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consequence of the mere mental anguish which he suffered. Cases were also mentioned of death resulting from solitary confinement in prison (§ 147). There is an exceedingly painful disease, founded, in a great degree, upon the disordered action of the social principle, which is termed by physicians Nostalgia, but which is more commonly known under the familiar designation of HOME-SICKNESS. This disease, which is sometimes fatal, is said to have frequently prevailed among the Swiss when absent from their native country. The beautiful sky which shone over them in their absence from their native land, the works of art, the allurements of the highest forms of civilization, could not erase from their hearts the image of their rugged mountains and their stormy heavens. They had society enough around them, it is true; but it was not the society which their hearts sought for, or in which, in existing circumstances, they could participate. They bowed their heads under the influence of a hidden and irrepressible sorrow; and in many cases not merely pined away, but died in the deep anguish of their separation.

In the year 1733, a Russian army, under the command of General Praxin, advanced to the banks of the Rhine. At this remote distance from their native country, this severe mental disease began to prevail among the Russians, so much so that five or six soldiers every day became unfit for duty; a state of things which threatened to affect the existence of the army. The progress of this home-sickness was terminated by a severe order from the commander (designed, probably, and which had the effect to produce a strong counteracting state of mind), that every one affected with the sickness should be buried alive.*

§ 315. Of the disordered action of the desire of esteem. There may be a disordered action of Approbativeness or the desire of Esteem. This principle is not only an original one, but, as a general thing, it pos*Dr. Rush on the Diseases of the Mind, 2d ed., p. 113.

sesses, as compared with some of the other Propensities, a greater and more available amount of strength. It is a regard for the opinions of others (a sense of character, as we sometimes term it), which, in the absence or the too great weakness of the higher principles, serves to restrict the conduct of multitudes within the bounds of decency and order. This principle is good and important in its place, and under due regulation; but it is exceedingly apt to become irregular, unrestrained, and inordinate in its exercise. This view throws light upon the character of many individuals. It is here, probably, that we may discover the leading defect in the character of Alcibiades, a name of distinguished celebrity in the history of Athens. His ruling passion seems to have been not so much the love of POWER as the love of APPLAUSE. In other words, his great desire was, as has been well remarked of him, "to make a noise, and to furnish matter of conversation to the Athenians.'

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Pope, in the First of his Moral Essays, illustrates this subject, in his usual powerful manner, in what he says of the Duke of Wharton, the key to whose character he finds in the excessive desire of human applause.

"Search then the ruling passion. There alone

The wild are constant, and the cunning known ;
This clew, once found, unravels all the rest,
The prospect clears, and Wharton stands confess'd.
Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days,
Whose ruling passion was the LUST OF PRAISE.
Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,
Women and fools must like him, or he dies."

The inordinate exercise of this propensity, as is correctly intimated by Mr. Stewart, tends to disorganize the mind. The man who is under the influence of such an excessive appetite for the world's smiles and flatteries, has no fixed rule of conduct; but the action of his mind, his opinions, desires, hopes, and outward conduct, are constantly fluctuating with the changing tide of popular sentiment. It is nearly impossible that the pillars of the mind should remain firm, and

without more or less of undermining and dislocation, under the operations of such a system of uncertainty and vicissitude.-Nor is this all. When persons who are under the influence of this excessive desire are disappointed in the possession of that approbation and applause which is its natural food, they are apt to become melancholy, misanthropic, and unhappy in a very high degree. In fact, numerous cases of actual Insanity, if we look carefully at the statements of writers on the subject of Mental Alienation, may probably be traced to this source.

And, where insanity does not supervene, there are sometimes consequences scarcely less unfavourable. It is well known, that within a few years a number of gifted individuals have been hurried to an early grave, in consequence of being held up to public contempt and ridicule in anonymous Reviews. The case of Henry Kirk White, too keenly alive to the frowns and favours of popular sentiment, notwithstanding his great and unquestionable excellences, will illustrate what we mean.* The circumstance that the inordinate exercise of this desire is sometimes connected with distinguished vigour of intellect and purity of moral sentiment, does not necessarily secure the disappointed and calumniated individual who is the subject of it against great anguish of mind; so great, in some instances, as not only to destroy happiness, but life itself.

§ 316. Disordered action of the desire of power.

Men become disordered in mind, and sometimes actually insane, not only by the inordinate indulgence of the desire of esteem and the desire of possession, but also, perhaps with no less frequency, under the influence of the exaggerated and intense desire of POWER. They are looking onward and upward, with an excited heart and constrained eye, to some form of authority, honour, and dominion, till this desire,

* Keats, the author of Endymion, may probably be regarded as another recent instance.

strengthened by constant repetition, becomes the predominant feeling. Instances where the disorder of the mind arises in this way and exists to this extent are innumerable. But it is not always that it stops here. If the desire is suddenly and greatly disappointed, as it is very likely to be, the reaction upon the whole mind may be such as to produce disorder in all its functions, and leave it a wide mass of ruins.

The history of those who are confined in Insane Hospitals furnishes a strong presumption that such results are not unfrequent. Although the mind is deranged, the predominant feeling which led to the derangement seems still to remain. One individual challenges for himself the honours of a Chancellor, another of a King; one is a member of Parliament, another is the Lord Mayor of London; one, under the name of the Duke of Wellington or Bonaparte, claims to be the commander of mighty armies, another announces himself with the tone and attitude of a Prophet of the Most High. Pinel informs us that there were at one time no less than three maniacs in one of the French Insane Hospitals, each of whom assumed to be Louis XIV. On one occasion these individuals were found disputing with each other, with a great degree of energy, their respective rights to the throne. The dispute was terminated by the sagacity of the superintendent, who, approaching one of them, gave him, with a serious look, to understand that he ought not to dispute on the subject with the others, since they were obviously mad. "Is it not well known," said the superintendent, "that you alone ought to be acknowledged as Louis XIV.?" The insane person, flattered with this homage, cast upon his companions a look of the most marked disdain, and immediately retired.

§ 317. Disordered action of the principle of veracity.

The principle of veracity, or the tendency of mind which leads men to utter the truth, appears to be an original or implanted one. This principle, either

through habit or by natural defect, sometimes exhibits itself in strangely perverted forms.-Dr. Rush speaks of a LYING disease. "It differs from exculpating, fraudulent, and malicious lying in being influenced by none of the motives of any of them. Persons thus diseased cannot speak the truth on any subject, nor tell the same story twice in the same way, nor describe anything as it has appeared to other people. Their falsehoods are seldom calculated to injure anybody but themselves, being for the most part of a hyperbolical or boasting nature; but now and then they are of a mischievous nature, and injurious to the characters and property of others. That it is a corporeal disease [that is to say, in some way connected with a diseased state of the body], I infer from its sometimes appearing in mad people, who are remarkable for veracity in the healthy states of their minds, several instances of which I have known in the Pennsylvania Hospital. Persons affected with this disease are often amiable in their tempers and manners, and sometimes benevolent and charitable in their dispositions."*

Enough perhaps has been said on this part of our subject to give at least a general idea of it. The same train of thought, and with scarcely any modification, will apply to all the original appetites and propensities. They are all implanted by the Creator of the mind; they are all good in their place and under proper regulation; they are all not only morally evil in their exaggerated and inordinate form, but are attended with more or less of mental disorder, from the slightest shades of disorganization to the deep and terrible miseries of permanent insanity.

* Rush on the Diseases of the Mind, 2d ed., p. 265.

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