his mind, and that's not at leysure. He thinkes businesse, but never does any he is all contemplation, no action. He hewes and fashions his thoughts, as if hee meant them to some purpose; but they prove unprofitable, as a piece of wrought timber of no use. His spirits and the sunne are enemies; the sun bright and warme, his humour blacke and cold: variety of foölish apparitions people in his head, they suffer him not to breathe, according to the necessities of nature; which makes him sup up a draught of as much aire at once as would serve at thrice. Hee denies nature her due in sleepe, and nothing pleaseth him long, but that which pleaseth his own phantasies: they are the consuming evils, and evil consumptions that consume him alive. Lastly, he is a man onely in shew, but comes short of the better part; a whole reasonable soule, which is man's chief pre-eminence, and sole marke from creatures sensible."

Another interesting elucidation of the view which I have attempted to explain, is afforded in a case related by Pinel, where it is evident that the feelings which a general state of mental excitement had morbidly affected, were, from the same principle of selection, vivified to a most painful degree. The patient was a young gentleman, endowed with a most vivid imagination, who came to Paris to study the law. His application was said to have been laborious and painful in the extreme, the consequence of which was, that, along with frequent bleeding at the nose, spasmodic

Sir Thomas Overbury, His Wife, 14th edit. A. D. 1630.

oppressions of the chest, wandering pains of the bowels, and a troublesome flatulence, he was seized with great depression of spirits, and a morbidly enervated sensibility. These symptoms daily increased, until, as a French physician adds, "complete lunacy at length established its melancholy empire. One night, he bethought himself that he would go to the play, to seek relief from his own unhappy meditations. The piece which was presented, was 'The Philosopher without knowing it.' He was instantly seized with the most gloomy suspicions, and especially with a conviction, that the comedy was written on purpose, and represented to ridicule himself. He accused me with having furnished materials for the writer of it, and the next morning he came to reproach me, which he did most angrily, for having betrayed the rights of friendship, and exposed him to public derision. His delirium observed no bounds. Every priest and monk he met in the public walks he took for comedians in disguise, despatched there for the purpose of studying his gestures, and of discovering the secret operations of his mind. In the dead of the night he gave way to the most terrific apprehensions,-believed himself to be attacked sometimes by spies, and at other times by robbers and assassins. He once opened his window with great violence, and cried out murder and assistance with all his might."

It is evident, that, in the foregoing example, the morbific cause of the young gentleman's insanity had imparted such an additional degree of vividness to his painful feelings, as to render all pleasurable thoughts

so proportionally faint, that a perfect unconsciousness of them ensued. A general gloom, therefore, darkened all his reflections and emotions.

"it was

The continuation of this patient's case has no immediate relation to the object of our inquiry, yet its interest is too great to be withheld. It appears that the young man was sent, under the protection of a proper person, to an asylum belonging to a little village in the vicinity of the Pyrenees. "Greatly debilitated both in mind and body," continues Pinel, some time after agreed upon that he should return to his family residence, where, on account of his paroxysms of delirious extravagance, succeeded by fits of profound melancholy, he was insulated from society. Ennui and insurmountable disgust with life, absolute refusal of food, and dissatisfaction with every thing, and every body that came near him, were among the last ingredients of his bitter cup. To conclude our affecting history, he one day eluded the vigilance of his keeper, and, with no other garment on than his shirt, fled to a neighbouring wood, where he lost himself, and where, from weakness and inanition, he ended his miseries. Two days afterwards he was found a corpse. In his hand was the celebrated work of Plato on the Immortality of the Soul."*

These are all the examples which I have to offer in illustration of the second variety of ecstacy that I have noticed, where the cause of mental excitement, to which the affection is referable, has added to the intensity of painful feelings, but has proportionally di

* Pinel's Treatise on Insanity. Trans. by Dr Davis, page 57.

minished the vividness of pleasurable feelings; the general result being, that painful feelings are rendered inordinately intense, while pleasurable feelings become so faint as to be no longer the object of mental consciousness.

CHAPTER XIV.

PROOFS THAT, DURING INTENSE EXCITEMENTS OF THE MIND, NO LESS THAN DURING SYNCOPE AND SLEEP, THE CAUSES WHICH EXCLUSIVELY ACT UPON ORGANS OF SENSATION EVENTUALLY EXTEND THEIR VIVIFYING INFLUENCE TO THE RENOVATION OF PAST FEELINGS.

"Perturbations and passions which trouble the phantasie, though they dwell between the confines of sense and reason, yet they rather follow sense than reason, because they are drowned in corporeal organs of sense." Anatomy of Melancholy.

AT the present day, it would appear the most idle of tasks to attempt a serious answer to a question as seriously proposed,-Why the ideas of sleep or of syncope, which are so faint as not to be the object of consciousness, may be rendered vivid by stimuli that act intensely on organs of sensation? Ancient metaphysicians, however, thought very differently of the matter. They often puzzled their brains to explain, why blows, for instance, which affected organs of touch only, should, in a fainting fit, occasion the full activity of thought. They conceived of such agents as stimulating the blood in its purification and overheating, a process supposed to take place in the heart,whereby the vital fluid was the sooner enabled to throw off subtle vapours, which passed immediately