
of Psychological Medicine.
403
peculiar to general paralysis, having observed it in other forms of
cerebral disease ; but still they describe it as an abnormal product,
and as assuming the appearance of a sheath in morbid cases only.
“ Now it is very important to be aware that in every healthy brain,
or at least in every brain that on examination is usually considered
healthy, a great number of the capillaries and small arteries are sur
rounded by secondary sheaths, precisely similar in all essential parti
culars to those which have been considered as morbid products in
general paralysis and other cerebral affections. This anatomical fact
was, I believe, first pointed out, about eleven years ago, by M. Robin
of Paris, and was afterwards made the subject of a paper, with
engravings, in the second volume of the ‘ Journal de Physiologie/
from which I extract the following passage :—
“ On trouve normalement autour d’un certain nombre des'capillaires du
cerveau, de la moelle, de l’épendyme, et de la pie-mère, une enveloppe
épaisse de 1 à 2 millièmes de millimètre, composée d’une substance homogène
ou à peine striée. Elle s’étend sous forme d’une tunique adventice, ou
extérieure à bords nets, mais onduleux depuis les capillaires, qui ont 1 à 2
centièmes de millimètre, en dehors même de la tunique de tissu lamineux de
ces derniers. Elle est distante de 1 à 3 centièmes de millimètre des parois
propres du capillaire qu’elle enveloppe. Or, cet espace est tantôt rempli
d’un liquide incolore mêlé de granulations moléculaires, tantôt de petits
noyaux libres, sphériques, larges de 5 millièmes de millimètre. Ces noyaux
sont tantôt rares, écartés, de manière à laisser voir les parois propres du
capillaire, tantôt ils sont contigus, ou au moins assez rapprochés pour
masquer les noyaux ovoïdes allongés de ces parois. Dans tous les cas,........
on trouve toujours, chez les sujets qui ont dépassé quarante à quarante-cinq
ans, des amas de granulations graisseuses, ou des granulations graisseuses
isolées, atteignant jusqu’à 2 centièmes de millimètre, qui sont dans cet espace
entre les parois propres du capillaire et cette tunique transparente extérieure.
Mais surtout on y trouve aussi, entre les petits noyaux ronds ci-dessus, une
grande quantité de granulationset de grains très-gros d’hématosine amorphe.
Ces grains d’hématosine peuvent atteindre jusqu’à 2 centièmes de millimètre,
et sont isolés ou réunis plusieurs les uns à côté des autres. Ils ne sont jamais
accompagnés de globules sanguins, et semblent provenir d’hématosine qui
aurait exsudé des parois propres des capillaires, et se serait déposée entre
ces parois et la tunique transparente à bords souvent onduleux, décrite
ci-dessus.”*
“ The author goes on to say that he has not found this special
sheath around the capillaries anywhere else than in the white and
gray substances of the cerebro-spinal nervous centres ; that it does
not belong to all the vessels, and that he is unable to say precisely
to what its presence or absence is due ; but that he has found it in
every cerebrum and cerebellum in which he has looked for it.f
“ My own observations confirm the general correctness of this
description and of the remaining statements of the author. 1 have
found such sheaths around a variable number of blood-vessels in the
* Page 513.
f Page 544.
�404
Tieport on the Progress
[Oct.,
brains of persons who have died without any apparent cerebral dis
order ; and one of these brains belonged to a fine, powerful, and
liealtliy-looking young man, who was killed by an accident in the
*
street.
“ Yet, on comparing vertical sections of the convolutions of a
healthy brain with those of a brain from a person who has died of
general paralysis, a striking difference between them is often observ
able even to the naked eye. In the latter case, a series of streaks or
lines may frequently be seen radiating through the white and gray
substances towards the surface; and in vertical sections of convolu
tions that have been hardened in chromic acid, it is very common to
perceive, in the white substance especially, what seems at first sight
to be a number of vertical fissures and oval slits, which, under the
microscope, however, are found to contain blood-vessels surrounded
by sheaths like those already described. But the sheaths in these
cases are often less delicate; they are thicker, more conspicuous, and
frequently darker than in the healthy brain; and sometimes, espe
cially when the vessels are convoluted, they appear as fusiform dila
tations along their course. Moreover, while in the healthy brain the
granules or grains of hsematoisin are commonly scanty, and frequently
absent altogether, in general paralysis they mostly abound, being
scattered in some places, and collected into groups in others. So
much for the state of the cerebral blood-vessels in general paresis. In
the nerve-cells of the convolutions I have frequently discovered cer
tain structural changes, which, as far as I am aware, have not been
mentioned by other observers. These changes consist of an increase
in the number of the contained pigment-granules, which in some in
stances completely fill the cell. In other instances the cell loses its
sharp contour, and looks like an irregular heap of particles ready to
fall asunder, t
“ A Trench writer, M. Joirc, has stated that, during an experience
of three years, he has always found in cases of general paralysis a
peculiar alteration of structure in the fourth ventricle of the brain.
This alteration consists of the formation of a considerable number of
granulations resembling the elevations produced on the skin under
the influence of cold. At an early stage of the disease the granula
tions are numerous and small, and suggest the idea of a surface
* It was this brain chiefly that I employed in my “ Researches on the Minute
Anatomy of the Cerebral Convolutions.” (‘Proceedings of the Royal Society/
vol. xii, No. 57.)
+ These are not to be confounded with the “ granule” or “ exudation” cells of
authors. The tilling of the nerve-cells with pigment-granules, as an early stage of
degeneration, I formerly pointed out in diseases of the spinal cord and of other
parts. (Beale’s ‘Archives of Medicine,’ No. xiii.) Dr. Hughes Bennett had also
described fatty degeneration and consequent disintegration of nerve-cells of the
nervous centres. This distinguished pathologist has repsesented the change in
Fig. 105 of his great work on ‘ The Principles and Practice of Medicine,’ fourth
edition.
�of Psychological Medicine.
1866.]
405
covered with grains of sand. In older cases the granules are larger,
and afford a rough sensation to the touch. They are most remark
able at the point of the calamus scriptorius.
*
“The appearance described by M. Joire is quite familiar to me,
but I have not always found it in general paralysis ; and it is cer
tainly not peculiar to this disease, for I found it in cases of an
entirely different nature. In Beale’s ‘ Archives of Medicine’ (No.
ix, 1861) I recorded a remarkable case of muscular atrophy, in
which, together with lesions of the cord, this granular appearance on
the floor of the fourth ventricle was very strikingly manifested. I
then showed that it was due to hypertrophy of the ordinary epithe
lium by which the ventricle is lined. It may be well to reproduce
my description. f The whole floor of the fourth ventricle presented
a very peculiar and unnatural aspect. Instead of being smooth and
shiny, as in the healthy state, it was entirely paved with a multitude
of granulations or small rounded eminences, which were very closely
aggregated, but differed from each other considerably in size. I
removed some of them for examination, first by scraping them off
from the surface, to which they adhered with considerable tenacity ;
and then by shaving off a section, together with a thin layer of the
subjacent tissue. When examined by a sufficiently high magnifying
power, the granulations or eminences were seen to consist of globular
aggregations of the ordinary epithelial cells, which, in a natural or
healthy state, are arranged side by side, and form a smooth or
level surface on the floor of the ventricle. The tissue immediately
subjacent, and which consists of exceedingly fine fibres proceeding
from the tapering ends of the epithelial cells, and running in various
directions, was more abundant than usual; and—as might be ex
pected from the homologous relation of this part to that which
surrounds the spinal canal — it was interspersed with corpora
amylacea, but certainly not to a corresponding extent.’!
“ In protracted cases of general paralysis the spinal cord is mostly,
if not always, more or less affected. In some instances I have found
it softened in certain parts to the consistence of cream. In other
instances, in which there was little or no external appearance of
softening, I have found numerous areas of granular and fluid disin
tegration within and around the gray substance.”
* ‘ Gazette Médicale de Paris,’ Aug., 1864.
f Beale’s ‘Archives of Medicine,’ No. ix, Oct., 1861, p. 18.
VOL. XII.
27
�406
lieport on the Progress
[Oct.,
Practical Observations on Insanity of Feeling and of Action.
By Henry Maijdsley, M.D. Lond.
(‘ Lancet,’ June 23rd, 1866.)
,
Dr. Maudsley publishes in the (Lancet’ some observations on the
vexed question of Moral Insanity. “ It is well known (he says) that
Dr. Prichard described, under the name of Moral Insanity, a variety
of mental derangement which has been the occasion of angry and
contemptuous reprobation by many who, without experience, but not
without self-confidence, have not cared to recollect Dr. Prichard’s
great experience and high philosophical character. The name was
perhaps ill chosen, and some of the examples which he brought for
ward in support of his opinion properly belonged to other recognised
forms of mental disease; but when these admissions have been made,
it still remains an unquestionable fact that there do occur in practice
actual cases of mental disorder in which, without any illusion, hallu
cination, or delusion, the derangement is exhibited in a perverted
state of what are called the active and moral powers of the mind—
the feelings, affections, propensities, and conduct. Experience esta
blishes, so far as experience can establish anything, the existence of
such a variety of insanity, whatever name it may be thought best to
give it. Moral insanity is an objectionable term, because it is not
sufficiently exact, and because it lends some show of justice to the
cavils of those who suspect the design of making out all sorts of
vice and crime to be insanity. But Dr. Prichard never for a moment
thought that a vicious act, or a crime, however extreme, was any
proof of moral insanity; for he expressly insists upon tracing the
disorder in each case to some recognised cause of disease. ‘There
is often,’ he says, ‘ a strong hereditary tendency to insanity. The
individual has previously suffered from an attack of madness of a
decided character; there has been some great moral shock, as a loss
of fortune; or there has been some severe physical shock, as an
attack of paralysis or epilepsy, or some febrile or inflammatory dis
order, which has produced a perceptible change in the habitual state
of the constitution. In all these cases there has been an alteration
in the temper and habits.’
“ Now, if, after a cause that is known to be capable of producing
every kind of insanity, a person in good social position, possessed of
the feelings belonging to such social state, does undergo a great
change of character, lose all good feelings, and, from being truthful,
modest, and discreet, becomes a shameless liar, shamelessly vicious,
and outrageously perverse, then it is surely impossible not to see the
�1866.]
of Psychological Medicine.
407
effects of disease. Or, again, if a person of religious habit of mind,
and hitherto without reproach in all the relations of life, does, under
conditions known in many instances to lead to insanity, suddenly
become desperately suicidal or homicidal, what avails it to point out
that he or she knows the nature of the act, and thereupon to affirm
that there is no insanity ? It were neither more nor less true to
assert that the man whose limbs are painfully convulsed is not suf
fering from disease because he is conscious of the wrong action of
his limbs—because he knows that he is convulsed. But if the evi
dence drawn from its own nature and causation were insufficient, the
fact that it is often the immediate forerunner of the severest forms
of mental disease might suffice to teach the pathological interpre
tation of the condition commonly described as moral insanity, but
which would be better called Affective InsanityP
Dr. Maudsley relates two cases which came under his care and
observation, as examples of such mental derangement without posi
tive intellectual alienation. In the first of them the attack was
clearly traceable to a strong hereditary predisposition, in conjunction
with physical and mental depression arising from the suckling of a
child and from frequent and long absence from home of the
husband.
A married lady, aged thirty-one, who had only one child, a few months
old, was for months afflicted with the strongest and most persistent suicidal
impulse, without any delusion or any disorder of the intellect. After some
weeks of zealous attention and anxious care from her relatives, who were all
most unwilling to send her from among them, it was found absolutely neces
sary to send her to an asylum, her suicidal attempts were so numerous, so
cunningly devised, and so desperate. On admission she was most wretched
because of her frightful impulse, and often wept bitterly, deploring piteously
the great grief and trouble she was to her friends. She was quite rational,
even in her horror and reprobation of the morbid propensity; and all the
fault which could possibly be found with her intellect was that it was enlisted
in the service of the morbid impulse. She had as complete a knowledge of
the character of her insane acts as any indifferent bystander could have, but
she was completely powerless to resist them. Her attempts at self-destruction
were varied and unceasing. At times she would seem quite cheerful, so as to
throw her attendants off their guard, and then would make with quick and
sudden energy a preconcerted attempt. On one occasion she secretly tore
her night-dress into strips while an attendant was close by, and was detected
in the attempt to strangle herself with them. For some time she endeavoured
to starve herself by refusing all food, and it was necessary to feed her by means
of the stomach-pump. The anxiety which she caused was almost intolerable,
but no one could grieve more over her miserable state than she did herself.
Sometimes she would become cheerful and seem quite well for a day or two,
but would then relapse into as bad a state as ever. After she had been in
the asylum for four months she appeared to be undergoing a slow and steady
improvement, and it was generally thought, as it was devoutly hoped, that
one had seen the last of her suicidal attempts. Watchfulness was somewhat
relaxed, when one night she suddenly slipped out of a door which had care
lessly been left unlocked, climbed a high garden-wall with surprising agility,
and ran off to a reservoir of water, into which she threw herself headlong.
�408
Report on the Progress
[Oct.,
She was got out before life was quite extinct, and after this all but successful
attempt she never made another, but gradually regained her cheerfulness and
her love of life. The family was strongly saturated with insanity.
In face of such an instance of uncontrollable impulse—and it is
not very singular—what a cruel mockery to measure the lunatic’s
responsibility by his knowledge of right and wrong! In Dr.
Maudsley’s other case the morbid impulse, not less desperate, was
homicidal.
An old lady, aged seventy-two, who had several members of her family
insane, was afflicted with recurring paroxysms of convulsive excitement, in
which she always made desperate attempts to strangle her daughter, who was
very kind and attentive to her, and of whom she was very fond. Usually
she sat quiet, depressed and moaning because of her condition, and appa
rently was so feeble as scarcely to be able to move. Suddenly she would
jump up in great excitement, and, shrieking out that she must do it, make a
rush upon her daughter that she might strangle her. During the paroxysms
she was so strong and writhed so actively that one person cold not hold her;
but after a few minutes she sank down, quite exhausted, and, panting, would
exclaim, “ There, there ! I told you ; you would not believe how bad I was.”
No one could detect any distinct delusion in her mind; the paroxysm had
all the appearance of a mental convulsion; and had she unhappily succeeded
in her frantic attempts, it would certainly have been impossible to say
honestly that she did not know that it was wrong to strangle her daughter.
In such event, therefore, she ought legally to have been hanged, though one
may doubt whether the juridical farce could have been played out, so pal
pably insane and irresponsible was she.
“ These cases are examples of uncontrollable impulse without mani
fest intellectual disorder; they properly belong to what might be
described as the impulsive variety of affective insanity. It is not
true, as some have said, that the morbid impulse is the entire dis
ease ; the patient’s whole manner of feeling, the mode of his affection
by events, is more or less perverted, and the springs of his action,
therefore, are disordered; the morbid impulse is the outward symp
tom of a deeper lying disease of the affective life, which is truly more
dangerous than disease of the intellectual life, because its tendency
is to express itself, not as intellectual derangement does, in words,
but in actions. Man feels, thinks, and acts; in other words, has
feeling, cognition, and volition. The feelings mirror the real nature
of the individual, and it is from their depths that the impulses of
action come, while the function of the intellect is to guide and to
control. Consequently, when there is perversion of the affective life
there will be morbid feeling and morbid action, which the intellect
acnnot check nor control, just as, when there is disease of the spinal
cord, there may be convulsive movement, of which there is conscious
ness, but which the will cannot restrain. The existence of dangerous
insanity of action and feeling, without marked intellectual derange
ment, is in strict accordance, not only with the physiology of the
�1866.]
of Psychological Medicine.
409
nervous centres, but also with the first principles of a sound psycho
logy ; it is established also beyond all possibility of question by the
observation of actual cases of insanity.
On the Functions of the Cerebellum,.
Dr. Davey has addressed the following letter to the editor of the
*Lancet’ on the Functions of the Cerebellum:—
“ In your review of Professor Owen’s ‘ Comparative Anatomy and Phy
siology’ I find it stated that his views are adverse to the existence of any
relation between the cerebellum and the sexual instinct as maintained by
Dr. Gall, but in favour of its more or less intimate connection with loco
motive power. With reference to this point, perhaps some of your readers
may be interested to know that at the meeting of the British Association at
Bath, in 1864, Mr. Prideaux, a warm advocate of the general soundness of
Gall’s views as to the special functions of different portions of the brain, read
a paper on the ‘ Functions of the Cerebellum,’ in which he adduced evidence
to show that the central and lateral lobes had separate functions; the median
lobe, or vermiform process, being the great ganglion of the nerves of mus
cular resistance, giving a perception of the position of the body and its
relation to gravity, and being constantly developed in the ratio of the animal’s
locomotive power and capacity for balancing the body during rapid motion ;
the lateral lobes being the great ganglion of the nerves of cutaneous sensi
bility, and always developed in proportion to the development of the cuticular
system of nerves.
“ These views were sought to be enforced by a comparison of the nervous
system and physiological manifestations of birds, cetaceans, and bats. The
cetaceans were illustrations of the extreme development of the cuticular
system of nerves, and equally so of the lateral lobes of the cerebellum. In
the porpoise the size of the cerebellum, compared with the cerebrum, was
as 1 to 2J, this unusual bulk being due to the enormous development of the
lateral lobes, which equalled in absolute size those of man.
“ In birds the development of the cuticular system was at a minimum, and
equally so that of the lateral lobes of the cerebellum, which were, in fact, quite
rudimentary, and consisted almost entirely of the root of the fifth pair of
nerves; whilst the development of the median lobe bore the closest relation
to the powers of flight, being as 1 to 13 in the slow gray owl, 1 to 11 in the
crow, 1 to 6 in the swift hawk, and 1 to 4 in the agile swallow. The bat
combined the acute tactile sensibility of the cetaceans with the agility of the
bird; and, in conformity, united the large lateral lobes of the former with
the large median lobe of the latter. In the common pipistrelle the weight of
the cerebellum was ’96 of a grain to a cerebrum of 178, being in the pro
portion of 1 to 1'85.
“ Gall’s mistake in locating sexual feeling in the cerebellum Mr, Prideaux
maintains to be rather an error of inference than observation, the convexity
of the lower fossa of the occipital bone and their protrusion backwards and
downwards being principally due to the development of the under surface of
the posterior lobe of the cerebrum, in the same way as the prominence of the
eye and pouching of the lower eyelid, indicative of philological talent, is
caused by the development of certain convolutions of the under surface of
the anterior lobe resting on the roof of the orbit. Gall’s views on the func
tions of the cerebellum were greatly strengthened by several remarkable
�410
Report on the Progress
[Oct.,
cases of loss of sexual feeling occurring after sabre wounds of the cerebellum
in French soldiers ; and for these cases he was indebted to Baron Larrev.
The juxtaposition of the parts, combined with the known effects of concus
sion of the cerebrum, render these symptoms perfectly compatible with the
location of the sexual feeling on the under surface of the posterior lobe of
the cerebrum.”
Notes of Lectures on Insanity. Delivered at St. George’s Hospital,
by George Fielding Blandford, M.B. Oxon.
(‘ Medical Times and Gazette.’)
Dr. Blandford, the Lecturer on Psychology in the Medical School
of St. George’s Hospital, is publishing his lectures in the 'Medical
Tinies and Gazette.’ Four lectures have already appeared. The
first is introductory, and in it he briefly speaks of the physiology of
that nerve-life and “ brain-life which constitute the mind of man.”
There are two methods of studying the human mind, says Dr.
Blandford, and we presume he refers to the subjective and the in
ductive methods. The latter, he believes, is the only true method.
DIAGRAM.
I.
¿■External events stimulate Cerebrum.
/IDEAS\
Stimuli ) Internal Hlcntal L With consciousness = FEELING------- WILL ..Voluntary ¿Mental.
<•
I Organic.........................
Acts/ (Bodily.
2. Without consciousness
Involuntary ¿Mental (unconscious mental
Acts (. Bodily.
[action).
II.
s™"''
stimulate Sensory Centres... Instinctive movements of man and higher animal«
All acts of invertebrata and lower fishes.
Stimuli i“"“1
< Internal
stimulate Spinal Centres ....Reflex action.
HI.
This diagram is given to show “ that the same thing happens in
the lowest manifestation of nerve function as in the highest intellec
tual act of man; that each act is made up of a stimulus, a stimulated
centre, and a resulting movement. No nerve action has less than
this or more.”
Dr. Blandford then proceeds to show how the functions of the
three varieties of the cranio-spinal system are acted on by this theory
and concludes his remarks thus.
3
The stimulation of any centre may be excessive, disproportionate,
exhausting. . The centre itself may be disordered or disorganized by
the stimulation, or through defect or disease it may be too much or
too little stimulated. The conscious feeling aroused in the highest
ctrcbial centres may be converted into an idea in no way adequate
which does not correspond to the feeling ■ or the idea, when stored
up, may be wrongly joined to other ideas, making the whole train
erroneous, a delusion; and so the will, basing its judgment on these
�1866.]
of Psychological Medicine.
411
false ideas, may carry out acts accordingly, acts which are denomi
nated those of a madman. Disorder may occur in any of these
physiological processes. Sometimes we may be able clearly to point
out the spot. Frequently it will elude us, but it is physiology, and
physiology alone, that can help us to find it, not the examination of
our own self-consciousness.
Dr. Blandford now broaches the question, “ What is the pathology
of insanity ?” By vivisections, and by accidents and disease in man,
we have arrived at the fact that the gray cerebral matter is the seat
of mind. The microscope reveals to us that this gray matter is made
up of minute cells and fibres, connective tissue and blood-vessels, and
that the white substance is formed of fibres connecting these cells
with distant nerve centres and other parts. All these parts are
necessarily nourished and kept alive by the blood, and increase or
diminution in the supply of which causes a proportionate excitation
or diminution in their functions. “ The chemist tells us that the
brain is a highly complex organic structure,” and that it is charac
terised by constant change in the arrangement of its atoms, “ by
rapid recomposition and decomposition.”
Dr. Blandford then proceeds to justify his theory by the facts
stated above, and thus writes:
“ Now, what I have said concerning structure and function may be recon
ciled with the diagram of nerve physiology which I drew at my first lecture.
If you recollect what I said about stimuli and the centres which are stimu
lated, you will understand, first, that where the stimulation of a centre is
excessive, disorder, or even disorganization, of that centre may take place,
with corresponding resulting action, either temporary or permanent;
secondly, that change may from other causes take place in the centre itself,
either from its inherent and inherited tendency to change, or from faulty
nutrition, or injury, or other accidental circumstance, and so disordered
action may result, permanent or otherwise, according to the persistence of
the change. In one of these two ways insanity is, I believe, in every in
stance, brought about.”
Then having briefly enumerated the principal appearances visible
to the naked eye in the heads of the insane opened after death, he
concludes this portion of his subject with the following words :
“We conclude, a priori, deductively, that the nerve-cells and the blood
vessels which supply them must of necessity be affected in cases of insanity,
and our microscopic observations teach us that this is the fact. The nerve-cells
undergo degenerative change, and appear in every stage of decay. Some
times they have lost their transparency, their contents are altered into fatand pigment-granules. Their outline is broken down, and they cease to be
cells, appearing as dark collections of granules. These differ according to
the form and duration of the attack. Much, however, still remains to be
learnt on this head. More attention has hitherto been paid to the cerebral
blood-vessels.
Microscopical examination has shown a thickening of the
walls of the capillary vessels going on to contraction and obliteration, with
atheromatous or osseous degeneration. This may be due to deposit within
�412
Report on the Progress
[Oct.,
or without the vessel. Excess and hypertrophy of the connective tissue of
the brain account, according to some, for this deposit on the vessels, and also
for the obliteration by pressure of the nerve-cells. These changes have been
observed in various forms of insanity, and even in other diseases of the brain.
The study of them bv means of the microscope is still in its infancy, beset
with the difficulties I have already alluded to; yet every year will bring
new results if we do but observe in the right way. The relation between
insanity and the other organs of the body I shall speak of hereafter.”
The subject of Dr. Blandford’s third lecture is the “ Causes of
Insanity/’ He commences thus :
“ The ancients used to vex their souls with metaphysical disquisitions
upon the nature of causes. Everything, said they, must have a material, a
formal, an efficient, and a final cause. Philosophers nowadays have given
up the first three, though they still cling fondly to the last. In medicine
you hear of ‘predisposing’ and ‘ exciting ’ causes; in books upon insanity
they appear as ‘ moral ’ and ‘ physical.’ Now, it must be clearly borne in
mind that the cause of any given case of insanity is the assemblage of all the
conditions which precede and contribute to it, whether they be events or states.
We may talk of causes, or conditions, or antecedent states, or actual casual
events, but it rarely happens that a case depends on one single state or
event; almost invariably there is a concurrence of several, which concur
rence or assemblage constitutes the cause. You will understand how little
events have to do with the production of insanity when I enumerate among
the most important causes that state which is termed hereditary predispo
sition, and such states as age, sex, and civilisation.”
He would therefore seem to divide the causation of insanity into
three classes—the predisposing, the moral, the physical.
The first includes hereditary predisposition, the states of age, sex,
and civilisation, and is a most prolific cause. The second, the
moral causes, are produced by abnormal stimulation of the nerve
centre, and include domestic losses and troubles, grief, disappointed
affections, jealousy, religious and political excitement, fright, over
study.
“ All these,” writes Dr. Blandford, "except perhaps the last, are violent
stimuli of the emotional centres, morbidly exciting the feeling of self, selflove, and self-interest. The balance of the relation which the individual
bears to his fellow-men is upset, and he stands isolated and self-centred.
Yet these events happen to men daily without driving them mad; therefore
we must look upon them as only a part of the cause, the remainder depending
on the constitutional defects of the patient. Often we hear that a man has
had much trouble, or excitement, or disappointment, when in truth, being
saturated with insanity, his own crazy brains have manufactured these socalled causes out of nothing at all, the excitement and worry being all along
subjective, and having no real existence whatever.”
The third, the physical causes, are produced by defect or disease
in the nerve centre through the bodily health. They may be sudden
or they may be protracted over years. They are very numerous, so
much so, indeed, that one noted psychologist (Dr. Skae) bases his
nosology entirely on the physical causes, denying all others.
�1866.]
of Psychological Medicine.
413
Dr. Blandford does not attempt any classification of insanity,
“the mind being too much a unit to admit of a classification
according to its parts.”
He therefore falls back upon the old
time-honoured system of symptomatology of Pinel, who gave but
four—idiocy, mania, melancholia, and dementia.
In his fourth lecture Dr. Blandford treats of “ Insanity without
Delusions—Impulsive Insanity—Transitory Insanity—Insanity with
The first of these, insanity without delusions, which he remarks is
also called “ moral insanity,” “ partial insanity,” “ impulsive insa
nity,” “ emotional insanity,” he illustrates by a case :—“ A city
merchant, past middle age, grave and respectable, suddenly takes to
drinking and low company, becomes extravagant, quarrelsome, gives
up business, takes to horses and riding, of which he knows nothing ;
is, in fact, an altered man.” At last his conduct becomes so out
rageous that he is confined in an asylum, but, although excitable and
rambling in argument, he has no delusion, no intellectual lesion.
This case Dr. Blandford considers a good specimen of manie sans
délire, or, as he calls it, the “ so-called moral insanity” of Dr.
Prichard. He does not give the termination of the case, which
would be interesting, as the symptoms described closely resemble
those so frequently observed in the premonitory stages of general
paresis.
Dr. Blandford considers the term “ moral insanity ” misapplied ;
he does not think there can be such a state as insanity of the feelings
and emotions without corresponding intellectual lesion, and he
believes this proved by the fact that all such cases degenerate into
cases of monomania. Dr. Blandford then refers to impulsive insa
nity, and writes—
“There is, however, another species of insanity at which the public sneers
still more than at the last mentioned, and which, if wrongfully applied, might
unquestionably be made to cover crime even more easily. This is the socalled ‘ impulsive ’ or ‘ instinctive ’ insanity. As described, it consists of a
sudden insane impulse in a previously sane individual to commit a crime,
which impulse ceases as soon as the deed is done, leaving the individual sane
as before ; consequently the crime stands out as the only evidence of the
insanity. This is an exaggerated account of a form of mental disorder which
really exists. A patient consciously, but involuntarily, in spite of every
wish and the utmost efforts of his will, is hurried by an irresistible impulse
to do some act of violence. The impulse in his brain-centres forces him
straight to action, reason and will being powerless to check it. The act is
as automatic and ‘instinctive’ as the acts of lower animals. Such cases
occur, and are seen in asylums ; they are not invented merely for legal pur
poses. The patients are often aware of their propensity, and beg to be
guarded against it. They have no delusions, they do not justify their
crimes ; be the impulse to suicide or to homicide, they deplore it, and seek
treatment and assistance. The diagnosis of such cases must necessarily be
guarded. There is little evidence of insanity beyond the act itself. The
patient’s feelings are not perverted except at the moment, for he bewails his
�414
Report on the Progress of Psychological Medicine.
[Oct.,
state, and often attacks those he loves best. He assigns no motive, but
rationally confesses his inability to resist. Such impulses have been ex
plained by the theory of the ‘ reflex action ’ of the cerebrum, which operates
in a manner analogous to the reflex convulsive action of the spinal centres.
If this does not explain, it at any rate illustrates the disease. It is involun
tary action coming from some morbid stimulation of a nerve centre, with
consciousness, but in spite of every effort of reason and will. Inquiring into
the history of such, we find generally a strong hereditary taint ; possibly
symptoms of head disorder may have been exhibited quite early in life, or
there may have been epilepsy or a blow on the head. It is essential in such
cases to try and discover a cause wherewith we may connect the manifesta
tion of disorder.
********
“ To conclude, cases occur of a spasmodic or transitory mania, during
which acts of great violence may be committed, there being for the time a
visible change in the look and demeanour of the patient, and which may
pass off in a few hours or days, leaving no trace of insanity. There is here
also a morbid stimulation of the cerebral centre, resulting in morbid and
irregular act, without the intervention of the mind proper. The act is not
the result of diseased will, but is independent of will, involuntary, and often
unconscious.”
)
i
Dr. Blandford now considers insanity with delusions, and com
mences by defining the meaning of the three words, delusions,
illusions, and hallucinations. Hallucinations, he says, are false or
fancied perceptions of the senses, as, for instance, when the eye or
ear fancies it sees or hears something when there is absolutely no
thing to see or hear, when, perhaps, it is the time of the darkest and
stillest midnight. Illusions also are false perceptions of the senses,
with this difference, that there is a foundation for them. There is a
noise or there is an object, but the patient thinks it some different
noise or different object from that which it really is. Illusions may
occur to every one. The mirage of the desert, the spectre of the
Brocken, are illusions; but they differ from those of the insane in
this, that a number of persons together will all see them, whereas
the illusion of the insane appears real to him alone; his companions
hear nothing and see nothing, or hear and see things as they really
are, not as they appear to him. A delusion is a false belief of some
fact, not a false perception of one of the senses; it is a categorical
proposition, false by reason of the diseased brain of the person who
believes it, and set down as false by others because it is contrary to
common experience of the laws of nature, or to former experience of
similar things, or is contrary to the knowledge of some or the evi
dence of the senses of the majority of mankind. There is no infal
lible test of delusions, and often when in signing a certificate you
mention one you will be obliged to state how and why you know it
to be a delusion, for many which have been so considered have
turned out to be facts, and not fancies.
We shall renew our notice of Dr. Blandford’s lectures as they
appear. The above is a summary of the four already published.
�1866.]
415
PART IV.—NOTES AND NEWS.
THE MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.
Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of the Association, held at the
The Council met in the Royal Society Rooms at half-past eleven a.m.
The morning meeting of the Association was held at half-past twelve p.m. ;
the afternoon meeting, at three p.m.
Members present:—W. A. F. Browne, Commissioner in Lunacy (President) ;
Sir James Coxe, M.D.,Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland; Robert Stewart,
M.D. ; John Dale Hewson, M.D.; C. L. Robertson, M.D. ; H. Maudsley,
M.D.; John Sibbald, M.D.; Stanley Haynes, M.D.; W.Wood, M.D.; Henry
Monro, M.D.; W. L. Lindsay, M.D. ; J. Murray Lindsay, M.D.; Ed. Hart
Vinen, M.D.; J. F. Duncan, M.D.; W. H. White, M.D. ; Thos. Aitken,
M.D.; G. Gilchrist, M.D. ; J. W. C. MTntosh, M.D.; James Rorie, M.D.;
J. Crichton Browne, M.D. ; Alex. Robertson, M.D.; J. Bruce Thomson,
L. R.C.S. Ed.; James Rae, M.D. (Deputy Inspector-General R.N.); Charles
Henry Fox, M.D. ; David Brodie, M.D. ; J. T. Arlidge, M.D.; Robert
Jamieson, M.D.; James Howden, M.D.; John Smith, M.D.; AndrewSmart, M.D.; David Skae, M.D.; John Burke, M.D.; Frederick W. A.
Skae, M.D.; James Sherlock, M.D.; J. W. Eastwood, M.D.; Daniel Iles,
M. R.C.S.; J. S. Alver, M.D.; J. Dickson, M.D.; Harrington Tuke, M.D.
Visitors:—Sir John D. Wauchope, Bart., Chairman of the Board of
Lunacy, Scotland; Arthur Mitchell, M.D., Deputy Commissioner; George
Patterson, M.D., Deputy Commissioner; J. F. Wingate, Esq., London;
John S. Butler, M.D. (Retreat, Hartford, U.S. Amer.); J. II. B. Browne,
Esq.; Ernst Salomon, M.D. (Medical Superintend, of Malmo Asylum in
Sweden) ; Dr. Rutherford, Bo’ness; Dr. Wm. Seller, Edinburgh; Edward
Malins, M.R.C.S.; John M'Grigor, M.D. ; M. Munro, Esq.; Russell
Reynolds, M.D.; Sir J. Y. Simpson, Bart., M.D.; John Webster, M.D.;
J. Macbeth, Esq.; Rev. Edwin W. R. Pulling, M.A.; Archibald Hewins,
Esq.; Rev. Henry M. Robertson; David Murray, M.D.; Edward C.
Robertson, M.D.; W. H. Reed, Esq.
Dr. William Wood, the retiring President, said—
Gentlemen,—My race is run, and I am about to descend from the proud
position in which you have placed me during last year, in favour of a much
greater man-—a man well known to you all—and who has so much to say to
you, and in such eloquent terms, that I will not trespass upon your time.
I will therefore simply introduce to you our valued friend Dr. Browne, who
will take the presidency. (Applause.)
The President, on taking the chair, said—
Gentlemen,—I beg to thank you for the honour you have conferred upon
me, in placing me in the Presidential Chair of the Medico-Psychological
Association. I think, instead of dwelling on my feelings of gratitude, and
�416
Noies and News.
[Oct.,
your feelings of kindness in so doing, I had better at once proceed to tell
you what I think Medical Psychology is, and ought to be. (Applause.)
The President then delivered the usual Address from the chair. (See Part I,
Original Articles.)
Dr. Tuke.—I should not rise anywhere else to propose a vote of thanks to
our able President for his address, but I feel that, as a stranger here, I may
be excused for so doing. I feel I can hardly find words to thank our
President as I ought to do, after listening to the eloquent tribute he has paid
to the memory of my dear relative, our friend Dr. Conolly. (Applause.)
I will content myself, therefore, with expressing my own gratitude and
I am sure the gratitude of all of us, for the eloquent address which our
President has just delivered. (Applause.)
Dr. Monro.—I beg to second the motion. I feel that it is a very great
honour to this Association to have had Dr. Browne as our President on this
occasion. We have all listened to his interesting address with a great deal
of pleasure.
Dr. Tuke said—I have letters from several members expressing regret for
their unavoidable absence; among others, from our distinguished French
confreres M. Brierre de Boismont and Jules Falret, also a letter to the same
effect from Dr. Wolff, of Nova Scotia, containing suggestions which have
been laid before the Council. I have, lastly, another letter, a very im
portant one, from our esteemed friend Baron Mundy, who writes to me to
the following effect:—
“ To the Secretary of the British Medico-Psychological Association,
De. Haeeington Tube, in London."
“ Sir,—Having for some years regularly attended the annual meetings of
our Association, you will oblige me in excusing to the Society my absence
from the present one.
“ I deeply regret not being able to attend at a moment when our Association
will undoubtedly celebrate the commemoration of its best member, the late
Dr. John Conolly.
“For my part—I flatter myself you will agree with me—I could have not
done better in following by deeds his often-repeated principles, than by
entering the army of my native country as an honorary surgeon for the time
of this terrible war. That may justify my absence.
“ The bust of Dr. Conolly which I have sent to you is executed by one
of the most renowned Roman sculptors—Cavaliere Benzoni. Be kind
enough to present it to the Association as a humble gift of mine on this
solemn occasion. I leave it to you and to my dear friend Dr. Maudsley
to move, where—with the agreement of the Association—this memorial shall
be placed.
“ Believe me, Sir,
“ Yours very sincerely,
“J. Mundy,
“ Regimental Surgeon.”
“ Pardubitz, in Bohemia;
7th July, 1866.”
I can add nothing to this letter ; it speaks for itself, and I leave its answer
in your hands. The bust to which it refers is before you, Dr. Mundy having
taken especial pains to have it sent from Rome in time for this meeting.
The President.—I deem it altogether unnecessary that I should make a
formal motion that we accept, and accept gratefully, this most suitable
gift and donation from Baron Mundy. As to its ultimate destination, I
must leave that in the hands of the Council of the Association; and I
think we ought to record, in some more than usual manner, our sense of
�1866.]
Notes and News.
417
the appropriateness of the gift, our gratitude for it, and our hope that the
presence of the bust of our friend may not only bring back to the older
amongst us a recollection of all the good that he did and all the kindness
that he displayed, but may in some sense and in some degree animate others
to imitate the noble and glorious course which he so recently ended.
I move that the bust be accepted, and that, in due form, the thanks of the
Association be transmitted to Baron Mundy. (Applause.)
Dr. Wwd.—It is scarcely necessary, but for form’s sake, I second the
motion.
Dr. Tuke.—Iwill take care that the thanks of this meeting and my own shall
he transmitted to our friend for his munificent and thoughtful gift. I think, as
this letter leaves it to Dr. Maudsley and to me to suggest the destination of
this bust, with the agreement of the Association I may propose now a scheme
for the consideration of this meeting. We would ask the permission of the
Association to present the bust of Dr. Conolly to the Royal College of Phy
sicians in London. I have seen the president, Sir Thomas Watson, who will
cheerfully employ his influence with the Fellows to have the bust accepted
as a gift from the Association. If this proposition meets the approval of
the Association, the bust will probably be placed in the Library of the
Royal College of Physicians in London, where the meetings of this Associa
tion, through the kindness of the President and Fellows, have been so fre
quently held.
Dr. Maudsley.—I second the motion.
Dr. Monro.—I was not aware that this bust of Dr. Conolly was about to
be offered to the Association, but I came here intending to make a sugges
tion that a subscription should be inaugurated by this Association to raise a
memorial to Dr. Conolly. I feel that, as we have had the honour of having so
distinguished a man as Dr. Conolly amongst us, it will be one of the best
means of perpetuating this Association to get up such a memorial. I do not
exactly know what the memorial should be; but I have spoken to one or two
of my friends, and I find that they are favorable to getting up some me
morial of Dr. Conolly. I must advert to one or two peculiar reasons why I
have taken the great liberty of coming forward to make this proposal. I
believe I was Dr. Conolly’s first pupil at Hanwell; and since that period I
have been in the continual habit of meeting him in practice, and I have
always received such great kindness from him that I cannot help feeling a
most peculiar gratification in bringing forward this motion. I feel that it
would be utterly beside the mark to enter here into a general panegyric of
Dr. Conolly after the address to which we have just listened. We all of us
appreciate the high character and great worth of our late friend, and there
is no likelihood of his memory being forgotten by any of us. At the pre
sent moment I would suggest the idea of a subscription being commenced
by this Association, which might become a more general subscription or not,
as the gentlemen here may think right. I wish the question to be a little
discussed, whether we should raise such a subscription ; and if so, what the
memorial should be ? I am exceedingly glad to hear the proposal to pre
sent the bust to the Royal College of Physicians of London. That was the
scene of the labours of Dr. Conolly. He used to be constantly at the
meetings of the Fellows there.
The President.—Dr. Monro has permitted me to second his proposition, in
which I most cordially concur, for the reasons he has stated, and even broader
ones, on which I shall not dwell. I think it is desirable that some memorial,
emanating from the Association itself, as an abiding memento of this great
man, should be forthwith set about. As to its nature, and the mode in which
the matter is to be set about, that may be for the discussion and deliberation of
the Society now; and I shall be glad to hear any observations on the subject.
�418
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
Dr. Lowe.—I imagine the suggestion has been made to elicit the opinions
of those present ; but I wish to suggest a doubt whether we are right and
wise in alienating irrevocably the bust which has been presented to this Asso
ciation. (Applause). I cannot imagine any more appropriate place than the
College of Physicians as a temporary locality ; but I think the time may
come when we may value exceedingly for our own institution such a bust as
that (Hear, hear), and I would like to ask whether something might not be
introduced into the proposal which might recognise the possibility of the
return of the bust to this Association.
Dr. Stewart.—I quite agree with the last speaker. I think it would be in
a measure stultifying ourselves to give the bust of the individual whose
memory will ever be respected by us permanently away from the Associa
tion. It struck me, when the proposal was made, as rather a singular one,
that we should hand over to a different body a bust which was presented to
ourselves, and which should be retained by us a memorial of him who has
passed from amongst us. If Dr. Lowe moves an amendment to keep the
bust, I will second it.
Dr. Lowe.—I feel reluctant to take any marked step against the proposal ;
but I am quite ready to do so if it is considered advisable,
Dr. Skae.—Vt may save discussion if Dr. Tuke would modify his proposi
tion to this—that the bust should be placed in the guardianship of the College
of Physicians till the Association has a hall of its own.
Dr. Tuke.—The reason why 1 suggested the Royal College of Physicians
was, that, with great liberality, that body has always acknowledged the ex
istence of our Society, and has invariably allowed us, since Dr. Watson was
president, to meet in its rooms when the Association met in London. I
thought it would be a suitable act of courtesy towards that body; and, at
the same time, I think that the compliment to Dr. Conolly would be greater
than in our keeping it for a problematic hall of our own.
Dr. S/cae.—I think it would be courtesy to the giver that we do not
alienate altogether his gift to the Society, but that we request that the
College of Physicians will take the guardianship of the bust. If Dr. Tuke
would modify his proposal to that effect, I think the Society would at once
agree to it.
Dr. Wood.—I think the terms of this gift seem almost to imply that
the giver intended that the Association should place the bust of Dr. Conolly
in some suitable place. I almost doubt, although I have no authority what
ever for the statement, whether we could with propriety ask the College of
Physicians to keep the bust for us. Seeing we have received various acts of
kindness from them, I think we would perhaps hardly be justified in asking
them to accept the responsibility of keeping the bust for us. Of course,
the feeling of the Association generally is to do the greatest possible honour
to the memory of Dr. Conolly ; and if there is any other place in which
greater honour would be conferred on his memory than the Library of the
College of Physicians in London, I would by all means vote that it should
be placed there ; but it does appear to me that, until we have a local habi
tation, it is a little inconvenient to have the charge of such a valuable
bust—valuable as a very excellent likeness of a very great man, and also as
the work of a very eminent artist, and as coming to us in peculiar circum
stances. I feel assured that, as far as Baron Mundy is concerned, he would
be well content that the discretion of the Association should be exercised in
placing it wherever we think most suitable ; and as it has been left in the
hands of the two sons-in-law of Dr. Conolly to determine where it should
be placed, I think the Association would be paying proper deference to the
feelings of those two eminent psychologists to place it in the Library of the
College of Physicians^ as they suggest. The proposition of Dr. Monro seems
�1866.]
Notes and News.
419
appropriate to this occasion, because in talking over the affair before the
meeting, one of the various forms which were suggested for this memorial
was a copy of that bust by one of the most skilled of our sculptors, which
could be made at any time. For the present, however, it is of the greatest
importance to place the bust where it will be well cared for, and at the same
time that it confers honour on the College of Physicians to present it to
that body, it would perpetuate the memory of a great man.
The President.—I shall be happy to hear any observations from any member
on this subject. I may say, however, that in presenting this bust to the
College of Physicians, not as guardians, but as possessors, we are placing it
appropriately in the hall of that College of which Dr. Conolly was so dis
tinguished a member.
Dr. Monro.—I omitted to mention what was on my mind formerly, that it
had been suggested that a copy of this bust might be taken and retained
for ourselves. In that way we should have the double satisfaction of pre
senting it to the College of Physicians, and thus having it placed in a posi
tion of great honour, and also of having a memorial of Dr. Conolly amongst
ourselves.
Dr. Eastwood.—I would suggest whether it is not worthy of consideration,
whether steps should not be taken for having a permanent place of meeting
for this Association. If this was done, we might keep the bust, and the
place might be called the Conolly Rooms, or the Conolly Institution.
Dr. Dunean.—The idea of a permanent hall at present is out of the ques
tion, although it may not be Utopian at some future period. Probably it
might be advisable to ask the College of Physicians to take the guardianship
of the bust, which practically would be a gift.
Dr. Sibbald.—Might it not be possible to ask the College to become per
manent custodians of the gift ? That would be practically presenting the
bust to the College of Physicians, and at the same time continuing the con
nection between this Association and the bust which Baron Mundy has so
handsomely presented.
Dr. Vinen.—I would suggest that a proper inscription be placed on the
bust, with the name of the donor, and a statement of the circumstances in
which it was presented to the College of Physicians. That would free us of
all difficulties, and, at the same time, defer to the wishes of the two sons-inlaw of Dr. Conolly. (Applause.)
Dr. Tube.—In accepting the gift from us, I believe that the College of
Physicians would not in the slightest degree object to an inscription bein<
*
placed on the pedestal with the names and a statement of the circumstances
under which it came into the possession of the College of Physicians. I now
confess my own feeling of a great desire that the College of Physicians in
London should possess the bust, and I hope the resolution will now be agreed
to in the modified form suggested by Dr. Vinen. (Applause.)
The resolution was adopted unanimously, and it was agreed that the mode
of presenting the bust should be left to the Secretary and Chairman.
Dr. Monro.—I beg now formally to move that a subscription be raised for
a memorial to Dr. Conolly.
Dr. Sherlock.—I am anxious to see numerous copies of this elegant bust;
but, perhaps, some other plan might be suggested of having a suitable tri
bute to the memory of Dr. Conolly.
Dr. Wood.—There is a receptacle for the effigies of our great men. There
is a place called Westminster Abbey; and as Dr. Conolly was one of the
greatest men of our day, I do not know whether it would be asking too
much, if we could raise sufficient money to get a place for a statue in West
minster Abbey. As to the scheme of having a hall of our own, I am afraid
the youngest of us will scarcely see that day. We number at present 200.
�420
Notes and News.
[Oct..,
Suppose our number doubled, our expenses would leave us a small margin
for keeping house ; and if we are to have a local habitation, it must be some
thing worthy of the position we assume. I doubt whether we shall ever be
able to have a better place of meeting than the hall of the College of Phy
sicians in London ; and if we delay doing any honour to Dr. Conolly till
we have a hall of our own, I am afraid we shall never live to see it.
Dr. Monro.—It will be better to refer the matter to a small committee of
the Council, to report next year what subscriptions have been raised.
(Applause.)
Dr. Tuke.—According to the rules of the Association, the place of meeting
next year will be in London ; and the Council would have proposed to-day
the name of a most distinguished member of our body for the Presidency
next year, which we feel sure would have been received with gratification,
were it not that the illness of the gentleman in question prevents us having
the great pleasure of electing him as our President. I refer to Professor
Laycock, whose serious illness we much regret. In the circumstances, the
Council have not named any one as President-Elect, and it is for the Asso
ciation now to nominate a President.
Dr. Skae.—I have not had the opportunity of talking over the subject to
any of my fellow-members to any extent; but I have very great plea
sure in proposing as President for next year our esteemed friend Dr.
Charles Lockhart Robertson. (Applause.) I have great pleasure in making
the proposal. The interest which he has taken in the proceedings of the
Society, and the energy and activity which he has shown in many respects,
entitle him to be placed in the position of President at an early period. I
therefore propose that he should be President.
Dr. Monro.—As an old friend of Dr. Robertson, I beg to second the
motion.
The resolution was carried unanimously.
The President.—The next business is to elect Editors for the Journal; and
I propose that the Editors, Dr. Lockhart Robertson and Dr. Maudsley, be
re-elected Editors of the Journal.
The resolution was carried unanimously.
Dr. Paul was then re-elected Treasurer, and Dr. Harrington Tuke
Honorary Secretary,
Dr. Tuke moved that Dr. Crichton Browne be appointed with Dr. Sheppard
as Auditors, which was agreed to.
Dr. Wood proposed the re-election of Drs. Rorie and Stewart as the
Honorary Secretaries for Scotland and Ireland, which was seconded by Dr.
Maudsley and agreed to.
Dr. Robertson.—There are two vacancies in the Council: we propose to
fill these up by the appointment of our Ex-President, Dr. Monro, and Dr.
Campbell.
Dr. Skae seconded the resolution, which was agreed to.
In the unavoidable absence of Dr. Paul, Dr. Robertson presented the
Treasurer’s annual balance-sheet, which was unanimously adopted.
�1866.]
Notes and News.
421
�422
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
Dr. Tuke said that there had been proposed and seconded the following
list of new Members, twenty-three in number; and he had much pleasure in
stating that among them was the name of Dr. Wilks, the distinguished Phy
sician of Guy’s Hospital, the first who had joined the Association under our
new rule of admitting any member of the profession interested in our
special studies.
Thomas Howden, M.D., Haddington.
Edward Hall, Esq., Blacklands House, Chelsea.
J. H. Hughes, Esq., County Asylum, Morpeth.
G. R. Paterson, M.D , Deputy Commissioner of Lunacy, Scotland.
Evan Jones, M.D., Dare Villa, Aberdare.
Frederick Skae, M.D., Morningside.
W. B. Kesteven, F.R.C.S., 1, Manor Road, Upper Holloway.
F. Maccabe, M.D., District Asylum, County Waterford.
W. Smart, M.D., Allva Street, Edinburgh.
A. Robertson, M.D., City of Glasgow Asylum.
J. B. Thomson, Esq., General Prison, Perth.
Thompson Dickson, M.D., City of London Asylum, Dartford.
Arthur Mitchell, M.D., Deputy Commissioner of Lunacy, Scotland.
J. Shepherd, M.D., Eccles, near Manchester.
W. II. Reed, Esq., County Asylum, Derby.
H. L. Kempthorne, M.D., Bethlehem Hospital.
Ernst Salomon, M.D., Malmo Asylum, Sweden.
David Brodie, M.D., Institution for Imbecile Youth, Larpent, Stirling.
J. B. Tuke, M.D., Fife and Kinross District Asylum.
John Lorimer, M.D., Ticehurst, Sussex.
Samuel Wilks, M.D., St. Thomas’ Street, Southwark.
James Rutherford, M.D., Bo’ness, Linlithgowshire.
J. Hughlings Jackson, M.D., 28, Bedford Place, Russell Square, W. C.
The twenty-three gentlemen were unanimously elected.
Dr. Take.—The following gentlemen have been proposed as Honorary
Members :—The Hon. W. Spring Rice ; Sir James Young Simpson, Bart.,
M.D. ; William Seller, M.D. ; W. Laehr, M.D., Berlin. Their names are
well known to us all, and I need do no more than read the list, which has
been made out and circulated in accordance with our rules.
The Honorary Members were elected unanimously.
Dr. Robertson proposed that Mr. Cleaton, one of the Commissioners of the
Board of Lunacy, should be elected an Honorary Member.
Dr. Maudsley seconded the motion.
Dr. Tuke pointed out that the standing orders required notice to be given
before any honorary member could be elected.
Dr. Robertson withdrew his motion, and, in compliance with the standing
orders, converted it into a notice of motion for next meeting.
The Chairman.—There is a note from Mr. Blake, M.P., which has been
under the consideration of the Council, suggesting that we should present an
address to Her Majesty, praying for the appointment of a Royal Commission
to inquire into the treatment pursued in lunatic asylums towards the insane.
Dr. Crichton Broicne.—Mr. Blake proposes to devolve on a Royal Com
mission the functions already carried out by the General Board of Lunacy.
I do not suppose this Association would wish that there should be any more
inquiries into the subject that might appear to clash with the present Boards.
Dr. Monro.—I think this subject cannot be taken up without an exposition
from Mr. Blake himself of his exact object in making the proposal.
It was agreed that Mr. Blake should be informed that the Association
could not take up the subject without hearing his proposal from himself.
Dr. Tuke.—I have given notice of the following resolution for this meeting :
�1866.]
Notes and News.
423
“ That a diploma of membership should be lithographed for members and
honorary members, to be presented to them on their election.” I brought
this to-day before the Council, who were to some extent adverse to it; and I
have so far modified my original resolution, in consequence of the advice of
our President, so as to make my motion read as follows :—“ That the diploma
of membership should only be granted to members after having been so
for five years.” The reason for that is, that a gentleman may be elected
and take to another profession. I would propose, therefore, that the diploma
should only be given after five years, and that no diploma should be given
to any medical man who is not engaged in our speciality. At all events,
whatever may be decided as to ourselves, I think this resolution should be
carried in regard to honorary members. We have many honorary members,
and I think we might follow the example of our Parisian friends, and send
them a diploma. I have brought this sketch of a diploma, such as that which
I would suggest for the adoption of the Association.
_/)/•. Robertson.—I second the motion.
Dr. Monro.— It is now’proposed that the diploma should be given to those
who have continued members of the Association for five years, and more
especially to the honorary members. Now, I object a little to the whole idea
of this diploma; but I certainly feel that the granting of a diploma to
honorary members is the least objectionable part of this proposition. I agree
with Dr. Tuke that there should be a printed form expressive of the special
honour which is conferred upon the honorary members, but I should not be
inclined to call it a diploma, because, although I believe the real meaning of
the word diploma does not amount to very much, still we are in the habit
of considering a diploma as being granted where special powers are granted,
such as a diploma to practise, and so on. In associations similar to this,
such as the Medical and Chirurgical Society, there is no idea of a diploma, and
I do not see why we, a young and rather feeble Society, should have a diploma.
It is rather grand, and we might have it quoted against us that we were
bombastic in our treatment of the subject. I do not see any special reason
why members for five years should get a diploma. I do not see what use
they could make of this diploma. I presume no member of this Society
would frame such a diploma.
Dr. Tuke.—I do not know why not.
Dr. Monro.—Well, I should rather think it infra dig. for them to do so.
A five years’ member may have only shown his ability to pay five guineas
and his possession of a good moral character. I think it is far too grand a
thing to give to any of our ordinary members. It is not advisable to have
two sorts of members, some holding diplomas and some not holding diplomas.
If there is any real honour in our diplomas it is a little invidious to make
any selection, except in regard to the honorary members. It would be
literally impossible to give a diploma to guinea subscribers, because, suppose
a gentleman subscribed for one year and then gave up, he might use his
diploma as a sort of certificate in applying for the superintendence of an
asylum. I would move, as an amendment, “ That it is expedient that a
printed certificate of membership should be presented to honorary members
on their election.”
Dr Maudsley seconded the amendment.
Dr. Wood.—I sympathise with Dr. Monro’s view of this matter. It is
usual, when anything new is proposed, to hear reasons for it. Now, I am
not aware that Dr. Tuke has given us one reason why we should assume the
importance of issuing a grand certificate of the kind he has exhibited when
our illustrious friends the Royal Society of Edinburgh are content with
such a modest paper as this. There is this objection to our issuing this
diploma. In the first place, a diploma is to be given to men who have gone
�424
Notes and Neivs.
through a certain amount of work, and have fitted themselves legally for a
certain legal status. Now, this testimonial is to be given to men whom,
perhaps, none of us have ever seen, who may be personally unknown to us,
who may be known to just one or two from his official position, sufficient to
enable him to get admission to our Association, and after five years he is
to be considered eligible for this illustrious document. Now, it does appear
to me that if our members are worthy of admission to the Association they
are worthy of all we can do for them, and I cannot quite enter into the
view that they must wait five years before they can be so distinguished as to
receive this paper. Then there is this objection to issuing this official
diploma. It has been mentioned that it is not the most worthy members of
associations who think it worth while to frame and glaze evidence of their
membership, and I can conceive the possibility of such a document as this
being put to other than a most worthy purpose. It does appear to carry
with it a sort of recognition of the individual’s position (hear, hear), which,
perhaps, he may be fairly entitled to. I confess I am more disposed to adopt
the amendment than the resolution. It is reasonable that especially
foreign honorary members should have some distinct evidence of their
admission to honorary membership; but in regard to the ordinary members
it appears to me at least unnecessary, and no good reason has been assigned
why we should depart from the general custom in other associations. While
we were discussing this question in the Council our esteemed friend Dr.
Butler came into the room, and our friend Dr. Tuke referred to him
whether it was not the practice to confer distinction in that form iu the
United States, and he was a little disappointed to hear that there was
nothing of the sort there. I think that, for this year, we may be content
with having an official notification given to the honorary members, but for
the ordinary members there is something invidious in telling a man to wait
five years for a diploma.
Be. Tuke.—I have not the least objection to give it at once to all members.
The proposal to limit it to members for five years was made out of deference
to Dr. Browne’s opinion on the subject.
The Chairman.—I think my recollection was that it should be ten years.
[A vote was then taken, when the amendment was declared carried. The
original resolution was not pushed to a division.]
Lockhart Robertson.—I beg to move “
the Committee on Asylum
Statistics be reappointed, with the view of furthering the adoption of a uniform
system of statistics in the Annual Reports of the Public Asylums of Great Britain
and Ireland, and of our Colonies.” The Association is aware that I have for
some years now been urging their attention to the important question of the
adoption of a uniform system of statistics in the annual reports of public
asylums. At our annual meeting for i860 (held in London) I read a paper,
‘‘ Suggestions towards a Uniform System of Asylum Statistics,” which was pub
lished in the ‘Journal of Mental Science’ for October, 1860. Again, at our
annual meeting for 1864, held at the Royal College of Physicians, I moved
for a committee to prepare a report on this question. This report was sub
mitted at our last annual meeting (1865), and unanimously adopted. The
report is printed in the ‘Journal of Mental Science’ for October, 1865. The
committee on that occasion contented themselves with suggesting six tables
which might serve as a basis for a uniform system of asylum medical statistics.
These.tables were, however, regarded by them “only in the light of a prin
cipal instalment of those which are desirable.” I am glad to be able to
report that these tables of the committee have already met with considerable
success, and have this year been adopted in the reports of many of our county
asylums.
lhe labours of this committee have also been most favorably
noticed by the Commissioners in Lunacy in their last Annual Report to
�1866.]
Notes and News.
425
the Lord Chancellor. I take the liberty of reading to this meeting the ob
servations there made :—
“ The importance (observe the Commissioners) of adopting in all asylums a
uniform system of statistical tables and registers has long been felt by us, and we
are glad to find that the subject has recently been again under the consideration
of the Medico-Psychological Association, at whose last meeting a committee to
whom it had been referred submitted forms of tables which were adopted and
recommended for general use. These tables, confined to medical statistics, are
simple in form, and only include the main and most important facts required to
constitute a basis for more elaborate and detailed information.
“ The superintendents of most county asylums publish in their annual reports
tables more or less elaborate, and containing a large amount of valuable informa
tion. While, however, the facts recorded may be identical in many if not most of
the reports, the form in which they are recorded varies so greatly that it becomes
impossible to tabulate them for the purpose of showing general results.
“ In any future legislation it would no doubt be desirable, as suggested in the
report alluded to, so to revise the present ‘ Registry of Admissions’ as to include
some of the more important particulars required, in order to obtain correct
statistics of insanity. But in the mean time we trust that, with the view of
facilitating statistical comparison, the visitors and superintendents of all institu
tions for the insane will not object to adopt the forms of tables recommended,
which will be found in Appendix (I).
Table 1 gives the numbers of admissions, readmissions, discharges, and deaths,
with the average numbers resident during the year ; the sexes being distinguished
under each head.
“ Table II gives the same results for the entire period the asylum has been
in operation.
“ Table III furnishes a history of the yearly results of treatment since the
opening of the asylum.
“The table also embraces a column for the mean population, or average num
bers resident in each year. In other columns are shown for each year the propor
tion of recoveries calculated on the admissions ; and the mean annual mortality,
or the proportion of deaths, calculated on the average numbers resident. It is of
the first importance that these two principal results under asylum treatment, when
given, should be calculated on a uniform plan, and according to the methods here
pointed out.
“ Table IV gives a history of each year’s admissions ; how many, for example,
of the patients admitted, say in 1855, have been discharged as cured, how many
have died, and how many remain in the asylum in 1865.
“ The value of this table in regard to the vexed question of the increase of in
sanity is evident. The table is adopted from the Somerset Asylum Reports.
“ Table V shows the causes of death classified under appropriate heads. This
form is adopted from the Reports of the Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland,
with some addition and modification. It appears sufficiently detailed for statistical
purposes.
“ Table VI gives the length of residence in the asylum of those discharged
recovered, and of those who died during the year.
“ Uniformity in recording the ages of patients on admission, the duration of the
existing attack, and the form of mental disorder under which they labour, is also
very desirable ; and it is to be hoped that the medical officers of asylums may see
the great importance of coming to some agreement upon these points. How far
the table of the causes of death may require modification or extension will be a
matter for subsequent consideration.”
In order to carry out the work thus begun, and here so favorably noticed.
I beg to move the reappointment of the former Committee on Asylum
Statistics.
J)r. Maudsley seconded the resolution, which was agreed to unanimously.
The meeting was then adjourned till Three o'clock.
�426
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
Afternoon Meeting. The President.—The first paper on our list is by
Dr. Webster.
Dr. Tube said,—Sir, before the business of the meeting commences I am
anxious to lay before you the following letter, which has just been put into
my hands. Dr. Butler is now present.
“ John S. Butler, M.D., of the Retreat for the Insane, Hartford, Conn.,
and Vice-President of tbe Association of Medical Superintendents of
American Institutions for the Insane, is appointed a delegate from this
Association to the Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain, which
holds its meeting in Edinburgh, July 31st, 1866.
“John Curwen, M.D.,
“ Secretary of the Association of Medical Superintendents of
American Institutions for the Insane.
“ To the President, Medico-Psychological Association.
“ July, 1866.”
The President.—I am sure the meeting will receive the distinguished
delegate of our sister Association with much pleasure, and I trust that
he will join in our debates. We are glad to welcome him among us.
(Applause.)
Dr. Butler shortly expressed his thanks, and the President then called on—
Dr. Webster, who read the paper of which notice had been given, “ The
Insane Colony of Gheel Revisited.” See Part 1, Original Articles.
The President—I shall be happy to hear any observations that may be
made on Dr. Webster’s paper on the present condition of Gheel.
Dr. Monro.—I would like to know if I clearly understood Dr. Webster to
say that in about a thousand cases there were about five in hobbles, because
I understand that Dr. Webster upholds Gheel as a pattern place.
Dr. Webster.—Not the hobbles.
Z>r. Monro.—I was going to say that in Scotland or England we would
hardly dare to acknowledge that we used hobbles for any of our patients.
I am afraid that looks as if the Gheel system was something not so far ad
vanced as the English system.
Dr. Webster.—You know that though they have hobbles on they can walk
wherever they like.
Dr. Monro.—I do not know, exactly, what hobbles are.
Dr. Webster.—They are a band round the ankle, so that the patients can
not take a long step, but they can take a short step.
The President.—There was another point where I failed exactly to catch
the meaning of Dr. Webster. I think he spoke of the ratio of cures being
69 per cent. I presume that must have been recent cases and selected case”,
because if such be the per-centage in Gheel it is indeed a pattern place.
Dr. Webster.—This return of 69 per cent, refers to the last ten years’
patients, and only to those considered likely to be curable, excluding para
lytic patients.
Dr. Monro.—I should not call 69 per cent, a remarkable proportion if you
only take curable cases.
The President.—Not if you exclude all epileptic and paralytic cases—in
fact, if you exclude all incurable cases.
Dr. Monro.—We have had 68 per cent, of that class of patients cured at
St. Luke’s, but not just latelv.
Dr. Sibbald.—1 have listened with a great deal of interest to Dr. Webster’s
paper, and I do not like to let it pass without making one or two remarks
upon it. I visited Gheel twice myself, and I saw a great deal there that I
�1866.]
Notes and News.
427
thought was very instructive. I think that the principal lesson which may
be learned from Gheel is, that there are a large number of lunatics who may
be treated in private houses outside the walls of asylums, who previous to
recent times were supposed to require the restraint of an asylum. But I
saw at Gheel a great many symptoms of restraint which were certainly worse
than anything you will find in an asylum. I think that such things as these
hobbles, and a great many other forms of restraint which I thought exceed
ingly objectionable, and some of them most cruel, ought to be abandoned.
I think it is a great pity that, at the present time, Dr. Webster has not been
able to report that these things are now done away with in Gheel. Those
patients who are under restraint should not be in Gheel, and they would
not require restraint, and would be much more suitably treated in an
asylum.
Dr. Webster.—I state, in my paper, that the number of patients who have
hobbles were much fewer than on my previous visit. I saw no strait
waistcoats, which I am sorry to say I saw in many foreign asylums. It
must be kept in view that on the Continent many medical men have not
the same objection to force being used as we have in England, though in
many parts of France I found a great improvement in this respect. Those
persons who had the hobbles can walk about, though they cannot go a great
distance. I consider that I have seen worse forms of restraint than those I
saw in Gheel, where the system has greatly improved during the past ten
years, and I have no doubt that ten years hence it will be still further
improved.
Dr. Take.—I think it is much to be regretted that Dr. Webster did not
take up the question whether the Gheel system should not be more generally
followed than it is in England. I think we do not advance the matter by
merely describing Gheel as it is, unless we get some opinion as to whether
the Gheel system is or is not a right system ; and Dr. Webster has carefully
avoided giving such an opinion. 1 think that the Gheel system is not a right
one, and I say so with some hesitation, because I find that the opponents of
Gheel are described by those who advocate it as the opposers of all liberal
movements. Gheel is called—very improperly, I think—a free-air, liberal
system. All that is precisely begging the question. I deny that altogether,
and it is for the advocates of the system to show that it is so, and that it is
successful. Dr. Webster seems to me to have entirely failed in doing that.
He gives too few figures to justify any safe conclusion from them; but he
says that there were about 1500 patients, and that 290 were excluded as
being paralytic or epileptic. I made a note at the time that the cures
amounted, taking the whole cases, to something like 27 per cent. Now, a
proportion of cures of 27 per cent, in a place like Gheel is excessively bad.
The Report of the Commissioners of Lunacy is very imperfect in statistics
of this sort, but I find that the average number of patients received into
small asylums—which I take to be the nearest resemblance we can show
to Gheel—show a proportion of cures of 33 per cent., very much more than
that of Gheel. I do not produce this, of course, as proving anything; I only
say that, if the figures were the criterion, our figures show that the Gheel
system is inferior to the best form of a really more liberal, free-air system
which we have adopted in England. There can be no question that the
proper object of asylum treatment is to give as much liberty as is consistent
with safety to the patient and to the public. The question about Gheel
resolves itself into this—Is the treatment for the pauper poor at all to be
compared with the treatment of patients of a higher rank ? Do the advocates
of the Gheel system wish to treat the two classes together? If they do, I
tell them that the scheme of Gheel is absolutely and entirely impossible. It
is impossible to take people of rank and high social position and send them
�428
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
to a village like Gheel; and for this reason, that not only would there be the
danger of these doing some damage to themselves, but there would be a risk
of their injuring the reputation of their families by some act of folly. That
is one reason why the Gheel system cannot be carried out. But the question
has two sides : the one is, that private asylums can be very much improved ;
and the other is, that Gheel may be very much improved. The system of
restraint at'Gheel stands lamentably in need of improvement; and then there
is the question of medical treatment, which is the most important of all.
The whole question of the treatment of the insane ought to be primarily a
medical question, and it seems to me that if you scatter about 1500 patients,
say in 700 houses, they cannot have proper medical treatment, and without
proper medical treatment I look upon the whole treatment of insanity as
merely a question of board and lodging; and in my opinion, if there is not
proper medical treatment it is equally bad whether the patient is boarded
and lodged in a cottage by himself or in a larger house. My advice to the
advocates of Gheel would be to get up a whole colony of small asylums, and
give the charge of each asylum to a medical man. They would then find the
ratio of cures increasing, and they might some day attain to the rate of
cures to which we have attained in our private asylums in Scotland and
England.
Dr. Monro.—Dr. Webster will, perhaps, be so kind as to answer the question
whether he looks upon Gheel as an example for England, or whether he
looks upon it as at ail equal to theEnglish treatment, because certainly his
account would give the impression that it was very far behind.
Dr. Webster.—Dr. Tuke has alluded to the medical treatment of patients.
Gheel is divided into four sections, each of which has a physician who sees the
patients and attends to their medical treatment. If any serious illness
affects any of them they can be more frequently seen, or they can be sent
to the central hospice. The medical treatment at Gheel is pretty much the
same as elsewhere. These four medical gentlemen are men of experience;
and in addition to the four physicians there is one surgeon who attends to
surgical cases, and a medical superintendent. There are six medical men in
the place, therefore I do not think the medical treatment is at all defective.
It has been asked whether, in my opinion, such an establishment should be
set up in this country. I have no hesitation in saying that it might, but
that there are difficulties to be encountered. You must get proper atten
dants, people that are accustomed to it, and there are few places in this
country where it could be carried out to any extent. When I had the
pleasure of visiting the new asylum at Inverness I understood from Dr.
Aitken that they intended to have a system of that kind there—small
cottages for the patients upon the system of Gheel, though, of course, in a
less extensive form. Gheel is not at all adapted for ladies and gentlemen,
to a certain extent; but it is adapted for a larger proportion of lunatics,
and in such a place as that they are more likely to spend the rest of their
days comfortably. I do not wish to be a strong advocate of the Gheel
system. My eyes are open to the difficulties and objections that may be
urged against it; but I hold that a similar system is very desirable. It is
talked of in Belgium that they are to have another establishment of the
same kind.to the westward. There is one, I think, near Lyons. I have no
hesitation in saying that I think there are strong reasons why such an estab
lishment may be set up in this country, as elsewhere, but of course there are
certain cases for which it might not be adapted. As to the cases, I may say
that 1 mentioned that the average cures at Gheel, excluding general para
lysis, amounted to upwards of 30 per cent.
lhe President.—Thirty per cent. ? To what, then, did your G9 per cent,
apply ?
�1866.]
Notes and News.
429
Dr. Webster.—I said that of 1417 cases the per-centage of cures was 3069
per cent., excluding general paralysis.
Dr. Tuke.—What is the entire number of patients without any exclusion ?
Dr. Webster.—The patients of every description admitted for the last ten
years was 1696, and the cures were 434. Subtracting the cases of general
paralysis and epilepsy, of which none were cured, the average cures of every
form of insanity were about 30| or 30} per cent.
Dr. Monro.—I would ask Dr. Webster whether he does not think that is
a very small per-centage of cures, considering that paralytic and epileptic
cases are excluded ?
The President. — It is equal to the general per-centage of the county
asylums.
Dr. Webster.—It is even greater. It is greater than it was in Hanwell a
number of years ago.
Dr. Monro.—In Hanwell all cases are included.
Sir James Coze.—A great proportion of the patients at Gheel are already
incurable when they are sent there.
Dr. Wood.—Gheel is more strictly an asylum than any of our asylums.
In our asylums we have a considerable proportion of recent cases, greater
than at GheeL I think Dr. Tuke under-estimated the medical care at Gheel,
because, if he compares what is expected in the way of supervision from our
own medical officers, he will find that the patients are amply provided for at
Gheel. Indeed, taking the number of patients and the number of doctors,
I think it is at least equal to what we have in any of our asylums; and if
we compare it to a population extending over any considerable area, we
shall find that it is in excess of what we in England provide for the sick
poor. Therefore, it does not appear to me that the proportion of doctors to
patients is so small as Dr. Tuke would seem to fancy.
Dr. Tuke.—It appears to me that it will be 250 patients for one doctor, or
four to 1000, scattered about in separate houses.
Dr. Webster.—The superintendent is five and the surgeon six.
Dr. Tuke.—Well, take six, and assume that they are all there, I contend that
it is not enough. The system there is, perhaps, the best we can afford for the
poor; but the question is, not what we can afford, but what is best. Now the
Gheel system is not the best. It is of the most vital consequence, if you want
to cure the insane, that the moral influences of the trained, educated mind of
the medical superintendent should be brought as much as possible to bear
upon the wounded and diseased mind. I should think that Dr. Browne’s
recent report of the state of the poor in the Scotch cottages ought to have
settled the whole system of Gheel for years to come. But still, if it is to be
considered proper treatment, let us have it clearly stated, whether it is for poor
or rich, for curable or incurable patients. There can be no question that if an
insane tailor could be boarded with a sane tailor and his wife, and he could
be put gradually to work, that would be infinitely better than to put him to
work with many insane tailors in an asylum, containing a thousand patients.
But is that what can be done ? It appears to me that you should be careful
to decide that question before you destroy our public asylums, because the
advocates of Gheel would in reality destroy our public asylums (cries of
“ No, no.”) Pardon me, I am talking of what 1 know to be true. If a
man says that a certain system is a better one than that now in use, then, if
it be a better one, the better ought to be adopted. We have had it in our
own Journal put distinctly to us that it would be much better that all these
incurable, and paralytic, and foolish, and demented cases should be taken out
of our asylums and put in separate places. Now, there can be no doubt
whatever, I think, that that is very absurd.
Dr. Maudsley. —It is not a question of entirely overthrowing our county
�430
Notes and News,
[Oct.,
asylums, because it is well known that many of them are at present over
crowded, that a second asylum had been found necessary in many counties,
and that in many cases new asylums are proposed for boroughs. It therefore
becomes a serious and important question whether you are to go on extending
asylums in the way you are doing, or whether you cannot in some mode
relieve existing asylums. Now, there is one question that has not been con
sidered here for a moment. What right have you to deprive a man not dan
gerous to himself or others of his liberty by sending him to an asylum? So
long as he is not dangerous to himself and others, and proper medical care
is exercised over him, why deprive him entirely of his liberty ? Why not,
if possible, put him in a cottage with his own friends, or with others who are
willing to take charge of him for a suitable payment ? If he is a pauper, he
will be kept with his own friends at small expense. But it is not entirely a
question of expense either. If the man is hopelessly incurable, so long as
he is not dangerous to himself or others, that man has a right to the greatest
amount of comfort he can have. If he can have that in a cottage, then,
though it costs a little more there than in a county asylum, we ought to give
it to him. No one would speak of setting up in England the Gheel system
exactly. The population is too crowded in this country, the land too valu
able, and it would be practically impossible to do so. But the practical
question is whether, with so many asylums overcrowded, we cannot find any
other system; and whether this cottage system may not afford us the re
quired outlet for a certain class of incurable but harmless patients.
Dr. Crichton Browne.—How can Dr. Maudsley arrive at the fact that
a lunatic is not dangerous ?
Any day a lunatic may be liable to com
mit serious acts of violence. We have had lamentable instances of this
recently in this country; and it is not very long since a case of that
kind occurred in this city. So far as I know, there is no test by which we
can arrive at the knowledge as to whether a lunatic is dangerous or harmless.
As to medical treatment, that objection is scarcely fair, because if you go to
large county asylums you will find a large number of patients not subject to
medical treatment of any kind. Sometimes patients in these asylums are
not seen by the medical men because they are working out, and are not sub
ject to medical treatment. Of course, in the case of patients whose disease
has been chronic for ten years, it would be absurd to place them under me
dical treatment. There are no means known by which we can combat chronic
insanity in that stage, except by those general moral principles that regulate
an asylum. These are, of course, of great value; but I am not sure that
the moral agencies brought to bear in some homes and private cottages are
not still more valuable. I have not visited Gheel, and had no intention of
discussing it here. I would just mention an experiment I made during the
past winter. I had a small asylum of 120 patients. I selected ten patients
from the quietest, the most harmless, and the most inoffensive, and determined
to give them as much of the free and open-air system as possible. I allowed
them to go out every day on parole to their friends, and they had perfect
freedom to go in every direction within certain restricted bounds. Well,
within a month I had to withdraw that liberty in four instances. They
were the best patients I had, and vet I had to withdraw that liberty because
they grossly abused it, and complaints were made to me of their conduct.
Now, that certainly suggested itself to my mind that, if these very best
patients gave way when they were still subjected to a certain amount of
discipline, and knew that their conduct was watched, and that their privilege
would be withdrawn if they gave way, it was not at all a satisfactory stale
of things, and did not tend to give one confidence in the Gheel system.
Dr. Wood.—I heard with some surprise the doctrine which Dr. Maudsley
has mooted, which is one directly opposed to the teaching of our great Dr.
�1866.]
Notes and News.
431
Conolly. He will remember a yery remarkable case that was some years a»o
tried in the Court of Exchequer in London, when the Chief Baron held the
doctrine which Dr. Maudsley seems now to hold. That doctrine was con
sidered to be so opposed to the experience of all those who practised in
London that Dr. Conolly took it upon himself to publish a pamphlet on the
subject. The Lord Chief Baron held, as Dr. Maudsley appears to hold now,
that we were not justified in curtailing the liberty of an insane person if he
is not dangerous to himself and society. Now, I think there cannot be a
more dangerous doctrine. I thoroughly agree with what Dr. Crichton
Brown has said on that subject. We never know when an insane person is
dangerous, or at what moment he will become so ; and I think it must be
clear to Dr. Maudsley’s experience that many patients conduct themselves
with great propriety in an asylum and yet when at large become dangerous
lunatics. He shuts out of view some most important points. What is to
become of a patient who, though not dangerous in the ordinary sense of the
word, is so far dangerous in a moral sense that he may ruin himself, his
family, and all belonging to him. Insanity is a disease which requires treat
ment in all cases, and that treatment, I maintain, can only be properly car
ried out by placing him under control. I apprehend there is a danger even
greater than that which results from physical violence ; and, in considering
this question, we are apt to overlook one of the most important considera
tions of all. It is this, that a man who is in the prime of life and is beget
ting children is in a condition where he may propagate an insane race;
and, I think, in such circumstances it behoves us, as philosophers, seriously
to consider whether we are justified in placing a man who is avowedly in a
condition of disease in circumstances that will enable him to propagate a
diseased race. That has often struck me as one of the most important con
siderations in withholding liberty from patients who otherwise mi'dit be
trusted. And I must say that in my own personal experience it has often
influenced me in recommending the friends of patients to retain them, though
they might not appear to be dangerous to society in the common sense of
the word.
Dr. Maudsley.—Dr. Wood has been speaking to some extent under a mis
understanding of my meaning. It was no intention of mine to advocate the'
sending of patients out of asylums without, any control. The system I advo
cated was that of sending patients to reside in cottages.
Dr. Wood.—But you raised that question as to control.
Dr. Maudsley.—Yes. I raised that question, and I think it is important.
If you get an incurable patient, and see that he is incurable, and neither
dangerous to himself nor others, my question was, why should you shut
him up in a county asylum for the rest of his life ? Put him in a cottage
and allow his friends 5s. or 6s. a week to support him and take care of him,
and arrange for the doctor and the Commissioners of Lunacy to visit him :
see that he has proper superintendence. That would relieve your over
crowded asylums, but I never contemplated allowing insane persons to be left
entirely without control.
Dr. Wood.—I was speaking of a proposal to leave persons without con
trol. I have not the slightest objection to putting them in cottages if it can
be arranged that they shall be under control.
Dr. Alexander Robertson (Glasgow).—I may state as a fact, which is of
some importance in such a discussion as the present, that in the city paro
chial board a certain portion of selected patients whom I judged to be harm
less were sent to cottages in the country to reside there, and have now
been residing there for four years, and at our last inspection we were
altogether well pleased with their condition. The question was put to
almost the whole of them if they desired to get back to the asylum, and
�432
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
not one of them had such a desire. It is right to say that six months a«-o
we had to bring; one back who had been found to be improperly cared for,
but the person into whose care he had first been given had died. We are
so much pleased with that system in Glasgow that we are disposed to extend
it. I think that fact is of importance.
Dr. Crichton Browne.—I would ask Dr. Robertson if the Glasgow asylum is
not an aged structure of a rather dismal description—whether it is such a
building as that few persons would desire to return to it ?
Dr. Alexander Robertson.—Certainly we cannot contrast our building
favorably with the new institutions ; but with the aid of the Commissioners
it is now brought to a pretty good condition. The patients are boarded out
with cotters. There are several men and women. They reside there apd
work on the farm. They come to have an affection for their guardians, ot»d
the guardians have the same for them, and this proves that such patients can
be selected and trusted there without anything wrong occurring. We have
nine out of the small number of 150. In addition to that, I have selected
some six more to be sent to houses selected by myself.
Dr. Monro.—I have not had any prejudice one way or another as regards
this subject, because I am afraid I do not know sufficient about it to form a
very strong opinion ; but when I heard Dr. Webster read his paper I pre
sumed he was reading a paper about something which he esteemed a pattern
and example for others to follow. The few things that especially caught my
attention were matters such as that about the hobbles. I do not want to
make too much of that. But certainly the cures seemed to be an exceed
ingly small per-centage. I should say that fact after fact in Dr. Webster’s
paper seemed to intimate to me, who call myself an unprejudiced person,
that the asylum was not succeeding, and yet 1 presume Dr. Webster read
the paper in favour of that system. Then Dr. Maudsley spoke exceedingly
strongly as to letting every chronic insane person who is not actually dan
gerous have all the enjoyments of life.
Dr. Maudsley.—As many of the Chancery patients have.
Dr. Monro.—Now comes a very important question, which I think should
have been settled some time ago. Is it a more enjoyable thing for an insane
patient to be in the hands of a farmer or poor cottager than in one of our
county asylums? I think that that system of boarding out of workhouses,
to which this system is very like, was looked upon as a thing quite exploded.
I do not say the Gheel system is not a great deal better than that one, but
still that is a point that was gone into before asylums were built to meet the
great evils which existed then. Dr. Maudsley speaks of the comforts of
those poor people. Of course, those of them who happen to fall into the
bands of kind cottagers or kind farmers, and who are not obliged to hobble
or to wear strait-waistcoats may be exceedingly comfortable, more so than
in asylums. But I cannot conceive how a system which has a certain per
centage of things which we have utterly given up because we look upon
them as cruel can be considered a system which is kind to the poor and
allows the chronic insane to have the ordinary enjoyments of life.
Dr. Howden.—M\ e are all, no doubt, aware that a certain number of insane
people may live in cottages ; but before putting very much value on the liberty
enjoyed by those who live in those cottages, one would require to know more
about the. condition of these people. The cases referred to by Dr. Robertson
have additional interest on account of their having been drafted from an
asylum, though, in regard to what Dr. Maudsley has referred to, taking the
question in the abstract, as to whether we have a right to deprive an insane
person of his liberty unless he were dangerous to himself or others, it
appears to me that we deprive him of his liberty as much by putting him in
a cottage as in an asylum, and that the question is simply whether he is
�1866.]
Notes and News.
433
better managed in an asylum or a cottage. In the asylum with which I am
connected I have five cottages in which I occasionally board patients. There
are always four or five patients boarded in these cottages, and they are under
my own supervision, on the farm connected with the asylum. In some cases
I have the greatest.satisfaction in having the patients boarded there. In
cases of convalescent insanity, in particular, I think the system of placing
the patients in cottages, under a sort of supervision, before they are discharged
altogether, is a very desirable one. At the same time, 1 must state that I have
always great difficulty in getting patients to go to these cottages out of the
asylum. I do not like to put imbecile patients, totally unable to take care of
themselves, into cottages. I think they are better in an asylum, and I
must say that I have always had difficulty in getting the other patients to go
info those cottages who would be most likely to benefit by being in them.
Generally speaking, they prefer being in the asylum. That must be because
they find themselves more comfortable in the asylum. I think that we
will all agree that we ought to put the patient where he is best, and I
agree with Dr. Maudsley to this extent, that if the patient is better in
a private house by all means have him there; but if not, have him in an
asylum.
Dr. Sibbald.—I think we cannot lose sight of the lesson which we are
taught by Gheel, that there are many patients who can be very properly placed
in cottages, although there are many imperfections in the way in which Gheel
is managed at present, and although there are many patients there who, I
believe, none of us would approve of being there. With regard to the
remarks which have been made as to the difficulty of deciding what patients are
not dangerous either to themselves or others, there is, I think, no more diffi
culty in that than there is in deciding that a patient is dangerous to himself
or others, which every medical man has to do when he signs a certificate for
confining a patient in an asylum. The one question is just as easy of de
cision as the other. And in the public asylums, which are growing larger
and larger every year, there can be very little doubt, I think, that there is a
large number of cases which, if they were not in asylums at the present time,
would not now be placed in asylums; but from the fact that they are in
asylums at present the superintendent does not like to take the responsi
bility of saying, “ This case may be put out.” He says, “ Keep them in.”
I think if some means could be adopted whereby these patients might be
experimented upon—as is the case to a considerable extent in Scotland at
present—such a course would be productive of good both to the patient
*
and to the country generally.
Dr. Arlidge.—The great question of the day is what to do with the lunatics.
They keep growing on our hands. They grow by accumulation in w.ry
asylum, especially pauper lunatics, and therefore it becomes a grave ques
tion what we shall do with many of them. Those who belong to asylums
know that a large number of the inmates are doubtful inhabitants of asylums;
they have been put in many years ago, and they remain there, because they
have been once placed in an asylum; and the great question of the day is,
whether we shall go on constructing county asylums at an enormous ex
pense, as heretofore, or whether we shall adopt a new scheme in providing
for a certain class of pauper patients? With reference to providing (or a
certain class of patients, Gheel is of value in showing what might be done.
We cannot commend Gheel as a model to be actually followed, but the
proper course is to take out of Gheel what is valuable and adapt it to the
wants of this country. Dr. Webster has properly pointed out that Gheel
has been an insane colony for some hundreds ofyears. The whole population
of that little commune has grown up acquainted with the habits of lunatics ;
but we have no place in England which has the seclusion of Gbeel, or which
�434
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
has a population adapted to take charge of lunatics. We know that in this
country the great body of the population has numerous prejudices and fears
in regard to lunatics, and we could not possibly intrust even the most harm
less of our lunatics to them. The main importance of a discussion in reference
to Gheel is that it may lead us to the discovery of what is valuable in the
Gheel system and adapt it to our wants. It has occurred to me that we
might in some way adapt it by relieving some of our asylums of a proportion
of their patients, and placing them in cottages, under the supervision of the
attendant of the asylum. At the same time let these cottagers, if practicable,
be old asylum attendants, or others who may take their discharge from the
asylum and settle themselves in the neighbourhood. That would allow a
colony gradually to grow up. The example of Gheel has been of weight on
the Continent, and there is a strong tendency to reproduce Gheel in some
form or other elsewhere. Dr. Webster has mentioned that the Belgian
Government is about to institute another similar colony, and in France there
is a great disposition to imitate it. In France we have experiments going
on, showing what can be done in the way of dealing in cottages on detached
farms with lunatics for whom accommodation used to be provided in asylums.
Remarks have been made as to the proportion of cures. As Dr. Monro
rightly says, if you exclude all epileptics and general paralytics, 30 .} is cer
tainly a small per-centage. During the time I was superintendent of St.
Luke’s Hospital we exceeded 70 per cent, of cures.
Dr. Monro.—And it was 68 per cent, for many years running.
Dr. Arlidge.—If you read the reports of the American asylums they will
tell you that they can cure 90 per cent.; but that is partly accounted for by
their receiving cases of delirium tremens, and turning them out cured, so
that we cannot compare their cases with our own. As to curable cases, I
think there is a great defect in Gheel in not making special provision for
curable cases. Boarding out is not so well adapted for cases of recent
occurrence. These cases ought to be brought to an infirmary in the town,
and that plan is to be carried out.
Dr. Webster.—It is being carried out.
Dr. Arlidge.—The restraint that exists at Gheel is of small moment indeed.
We must remember that on the Continent medical men have strong preju
dices in favour of using restraint. Those men who put on hobbles would
say—“ It is much better to allow these men to walk about in hobbles than
to shut them up within the walls of an asylum.” Now, I do not advocate
restraint; but there is a measure of truth in that view, and it must not be
lost sight of. If there is restraint at Gheel you must put it down to the
habits of thought of medical men on the Continent. If medical men were
transplanted from England to Gheel, I dare say they could see how to do
away with the hobbles and with all restraint.
This closed the discussion.
Owing to the lateness of the hour, the other papers on the programme
were held as read.
Dr. Tuke.—I beg to move that we tender our best thanks to the Royal
Society of Edinburgh for the use of this hall.
The President.—May I suggest that our thanks should likewise be tendered
to the Royal College of Physicians, who offered their Library for our
meetings.
The motions were unanimously adopted.
On the motion of Dr. Monro, the following gentlemen were appointed as a
committee for promoting a memorial to Dr. Conolly :—The President and
council, and the past Presidents, with power to add to their number.
Dr. Tuke.—I beg to move a vote of thanks to our esteemed President, who
has presided over this long sederunt with so much kindness and courtesy,
�1866.]
Notes and News.
435
and who has given up so much time in attending to the private affairs of
this Society.
Dr. Webster seconded the motion, which was carried by acclamation.
The proceedings then terminated.
Annual Dinner.—The annual dinner was held in the evening, at the
Douglas Hotel, St. Andrew’s Square. There was a large attendance, and
the quality and style of the dinner and wines were of the very best. Amon«the guests of the evening were :—Sir J. D. Wauchope, Bart., Chairman of
the Scotch Lunacy Board ; Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart., M.D.; Dr. Seller;
the President of the College of Surgeons; the President of the College of
Physicians; Dr. Russell Reynolds; Dr. Gillespie; Dr. Argyll Robertson;
Dr. Webster; Dr. Butler (U.S.); Dr. E. C. Robertson; Rev. H. M.
Robertson. Sir James Coxe was also present in his right as a Member of
the Association.
In consequence of the very severe and serious illness of Professor Laycock,
the Medico-1 yschological Class connected with the University of Edinburgh
was conducted, for the greater part of the Summer Session, by Commissioner
Browne. By a happy coincidence the course was concluded and the prizes
awarded upon the eve of the meeting of the Medico-Psychological Society,
so that a number of its members and nearly all its officers were enabled to
be present.
After a Lecture on “ Hereditary Tendency to Mental Disease” had been
delivered, and strong commendation bestowed upon the diligence and.
interest displayed by the class—amounting, we understand, to about thirty
■ and upon the ability and industry of those who had especially distinguished
themselves, as attested by Drs. Seller and AV. Robertson, assessors to the
University, to whom the competitive clinical papers, essays, &c., had been
submitted, the prizes were delivered by Sir John Don Wauchope, Bart.,
Chairman of the Board of Lunacy, Commissioner Sir James Coxe, Professor
Balfour, &c.
Sir J. D. Wauchope, in presenting the prizes, expressed the satisfaction
which he experienced in being present on this occasion; his desire to
encourage such means of instruction in the study of mental disease as were
afforded by this class; and his conviction that holding the position which he
did he was performing a public duty in sanctioning all efforts to diffuse
knowledge which was calculated to diminish the numbers of the insane and
to ameliorate their condition.
The members of the class were then invited to attend the meeting of the
Association on the following day; a privilege of which they availed them
selves.
PRIZE LIST.
Class of Medical Psychology and Mental Diseases.
For Excellence in Clinical Examination (Dr. Gilchrist’s Prize).
1. Carlo Malan.
For Excellence in Written Examinations (University Medal and
Dr. Browne’s Prize).
1. John Macbeth.
Best Essay on “ Le Pitit Mai” (additional Prize from Dr. Browne).
1. Thomas Lauder Brunton.
�436
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
For Excellence in both Clinical and Written Examinations
(Certificates of Honour).
1. John Macbeth.
2. Carlo Malan.
3. Thomas Lauder Brunton.
4. William J. Williams.
5. William Munro.
6. Alexander R. Haughey.
T. LAYCOCK.
The Honorary Secretary has received the following letters, which he desires to
communicate to the members of the Association.
“ 1, Harrington Square, London, N.W. ;
“ 19/Zt July, 1865.
“ Mi .dear Sir,—I beg to acknowledge the honour conferred on me by
the Medico-Psychological Association, in electing me one of their honorary
.members ; and if at any time it should be in my power to forward the
interests of the Society I shall be pleased to avail myself of the opportunity.
“Accept my best thanks for your kind personal expression of good-will.
“ Believe me, yours faithfully,
“W. H. Wyatt.”
“ Dr. Tuke.”
“ 2, Savile Row, Burlington Gardens ;
“ 28<A September, 1865.
“ Dear Sir,—On arriving from Italy a few days ago I had the honour
of receiving your esteemed communication of the 12th inst., informing me
that the Medico-Psychological Association had conferred on me the distinc
tion of an honorary membership ; I feel, I assure you, very proud of this
honour, and beg you will take the first opportunity of conveying to your
Association my warmest thanks for their kindness.
“ It is a great satisfaction to me to find my very humble efforts to
ameliorate the condition of the insane approved of by such a body as yours,
and will be an encouragement to me to do all I can to forward the noble and
humane objects of the Association. I have just been visiting some of the
Continental asylums, with a view of obtaining additional information to assist
me in forming some legislative measures relative to public lunatic asylums
next session.
“ I beg you will accept for yourself my best thanks for the kind courtesy
with which you conveyed the resolution of the Association to me.
“ I remain, dear Sir,
“ Yours very truly,
“ John A. Blake.”
“ Harrington Tuke, Esq., M.D.”
“ Stabilimento Sanitario in Milano presso St. Celso ;
February, 1866.
“ Most honorable Sir,—I am very sensible to the honour that the
eminent Medico-Psychological Association of England has done to name me
between their honorary members. Whilst I tried, as I could, to demonstrate
to my countrymen the elevated scientific merits of the honorable English
�1866.]
Notes and News.
437
alienist physicians, I have, too, experienced their great kindness and goodness
for me.
“ I beg you, Sir, with all my thanks, to tell my feelings to the eminent
Association of which you are the noble general secretary.
“ Heartily and respectfully,
“ Your most obedient servant,
“ Dr. Biffi.”
“ Vienna ; 18/7t February, 1866.
“ Dear Sir,—By your letter of January 1st, which I have received on the
10th instant, you kindly informed me that the last meeting held at the ltoyal
College of Physicians did me the honour to select me an honorary member
of the Medico-Psychological Association.
“ I am desirous of expressing my grateful sense and high appreciation of
this honour, and pray have the kindness t» transmit my sentiment of warmest
gratitude to the Association.
“ I am, Sir, truly yours,
“Dr. L. Schlager,
“ Professor of Psychiatrie at the University of Vienna.”
“ Monsieur
et
très-iionoré
“ Gheel, le 22 Février, 1866.
Confrères, — J’ai l’honneur de vous
accuser réception de la lettre par laquelle vous m’annoncez mon agrégation
comme membre honoraire de l’Association Médico-Psychologique de Londres.
“ Cette marque de haute distinction m’honore et m’encouragera dans
l’accomplissement de la mission humanitaire qui m’est dévolue. Par mon
dévouement, je tacherai toujours de me rendre digne de votre savante et
philantropique Association.
“ Monsieur, et trcs-honoré Confrères, veuillez à ce sujet agréer person
nellement et exprimer à vos estimables collègues mes sincères remercîments.
Veuillez croire à la parfaite estime et à la haute considération, etc.
“ Votre dévoué Confrère,
“ Monsieur Harrington Tuke,
“ Dr. Bulcklns.’’
“ Docteur en Médecine, etc., Londres.”
The Want of Education in Physical Science.
To every man abhorrent of waste, the thought that thousands of his fellowcountrymen have received no useful training must prove a source of frequent
and deep regret. It is a trite remark, that while we devote our utmost
energies to the improvement of bullocks and sheep, we leave God’s last and
greatest work—man—too often untended and uncared for. The stimulus
to improve the breed of cattle lies in the immediate gain to the owner; but
the benefit to be derived from the improvement of the human race seems to
lie too remote from individual interests to excite the necessary sympathy,
unless exceptionally, in the breasts of philanthropists. Yet we are not an
inhumane people. We spare no cost to provide hospitals, asylums, poor
houses, and jails, for the care and recovery of our less fortunate brethren ;
and we appoint inspectors and commissioners to watch over and report on
the manner in which these establishments are conducted. So far, so well.
But, in spite of all this labour, a fear, strengthened by a consideration of the
VOL. XII.
29
�438
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
results, will nevertheless intrude that our exertions are in the main un
successful, and that our work of reform has been begun at the wrong end.
What should we think of a railway company which, instead of doing its best
to secure locomotives of the best material and most durable construction,
was to accept them from the maker, however indifferent in quality, and be
satisfied with fitting up a variety of workshops for their repair? No man
would have any difficulty in perceiving that this procedure was at once
short-sighted and ruinous. But it never seems to occur to our legislators
that sickness, insanity, pauperism, and crime are far more likely tcTbe suc
cessfully met and counteracted by measures calculated to ensure at starting
a healthy mental and bodily constitution, than by endeavours to restore this
condition after it has been destroyed by neglect. Every one, in the abstract,
admits the value of training. A trained dog, a trained horse, a trained
seivant, a. trained mechanic, a trained soldier, a trained physician, are all
valuable in their individual capacities through their training, and their
services aie estimated accordingly. But the training to an art is special in its
nature, and is a very different thing from that general training to which the
whole population should be subjected. A man may be a good ploughman,
a good watchmaker, or a good lawyer, and yet lack that knowledge which
will protect him from falling into sickness, insanity, or crime. The general
standard by which a man s education is estimated, is his capacity to read and
write; and, accordingly, in our Parliamentary blue-books, criminals, or
soldiers, or sailors, are classified as well- or ill-educated, according to this
test. But a man may be able to read and write with the utmost ease, and
yet be destitute of all knowledge of the simplest facts of science, and know
no more of the. manner in which he ought to live in order to secure his
mental and bodily health than the babe which was born yesterday. Bevond
a doubt, a man who. can read and write is armed with a very powerful
weapon foi the. acquisition of knowledge ; but pci' sc reading and writing are
merely extensions of the means of communication—facilities for hoFding
.intercourse with those who are absent. To what extent they are practically
useful will depend upon circumstances. One man has leisure and inclination
to read; another has neither the one nor the other. To the latter, accoidingly, the talent is of little use; and in neither does it constitute an
exact test of knowledge. Who does not look back on his schoolboy days,
and grieve over the little useful knowledge he then acquired, and wonder
that a system which aimed.principally at imparting a knowledge of dead
languages, of superseded religions, and of the manners and customiof extinct,
peoples, should still successfully struggle against the general introduction of
the study of living languages, of existing faiths, and of the laws and customs
of modern nations ? How few boys are there among those who have com
pleted the curriculum of even our best schools, who have any knowledge of
physical science and of the laws of health ; who can tell why they breathe,
or on what circumstances the normal performance of the function of respira
tion depends; who can give reasons for the necessity of ventilation; who
have, in short, even the rudimental knowledge necessary for the preservation
of their own health! How few are there who are acquainted with the
political and social constitution of their own country, who have any clear
ideas on the subjects of municipal government, church establishments, the
support of the poor, or the punishment of crime 1 How few who know any
thing of the past history of the earth, and of the wonders revealed by the
stones on which they tread ; how few who can read the book which nature
displays in the wood or in the meadow, on the mountain or on the shore !
A consideration of facts like these must show to every thinking man how
limited, how scanty, and how unsatisfactory must be our present system of
education.
�1866.]
Notes and News.
139
And if such be the results even among the so-called educated classes, what
state of matters can we expect to find among those who have been allowed
to grow up in ignorance, and too frequently in vice ? Who can walk through
the poorer districts of our large cities without a feeling of indescribable sad
ness over the wasted lives and energies of the miserable creatures he sees
on every side, who are reduced to a state of degradation such as is seen in no
other European country ? But alarm as well as pity may well be felt, for
the question cannot fail to present itself whether, with so large a mass of the
population so steeped in ignorance, so deficient in moral and intellectual
culture, so little acquainted with the duties and responsibilities of a loyal and
a Christian people, and with so little to lose in the event of civil strife or
convulsion, we are not sleeping on the brink of a volcano which, although at
present in repose, may at any moment break out in a fearful and devastating
eruption ? From time to time we hear of endeavours to provide for the
general education of the people; but opposition arises, and nothing is done
because we cannot agree on the religious tenets that should be taught by
the State. True, the proposal has repeatedly been made, that secular
knowledge alone should be imparted at the public expense; but hitherto it
has always been suppressed in a shout of horror against godless and infidel
training. And so it happens that year after year nothing is done, and a
population is left to grow up around us which fears not God and respects
not man. Every Sunday the clergy in their pulpits pray for blessings on
this corner of the Lord’s vineyard, and return thanks that their lot has been
cast among a loyal, a happy, and a religious people. Are they in reality
proud of the condition of those portions of the Lord’s vineyard which are
comprised in the Cowgate and Canongate of Edinburgh, or the Salt Market
and High Street of Glasgow ? Do they ever ask themselves how many
heathens are living in this Christian land—not the quiet, respectable heathen
of a pagan country, but the neglected outcasts of our boasted civilisation ?
Shall this state of matters be allowed to continue until some fearful con
vulsion shall shake the foundations of society and expose the rottenness of
our social fabric, even as we have seen the rottenness of the social and
military system of Austria brought to light ? Wherein lies the secret of the
success of Prussia in the recent contest? In the needle-gun? Yes, to a
certain extent; but the needle-gun, be it remembered, was placed in the
hands of educated and intelligent men, whose triumph was the triumph of
knowledge, and of the loyalty and national spirit which knowledge imparts.
That national spirit exists among us, the volunteer movement has sufficiently
proved; but this movement has not reached, and cannot reach, the lowest
strata of the people. In Prussia, education is compulsory. Every man is
brought under its influence; and herein lies a mighty instrument for impart
ing national sentiment and national virtue, and a power of co-operation in
circumstances of difficulty and danger. In the Northern States of America
we have recently seen an equal exhibition of national power springing from
similar sources; and we have all heard how strongly national sentiment,
although too often exclusive and bigoted, is fostered in these States by the
lessons of the school.
'
Every man in the narrow sphere of his business and of his home can
appreciate the value of education and training in his assistants and his
servants. Skilled labour everywhere commands a higher price than that
which is unskilled. The trained man is more valuable than the untrained,
and an educated people must thus necessarily be possessed of sources of
wealth and power and strength far beyond those of a people who is untrained
and ignorant. Every year immense sums are spent in improving our ships
and our guns, which are merely the inanimate instruments of our defence,
and will certainly fail us in the hour of need, unless used with judgment,
�440
Notes and Neins.
[Oct.,
zeal, and loyalty. But what caring can a man who has been drafted into
the army from the back slums of Edinburgh, Glasgow, or Aberdeen, be
expected to have in the honour and interests of his country ? The chances
are that he was driven to enlist to save himself from starvation, which stared
him in the face through want of education, vice, or intellectual deficiency.
When a man is fit for nothing else, he is still considered good enough to
defend his country’s honour. He may, indeed, fill a pit as well as another;
but a soldier, even of the kind we have, is too costly an article to be ex
pended in this fashion. Besides, we do not want him to fill a pit himself,
but, if need be, to fill pits with the bodies of the enemy.—The Scotsman,
¡September 15th.
'l’ie Medico-Psycholmjical Association.
/
Definition is dangerous, and never more so than when it seeks to ensnare
Psyche in its net. From the dawn of speculation to the present day, the
intelligence of mankind has been continually prying into the laws of its own
processes, and into the relation of these with the physical organism, through
which alone it becomes cognisant of them. In proportion, however, as specu
lation has grown scientific, it has desisted from seeking its object by what
Coleridge called “the high priori road,” and any progress it has made towards
the solution of its inquiries has been effected on the narrow and humble
pathway of inductive research.
Hitherto psychological investigation has had mainly a speculative interest;
and considering the method which it pursued, it could scarcely have had any
deeper one. Now, however, by the almost unanimous consent of its vota
ries, it has been content to range itself among the inductive sciences; and,
as a reward for this condescension, it has received a large reinforcement of
followers, who have given it a much more practical, not to say human, in
terest. The psychologist no longer sneers at the low and grovelling pursuits
of the physiologist. The physiologist no longer turns away in contempt
from the purblind gropings of the psychologist. They have united their
forces in an offensive and defensive alliance for the attainment of a common
end.
“ Alterius sic
Altera poscit opem res et conjurât amice.”
At no former meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association has this
fusion of the two sciences been more distinctly recognised than at the recent
one in Edinburgh, presided over with such ability by Dr. Browne. Medico
psychology now claims a definite place among the inductive sciences, and if
asked to show its credentials it points to the field which it cultivates, to the
method by which it proceeds, and to the results which it has already achieved.
The field is surely a sufficiently palpable one, and by no means likely in
these days to have its area diminished. The very fact that, in spite of the
much more normal mode of life pursued by the great body of the public,
the phenomena of lunacy have betrayed no tendency to decrease, is enough
to prove that there are forces working through our modern civilisation which
are directly injurious to mental health. The annual reports of Her Majesty’s
Commissioners in Lunacy for England, Scotland, and Ireland furnish a direct
answer to all who would question the significance of the medico-psycholo
gist’s department.
Again, the method by which the medico-psychologist proceeds is one with
which the most rigid votary of science has, now at least, no right to quarrel.
�1866.]
Noles and News.
411
True, the time is not very far distant when the subject was treated in a style
which could only irritate the inductive inquirer. Crude theories of psycho
logy, theories not less crude of physiology, were freely accepted and made
the groundwork of the most confident generalisations. A treatise on lunacy
was almost invariably a portentous cross-birth between bad metaphysics and
premature physiology. The subject which, from the obscurity and almost
evanescent fineness of its phenomena, required a rigidly accurate and con
sistent use of terms, was handled in the most loose and declamatory style.
Where a calm and clear exposition was wanted, the reader was generally
entertained with the inflated discourse of a little Bethel revivalist. Now,
however, such contributions to the literature of medico-psychology are no
longer tolerated, and a more rational, intelligible, not to say honest, method
of treating the subject is adopted. We are mainly indebted to Continental
writers for the happy change, and Germany has, according to her wont, sup
plied us with the most original and really valuable additions to the medico
psychologist’s library.
Not that we have had no able and effective workers in the same field at
home. 1 he late Dr. Prichard, so justly held in honour by the profession for
his high attainments in philology and in all that pertains to the history and
development of mankind, was one of these. The late Dr. Conolly was an
other—an enlightened physician whom Dr. Browne claims, in eloquent lan
guage, as “ a philosophical advocate of medico-psychology founded upon
induction.” The late Sir Benjamin Brodie was yet another; while the
names of living cultivators of the same difficult field will at once suggest,
themselves to our readers. The journalism of medical psychology is fairly
entitled, for its ability, for its originality, and for the scientific value of its
contributions, to rank with the journalism of any other department of medi
cine. Nay, in the very city where the last meeting of the Association was
held—a city which justly boasts of having founded a distinct school of
philosophy—a lectureship of medical psychology has been instituted under
the enlightened auspices of Professor Laycock, and, with the congenial
assistance of Sir James Coxe and of Dr. Browne himself', has already done
much to bring the philosophical studies of the place into harmonious relation
with those of the purely medical curriculum. Much as has been done for
the more accurate investigation of the phenomena of lunacy, we are entitled
to expect a great, deal more ; and the science of medico-psychology will have
nothing to fear if tested by the standard adopted by Mr. Lowe for Govern
ment schools—“ results.”
Even at present, the medico-psychologist can appeal with justice to much
valuable service done in the treatment of mental disease. If asked for speci
mens of successful labourers in his peculiar field, Dr. Browne might well
have pointed to his numerous audience and said, “ Circumspice!” There
was never a time when so many accomplished physicians made it the business
of their lives to investigate and treat the phenomena of lunacy ; and who
will say that the labours of all these men have been without result ? From
the treatment of the imbecile and idiotic at such asylums as Earlswood, and
Larbert in Scotland, to the treatment of even such apparently hopeless manifes
tations of mental disease as chronic mania and general paralysis, medico
psychology can point, in the language of Bacon, to many an instantia preerogutica which may well sustain her votaries in the prosecution of their bene
ficent work. Certainly it would be a hard dispensation for the followers of
any science if success refused to crown exertions carried on in the spirit, at
once scientific and philanthropic, of such physicians as Prichard and
Conolly.—The Lancet, August 15th.
�442
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
Recent Contributions to Mental Philosophy.
*
Wliat is the original meaning of salad or salade 1 In the oldest use
of the word it means a kind of helmet-cap worn hy soldiers, both in
French and Norman-English. We venture, though not without hesita
tion,—especially remembering that some derive it from salted,—a sur
mise that the mixture of herbs and dressing got its name, just as a
comfortable dose before going to bed came to be called a nightcap; as a
good kind of thing for the head. Be this as it may, we have before us
a salad, in either sense: a mixture of various esculents, and a stiff kind
of wear over the brain; not without salt either, though there might
have been more. But this was not the way we came to use the word.
It was our own considering-cap we thought of. Our readers know that
of late years we have been obliged to put books of mental philosophy
together in aheap, and make one job of them : how can we do otherwise
when the nature of things, in its totality, is presented to us for con
sideration once a fortnight ? On the present occasion, when we saw
that we had a budget ready, there came into our minds, in a whimsical
way, two lines of the satire on Wolsey—
“ Aryse up, Jacke, and putt on thy salatt,
For the tyme is come of bagge and walatt.”
And so we were reminded to ask for the connection between the two
meanings of salad, and to refer the question to the Philological Society.
We are by no means sorry that mental philosophy is exciting so much
attention; but we should be in despair if it were necessary to give a
discussion every time we open a book on the subject. It is not desirable
to examine the works whenever we are asked the time of day. We pro
* 1. ‘ Spiritual Philosophy: founded on the Teaching of the late Samuel
Taylor Coleridge. By the late Joseph Henry Green. Edited, with a Memoir, by
John Simon. (Macmillan and Co.)
2. ‘ An Examination of J. S. Mill’s Philosophy, being a Defence of Funda
mental Truth. By James M'Cosh, LL.D. (Macmillan and Co.)
3. ‘ Mill and Carlyle : an Examination of Mr. J. S. Mill’s Doctrine of Causation
in relation to Moral Freedom. With an occasional Discourse on Sauerteig, by
Smelfungus.’ By P. P. Alexander, A.M. (Edinburgh, Nimino.)
4. ‘ Three Essays on Philosophical Subjects.’ By T. Shedden, M.A. (Longmans
and Co.)
5. * The Battle of the Two Philosophies.’ By an Enquirer. (Longmans and Co.)
6. ‘ The Philosophy of the Unconditioned.’ By Alexander Robertson. (Long
mans and Co.)
7. ‘ An Essay on the Platonic Idea.’ By Thomas Maguire, A.M. (Longmans
and Co.)
8. ‘ The Harmonies of Nature, or the Unity of Creation.’ By Dr. G. Hartwig.
(Longmans and Co.
9. ‘ The Philosophy of Ethics: an Analytical Essay.’ By S. S. Laurie. (Edin
burgh, Edmonston and Douglas.)
10. ‘ E pur si muove.’ By N. A. Nicholson, M.A. (Triibner and Co.)
11. ‘ A Manual of Human Culture.’ By M. A. Garvey. (Bell and Daldy.)
12. ‘ Odd Bricks from a Tumble-down Private Building.’ By a Retired Con
structor. (Newby.)
13. ‘ Discourses.’ By [the late] Alexander J. Scott, M.A. (Macmillan and Co.)
�1866.]
Notes and News.
-143
ceed to a short notice of the several writings before us, which will be of
more use to our readers than any detached reviews.
1. Joseph Henry Green, so well known as a surgeon, died December,
1863, as his biographer ought to have told us, but forgot it. It is not
very widely known that he was all his life a diligent student of philo
sophy, a pupil of Tieck, the intimate friend of Coleridge, whose literary
executor he was. The posthumous works which have appeared under
Green’s editorship have been very little thought of in connection with
their editor. The present work is not Coleridge, but Green founded on
Coleridge. Its subdivisions are, “ On the Intellectual Faculties,” “ On
First Principles in Philosophy,” “ On the Truths of Religion,” “ On
the Idea of Christianity in relation to Controversial Theology.” The
reading will repay those who have a strong appetite for such subjects;
and it will give information, of a general kind, to those who want to
know something of Coleridge, subject to the difficulty of separation
incident to the writings of teachers who found their own instructions
upon those of the master. With those who come between these two
classes, we do not think these volumes will find much acceptance; in
fact, Green is not Coleridge.
2. Dr. M‘Cosh’s work involves no fewer than nine points: the nature
of things, Hamilton, J. S. Mill, the relations of each to the other, Dr.
M'Cosh’s relation to either, and Dr. M'Cosh’s relation to the way in
which either looks at the other. In this subject nothing but a very
long article would allow us to go into detail. Though, by title, we
should suppose that only Mill is examined, yet this is far too brief a
description of the work. There are twenty-one chapters, running
through as much difference of matter as could be brought in under the
general subject. Dr. M‘Cosh holds his ground fairly, and will be useful
to all readers of the psychology of the day. In such points as his attack
on Mr. Mill’s notion of intuition and necessity, he will have the voice of
mankind with him; in things which are more like matters of opinion,
there are many who will find him useful in attaining perception of the
point at issue. In the matter of Hamilton and his impugners and
defenders, we shall soon want a digested index, if we are to avoid utter
confusion. Dr. M’Cosh has given two pages of reference to the places
of his own writings which concern the matter; and it may fairly be said
that these are two of his most useful pages.
3. We shall not enter on freedom and necessity. Mr. Alexander
writes in a style of a “ little vivacity of expression,” for which he apolo
gises : this so far as Mr. Mill is concerned. If the reader should ask
which are the vivacities, he -will get from us no other answer except that
given to the little boy who asked which was Wellington in the peepshow—“ Whichever you please, my little fellow ! You pays your money
and you takes your choice.” As to the article on Mr. Carlyle, there is
internal evidence that it was intended for wit from beginning to end.
The author “ entirely honours ” Carlyle, and considers him “ simply our
greatest man of letters living.” Accordingly, he invests him with the
name of Sauerteig, which the German dictionary makes to be sour dough,
and gives him more than forty pages, of which the following is a speci
men :—“ Sauerteig indeed, nothing doubting, girt with his cook-aprons,
infinitely manipulating with his hero-gridirons, and due ‘inimitable
sauce piquante,’ cooks busily, with vigour even unusual in him. ‘ Right
stuff of properest hero-porkliood here,’ iterates the singular SauerteigSoyer, cooking . . . .” Surely this must be wit!
4. Mr. Sliedden’s three essays are on the Infinite, on Arabic Peripa
teticism. and on the controversy between Mr. Mill and the school of
�441
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
Hamilton. In the third he ranges himself rather on the side of Mill,
but not wholly. In his last sentence he expresses, but in other words,
that lie has much more agreement with Mr. Mill than with Hamilton,
except as to the value of formal logic, which he holds Mr. Mill grievously
to underrate.
. 5. The inquirer into the battle of the two philosophies takes the other
side : he assails Mill and defends Hamilton on various points. With a
bias which is not uncommon,—that of having a grand field of opponents,
—he informs us, that while Mill’s work against Hamilton was “ hot
from the press, it was pronounced by the writing public to be a com
plete success. We really were not aware of this. There are individuals
who will decide between two such opponents at a glance; but they are
neither the whole writing public nor the whole reading public.
6. Mr. Robertson s philosophy of the unconditioned is strong a priori
theism : the existence of God is to be finally reduced to a logical axiom.
He attacks both Hamilton and Mill, and criticises many others. There
is a great deal of vagarious thought, in less than a hundred pages.
7: Mr. Maguire informs us that his essay is the result of an indepen
dent study of Plato; and of this there is good appearance. His first.
conviction that mental science was not mere verbiage.” was derived
from the chapter on Socrates in Grote’s history: and his essay was
complete before Grotes ‘Plato’ appeared; on this his criticisms, <tc.,
are added in notes. Plato, under nine heads, in one hundred and fifty
pages, is of a concentration which we cannot separate; but many readers
who have the first smattering will find this short treatise both enlarge
and bind their knowledge.
8. Dr. Hartwig’s book at first looks like a system of natural history:
it swarms with woodcuts of zoology and comparative anatomy, ©ut it
properly belongs to general psycliology: for its object is comparison
and deduction, and a view of the chain of being, which, in a rough way,
may be described, like a rod and line, as having a fly at one end and a
fool at the other. After some general cosmogony, this book begins
at the lowest phases of vegetable life and ends with man. How little
the collection of harmonies can pretend to be a system of zoology is
manifest from the very small space taken up by the mammals when
compared with that given to low creatures with hard names. One
great object seems to be to illustrate the way in which all living things
are. the destroyers of their inferiors and the destroyed of their superiors.
This is carried the length of saying that it is the “ business ” of the
Deirodon snake to restrain the undue increase of the smaller birds by
devouring their eggs. It is just as much the business of the smaller
birds to produce eggs enough, over and above what are wanted for
hatching, to nourish the Deirodon family. There is one great omission.
When man is arrived at, it is not pointed out that, for want of a higher
race to destroy him, he is furnished with a wish to do the job for his
fellow-creatures, and with inventive power to find out means. A trea
tise on weapons of all kinds, from the club to the needle-gun, would
have been the proper ending. There should have been a double frontis
piece : on one side a Deirodon robbing a nest; on the other two highminded gentlemen snapping pistols at one another for their mutual
satisfaction ; and both performing the function assigned to them in the
order of things, as seen from the standpoint of a naturalist. This book
is very interesting, and fills a very useful place.
9. Mr. Laurie’s system of ethics places first manifestation of the moral
sense in a feeling of being pleased or displeased (complacence or displacenee), and, denying that right is discriminated by a special inner
�I860.]
Notes and Netos.
415
sense, finds all the rest in promotion of “ felicity,” either that of the
agent himself or of others. There is power of analysis shown in this
work : all other judgment we leave to the reader.
10. What is it that moves ? This the author does not explain, and
we cannot find out. There are chapters on Truth, Experience, Space,
Time, &c. We do not think much of them. The author desires for his
jury those who think calmly and examine closely: we doubt if they
would need to retire. We cannot approve of the division of the cardinal
virtue, justice, into justice towards one’s own self, and justice towards
other people : it is a perversion of terms quite parallel with the division
of murder into suicide and slaughter of others. We hardly know
whether the author is in joke or in earnest when he reconciles freewill
and foreknowledge by the hypothesis that God foresees what he pleases,
and doos not choose to foresee the acts of his creatures. The old chapter
from Volney, the meeting of the religions, to prove that there can be
no revelation because men advance and defend opposite revelations in
much the same way, is really behind the age. Most opponents of re
velation would now say, each for himself, Well! I know I do not believe;
but I trust I know a better defence of my unbelief than that comes to!
The only chapter of which we can almost unreservedly approve is that
on Space. There is in it a little reiteration, but no fallacy. It consists
of four pages, no one of which contains anything but the head-line and
the number of the page. Some more of the paper might have been
advantageously treated in the same way.
11. Mr. Garvey’s work begins, as a barrister’s work will often begin,
with a sound and sufficient table of contents. It goes through a large
number of points connected with the education of the reason and of the
feelings, and abounds in just remarks. At the end of each chapter is a
supplement, headed “ Practical,” containing suggestions of books to
rsad or courses to take. The whole is rather too much spun out: con
densation is wanted. But those who make education a study should
consult this book.
12. The odd bricks are piled into as much of system as is seen in some
of the buildings. They are in dialogue, brought out by a loan of Mill
upon Hamilton.
13. The late Alexander Scott—it will set him up with many to say
that he was a bosom friend of Julius Hare—was a man of remarkable
life, thoughts, and words. When he used to deliver Sunday evening
discourses at we forget what institution, he collected around him a small
audience who thought his sermons—so to call them—among the most
remarkable things of the day. In the work before us the greater part
has been printed before ; but some discourses appear for the first time.
Having thus looked through a considerable number of psychological
essays, a thought comes into our minds which has intruded itself on
former occasions. It is this : Do our writers mean the same things by
the same words ? Certainly, it will be answered, in some cases at Least;
for they explain their words in exactly the same way. We know they
do, is our reply: but Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ! Do the words in
which they explain carry the same sense in all the minds ? On this
point we crave leave to doubt; but we by no means despair of a final
settlement. Once more, to authors of all amounts of knowledge, and of
all grades of reputation, we recommend curtailment of prolixity. We
suspect that the streams of words which go to very fundamental points
indicate that the writers have no very brief enunciation which themselves
would understand; that is, that their fundamental words are not well
settled in their own minds.—The Athenaeum, July 28.
�446
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
Visions of Heaven and Hell.
*
From the time when these words were written, in the 32nd chapter of
Deuteronomy, “ a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the
lowest hell,” the human mind has exercised itself, not unnaturally, in
endeavours to penetrate the mystery. They are words which refer to a
temporal punishment, but they also mention a locality which is not
further defined. Men have variously speculated as to the whereabout of
of that dread place ; and after ages of vain speculation, the ‘ Catechism
of the Diocese of Bruges’ has definitely settled the dispute, as may be
seen in the reply to the query, “Where is Hell?”—namely, “ Hell is
situated at the centre of the earth, and is exactly fifteen hundred leagues
from this place.” Before this Catechism, however, was compiled, the
Jesuit Hardouin had detected the position, though he had not made out
the distance ; but he did something more,—he declared that the rotary
motion of the earth was caused by the efforts of the damned to escape
from Hell by climbing up the inward crust of the globe. As squirrels
set their cylindrical cages spinning, so the condemned souls keep the
world moving !
Cruel humanity has chosen, from various motives, to make a revelation
of that which more merciful divinity has shrouded in terrible mystery.
The Hindoo priests describe twenty-one hells. In Scandinavia, where
fire was a luxury, the priesthood despatched sinners to a hell of frosts.
In Thibet, where heat and cold alternate, the faithful were taught that
punishment for errors would be carried out in a hell of sixteen circles,
in eight of which they would be roasted in one half the year, and in the
other eight frozen during the remaining six months !
Some of the worthiest of men have dishonoured Divine mercy by their
savage and reckless assertions on this most awful subject. “ What,”
asked a sincere inquirer of St. Augustine—“ What was God doing before
he created the world?”—“ He was making Hell ! ” was the blasphemous
reply of the mistaken saint. How much more to the honour and glory
of God was the Talmudist reply to the same question,—namely, “ He
was creating repentance !”
St. Augustine would not have it so, and most of the Fathers were of
his opinion,—that sinners suffered eternal physical pains ; that they
burned for ever and were never consumed ; that they became saturated
with fire, and always with increase of torment ! St. Thomas Aquinas,
good man as he was, went even further than St. Augustine. He believed
that one of the chief joys of the blessed would be in contemplating the
tortures of the damned ! Berridge, unwilling to allow a gleam of hope
that Divine vindictiveness could pause for a moment in its exercise,
assures his readers, in the ‘ Christian World Unmasked,’ that “the
shortest punishment is eternal, and the coldest place in Hell will prove
a hot one !”
On the other hand, worthy men, whom the unco-righteous take for
heretics in this matter, have asserted opinions more consonant with the
spirit of Mercy. The Rabbins could not comprehend eternal punish
ment ; the utmost they allowed was that at the last day the sun would
* ‘ The Book of Visions ; or Heaven and Hell described by those who have seen
them’—Le Livre des Visions ; ou, l’Enfer et le Ciel décrits par ceux qui les ont
vus.’ Par Octave Delepierrej. (Trübner and Co.)
�1866.]
Notes and News.
447
burn up, once and for all, those who had sinned, and warm into eternal
happiness those who had merited salvation. Origen disbelieved the
local part of the subject, and held that Hell was in the fire of God’s
anger which lit up man’s remorse. Eternal punishment he vehemently
denied; and to this day it is matter of dispute whether this kindly natured man is, or is not, undergoing what he denied as being possible.
But Duns Scotus professed the same sentiments, on this one point, as
Origen; yet he has not been assailed for it. In later days M. Petitpierre, all Calvinist as he was, denounced the idea which the sterner Calvin
most cherished, that of the Divine anger never being appeased, inasmuch
as that they who had incurred it never ceased to endure extreme torture.
The beauty of mercy and the glory of Heaven were much better compre
hended by Origen and others, who believed that the divine glory and
mercy would be made manifest at last, by restoring to their vacant seats
in Heaven even those angels who had fallen from them through their
rebellion.
This subject, in short, took such possession of the minds of men, that
they passed from ideas to sensations, and these minds being more or less
diseased, when the body was stricken by epilepsy or buried in an unna
turally profound sleep, hurried abroad, like the soul of Hermotimus,
plunged into Hell, scaled Heaven, and came back to Earth to pour into
the ears of greedy listeners all their terrible or joyous experiences.
These visions form the staple of the very singular volumes which M.
Delepierre has contributed to mystical literature. There exist numerous
accounts of the secrets and secret places in Heaven and Hell, invented
by writers skilled in depicting imaginary horrors and delights. These
M. Delepierre discards altogether, confining himself to the relations of
monks and others who, having dreamed their dreams, accepted them as
realities, and perhaps exaggerated and poetized what then- active brains
had been deluded to believe.
In studying these remarkable records it is impossible to avoid the
conviction that priestcraft, kingcraft, and common human impulses have
been concerned in the building of them up. Godefroed warned his
hearers by the information that he saw in the lower regions the very
men whom he least expected to find there, and others in purgatory whom
Christian men had certainly assigned to hell. Charles Martel, tossed on
a sea of fire for robbing the Church, is an example in terrorem to all
princes who disregard the rights of the Church. Charlemagne, under
going unimaginable, certainly indescribable, tortures in return for his
loose gallantry in this world, is a monition to monarchs who love their
neighbours’ wives better than their own. Charles the Bald, after his
visionary foretaste of the future, probably laughed, at least in his sleeve,
as he looked in the faces of his household officers, while he told them of
the diabolical anguish inflicted by demons on the dishonest predecessors
of these officers. The bitter touch of on old bitter family quarrel is to
be detected in this prince’s vision, when he saw his own old father,
Louis, in hell, sitting up to the hips in a tub of ever-boiling water!
The readers of Odericus Vitalis need not be reminded how priests could
keep their womenkind in order by telling them how their pastors had
seen the disorderly and irregular tormented in the realm below.
The imagination runs wild riot in these visions, and the memory of the
reader toils in vain to collect a thousandth part of what is imagined.
We remember that souls, always retaining bodily form, are shadowless,
and the eyelids fixed in, if we may so say, eternal unwinkingness. South
says that some men’s souls only keep their bodies from putrefaction, but
beyond the barrier of the nether world soul and body suffer this process
�448
Notes and News.
[Oct.
as the least of the punishments due to them. Misers toss in coppers of
molten gold, from which they are dragged by red-hot grapnels to be
plunged in freezing liquid lead, after which they are hardened in fire,
forged into fresh shape on a red-hot anvil, whence they are taken to have
bushels of gold coins poured down their throats, and these they are made
to disgorge by the consequences of the rapid revolutions of a spiked
wheel to which they are bound. And this for ever ’—and for ever !
The most singular delight is taken by these visionaries in showing
that sinners are always punished in the members whereby they have
most sinned. The miser, as above. The slanderer hangs by his tongue
over horrible flames, from amid which demons prod at him with their
forks! Some demons are busy in converting, by hideous process, the
souls of sinners into essences that are to animate beasts; while the
grossest offenders of all undergo a penalty, the details of which (kept in
the original rough Latin) almost induce us to believe that the visionary
delights in his subject, and loves to dwell upon it. It is refreshing to
get away from these peculiar offenders and their sufferings to others who
suffer by a sort of Zez talionis. M. Delepierre might have lighted some
of the most lurid of his pages by showing how unskilful physicians are
engaged, in domo Diaboli, in eternally being subjected to the most hor
rible cathartics and emetics. We remember that an old German idea
states that all foolish mortal writers will in the next world be condemned
to everlastingly settingup their own works with red-hot types, for having
abused the critics in this! A more terrible penalty awaits the preachers
of dull sermons, who are condemned to be for ever reading, from pages
that burn their eyes out as they gaze and their fingers off as they hold
them, all the bad discourses that have been preached upon earth !
“ He that is hanged is accursed of God,” says the lawgiver, and that
decree probably gave rise to the long-preserved tradition that, as the
soul of a hanged man could only escape from the body in one way, and
that Satan always placed himself where he could receive it, for such soul
there was neither purification nor redemption. This idea, however,
su "«zests that for other souls in Tartarus, such merciful boons were
possible.
One other feature of this remarkable work is worthy of notice, namely,
that when the ladies throw themselves into the ecstatic condition they
become more unbridled in imagination and expression than the men.
St. Christine, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Theresa, St. Hildegarda, and
other well-meaning women, helplessly uncontrolled as to judgment and
expression, fancied themselves the true and lawfid wives of the Saviour;
and they narrate their visionary experiences in proof thereof in such
terms as might have astonished even the persons of the not too fastidious
times to whom they were uttered. In comparison with these, Engel
brecht’s idea of marriage in heaven is a religious pastoral, and Sweden
borg's familiarity with Moses and angels and archangels, as he met them
in Cheapside, an amusing hallucination.
That Dante was acquainted with some of the earlier visions noticed in
this book is more than possible ; it is almost certain. They formed the
materials which Genius only knows how to select, appreciate, and
employ.
A more curious question is that of the condition of blood and of brain
in the visionaries who pondered over these subjects, "waking, till their
sensations connected therewith possessed them as ideas, in sleep, when
the deranged body and rudderless memory carried them into realms
which no ordinary or healthy imagination can reach. Even waking
spectral illusions take the form of "whatever has long and entirely pos
�1866.]
Notes and News.
440
sessed the mind; those of the hours of uneasy sleep seize and play with
those forms in wilder fancies still. Sleeping or waking, we can remember
but one man whose mind protested against the vision that haunted it.
M. Delepierre, indeed, says that many of the early visionaries retracted
more or less of the first editions of their wondrous narratives ; but Mr.
White, the Assessor of the Westminster Assembly, resisted the visions.
Satan (on whose works he had been long meditating) one night came to
the Assessor’s bedside, as the latter had just lain down, seated himself,
and looked at the astounded gentleman in a way to banish sleep for a
month. The Assessoi' rubbed his eyes, muttered “ This will never do,”
and then, gazing full in the face of the Prince of Darkness, quietly
remarked, “ I’ll tell thee what it is. If thou hast nothing better to do, I
have! I am going to sleep.” After this wholesome exercise of mind,
the Assessor was never more troubled by visionary visitors. His story
might well find place in a second edition of M. Delepierre’s collection of
narratives. But among the many singularities of what we may well
call this rare book is. that the author does not contemplate a second
edition, and has printed only twenty-five copies of that which, as we may
notice, is well illustrated, and which will doubtless meet fitting audience,
though, it may be, few.—The Athenceum, June 30.
Mr. Carlyle on the Education of the Future.
I confess it seems to me there is in it a shadow of what will one day
be ; will and must, unless the world is to come to a conclusion that is alto
gether frightful: some kind of scheme of education analogous to that ;
presided over by the wisest and most sacred men that can be got in the
world, and watching from a distance : a training in practicality at every
turn; no speech in it except speech that is to be followed by action, for
that ought to be the rule as nearly as possible among men. Not very
often or much, rarely rather, should a man speak at all, unless it is for
the sake of something that is to be done; this spoken, let him go and
do his part in it. and say no more about it.
I will only add that it is possible,—all this fine theorem of Goethe’s,
or something similar! Considei1 what we have already; and what ‘ diffi
culties’ we have overcome. I should say there is nothing in the world
you can conceive so difficult, primd facie, as that of getting a set of men
gathered together as soldiers. Rough, rude, ignorant, disobedient
people ; you gather them together, promise them a shilling a day; rank
them up, give them very severe and sharp drill; and by bullying and
drilling and compelling (the word drilling, if you go to the original,
means ‘ beating,’ ‘ steadily tormenting' to the due pitch), they do learn
what it is necessary to learn; and there is your man in red coat, a trained
soldier; piece of an animated machine incomparably the most potent in
this world ; a wonder of wonders to look at. He will go where bidden;
obeys one man, will walk into the cannon’s mouth for him ; does punc
tually whatever is commanded by his general officer. And, I believe,
all manner of things of this kind could be accomplished, if there were
the same attention bestowed. Very many things could be regimented,
organised into this mute system ;—and perhaps in some of the mecha
nical, commercial, and manufacturing departments, some faint incipien
ces may be attempted before very long. For the saving of human la
bour, and the avoidance of human misery, the effects would be incalcuable, were it set about and begun even in part.
�450
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
Alas, it is painful to think how very far away it all is, any real fulfil
ment of such things ! For I need not hide from you, young gentlemen,—
and it is one of the last things I am going to tell you,—that you have
got into a very troublous epoch of the world; and I don’t think you will
find your path in it to be smoother than ours has been, though you have
many advantages which we had not. You have careers open to you,
by public examinations and so on, which is a thing much to be approved
of, and -which we hope to see perfected more and more. All that was
entirely unknown in my time, and you have many things to recognise
as advantages. But you will find the ways of the world, I think, more
anarchical than ever. Look where one will, revolution has come upon
us. We have got into the age of revolutions. All kinds of things are
coming to be subjected to fire, as it were : hotter and hotter blows the
element round everything. Curious to see how. in Oxford and other
places that used to seem as lying at anchor in the stream of time, re
gardless of all changes, they are getting into the highest humour of
mutation, and all sorts of new ideas are afloat. It is evident that whatevei’ is not inconsumable, made of asbestos, will have to be burnt, in this
world. Nothing other will stand the heat it is getting exposed to..
And in saying that, I am but saying in other words that we are in an
epoch of anarchy. Ari arch y plus a constable ! (Laughter.) There is no
body that picks one’s pocket without some policeman being ready to take
him up. (Renewed laughter.) But in every other point, man is becoming
more and more the son, not of Cosmos, but of Chaos. He is a disobe
dient, discontented, reckless, and altogether waste kind of object (the
commonplace man is, in these epochs); and the wiser kind of man,—the
select few, of whom I hope you will be part,—has more and more to see
to this, to look vigilantly forward; and will require to move -with double
wisdom. Will find, in short, that the crooked things he has got to pull
straight in his own life all round him, wherever he may go, are manifold,
and will task all his strength, however great it be.
But why should I complain of that either? For that is the thing a
man is born to, in all epochs. He is born to expend every particle of
strength that God Almighty has given him, in doing the work he finds
he is fit for; to stand up to it to the last breath of life, and do his best.
Wc are called upon to do that; and the reward we all get,—which we
are perfectly sure of if we have merited it,—is that we have got the
work done, or at least that we have tried to do the work. For that is a
great blessing in itself; and I should say, there is not very much more
reward than that going in this world. If the man gets meat and clothes,
what matters it whether he buy those necessaries with seven thousand
a year, or with seven million, could that be, or with seventy pounds a
year ? He can get meat and clothes for that; and he will find intrinsi
cally, if he is a wise man, wonderfully little real difference. (Laughter.)
On the whole, avoid what is called ambition; that is not a fine prin
ciple to go upon,—and it has in it all degrees of vulgarity if that is a
consideration. “ Seekest thou great things, seek them notI warmly
second that advice of the wisest of men. Don’t be ambitious ; don’t too
much need success ; be loyal and modest. Cut down the proud towering
thoughts that get into you, or see that they be pure as well as high.
There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be,
or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the Planet just now.
(Loud and prolonged cheers.)
Finally, gentlemen, I have one advice to give you, which is practically
of very great importance, though a very humble one. In the midst of
your zeal and ardour,—for such, I foresee, will rise high enough, in spite
�1866.]
Notes and News.
451
of all the counsels to moderate it that I can give you,—remember the
care of health. I have no doubt you have among you young souls ar
dently bent to consider life cheap, for the purpose of getting forward in
■what they are aiming at of high; but you are to consider throughout,
much more than is done at present, and what it would have been a very
great thing for me if I had been able to consider, that health is a thing
to be attended to continually ; that you are to regard that as the very
highest of all temporal things for you. (Applause.) There is no kind
of achievement you could make in the world that is equal to perfect
health. What to it are nuggets and millions ? The French financier
said, “ Why, is there no sleep to be sold!” Sleep was not in the market
at any quotation. (Laughter and applause.)
It is a curious thing, which I remarked long ago, and have often
turned in my head, that the old word for ‘ holy’ in the Teutonic lan
guages, lieilig, also means ‘ healthy.’ Thus Heilbronn means indiffer
ently ‘ holy-well,’or ‘health-well.’ We have, in the Scotch too, ‘ hale,’
and its derivatives; and, I suppose, our English word ‘ whole’ (with a
‘ w’), all of one piece, without any hole in it, is the same word. I find
that you could not get any better definition of what ‘ holy’ really is than
‘healthy.’ Completely healthy; mens sana in corpore sano. (Applause.)
A man all lucid, and in equilibrium. His intellect a clear mirror geo
metrically plane, brilliantly sensitive to all objects and impressions
made on it, and imaging all things in their correct proportions; not
twisted up into convex or concave, and distorting everything, so that he
cannot see the truth of the matter without endless groping and manipu
lation : healthy, clear, and free, and discerning truly all round him.
We never can attain that at all. In fact, the operations we have got
into are destructive of it. You cannot, if you are going to do any de
cisive intellectual operation that will last a long while ; if, for instance,
you are going to write a book,—you cannot manage it (at least, I never
could) without getting decidedly made ill by it: and really one never
theless must; if it is your business, you are obliged to follow out what
you are at, and to do it, if even at the expense of health. Only re
member, at all times, to get back as fast as possible out of it into health ;
and regard that as the real equilibrium and centre of things. You
should always look at the lieilig, which means ‘ holy’ as well as ‘ healthy.’
And that old etymology—what a lesson it is against certain gloomy,
austere, ascetic people, who have gone about as if this world were all a
dismal prison-house. It has indeed got all the ugly things in it which
I have been alluding to; but there is an eternal sky over it; and the
blessed sunshine, the green of prophetic spring, and rich harvests
coming,—all this is in it, too. Piety does not mean that a man should
make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy wisely what his
Maker has given. Neither do you find it to have been so with the best
sort,—with old Knox, in particular. No ; if you look into Knox you
will find a beautiful Scotch humour in him, as well as the grimmest and
sternest truth when necessary, and a great deal of laughter. We find
really some of the sunniest glimpses of things come out of Knox that I
have seen in any man; for instance, in his ‘ History of the Reforma
tion,’—which is a book I hope every one of you will read (Applause), a
glorious old book.
On the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work, whatever it
may be, and not be afraid of it; notin sorrows or contradictions to yield,
but to push on towards the goal. And don’t suppose that people are
hostile to you or have you at ill-will, in the world. In general, you will
rarely find anybody designedly doing you ill. You may feel often as if
�452
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
the whole world were obstructing you, setting itself against you: but
you will find that to mean only, that the world is travelling in a different
way from you, and, rushing on its own path, heedlessly treads on you.
That is mostly all: to you no specific ill-will;—only each has an ex
tremely good-will to himself, which he has a right to have, and is rush
ing on towards his object. Keep out of literature, I should say also, as
a general rule (Laughter),—though that is by-the-by. If you find many
people who are hard and indifferent to you. in a -world which you con
sider to be inhospitable and cruel, as often indeed happens to a tender
hearted, striving young creature, you will also find there are noble hearts
who will look kindly on you ; and their help will be precious to you
beyond price. You will get good and evil as you go on, and have the
success that has been appointed you.
I will -wind up with a small bit of verse which is from Goethe also,
and has often gone through my mind. To me, it has something of a
modern psalm in it, in some measure. It is deep as the foundations,
deep and high, and it is true and clear:—no clearer man, or nobler and
grander intellect, has lived in the world, I believe, since Sliakspeare left
it. This is what the poet sings;—a kind of road-melody or marching
music of mankind :
“ The Future hides in it
Gladness and sorrow;
We press still thorow,
Nought that abides in it
Daunting us,—onward.
*
“ And solemn before us,
Veiled, the dark Portal
Goal of all mortal:—
Stars silent rest o’er us,
Graves under us silent.
“ While earnest thou gazest,
Comes boding of terror,
Comes phantasm and error;
Perplexes the bravest
With doubt and misgiving.
“ But heard are the Voices,
Heard are the Sages,
The Worlds and the Ages:
‘ Choose well, your choice is
Brief, and yet endless.
“ ‘ Here eyes do regard you,
In Eternity’s stillness;
Here is all fulness,
Ye brave, to reward you;
Work, and despair not.’ ”
Work, and despair not: JJT’r heissen ciich hoffen, “ We bid you be of
hope!”—let that be my last word. Gentlemen, I thank you for your
great patience in hearing me; and, with many most kind wishes, say
Adieu for this time.—Inaugural Address at Edinburgh, 1866.
k
�Y
1866.]
y otes and News.
453
Publications Received, 1866.
(Continued from the 'Journal of Mental Science * for July.)
* Lunacy. Twentieth Report of the Commssioners in Lunacy to the Lord
Chancellor.’ (Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, June 4th,
1866.)
‘Eighth Annual Report of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy
Tor Scotland.’ (Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her
Majesty.) Edinburgh, 18GG.
‘Lunatic Asylums, Ireland. The Fifteenth Report of the District Criminal
aud Private Lunatic Asylums in Ireland.’ (Presented to both Houses of Parlia
ment by command of Her Majesty.) Dublin, 18G6.
We shall review these three Official Reports in our next number (January,
1867).
‘Vorträge über die Erkenntniss und Behandlung der Geistesstörungen und
über das Vorgehen bei Forensischen Begutachtungen Psychischer Zustande.’
Von Dr. Ludwig Schlager, Landesgerichtsarzt und K. K. a. ö. Professor der
Psychiatrie an der Universität zu Wien. 1 Lieferung, Wien, 1865.
We are glad to have received the first part of Dr. Ludioig Schlager's able
‘ Lectures on Menial Diseases.' They are marked by a great breadth of view and a
careful working out of detail.
‘ Shakspeare’s Delineations of Insanity, Imbecility, and Suicide.’ By A. O.
Kellogg, M.D., Assistant Physician, State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N.Y. New
York, I860, pp. 201.
These Essays were published in the 'American Journal of Insanity' at various
intervals between 1859 and 1864. The writer of these Essays, oddly enough,
makes no mention whatever of Dr. Bucknill''s papers published in the pages of this
Journal (and subsequently also published on a separate form) in the 1 Psychology of
Shakspeare' Yet any fair critic who read, for example, Dr. Kellogg's paper on
‘ Ophelia,' and then read Dr. Bucknill's, would be constrained to observe how
nearly Dr. Kellogg's thoughts and views were moulded on the pattern of Dr. Buck
nill's earlier and far abler Essays on the same subjects.
‘A Holiday in North Uist; a Lecture delivered in the Perth District Asylum,
Murthly, Nov. 17, 1865.’
“Zhave collected" (writes Dr. Mackintosh, addressing his patients) “a few
scattered notes, made during my absence from you in summer, and strung them
together by aid of recollection to form the following lecture, which consists of such
general topics as might interest and amuse you, with the assistance of the accom
panying specimens, coloured sketches, and drawings. I acted on the principle,
specially applicable to our case, that those who have opportunities of visiting in
teresting places at a distance should, if possible, be mindful of those at home who,
perhaps, in this respect, are placed in less favoured circumstances. You will thus
have the advantage ofgoing over the same ground in imagination, if not in reality,
of seeing some things in their most pleasant aspects, and of being saved all the
discomforts of travelling to and sojourning in such a land"
‘ The Medical Mirror,’ September, 1866.
(Exchange Copy.)
“ The ‘ Journal of Mental Science ' (says the Editor of the * Medical Mirror')
“ is one of those medical magazines where one is sure of finding interesting and
instructive matter by picked authors.
Kot mere hurried dissertations and
scribblings on crude and visionary theories, but sound essays in cultivated and
VOL. XII.
30
�454
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
often talented language, fill its pages, and we much regret that want of space often
precludes us from making long extracts from it. The Lunatic department of Great
Britain is happily managed by the magistrates of the kingdom. The salaries of the
medical officers are rising and sifficient, and the special journal of this great
scientific branch of the profession shows a comfortable condition by its scientific
and refined literature. But what time for study and self-improvement can a jaded
Poor-law doctor have ? Until the poor of the kingdom are controlled by the
magistrates and not by petty tradesmen, we have no hope qf any measure of Reform.
The Union medical men should combine together to demand their true position.
Resignation or Reform should be their watch-words. The profession would not be
niggardly in subscribing to a just cause like this?’
‘ Researches on the Daily Excretion of Urea in Typhus Fever, with Remarks.’
By Keith Anderson, M.D. Edin.
(Reprint from ‘ Edinburgh Medical Journal.’')
Clinical Inquiries into the Influence of the Nervous System and of Diathetic
Tissue-Changes on the production and treatment of Dropsies.’ By Thomas
Laycock, M.D., &c. &c.
{Reprint from ‘ Edinburgh Medical Journal?)
The folloicing Reports of County and District Asylums for the year
1865 have been received since the last notice (1866).
40. Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Crichton Royal Institution and
Southern Counties’ Asylum. (Medical Superintendent, James Gilchrist, M.D.)
41. Thirteenth Annual Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Joint
Lunatic Asylum at Abergavenny. (D. M. M'Cullough,M.D., Superintendent;
T. Algernon Chapman, M.D., Assistant Medical Officer.)
42. Report of the Committee of Visitors of the Lunatic Asylum for the
North Riding of Yorkshire. (Samuel Hill, Esq., Medical Superintendent.)
43. Report of the Sligo and Leitrim Hospital for the Insane. (John
M'Munn, M.D., Medical Superintendent.)
44. First Annual Report of the Perth District Asylum, Murthly. (W. C.
MTntosh, M.D., Vledical Superintendent; Edward Rutherford, M.D., Assistant
Physician.)
45. Report of the Armagh District Lunatic Asylum. (Resident Physician,
Robert M'Kinstrey, M.D.)
46. Report of the Cork District Lunatic Asylum. By Thomas Power, M.D.,
Medical Superintendent.
47. Annual Report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the Insane. (Dr.
Skae, Resident Physician; Dr. F. Skae and Dr. Spence, Medical Assistants.)
48. Eighteenth Annual Report of the Somerset County Pauper Lunatic
Asylum. (Robert Boyd, M.D., Medical Superintendent.)
49. First Annual Report of the Inverness District Lunatic Asylum. (Medi
cal Superintendent, Thomas Aitken, M.D.)
50. Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Belfast District Hospital for the
Insane. (Robert Stewart, M.D., Medical Superintendent.)
51. Third Annual Report of the Argyll District Asylum for the Insane (two
copies). (John Sibbald, M.D., Medical Superintendent.)
52. Dorset County Lunatic Asylum. Annual Report. (T. G. Symes, Esq.,
Medical Superintendent.)
53. Sussex County Lunatic Asylum, Hayward’s Heath. (C. L. Robertson,
M.D., Medical Superintendent.)
54. Three Counties’ Asylum, Arlesey. Annual Report. (W. Denne, Esq.,
Medical Superintendent.)
�1866.]
Notes and News.
455
55. Medical Report of the Royal Lunatic Asylum of Aberdeen. (Robert
Jamieson, M.D., Physician and Superintendent.)
56. Lunatic Hospital, The Coppice, near Nottingham. Tenth Annual Report.
(W. B. Tate, Medical Superintendent.)
57. Report of the Royal Lunatic Asylum of Montrose. (Medical Superin
tendent, James C. Howden, M.D.)
58. The Twenty-first Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County
Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell, January Quarter Sessions, 1866.
American Reports.
Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Directors and Offiecrs of the Longview
Asylum, Ohio. (0. M. Langdon, M.D., Superintendent and Physician.)
Appointments.
Browne, J. C., M.D. Edin., has been elected Medical Superintendent of the
West Riding of Yorkshire Lunatic Asylum at Wakefield.
P. J. Simpson, M.R.C.S.E., L.S.A., late Resident Medical Officer of the
Westminster General [Dispensary, has been elected Apothecary to the Colney
Hatch Asylum.
W. Watkins, J. P., M.R.C.S.E., L.S.A., has been appointed Resident Sur
*
geon to the Lunatic Asylum and General Hospital, Berbice, British Guiana.
Stewart, Hugh Grainger, M.D., F.R.C.P., Edin., has been appointed Medical
Superintendent to the Newcastle-on-Tyne Borough Lunatic Asylum.
Obituary.
The late Sir Charles Hastings, M.D., D.C.L., Oxon.
At the first General Meeting for 1866 of the British Medical Association,
held at Chester, the following resolution moved by Dr. Jeaffreson, the retiring Pre
sident, and seconded by Mr. Carden, of Worcester, was unanimously adopted :
“ That the British Medical Association, assembled at the general meeting at
Chester, desires to express its deep sorrow at the loss the Association has sustained
in the death of its much-loved and highly esteemed founder, President of
Council, and Treasurer, Sir Charles Hastings, who, from the period of its esta
blishment to the present time, has, with singular courtesy and fidelity, exerted his
highest powers for the promotion of the best interests of the Association ; and that
a copy of this resolution be forwarded by the President to the family of the late
Sir Charles Hastings, with the condolence of the Association on the bereavement
they have sustained^
We cordially concur in the above resolution. Sir Charles Hastings was
President of the Medico-Psychological Association in 1859, and he took great
interest in the advancement of Mental Psychology.
The late Right Reverend Bishop Willson.
The late Bishop Willson, of Hobart Town, an honorary member of the
Medico-Psychological Association since its foundation, died at Nottingham on
the 30th June last, aged 71. He was consecrated Roman Catholic Bishop of
�456
Notes and News.
[Oct.,
Hobart Town in 1842. Bishop Willson was an active and energetic advocate
of colonial asylum reform, and lie worthily represented in Australia the
opinions and teaching of this Association.
Dr. Greenup, formerly of Salisbury, for the last fourteen years Superinten
dent of the Parramatta (New South Waies) Lunatic Asylum, holding also flic
offices of Medical Adviser to the Government and Examiner of Sydney Univer
sity, has been stabbed by one of the patients in the Asvlum, and died in two
days after much suffering. His last words were, “ No one is to blame for it.”
He fell a victim to his humane disposition, which led him to be too trustful
even of men confined in the criminal division of the Asylum.—‘ Sydney Morning
Herald' quoted in ‘Medical Times,' Sept. 22.
Notice to Correspondents.
English books for review, pamphlets, exchange journals, &c., to be sent either
by book-post to Dr. Robertson, Hayward’s Heath, Sussex; or to the care of
the publishers of the Journal, Messrs. Churchill and Sons, New Burlington
Street. French, German, and American publications may be forwarded to
Dr. Robertson, by foreign book-post, or to Messrs. Williams ami Norgate,
llcinietta Street, Covcnt Garden, to the care of their German, French/ and
American agents, Mr. Hartmann, Leipzig; M. Borrari, 9, Rue de St. Peres,
Paris ; Messrs. Westermann and Co., Broadway, New York.
Authors of Original Papers wishing Reprints for private circulation can have
them on application to the Printer of the Journal, Mr. Adlard, Bartholomew
Close, E.C., at a fixed charge of 30s. per sheet per 100 copies, includiim a
coloured wrapper and title-page.
3
The copies of The Journal of Mental Science are regularly sent by Book post
(prepaid) to the ordinary Members of the Association, and to our Home and
Foreign Correspondents, and we shall be glad to be informed of any irregu
larity in their receipt or overcharge in the Postage.
The following EXCHANGE JOURS ALS have been regularly received since
our last publication :
The Annales Médico-Psychologiques ; the Zeitschrift fier Psychiatrie; the
Corresponded Blatt der deutschen Gesellschaft fHr Psychyatrie ; Archie fur Psy
chiatrie ; the Irren Freund; Journal de Médecine Mentale; Archivio Italiano
per le Malattie Nervose e per le Alienazioni Mentali ; Medicinische Ahrenlese ;
Medizinisclie Jahrbiiclier {Zeitschrift der K. K. Gesellschaft der Aerzte in Wien) ;
the EdinburghMedical Journal; \\\o American Journal of Insanity ; the Bri
tish and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review; the Dublin Quarterly Journal ;
the Medical Mirror; the Social Science Review ; the Ophthalmic Review—a
Quarterly Journal of Ophthalmic Surgery and Science; the British Medical
Journal; the Medical Circular ; and the Journal of the Society of Arts ; also
the Morningside Mirror ; the York Star and Excelsior ; the Murray Royal Insti
tution Literary Gazette.
M e are compelled to defer to our next number the publication of the third
and fourth papers read at the Annual Meeting of the Medico-Psychological
Association, viz. :
“ The Pathology of Aphasia.” By Alexander Robertson, M.D.
“Asylum Architecture” (with plans). By C. Lockhart Robertson, M.D.
�1866.]
157
THE
MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASSOCIATION.
THE COUNCIL, 18GG—7.
president.—Mr.
Commissioner BROWNE.
president elect.—C.
L. ROBERTSON, M.D.
WOOD, M.D.
TREASURER.—JOHN II. PAUL, M.D.
C. L. ROBERTSON. M.D.
EDITOBS or JOURNAL.
HENRY MAUDSLEY, M.D.
(J. CRICHTON BROWNE, M.D.
AUDITORS.
tEDGAR SHEPPARD, M.D.
HON. SECRETARY FOR IRELAND.—ROBERT STEWART, M.D.
HON. SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND.—JAMES RORIE. M.D.
ex-president.—WILLIAM
GENERAL SECRETARY.-
JAMES F. DUNCAN. M.D.
ROBERT BOYD, M.D.
JAMES G. DAVEY, M.D.
JOHN SIBBALD, M.D.
HARRINGTON TU KE, M.D.
JOHN HITCHMAN, M.D.
JOHN TllURNAM, M.D.
HENRY MONRO, M.D.
DONALD CAMPBELL, M.D.
Members of the Association.
Richard Adams, L.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, County
Asylum, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Adam Addison, L.R.C.P. Edin., Assistant-Physician, Royal Asylum, Sunnyside,
Montrose.
Thomas Aitken, M.D. Edin., Medical Superintendent, District Asylum, Inverness.
Thomas Allen, Esq., L.R.C.S. Edin , M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent,
Warneford Asylum, Oxford.
John Ihomas Arlidge, M.B. Loud., M.R.C.P. I.ond., Newcastle-under-Lyme,
Stafford (late Medical Superintendent, St. Luke’s Hospital).
Henry Armstrong, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Peckham House, London.
G. Mackenzie Bacon, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer,
County Asylum, Fulbourn, near Cambridge.
Samuel Glover Bakewell, M.D. Edin., Church Stretton, Salop (late Oulton
House Retreat).
M. Baili.arger, M.D., Member of the Academy of Medicine, Visiting Physician
to the Asylum La Salpêtrière; 7,Rue de ¡’Université, Paris. (Honorary Member.)
Edward Robert Barker, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S.Eng., Resident Medical Officer,
County Asylum, Denbigh, N. Wales.
Luke Baron, M.D., Staff Surgeon, Military Asylum, Fort Pitt, Chatham.
M. Battel, late Director of Civil Hospitals,'16, Boulevart de ¡’Hôpital, Paris.
(Honorary Member.)
T. B. Belgrave, M.D. Edin., 35, Euston Square, London.
Edward Benbow, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Haves Park, Uxbridge, Middlesex.
Charles Berrel, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer, Countv Asylum,
Warwick.
M. Brierre de Boismont, M.D., Member of the Academy of Medicine, 303, Rue
de Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris. (Honorary Member.)
�458
Members of the Association.
[Oct.,
James Strange Biggs, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., Medical Superintendent,
County Asylum, Wandsworth, Surrey.
Thomas Bigland, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A. Lond., Bigland Hall, Lancashire,
and Medical Superintendent, Kensington House, Kensington,
M. Biffi, M.D., Editor of the Italian 1 Journal of Mental Science,’ 16, Borgo di San
Celso, Milan. {Honorary Member.}
Cornelius Black, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P., F.R.C.S. London, St. Mary’s Gate,
Chesterfield.
John Aloysius Blake, M.P., Stafford Club, 2, Savill Row,W. {Honorary Member}.
George Fielding Blandford, M.B. Oxon., M.R.C.P. Lond., Blackland’s House,
Chelsea; and 3, Clarges Street, Piccadilly.
George Bodington, L.R.C.P. Edin., L.S.A. Lond., Driffold House Asylum,
Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire.
Theodore S. G. Boisragon, M.D. Edin., late Medical Superintendent, County
Asylum, Cornwall; Winslow,Bucks.
Mark Noble Bower, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent,
County Asylum, Stafford.
Robert Boyd, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P. Lond., Medical Superintendent, County
Asylum, Wells, Somersetshire.
David Brodie, M.D. St. And., L.R.C.S. Edin., Superintendent, Institution for Imbe
ciles, Larbent, Stirlingshire.
Harry Browne, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., 18, Brandrum Road, Lee, Blackheath,
Kent.
John Ansell Brown, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A. Loud., late Medical Staff
Indian Army, Grove Hall, Bow.
William A. F. Browne, M.D., F.R.S.E., F.R.C.S.E., Commissioner in Lunacy for
Scotland ; James Place, Leith. (President.) {Honorary Member.}
James Crichton Browne, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Edin., L.S.A. Lond., Medical
Superintendent, County Asylum, Wakefield. {Auditor.}
Thomas Nadauld Brushfield, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superin
tendent, County Asylum, Brookw’ood, Surrey.
Edward Langdon Bryan, M.D. Aberd., F.R.C.S. Eng., late Medical Superinten
dent, Cambridge County Asylum ; 15, Kensington Park Gardens, W.
John Charles Bucknill, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.S., Lord Chancellor’s
Visitor; Hillmorton Hall, Rugby; 49, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Editor of Journal,
1852-62. (President, 1860.) {Honorary Member.}
John Buck, Esq., M.R.C.S., Medical Superintendent, Leicestershire and Rutland
County Asylum, Leicester.
M. Bulckens, M.D., Gheel, near Brussels. {Honorary Member.}
C. Mountford Burnett, M.D. Aberd., M.R.C.S. Eng., Westbrook House, Alton,
Hampshire.
Thomas Crowe Burton, M.D. Gias., M.R.C.S. Eng., Resident Physician, District
Asylum, Waterford.
John Bush, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., The Retreat, Clapham.
J. Stevenson Bushnan, M.D. Heidlb., F.R.C.P. Edin., Laverstock House, Salisbury.
M. Girard de Cailleux, M.D., Member of the Academy of Medicine, Inspector
General of Asylums in the Prefecture of the Department of the Seine, Hotel de
Ville, Paris. {Honorary Member.}
Donald C. Campbell, M.D. Gias., M.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.C.P. Edin., Medical
Superintendent, County Asylum, Brentwood, Essex.
M. Calmeil, M.D., Member of the Academy of Medicine, Paris, Physician to the
Asylum at Charenton, near Paris. {Honorary Member.}
Francis Wood Casson, Esq., M.R.C.S., Borough Asylum, Aulaby Road, Hull.
Thomas Algernon Chapman, M.D. Glasg., M.R.C.S. Edin., Assistant Medical
Officer, County Asylum, Abergavenny.
Barrington Chevallier, M.D. Oxon., M.R.C.P. Lond. The Grove, Ipswich.
Thomas B. Christie, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.C.P. Edin., Pembroke
House, Hackney.
Edward Clapton, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P. Lond., Assistant-Physician, St. Thomas’s
Hospital, Visitor of Lunatics for Surrey; 4, St. Thomas Street, Borough,
�1866.]
Members of the Association.
459
John D. Cleaton, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Commissioner in Lunacy, 19, Whitehall
Place.
Thomas Smith Clouston, M.D. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent,
Cumberland and Westmoreland Asylum, Garlands, Carlisle.
Sir James Coxe, Knt., M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P. Edin., Commissioner in Lunacy for
Scotland; Kinellan, near Edinburgh. {Honorary Member.)
William Corbet, M.B. T.C.D., F.R.C.S. Ireland, Resident Physician, State
Asylum, Dundrum, Co. Dublin.
James Cornwall, Esq., M.R.C.S.,Fairford, Gloucestershire.
M. Damerow, M.D.,Visiting Physician to the Halle Asylum, Prussia. {Hon. Member.)
George Russell Dartnell, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Deputy Inspector-General,
Army Medical Department (formerly in charge of the Military Lunatic Hospital,
Great Yarmouth ' ; Arden' House Henlev-in-Arden, Warwickshire.
James George Davey, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., late Medical Superin
tendent of the County Asylums, Hanwell and Colney Hatch, Middlesex;
Northwoods, near Bristol, and 52, Park Street, Bristol.
Frederick Davidson, M.D. Edin., Medical Superintendent, District Asylum, Banff.
Robert A. Davis, M.D. St. And., L.R.C.P. Edin., Medical Superintendent, County
Asylum, Burntwood, Lichfield.
Barry Delany, M.D., Queen’s Univ. Ireland, Resident Physician, District
Asylum, Kilkenny.
M. Delasiauve, M.D., Member of the Academy of Medicine, Physician to the
Bicêtre, Paris, 6, Rue du Pont de Lodi, Paris. {Hon. Member.)
James de Wolf, M.D. Edin., Medical Superintendent, Hospital for Insane, Halifax,
Nova Scotia.
Warren Hastings Diamond, M.D. Edin., L.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Dudley
Villa, Effra Road, Brixton.
John Dickson, M.D. Edin., Physician to the Dumfries Royal Infirmary, late
Assistant-Physician, Crichton Royal Institution; Buccleugh Street, Dumfries.
Thompson Dickson, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer, City of London
Asylum, Dartford.
J. Langdon Haydon Down, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P. Lond., Assistant-Physician,
London Hospital ; Resident Physician, Asylum for Idiots, Earlswood, Surrey.
Valentine Duke, M.D. Edin., L.R.K. and Q.C.P. Ireland, Visiting Physician,
Society of Friends, Bloomfield, Dublin ; 33, Harcourt Street, Dublin.
James Foulis Duncan, M.D. Trin. Col., Dub., L.R.K. and Q.C.P. Ireland Visiting
Physician, Farnham House, Finglas; 19, Gardiner’s Place, Dublin.
James Duncan, M.D. Lie. Med, Dub., L.R.C.S. Edin.; 39, Marlborough Street,
Dublin, and Farnham House, Finglas.
Nugent B. Duncan, M B. Trin. Col., Dub., F.R.C.S. Ireland; 39, Marlborough
Steeet, Dublin, and Farnham House, Finglas.
Peter Martin Duncan, M.B. Loud., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Med. Super., Essex
Hall Asylum ; 8, Belmont, Church Lane, Lee, Kent.
George Eames, M.D., Medical Superintendent, District Asylum, Letterkenny.
J. William Eastwood, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Lecturer on Physiology,
Sheffield ; Dunston Lodge, Gateshead.
Richard Eaton, M.D. Queen’s Univ. Ireland, L.R.C.S. Ireland, Resident
Physician, District Asylum, Ballinasloe.
John Edmundson, M.D. Queen’s Univ., Medical Superintendent, District Asylum,
Clonmel.
James Ellis, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A. Lond., Medical Superintendent,
St. Luke’s Hospital, London.
John Eustace, jun., B.A. Trin. Col., Dub., L.R.C.S. Ireland; 47, Grafton Street,
Dublin, and Hampstead House, Glasnevin, Dublin.
William Dean Fairless, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Medical Super
intendent, Old Royal Asylum, Montrose ; Hillgarden House, Coupar-Angus,
Perth.
M. Falret, Doctor of Medicine, Paris, Member of the Academy of Medicine,
Physician to the Asylum La Salpêtrière ; 114, Rue du Bac, Paris. {Hon. Member.)
Jules Falret, M.D.. 114, Rue du Bac. Paris. {Honorary Member.)
�160
Members of the Association.
[Oct.,
George Fayrer, M.D. St. And., F.R.C.S. Eng., Hurst House and Burman House,
Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire.
C. F. Flemming, M.D., Editor of the ‘ Zeitsclirift fur Psvchiatrie,’ late of the
Saclisenberg State Asylum, Schwerin, Mecklenburgb. {Honorary Member.)
Charles Joseph Fox, M.D. Cantab., Brislington House, Bristol.
Francis Ker Fox, M.D. Cantab., Brislington House, Bristol.
Charles II. Fox, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., Brislington House, Bristol.
John Mitchell Garbutt, L.R.C.P. Edin., Dunston Lodge, Gateshead-on-Tyne.
Gideon G. Gardiner, M.D. St. And. M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent,
Brooke House, Clapton.
Samuel Gaskell, Esq., F.R.C.S. Eng., late Commissioner in Lunacy; 19, Whitehall
Place. {Honorary Member.)
James Gilchrist, M.D. Edin., Resident Physician, Crichton Royal Institution,
Dumfries.
Thomas Green, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, Borough Asylum,
Birmingham.
Professor Griesinger, M.D., University of Berlin. {Honorary Member.)
Edward Thomas Hall, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Blackland's House Asylum, Chelsea.
Francis James Hammond, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., 12, Aldersgate Street, E.C.
Henry Lewis Harper, Esq., M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superin
tendent, County Asylum, Chester.
WiLliam Harris, Esq., F.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A., House of Correction, Wandsworth.
Arthur R. Harrison, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent,
The Asylum, Adelaide, South Australia.
George W. Hatciiell, M.D. Gias., L.R.K. and Q.C.P. Ireland, Inspector and Com
missioner of Control of Asylums, Ireland; 13, llume Street, Dublin. {lion. Mem.)
Edward S. Haviland, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., 13, Lyon Terrace, Maida Hill.
Stanley Haynes, M.D., Laverstock House, Salisbury.
John Dale Hewson, M.D., Ext. L.R.C.P. Eng., Medical Superintendent, Coton Hill
Asylum, Stafford.
Robert Gardiner IIii.l, M.D., L.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Medical
Superintendent, Lunatic Hospital, Lincoln ; Earl’s Court House, Brompton.
William Charles Hills, M.D. Aber., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent,
County Asylum, Norfolk.
Samuel IIitch, M.D., M.R C.P. Loud., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Medical Superintendent,
County Asylum, Gloucester; Southwick Park, Tewkesbury. , {Treasurer and Hon.
General Secretary, 1841-51.)
Charles Hitchcock, M.D., L.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Fiddington House,
Market Lavington, Wilts.
John Hitchman, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Loud., F.R.C.S. Eng, late Medical
Superintendent, County Asylum, Hanwell; Medical Superintendent, County
Asylum, Mickleover, Derbyshire. (President, 1856.)
Samuel Hobart, M.D., F.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Visiting Surgeon, District
Asylum, Cork ; South Mall, Cork.
Sir Henry Holland, Bart., M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P. Loud., Physician in Ordinary to
the Queen, F.R.S., D.C.L. Oxon.; 25, Brook St, Grosvenor Sq. {Honorary Member.)
William Charles Hood, M.D. St. And., F.R.C.P. Loud., F.R.C.P. Edin., Lord
Chancellor's Visitor; 49, Lincoln’s Inn Fields: Croydon Lodge, Croydon.
{Honorary Member.)
Thomas Howden, M.D. Edin., Medical Superintendent, District Asylum, Had
dington.
James C. Howden, M.D. Edin., late Senior Assistant-Physician, Royal Asylum,
Edin.; Medical Superintendent, Royal Asylum, Sunnyside, Montrose.
S. G. Howe, M.D., Boston, United States. {Honorary Member.)
John W. Hughes, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer, County Asylum,
Morpeth.
John Humphry, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, County Asylum,
Aylesbury, Bucks.
William James Hunt, M.D., L.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Assistant
Medical Officer, County Asylum, Worcester; Medical Superintendent, Hoxton
House, London.
�ALeinhers of the Association.
461
Daniel Iles, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Resident Medical Officer, Fairford House Retreat,
Gloucestershire.
George R. Irvine, M.D., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer, County
Asylum, Rainhill, Liverpool.
J. Hughlings Jackson, M.D. St. And., Assistant-Phvsician, Hospital for Epilepsy
and Paralysis, &c.; 28, Bedford Place, Russell Square, W.C.
Robert Jamieson, M.D. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent, Royal
Asylum, Aberdeen.
Edward Jarvis, M.D., Dorchester, Mass., U.S. (Honorary Member.)
Octavius Jepson, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Medical Superintendent,
St. Luke’s Hospital, Medical Superintendent, City of Lond. Asy., Dartford.
George Iurner Jones, M.D., L.R.C.P. Edin., Medical Superintendent, County
Asylum, Denbigh, N. Wales.
Evan Jones, M.D., L.R.C.S. Edin., Dare Villa, Aberdare.
W. B. Kesteven, F.R.C.S , Manor Road, Upper Holloway.
Henry L. Kempthorne, M.D. Lond., Assistant Medical Officer, Bethlehem Hospital
John Kitching, M.D. St. And., L.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, The Friends’ Retreat, York.
John Kirkbride, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Philadelphia. (Hon. Member.)
John Kirkman, M.D., Medical Superintendent, County Asvlum, Melton, Suffolk
President, 1862.
William Philips Kirkman, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superin
tendent, County Asylum, Maidstone, Kent.
II. Laeiir, M.D., Schweizer Hof, bei Berlin, Editor of the ‘Zeitschrift für Psychia
trie.’ (Honorary Member.)
Joseph Lalor, M.D. Gias., L.R.C.S. Ireland, Resident Physician, Richmond
District Asylum, Dublin. President, 1861.
Robert Law, M.D. Trin. Col., Dub., F.R.K. and Q.C.P. Ireland, Visiting Physician
State Asylum, Dundrum; 25, Upper Merrion Street, Dublin.
Martin S. Lawlor, M.D. Edin., L.R.C.S. Ireland, Resident Physician, District
Asylum, Killarnev, Kerry.
M. Lascuue, M.D., Paris, Physician to the Neckar Hospital. (Hon. Member.)
George William Lawrence, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng.,
Medical Superintendent, County Asylum, Fulbourn, Cambridge.
William Lawrence, Esq., F.R.C.S. Eng., F.R.S., Serjeant-Surgeon to the Queen,
18, Whitehall Place, Whitehall. (Honorary Member.)
Thomas Laycock, M.D. Gottingen, F.R.C.P. Edin., F.R.S. Edin., M.R.C.P. Lond.,
. Professor of Medicine and of Clinical and Psychological Medicine, Edinburgh
University ; Rutland Street, Edinburgh. (Honorary Member.)
M. Leidesdorf, M.D., Universität, Vienna. (Honorary Member.)
Henry Lewis, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Assistant Medical Officer, County Asvlum,
Chester; West Terrace, Folkestone.
H. Rooke Ley, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, County Asylum,
Shrewsbury.
William Ley, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, County Asylum,
Littlemore, Oxfordshire. Treasurer, 185-4-1862. President, 1848.
■William Lauder Lindsay, M.D., F.R.S. Edin., F.L.S. Lond., Physician to the
Murray Royal Institution, Perth ; Gilgal, Perth.
James Murray Lindsay, M.D. St. And., L.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent,
County Asylum, llanwell, Middlesex.
Edmund Lloyd, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Assistant Medical Officer, County
Asylum, Wakefield; Medical Department, General Post Office, St. Martin’s-leGrand.
John Lorimer, M.D. Edin., Ticehurst, Sussex.
William II. Lowe, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P. Edin., Satighton Hal), Edinburgh.
Th omas Harvey Lowry, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Mailing Place, West
Mailing, Kent.
Frederick F. Maccabe, M.D , District Asylum, Waterford.
Donald Mackintosh, M.D. Durham and Glas., L.F.P.S. Gias., Dimsdale Park
Retreat, Darlington, Durham.
�462
Members of the Association.
[Oct.,
Alexandeb Mackintosh, M.D. St. And., L.F.P.S. Gias., Physician to Royal
Asylum, Gartnavel, Glasgow.
John Robert Maclintock, M.D. Aber., Assistant-Physician, Murray’s Royal
Institution, Perth.
Harry Manning, Esq., B.A. London, M.R.C.S., Assistant Medical Officer, Laver,
stock House, Salisbury.
William Carmichael Mackintosh, M.D. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., Medical
Superintendent, District Asylum, Murthley, Perth.
John Macmunn, M.D. Gias., L.F.P.S. Gias., Resident Physician, District Asvlum
Sligo.
Hyde Macpherson, Esq., M.R.C.S., Resident Medical Officer, Borough Asylum,
Norwich.
Charles W. C. Madden-Medlicott, M.D. Edin., L.M. Edin., Assistant Medical
Officer, County Asylum, Wells, Somerset.
John Manley, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, County
Asylum, Knowle, Fareham, Hants.
William G. Marshall, Esq., M.R.C.S., Medical Superintendent, County Asylum,
Colney Hatch.
Henry Maudsley, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P. Lond., Physician to the West London
Hospital, late Medical Superintendent, Royal Lunatic Hospital, Cheadle; 38,
Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, and The Lawn, Hanwell, W. (Editor of
Journal.)
David M. M'Cullough, M.D. Edin., Medical Superintendent of Asylum for
Monmouth, Hereford, Brecon, and Radnor; Abergavenny.
Robert M'Kinstry, M.D. Giess., L.K. and Q.C.P. Ireland, and L.R.C.S. Ireland,
formerly Physician, Trough Fever Hospital and Glasslough and Emyvale Dis
pensaries, Resident Physician, District Asylum, Armagh.
John Meyer, M.D. Heidelb., F.R.C.P. Lond., late of the Civil Hospital, Smyrna,
and Surrey Asylum ; Medical Superintendent, State Asylum, Broadmoor, Wokin°-.
John Millar, M.D., L.R.C.P. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., late Medical Superintendent,
County Asylum, Bucks ; Bethnal House, Cambridge Heath.
Patrick Miller, M.D. Edin., F.R.S. Edin., Visiting Physician, St. Thomas’s
Hospital for Lunatics; The Grove, Exeter.
Arthur Mitchell, M.D. Edin., Deputy Commissioner of Lunacy; Trinity, Edin.
Edward Moore, M.D. L.R.C.P. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng., Thurlow House, Bethnal
Green Road, and Park House, Victoria Park.
Henry Monro, M.D. Oxon, F.R.C.P. Lond., Censor, 1861, Visiting Physician, St.
Luke’s Hospital; Brook House, Clapton, and 13, Cavendish Square. President
1864.
M. Morel, M.D., Member of the Academy of Medicine, Paris, Physician in Chief
to the Asylum for the Insane at St. Yon, near Rouen. (Honorary Member.)
George W. Mould, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, Royal Lunatic
Hospital, Cheadle, Manchester.
Henry Muirhead, M.D. Gias., L.F.R.S. Gias., late Assist. Med. Officer, Royal
Asylum, Gartnavel; Longdales House, Bothwell, Lanarkshire.
Baron Jaromir Mundy, M.D. Wurzburg, Drnowitz, near Brunn, Moravia, Austria;
and of Brighton, England.
Robert Nairne, M.D. Cantab., F.R.C.P. Lond., late Senior Physician to St. George’s
Hospital, Commissioner in Lunacy; 19, Whitehall Place, and Richmond Green,
London. (Honorary Member.)
Frederick Needham, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical
Superintendent, Hospital for the Insane, Bootham, Yorkshire.
Samuel Newington, B.A. Oxon., M.R.C.P. Lond., Ridgway, Ticehurst, Sussex.
William Niven, M.D. St. And., Medical Superintendent of the Government
Lunatic Asylum, Bombay.
Daniel Noble, M.D. St. And., F.R.C.P. Lond., Visiting Physician, Clifton Hall,
Retreat, Manchester.
John Nugent, M.B. Trin. Col., Dub., L.R.C.S. Ireland, Senior Inspector and Com
missioner of Control of Asylums, Ireland; 14, Rutland Square. Dublin. (Hon. Mem.)
�1866.]
Members of the Association.
463
Edward Paley, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Resident Medical Officer, Camber«
well House, Camberwell; Med. Superintendent, Yarra Bend Asy., Melbourne,
Victoria.
Edward Palmer, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., Medical Superintendent, County,
Lincoln.
William Henry Parsey, M.D. Lond., M.A. Lond., M.R.C.P. Lond., Medical
Superintendent, County Asylum, Hatton, Warwickshire.
G. A. Paterson, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P. Edin., Deputy Commissioner of Lunacy;
Post Office Buildings, Edinburgh.
John Hayball Paul, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.C.P. Edin.; Camber
well House, Camberwell. {Treasurer.)
Thomas Peach, M.D., J.P. for the County of Derby; Langley Hall, Derby.
{Honorary Member.)
Edward Picton Phillips, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, Haver
fordwest Boro’ Asylum ; High Street, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.
Francis Richard Philip, M.D. Cantab., F.R.C.P. Lond., late Physician to St.
Luke’s Hospital; Colby House, Kensington.
Thomas Power, M.D. Edin., L.M. Dublin, Physician Superintendent, District
Asylum, Cork; Visiting Physician, Lindville House,Cork.
Thomas Prichard, M.D. Gias., M.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.C.P. Edin., late Medical
Superintendent, Gias. Royal Asylum; Abington Abbey, Northampton.
James Rae, M.D. Aberd., L.R.C.P. Edin., late Deputy Inspector-General, Naval
Lunatic Hospital, Great Yarmouth; 69, Port Street, Stirling.
Isaac Ray, M.D., Physician, Butler Hospital for the Insane, Providence, Rhode
Island, U.S. {Honorary Member.)
W. H. Reed, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer, County Asylum,
Derby.
John Foster Reeve, M.D. Aber., M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A. Lond., 4, Newington
Terrace, Kennington Park.
Hon. W. Spring Rice, 165, New Bond Street. {Honorary Member.)
Charles A. Lockhart Robertson, M.D. Cantab., M.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.C.P. Edin.,
formerly Assistant-Physician, Military Lunatic Hospital, Yarmouth; Medical
Superintendent, County Asylum, Hayward’s Heath, Sussex. {General Secretary.
1855-62.) Editor of Journal. President elect.
Alexander Robertson, M.D. Edin., Medical Superintendent, Towns Hospital and
City Parochial Asylum, Glasgow.
John Charles G. Robertson, L.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A. Lond.,
Assistant Medical Officer, County Asylum, Hanwell, Middlesex.
George Robinson, M.D. St. And., F.R.C.P. Lond., 26, Welbeck St., Cavendish
Square.
William Francis Rogan, M.D. Trin. Coll., Dubl., L.R.C.S. Edin., Resident Phy
sician, District Asylum, Londonderry.
Thomas Lawes Rogers, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical
Superintendent, County Asylum, Rainhill, Lancashire.
James Rorie, M.D. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent, Royal Asylum,
Dundee. {Honorary Secretaryfor Scotland.)
James Rutherford, M.D., Edin., Bo'ness, Linlithgowshire.
Edward Rutherfurd, M.D. Edin., Assistant Medical Officer, Perth District Asylum,
Murthly, Dunkeld.
James Sadlier, M.D. Edin., Gilmour House Asylum, Liberton, Edinburgh.
Ernst Salomon, M.D., Medical Superintendent, Malmo Asylum, Sweden.
Heurtley H. Sankey, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer, Oxford
County Asylum, Littlemore, Oxford.
W. H. Octa.vius Sankey, M.D., M.R.C.P. Lond.; late Medical Superintendent,
Hanwell, Middlesex; Sandywell Park, Cheltenham, and Almond’s Hotel, Clifford
Street, Bond Street.
M. Legrand du Saulle, M.D., Paris, 9, Boulevard de Sebastopol, Paris.
{Honorary Member.)
George James S. Saunders, M.B. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superinteadent,
County Asylum, Exminster, Devon.
�K51
Members of the Association.
[Oct.,
L. Schlager, M.D., Professor of Psvcbiatrie; 2, Universitats Platz, Vienna. {Hono
rary Member.)
Frank Schofield, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Camberwell House, Camberwell.
William Seller, M.D. Edin., F.R.S. Edin., Lecturer on Mental Diseases to tbe
Royal Coll, of Phys.; Northumberland Street, Edinburgh.
John Shepherd, M.D. Edin., Eccles, Manchester.
Edgar Sheppard, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. London, F.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Su
perintendent, County Asylum, Colney Hatch, Middlesex. {Auditor.)
J. W. Sheill, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.S. Eng., District Asylum, Maryborough, Ireland.
James Sherlock, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superin
tendent, County Asylum, Powick, Worcester.
John Sibbai.d, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, District
Asylum, Lochgilphead, Argyllshire.
Sir James Young Simpson, Bart., M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P. Edin., Professor of Medi
cine and Midwifery, University of Edinburgh. {Honorary Member.)
John II. Simpson, M.D., Assistant Medical Officer, County Asylum, Gloucester.
David Skae, M.D. St. And., F.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent, Royal
Asylum, Morningside, Edinburgh. (President, 1863.)
Frederick W. A. Skae, M.D. St. And., L.R.C.S. Edin., Assistant-Physician Royal
Asylum for the Insane, Morningside, Edinburgh.
W. Smart, L.R.C.S., Alloa House, Edinburgh.
Frederick Moore Smith, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Assistant-Surgeon,
4th Reg.; Hadham Palace, Ware, Herts.
George Pyemont Smith, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng., The Retreat, Mount Stead,
Otley, Yorkshire.
Robert Smith, M.D. Aber., L.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent County
Asylum, Sedgetield, Durham.
John Smith, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P. Edin., late Physician, City Lunatic Asylum;
Visiting Physician to Saughton Hall; 20, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh.
J. Walbridge Snook, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., House Surgeon, Infirmary, Bradford,
Yorkshire.
Robert Spencer, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer, County Asylum,
Maidstone, Kent.
Hans Sloane Stanley, Esq., late Chairman of Visiting Magistrates, County
Asylum, Hampshire, Paultons, Romsey. (Honorary Member.)
William Stamer Stanley, M.R.C.S. Eng., L.M. Dub., L.K.Q.C.P. Ireland, Orchardstown House, Rathfarnham, Dublin.
Peter Wood Stark, M.D. St. And., L.R.C.P. Edin., County Asylum, Lancaster.
Henry Stevens, M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Medical Super
intendent, St. Luke’s Hospital; 78, Grosvenor Street, London.
Henry Oxley Stephens, M.D. Aber., M.R.C.P. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical
Superintendent, Boro’ Asylum, Stapleton, Bristol.
Henry II. Stewart, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.S. Ireland, Resident Superintendent Phy
sician, Government Asylum, Lucan, Dublin.
Robert Stewart, M.D. Gias., L.A.II. Dub., Physician Superintendent, District
Asylum, Belfast. {Honorary Secretary for Ireland.)
Hugh G. Stewart, M.D. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent, Ntwcastle-on-Tvne Borough Lunatic Asylum.
William Piiillimore Stiff, M.B. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent,
County Asylum, Nottingham.
George James Stilwell, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.P.Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng.; Moorcroft
Hoi ise, Hillingdon, Middlesex, and 38, Park Street, Grosvenor Square.
Henry Stilwell, M.D. Edin., M.R.C.S. Eng.; Moorcroft House, Hillingdon,
Middlesex.
Alonzo Henry Stockwell, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng.,
Medical Superintendent, Grove Hall Asylum, Bow.
William Stockwell, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Millholme House, Musselburgh.
Alexander J. Sutherland, M.D. Oxon., F.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.S., Censor, 1847,
Consulting Physician to St. Luke’s Hospital; Blackland’s, and Whiteland’s House,
Chelsea, and G. Richmond Terrace, Whitehall. (President, 1854.)
�1866.]
Members of the Association.
465
Frederick Sutton, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Assistant Medical Officer, Norfolk Lunatic
Asylum, Thorpe, Norwich.
Joseph P. Symes, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A., Assistant Medical Officer, County
Asylum, Devizes, Wilts.
William Barney Tate, M.D. Aber., M.R.C.P. Loud., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical
Superintendent of the Lunatic Hospital, The Coppice, Nottingham.
John Terry, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Bailbrook House, Bath.
James Bruce Thomson, L.R.C.S. Edin., Resident Surgeon, General Prison,
Perth.
John Thurnam, M.D. Aber., F.R.C.P. London, late of The Retreat, York;
Medical Superintendent, County Asylum, Devizes, Wilts. President, 1344
and 1855.
Ebenezer Toller, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Medical Superintendent, St. Luke’s
Hospital; Medical Superintendent, County Asylum, Wotton, Gloucestershire.
M. Moreau de Tours, M.D., Member of the Academy of Medicine, Senior
Physician to the Salpêtrière, Paris. {Honorary Member.)
John Batty Tuke, M.D. Edin., Medical Superintendent, County Asylum, Fife and
Kinross, Cupar, Fifeshire.
Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., Heidel., L.R.C.P. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng., late Visiting
Physician, The Retreat, York; Wood Lane, Falmouth.
Thomas Harrington Tuke, M.D. St. And., F.R.C.P. Edin., M.R.C.P. London ;
M.R.C.S. Eng. ; The Manor House, Chiswick, and 37, Albemarle Street, Pic
cadilly. {Honorary General Secretary.)
Alexander Tweedie, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P. London, F.R.S., late Examiner in
Medicine, University of London, 17, Pall Mall, and Bute Lodge, Twickenham.
{Honorary Member.)
Edward Hart Vinen, M.D. Aber., F.L.S., 6, Chepstow Villas West, Bayswater.
Francis Delaval Walsh, Esq., M.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent, Lunatic
Hospital, Lincoln.
John Warwick, Esq., F.R.C.S. Eng., 39, Bernard Street, Russell Square, W.C.
John Ferra Watson, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Ileigham Hall, Norwich.
Sir Thomas Watson, Bart., President of the Royal College of Physicians, M.D.
Cantab., D.C.L. Oxon., F.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.S., Physician Extraordinary to the
Queen, 16, Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square. {Honorary Member.)
Francis John West, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, District
Asylum, Omagh, Tyrone.
Samuel Wilks, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.P. Lond., 11, St. Thomas’s Street, Borough.
James Wilkes, Esq., F.R.C.S. Eng., Commissioner in Lunacy ; 19, Whitehall Place,
and 18, Queen’s Gardens, Hyde Park. {Honorary Member.)
Edmund Sparshall Willett, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., M.R.C.S. Eng.,
Wyke House, Sion Hill, Isleworth, Middlesex ; and 2, Suffolk Place, Pall Mall.
Caleb Williams, M.D. Aber., M.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.C.S. Eng., Consulting
Physician, York Lunatic Asylum, Visiting Physician to The York Retreat, and to
Lawrence House, York; 73, Micklegate, York.
William White Williams, M.D. St. And., M.R.C.P. Lond., Consulting Physician.
County Asylum, Gloucester; Whithorne House, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham,
{Hon. General Secretary, 1847-1855.)
S. W. Duckworth Williams, M.D. St. And., L.R.C.P. Lond., Assistant Medical
Officer, Sussex County Asylum, Hayward’s Heath.
Rhys Williams, M.D., and M.R.C.S. Eng., Resident Physician, Bethlehem Hospital,
London.
Francis Wilton, Esq., M.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent, Joint Counties
Asylum, Carmarthen.
William Wood, M.D. St. And., F.R.C.P. Lond., F.R.C.S. Eng., Visiting Physician,
St. Luke’s Hospital, late Medical Officer, Bethlehem Hospital; Kensington House,
Kensington, and 54, Upper Harley Street. (President, 1864-5.)
Alfred Joshua Wood, M.D. St. And., F.R.C.S. Eng., Medical Superintendent,
Barnwood House Hospital for the Insane, Gloucester.
�466
Members of the Association.
[Oct., 1866.
William H. Wyatt, Esq., Chairman of Committee, County Asylum, Colney Hatch,
88, Regent’s Park Road. (Honorary Member.')
Andrew Wynter, M.D. St. And. M.R.C.P. Lond., 76, Addison Road, Kensington.
David Yellowlees, M.D. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., Medical Superintendent, County
Asylum, Cardiff, Glamorganshire.
Notice of any alteration required in the above List to be sent to the Honorary
Secretary, 37, Albemarle Street, W.
���
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Journal of Mental Science (No. 59, Vol. xii, October, 1866)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: ii, [309]-466 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Published by authority of the Medico-Psychological Association. The journal was established in 1853 as the Asylum Journal and named Journal of Mental Science from 1858 to 1963, when it obtained its present name. Includes bibliographical references. Contents: Part 1: Original Articles. II: Reviews. III: Quarterly Report on the Progress of Psychological Medicine. IV. Notes and News.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1866
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5288
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Psychology
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The Journal of Mental Science (No. 59, Vol. xii, October, 1866)), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Mental Health
Psychiatry
Psychology
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/fa2b18ad5dee41b074f258f4c40e8657.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=mF925j3SFoTYshZLZaPCxpR1UIsqIN0CrQpB6KmPH06z6sR2BVEjrkCsmatysSdBwz3E4bzFI4o5nrtMWmXhflP5rGSwnFHeVwXtWIMN9uHhGEfk6qQpYfAapNWpsZw1Hp3lQyd2XRMhyPUqbV2FTyfql3M97OMkQ5kE6zLkoeqXTAyDdxWmMa%7ErcHu8sNu80SOzWtBhISvj0qoPPV8UedS8Mb459Td5VL-FpDtfV4wvTFjL6x13yhge2ecb6UJcfB4L6TUQAyFF%7EBx1OcvCzDS5YirVkVCl%7ETtMXZTgbBwXIR7Xr8zu0NcwOnBR0c4p8sun5sZ6xKhdejt5PUbm5Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
7aca6eec37c415bee52486a69cb98aa7
PDF Text
Text
OF THE BIKTH OF
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
SONGS sung by Mr KENNEDY at the
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL.
SONG FOR THE OCCASION.
Words by JAME&^ALLANTINE.
Music by GEORGE CROAL.
Come let us raise a grateful song,
On this our Minstrel’s Natal day ;
And all the world shall round us thiong,
Heart homage to his name to pay.
One hundred years have passed away,
Since first awoke that watchful eye ;
Who’s sparkling glance and genialray,
Have kindled light that ne’er call die.
See his glory brightly shining, ■
Over Palace, Hall, and Cot;
See the Myriad Nations'twining,’
Laurel wreaths round Walter Scott.
Immortal strains of Auld Lang Syne,
Are floating on the ambient air ;
While Fame and Time strew flowers divine,
Around the Wizard Minstrel’s chair,—
Who in his hundredth year sits there,
With songs and stories as of yore ;
Still charming all the brave and fair,
Still linking hearts for evermore.
See his glory, etc.
Statesmen and Warriors gather round,
And Prince and Peasant swell the train;
The sky cleft hills, the glens profound,
Prulong the universal strain.
O’er all the World the loud refrain,
Of grateful joy spreads wide and far ;
And Scotland’s radiance ne’er can wane,
Illumed by such a lustrous star.
See his glory, etc.
Edinburgh, 9A August 1871.
�JOCK O’ HAZELDEAN,.
Words by SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Scottish Melody.
Why weep ye by the tide, layde, why weep ye by the tide ?
I’ll wed ye to my youngest son, and ye shall be his bride ;
And ye shall be his bride, layde, sae comely to be seen :
But aye she loot the tears doon fa’, for Jock o’ Hazeldean.
Now let this wilfu’ grief be done, and dry that cheek so pale ;
Young Frank is chief of Errington, and lord of Langley dale ;
His step is first in peaceful ha’, his sword in battle keen,
But aye she loot the tears down fa’, for Jock o’ Hazeldean.
A chain of gowd ye shall not lack, nor braid to bind your hair,
Nor mettled hound, nor managed hawk, nor palfrey fresh and
fair;
And you the foremost o’ them a’, shall ride ©ur forest queen,
But aye she loot the tears down fa’, for Jock o’ Hazeldean.
The kirk was decked at morning tide, the tapers glimmer’d fair ;
The priest andHiridegroom wait the bride, but ne’er a bride
was there,
They sought her baith by bower and ha’, the layde wasna seen,
She’s owre the border and awa, wi’ Jock o’ Hazeldean.
THE MACGREGOR’S GATHERING.
Words by SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Music by ALEX. LEE.
The moon’s on the lake, and the mist’s on the brae,
And our clan has a name that is nameless by day,
Our signafafor fight, which from monarchs we drew,
Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo,
Then haloo, haloo, haloo, Gregalach.
If they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles,
Give their roofs to the flame and their flesh to the eagles.
Then gather, gather, gather, gather, gather, gather,
While there’s leaves in the forest, and foam on the river,
Macgregor despite them shall flourish for ever.
Glenorchy’s proud mountain, Col churn and her towers,
Glenstrae and Glenlyon, no longer are ours.
We’re landless, landless, landless, Gregalach, landless, land
less, landless.
Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed shall career,
O’er the peak of Benlomond the galley shall steer,
And the rocks o^ Craig Royston like icicles melt,
Ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt.
Then haloo, haloo, haloo, Gregalach.
If they rob us of name, etc.
�*YOUNG LOCHINVAR.
Words by SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Music by GEORGE CROAL.
O, young Lochinvar has come out of the west,
Through all the wide bolder his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,
He rode all unarm’d, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
He staid not for brake, and he stopp’d not for stone,
He swam the Hsk river where ford there was none ;
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had consented, the gallant came late ;
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.
So boldly he entered the Netherby hall,
Among bride’s-men, and kinsmen, and brothers and all:
Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,)
“ O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord LochinvM! ”
I long woo’d youf daughter, my suit you denied
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide—
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland moreRtovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar. ”
The bride kiss’d the goblet, the knight took it up,
He quaff’d off the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She look’d down to blush, and she look’d up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—
“ Now tread we a measure !” said young Lochinvar.
So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace ;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnejfland plume,
And the bride-maidens whisper’d, “ Twere better by far,
To have match’d our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.
One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
When they reach’d the hall-door and the charger stood near;
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung !
‘‘ She is won ! we are gone, over bank, busli, and scaur,
They’ll have fleet steeds that follow” quoth young Lochinvar.
There was mounting ’mong GS^emes of the Netherby clan ;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode ancLthey ran;
There was racing, and chasing, on Cannonbie Lee.
But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war.
Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ?
*From the Centenary Souvenir, six songs by Sir Walter Scott.
��&rt-listorital antr
LECTURES.
AFTERNOON MEETINGS
AT
Oe gooms if ilje^Hd
Saldg/
I No. 11, CHANDOS STREET,! CAVENDISH SQUARE,
At L7ircc o’Clod1.
MR. GEORGE BROWNING
PROPOSES TO DELIVER
THE SECO1TD SERIES
OF THE ABOVEMJOURSE OF LECTURES
Every Wednesday, and not every alternate Wednesday as previously
announced, commencing onLLh^lfcils.tfe^tlu'OsdaAgiqa AftrwM
The following are the Subjects of thejSfeg^S Series
France
.
Germany
.
Switzerland
Northern Italy.
Rome
afe
Naples and Pompeii
M
M
M
Wednesday, April 5.
Wednesday, April 12.
Wednesday, April 19.
Wednesday, April 26.
Wednesday, May 3.
Wednesday, May 10.
Ticltets for t7ix Course of Six.Lectures, Half a Htiinea;fcfrgg
to admit
/
Those who are desirous of attending the above Course of Lectures
are requested to intimate the same on'dr bdbBJ >©ril 1st to 1
George Browning,
k 13, BgggiiSfa-eet, W.
�•. fcwh ■
.JUtATMS #9n.-MJp .Wfak-Ufi '"
■• ,r
SiWtfh? il-M
4
%-z U lC ’Oft
A
. , i
r-
■r
..a iws
. »W •* <> . ‘V
Ik /
11
**
*
A 4*
••*’■'
k,
X
<■■■1
{■..-•fBi-’.W
» ■■'■'#’
»•■•■■
■—■■ ’ Mnvmir1
IB’. 1
’ ■ j t;
i Jr
y >».kORmtSr
..w
A
dB*1'
■ '
g*
.If
j
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Centenary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott: songs sung by Mr Kennedy at the Edinburgh Festival
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [Edinburgh]
Collation: [4 p.] ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1881]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5563
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" name="graphics1" width="88" height="31" border="0" alt="88x31.png" /></p>
<p class="western">This work (Centenary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott: songs sung by Mr Kennedy at the Edinburgh Festival), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Music
Conway Tracts
Songs
Walter Scott