Disorders of the mind.
--The increase of insanity in England and in some portions of America is arresting the attention of medical and scientific men, and some valuable works on the subject have been lately given to the public. It is contended by one writer that every human brain has in it the seeds of insanity, in most cases occult and dormant, but which yet, on any day and by any cause, may be fructified and quickened into furious life. Juvenile counselled mothers to ask of the gods for their children, not form, beauty, or earthly possessions, but "a sound mind in a sound body." Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose intellectual and moral structure was alike grand and powerful, passed all his mighty days under the dread of an intellectual eclipse. Sir Walter Scott had a melancholy presentiment of the attack of brain disease of which he died. His son-in-law and biographer, Mr. Lockhart, gives an affecting statement of the slow, gradual, reluctant conviction which forced itself upon him, when writing at the dictation of Scott, near the close of his eventful life, that the mighty mind was losing something of its energy; that, though the faculties were there and occasionally displaying themselves in full vigor, the sagacious judgment and unrivalled memory were occasionally at fault. ‘ "Among the cords the fingers strayed,And an uncertain warbling made."
’ Ever and anon he paused and looked around him, like one half waking from a dream mocked with shadows. The sad bewilderment of his gaze showed a momentary consciousness, that, like Samson in the lap of the Philistine, "his strength was passing from him, and he was becoming weak like unto other men." Then came the strong effort of aroused will. The clouds dispersed as if before an irresistible current of pure air; all was bright and serene as of old, and then it closed again in yet deeper darkness. Under these circumstances it was no wonder that his medical advisers assured him, repeatedly and emphatically, that, if he persisted in working his brain, nothing could prevent his disease from recurring with redoubled severity. His answer was, "As for bidding men not work 'Molly might as well put the kettle on the fire and say, now don't boil.' I foresee distinctly that if I were to be idle I should go mad." The fate of Swift and Marlborough was also before his eyes, and in his journal there is an entry expressive of his fears lest the anticipated blow should not destroy life, and that he might linger on a driveler and a show. "I do not think my head is weakened, (this was a subsequent entry,) yet a strange vacillation makes me suspect. Is it not thus that men begin to fail — becoming, as it were, infirm of purpose? That way madness lies; let me shun that. No more of that." The sensible presentiment which Dean Swift had of his imbecility is illustrated in his memorable conversation with Dr. Young. The two were walking in the neighborhood of Dublin when Dr. Young suddenly missed the Dean, who had lagged behind. He found him at a distance, gazing in a state of solemn abstraction at the top of a lofty elm whose head had been blasted by a hurricane. He directed Dr. Young's attention to the summit of the tree, and, heaving a heavy sigh, exclaimed: "I shall be like that tree. I shall die at the top first." How profoundly sorrowful his exclamation afterwards, upon reading one of his early works: "What a gen us I had when I wrote that." A great mind in ruin is the saddest wreck that floats upon the stream of Time. What a rebuke to the pride of intellect! What a lesson to the arrogance and contempt with which many persons of genius not comparable to Dean Swift look down upon the ordinary head! Who hath made them to differ? The qualities which make men intellectually great are not their own creation, but the gifts of One who can at any time impair or withdraw them, and reduce their proud possessors not only to a level with their fellow-men, but beneath them — beneath the beasts of the field — to helpless idiots or raving madmen. Nor is it, after all, great genius which likens men most to the angels. Between the intelligence of the loftiest intellect that ever did bestride this world, and that of the humblest angel that waits at the portals of Heaven, there is a space as vast as that descent of immensity which stretches in solitary grandeur between the planet and the fixed stars. It is in moral qualities alone and in acts of virtue, and obedience that we see the stamp of fraternal relationship between the highest archangel and the lowliest saint, disclosing, even amid the rags and sores of Lazarus, at Dives's gate, the celestial and immortal features of the Prince of Earth and Heaven.
