In laying before the members of this Association a descriptive notice of the Sussex Lunatic Asylum, it is my grateful task to record the obligations I am under to several of its most distinguished members for the aid and counsel they so liberally lent to me while engaged in the task of fitting and furnishing this asylum, and bringing it into working order; an undertaking, I venture to add, more difficult than one, who has not personally tried it, would suppose.

I. History of the Case. G. T., No. 279, age 30, was admitted into the Sussex Lunatic Asylum under an order from the Secretary of State, on the 14th November, 1859.

He was transferred (as belonging to the parish of Brighton) from the Kent County Asylum. I received the following letter respecting him, from Dr. Huxley, the Medical Superintendent of that asylum. It very clearly and accurately relates the previous history of the case.

Nature of these contributions. What characterizes these contributions is that they are mainly of a logical nature. Placing ourselves on logic as a stand-point, we have endeavoured to take a comprehensive view of the domain around; and have not rested satisfied with merely examining mental processes in their results, but from logic have penetrated wherever we could into the psychology of logic. The consequence has been that the logic and the psychology have not always harmonized. We have had occasion indeed in several cases to reject the ordinary doctrines of logical science, and modify them in such a manner as our psychological researches seemed to us to direct; and we cannot conceive, though the contrary opinion is held by high authorities, that the laws of thought can be fully determined otherwise than by following the method we have here observed, that is, tracing every mental process to its source by a searching and exhaustive analysis. How far we have succeeded in carrying out this undertaking it is not for us to decide. All we dare hope is that we have done enough to justify our plan of inquiry; and that we have contributed in however trifling a degree towards the advancement of that noblest of sciences—the science of mind, and especially that noblest portion of it which affords an answer to the long asked question:—What is Truth?

In all ages of the world, from the earliest dawning of society down to our own enlightened day—theologians, philosophers, and legislators, those called upon to govern and to guide mankind, have agreed as to the importance to be attached to the physical, mental, and moral training of infancy and childhood. States and societies, and the Church too, have admitted the truth of their theories, and have practically applied them to the affairs of life, to the prevention of crime, and to the advancement of the human race in many social and moral respects. For it is well known to these that it is during infancy and childhood that the being, with a mind plastic and educable, may be taught that discipline and self-control, the application of those principles of responsibility, of justice, and of truth, which are afterwards to fit him to fight the battle of life, and to become a useful member of society.

The valuable report on the history and condition of the McLean Asylum for the Insane for the year 1858, derives a peculiar importance from the few pages which the Superintendent devotes to the causes of insanity, so far as they were developed and affected by the peculiar circumstances of the year, and were connected with the recent financial crisis and the religious excitements of that period. Dr. Tyler discourses wisely upon these matters, and gives admonitions which, were they heeded, would save many from mental disturbance and more from mental death.

Physiology is co-extensive with organic nature. Organic nature is wholly composed of individuals, comprising the two great kingdoms of plants and animals. A unity of structure pervades the whole of this wide field of nature; and this unity is a great principle, applicable to the determination of truth in the investigation of this part of knowledge. Every individual in organic nature is a system made up of reciprocally dependent and connected parts. The objects of investigation in physiology are phenomena, organs, and principles. The study of phenomena stands first in order; but while it must essentially be first cultivated and advanced, in the ulterior stages of its progress it gains continually fresh additions from the progress made in the knowledge of organs and principles. That phenomena attract attention before organs, is manifest on the slightest consideration. Thus the phenomena of locomotion were familiar to mankind long before the part taken by the muscular flesh in locomotion was discovered. To this moment it is far more certain that absorption takes place throughout the animal body, than what the organs are by which that office is performed. And it would be easy to multiply examples of the same kind, not-withstanding that there are some phenomena of the human body—such as those connected with the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, and other senses—the organs concerned in which must have been known, in a general manner, almost as soon as the earliest phenomena in which they are concerned. Principles, in their larger sense, take their place subsequently to the study of organs; yet, as referring to the more common genera of phenomena, these must also have had their rise almost coeval with the observation of phenomena. Thus the grouping of colours, sounds, smells, and tastes together, under the name of qualities derived from sense, must have been a very early and universal generalization. Nevertheless, it will, I think, be conceded, after these examples, that the study of phenomena is of a more elementary character in physiology, than the study of organs and principles; and, therefore, in the difficult parts of any physiological subject, that more progress is likely to be made by the study of phenomena, than by the study of organs and principles. But before proceeding further, it may be desirable to give some examples of physiological phenomena:—the alternation of sleep and waking; of hunger and satiety; thirst; the effect of drink; breathing; the exercise of the senses, and trains of thought; the various kinds of locomotion, walking, running, leaping, dancing. Here a question naturally arises—if trains of thought be physiological phenomena, does not all human knowledge fall within the definition of physiological phenomena? If the human race were not yet called into being, neither would human knowledge, it is true, have any existence in the world. And, it is doubtless true, under one point of view, that all that man has discovered; all that he has recorded; all the changes which he has made upon the earth since his first creation—are the effects of his physiological nature. But to place all knowledge under the head of physiology would be to defeat the very end of methodical arrangement, to which the progress of knowledge is so largely indebted. Nor is it difficult to mark out at least the general character of the boundaries within which physiology, in the largest sense in which it is convenient to accept it, should be circumscribed. Let us take as an example man's susceptibility of locomotion. It is a sufficient illustration of the physiology of locomotion to point out, that every man without any extraordinary effort learns to walk, run, hop, leap, climb; but there is at least a manifest convenience in separating such more difficult acquisitions as dancing, skating, writing, from the order of physiological phenomena, and placing each in a department by itself, as subject to its own rules. So also it is at least a convenience to consider painting and music as separate departments of study, and not merely as physiological phenomena, falling under the senses of sight and of hearing. It may be supposed to be a matter of the like convenience, to separate from physiology all the phenomena which enter into what are commonly called trains of thought; that is nearly all that comes under the head of psychology, in its most appropriate extent of signification. But several objections will readily occur to such a mutilation of physiology. In particular, it is objectionable, because, as was already hinted, the phenomenal departments of physiology, though the first to take a start, are often much augmented by the subsequent study of the organs concerned; and, more so that, since psychology, disjoined from physiology, and limited to one mode of culture, namely, by reflexion on the subjects of consciousness, were psychology thrown out from physiology, the probable advantages from the study of the organs concerned in the mental processes, and the other modes of culture, admissible in physiological enquiry, would be lost. If it be said that psychology proper rejects all evidence, except the evidence of consciousness, on no other ground, but because of the uncertainty of every other source of evidence—the answer is, that in those sciences which have made most progress, possibility, probability, and moral certainty have always been admitted as sufficient interim grounds for the prosecution of such inquiries as have finally, though at first leading to inexact conclusions, opened the way to the attainment of the most important truths; and that psychology, by the over-rigidness of its rules of investigation, has plainly fallen behind sciences, in advance of which it at one time stood in its progress.

Among the symptoms of apoplexy, says one of the most distinguished of our recent writers on medicine, that are more especially of evil omen, are those which can be traced to the involvement of the automatic functions of the cerebro-spinal axis; nineteen out of twenty patients will die, in whom the phenomena appear which indicate derangement of this portion of the nervous system. I fear that in cases of the special disease we are now considering, the loss of power over the “sphincters” is almost of equally fatal import, but still it very naturally differs from the same symptom in ordinary apoplexy, inasmuch, as it may exist for many months, before the fatal issue of the complaint. Apparent want of power over the sphincters may arise in general paralysis from various other causes besides absolute lesion of the cerebro-spinal axis, such as the presence of delusions, or the supervention of sudden spasm in the patient, and still more frequently from a want of attention on the part of the attendants, and these last are of course essentially distinct in their nature, and require a special treatment; but even in cases in which the loss of power has been sudden, even those in which paraplegia has appeared, and the patient, comatose and insensible, seems on the point of death, if they have before been suffering from general paralysis, they may, and often do rally; in fact, the prognosis is less gloomy when there has been long-continued disease of the brain of this kind, than in patients in whom the symptoms have supervened upon perfect health.

Before entering on the special subject, it may be well to state briefly the existing arrangements made for the poorest portion of the community throughout England and Wales.

Medical men and the non-professional members of the community interested in the welfare of the insane of this country, have, after many years' labor in the cause, succeeded in bringing about a comparatively satisfactory condition of the public and private asylums, and they may be forgiven the exhibition of a certain spirit of repose and self-gratulation. The mass of abuses has been hurled aside and the reformers of British lunatic asylums have only minor peccadilloes to seize upon, and the only prospect of more exciting work for them is to be found in an exploration of the condition of patients not in asylums. A Lunacy Commission armed with considerable and very elastic powers is likewise in full operation, which, although too small for all the functions rightly devolving upon it, can at least so supervise public asylums and licensed houses that irregularities of any magnitude can have but a short-lived existence.

1. 1 “Man and his Dwelling Place.” London: J. W. Parker & Sons, West Strand.

2. 2 “Essay on the Unity of Science,” by Rev. B. Powell, F.K.S., &c.

3. 3 “Order of Nature,” by the Rev. B. Powell.

4. 4 Grove, on “The Correlation of the Physical Forces.”

5. 5 On “The Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical Forces.” Dr. Carpenter, Philosoph. Transac., 1850.

6. 6 Oersted's “Soul in Nature.”

In a former paper contributed to this Journal, containing retrospect of “Ulster Revivalism,” the writer took occasion to remark that the physical features of that extraordinary movement were to be considered not merely as an accompaniment or accident, but in reality as an essential and integral portion of it. This assertion will bear to be submitted to the most stringent test of fact, so far as its truth is concerned; and if borne out affords a most important and suggestive view of the entire subject; so much so indeed that its legitimate inferences will be found to throw an instructive reflex light on all past movements of the sort under consideration, as well as to afford some useful and practical considerations as regards the future. The intention of the present paper is to take a brief historical glance at the physical development of certain religious movements of this class, accompanied by an endeavour to trace these into that one which has just transpired, mainly for the purposes above indicated.

The first class of objects to be viewed as producing a distinct order of consciousness embraces the fundamental sensation, and its attendant sensations. But perhaps it is necessary to explain before entering upon the task of analysis, that it would be foreign to the nature of Logical Psychology to enumerate, and enlarge upon the objects contained in each class of that nature. The demands of that science are fully answered when we have pointed out that a certain class of objects—though we may know little else about it—marks out a distinct variety of intellectual power. Let it be remembered then, that it is the aim of these contributions to describe—not the objects of consciousness, even when these are mental in their character—but, exclusively, the cognition of them. The following table will, it is trusted, clearly determine the boundaries of that department of psychology to which these researches are confined.

Potentiality refers to an idea sufficiently well known both in physiology and psychology. Thus, in physiology, a serous empty sac is a potential cavity; and, as respects potentiality, in reference to mental phenomena we may conveniently conceive it as parallel to the potentiality of the phenomena of life existing in the germ at the moment of its first detachment from the parent, previous to the commencement of uterine life.

It is with reluctance that I attempt any definition of the disease that we have agreed to call the “general paralysis of the insane;” definitions are always difficult, and moreover they very frequently involve a petitio principii, that renders them practically useless. I have ventured, however, to group together some symptoms that may be taken as signalizing this dread disease, premising that some of my postulates may be questioned, and that I only pretend to offer my views upon the subject, as those of an individual observer, who, holding strong opinions, is willing to submit them to the objections or criticisms of his professional brethren. My object is to draw truly, but in strong relief, the various shapes assumed by the malady, and to sketch vividly its diverse symptoms, even if wrong, in some of my conclusions, or apparently too dogmatical in my propositions. I am satisfied if I can at all assist in fixing the attention of the medical profession outside the pale of my own special department to a form of disease that is so familiar to us, and that they, in the interests of suffering humanity, will do well to study.