for Christianity to solve the problem which heathenism propounded. If, in a spiritual sense, "the sins of the fathers are not visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation," in a physical sense they are exemplifying the expression we have before made use of: the free-will of the parent becomes the destiny of the child. The violation of the natural law must be atoned for by suffering; and when it is developed in insanity, that malady is but one phase of physical disease; for, reduced to common sense, and divested of superstition, insanity is as much a bodily disease as fever, smallpox, or consumption. As Satan had no power over the life of Job, so we hold that mere physical disorder cannot affect the soul. That vital principle is subject to spiritual influences alone, be they holy or unholy; but the brain, which we believe to be the connecting link between the immaterial essence and the material substance, is liable to be affected by those infirmities to which our physical organization is subject; consequently, whatever influences the one, is communicated to the other. Let an undue pressure be applied to this delicate connecting link, and disorder must necessarily ensue; let mental energy preponderate, and the brain becomes as much disordered as when the physical organs of our frame overpower and destroy the union that should exist between it and them. The action of the mind may be so strong as to interfere with the healthy action of the body; grief, anxiety, passion, or despair may cause lassitude and feebleness to pervade our frame, just as much as if that frame had been exposed to violent and hurtful exertion; or again, the unhealthy condition of the body, resulting from either want or indulgence, fatigue or inertion, disease or accident, will equally act upon the brain, and so enfeeble that organ as to render it incapable of vigorous action, or of transmitting without alloy and corruption the mental emotions. The object of education, while stimulating the action of the brain, and thereby rendering it more sensitive to the suggestions of the mind, is so to strengthen the physical frame, that the balance of mental and motive power shall be equal and sustained. Learning need not necessarily cause madness; it may do so when the laws of health are neglected; for disturbances of mind are due, not so much to the burthens which are assumed, but rather to the disproportion between the load imposed and the capacity of endurance. A man employed solely in manual labor, would be knocked up in no time if compelled to do anything requiring mental application; while the student who can rise unwearied from his desk after hours of close application, would sink exhausted in a very little while, if compelled to severe muscular exertion. But let each of these persons gently and by degrees change his position-the one to exercise his mental, the other his physical powers—and there will be no danger in the consequences. If, then, the physical functions be deranged, there is almost a necessity that the mental ones be also. And as we glance at the causes which lead to the development of insanity, we shall find

that they may be divided into two classes, physical and moral; the one consequent on the wilful neglect of those laws by which our frame is governed, the other consequent on the neglect of those laws to which our mental well-being is subject. The question that immediately presents itself is-Are these causes preventible? We believe they are, and that much of the suffering caused by the visitation of this distressing malady is the result of ignoranceignorance as to its nature, and consequently as to its origin, management and cure. In olden times, it was considered as impious as impossible to endeavor to check the progress of a pestilence; now we smile at such reprehensible simplicity, and the man of science can foretel, even before its appearance, the path the epidemic will pursue, the locality it will choose, and the description of persons it will select for the greatest development of its destructive powers. So with insanity. The provoking causes may be found in hereditary taint, in intemperance, in ill-regulated tempers, in misplaced affections. Insanity is no sudden stroke; the catastrophe may at last be sudden, but a preparative process has been going on previously. The thunder-clap bursts over the harvest field, and scatters the reapers, terrified and dismayed; they have been too busy to be conscious of the approach of the storm, but others, less occupied or more observant than they, have noticed the gradual gathering of the clouds, the strange calm that has pervaded all nature, the subdued notes of the birds, the anxiety shown by the cattle, the peculiar feeling that is experienced in the human frame-and profiting by these warnings, have sought a timely shelter. Well, what is it? are we too busy, too indifferent, too ignorant to observe the changes and chances to which our minds as well as bodies are exposed? Perhaps we had better say we are too timid. So Fear and Distrust turned back at the first glimpse of those roaring lions which stood in their path, apparently threatening them with destruction; it required strong faith to go onward with such antagonists to encounter. Christian had this, and when he approached, lo! the cruel beasts were chained and might not hurt him. And so with us. Dimly and darkly the causes of insanity are hinted to us, we shrink from their investigation, an unutterable horror overshadows us, and we say, "Let us abide in our ignorant dread;" and yet it is only when we humbly and reverently take the burden put upon us on our shoulders, and, neither drawn- -on the one hand into the Slough of Despond, nor on the other, to lose our way upon the Hill of Error, but with unfaltering steps to toil onward till we lay it down at the foot of the Cross-that we can comprehend why it has pleased an all-gracious Creator to permit such an affliction as insanity to visit us, or cultivate that spirit of tenderness and of charity which shall enable us to regard the subject in its true aspects-even as a trial sent to prove our faith, and as a means (though the method be unrevealed to our finite perceptions) of drawing us nearer to Him who in His human nature

"bore our griefs and carried our sorrows" and who, in His divine nature, hath not only redeemed our souls from death, but is ever present to sustain and comfort us through every phase of this our earthly pilgrimage.

In offering a few observations upon the transmission of insanity, or rather, that certain hereditary idiosyncracies are predisposing causes to the development of the malady, we think we cannot better preface our remarks than by giving an extract from an article on the subject, which appeared in the British Quarterly Review of January, 1859:

"The practical importance of this subject, in a popular point of view, consists in two facts: 1st, That there is a debateable ground of mental condition, which is not insanity in the eye of the law, or of the physician, but which cannot possibly be spoken of as perfect mental soundness; and, 2nd, That the various forms of slight and severe mental affections are naturally interchangeable and transformable by way of generation; thus, hysteria in one generation may become imbecility, mania, or epilepsy in the next or third. Insanity of any form in the parent may be represented in the offspring either by a similar affection, by disorders of the senses, (as deaf-dumbness, &c.,) by epilepsy, by hysteria, or by the vague and undefined weaknesses or perversions of judgment, capacity, or will, which we call unsoundness of mind. The general law with regard to these is, that, without special attention to the laws of hygiene, they increase in gravity and intensity from generation to generation; and thus young persons who weakly encourage hysterical habits, or the blind indulgence of impulses without the intervention of will and conscience, are laying the foundation for the most serious disorders of intellect or morals in after generations. And it is sad, yet certain, that there are individuals who, in their own person, inherit the sum of the perverted tendencies of many generations."

Having again recourse to statistics, we shall find that this theory is, unhappily, but only too well exemplified by facts. It is stated by Dr. Howe, of Massachusetts, that out of four hundred and twenty cases of idiocy which came before his notice, he was able to obtain some information respecting the condition of the progenitors of three hundred and fifty-nine; and all of these, with the exception of four, could be traced to the lapsed moral or physical condition of the parents. Ninety-nine of these poor creatures were the children of drunkards, or of persons in whom the craving for stimulants was excessive. Seventeen were known to be the children of parents nearly related by blood; several were the offspring of those more or less closely connected, varying in degree from first cousins to a more remote consanguinity; others again had vicious parents, or who from want, from penury, from distress, had sunk in the scale of social life, and bequeathed to their descendants a degraded existence. In America the number of idiots is frightfully

large, the last return gave 15,787, or one in every 1,467 of the general population; while the deaf-mutes were 9,803, or one in every 2,365; and the blind as 9,794, or one in every 2,367. The same rule stands good with other countries-the lower the type of the inhabitants, and the more fréquent the intermarriages, the greater the proportion of idiocy to the population. It is hardly necessary to cite an example so familiar as that of the Alpine valleys, where, secluded from the busy world, deprived by the overshadowing mountains of air and sunshine, compelled to subsist on food possessing few nutritive qualities-generation succeeds generation, feeble in body as in mind, incapable of improvement, and perpetuating nothing but misery and degradation. In Norway, to a certain extent, the same causes exert their influence. The population is stationary, and considerably more than half the insane in the country are idiots; for of the recognised lunatics, out of 4,290 no less than 3,287 are imbeciles. Scotland is another notable instance; so is Ireland; so also is England; while, in the metropolis, the number of pauper lunatics is stated to be 4,219, the idiots are but 442. Yet, look at the returns from Wales, and the case is exactly reversed there the idiots predominate over the lunatics; and the ratio in the other counties is precisely in accordance with the stated rule. Likewise the deaf and dumb abound most where the inhabitants are stationary; least were they are migratory. Thus, in London and the Northern districts, the average of deaf-mutes is as one in every 2,000 of the population; in the South-western counties, as one in every 1,300; in Devonshire, especially in the neighborhood of Crediton, it is one in every 1,100; while in the Scilly Islands the proportion is as one in every 446; for the population, though only numbering about 2,600 persons, has yet six deaf and dumb among them.

Passing from insanity in its negative form, or when co-existent with life itself, as in the born-idiot, we have to regard it when developed at a later period, when intelligence has been awakened and the unconscious infant has grown into a reasoning and responsible being. According to a summary made by M. Brierre du Boismont, out of 2,900 lunatics, hereditary predisposition was found to have existed in 1,410 men, and 1,490 women. Again, in Ireland, out of the 6,197 cases admitted into the district asylums between 1852 and 1-856, the causes which led to the attack are stated in 2,152 instances. Divide them into two classes, physical and moral, and we find that out of 722 men, and 707 women of the first class, hereditary predisposition is found in no less than 360 men and 333 women; while within the last two years there were admitted into the Limerick asylum 10, and into the Waterford 6 individuals having the relationship of brothers and sisters; and into the Carlow asylum, 19 persons in the relation of first cousins. The returns made in reference to the asylums in Norway are precise in reference to hereditary tendency, and, moreover, confirm the truth

of a question which has been lately much agitated the influence of the mother in transmitting to her offspring the predisposition to insanity. It is often said that children inherit the mental characteristics of their mother. Of a great hero, how frequent the observation, that such a one has all his mother's gentleness of heart, her patience, her humility, qualifying and tempering the sterner attributes of his nature. If this is true, so also is it that mental disorder may be traced oftener to the mother than the father. Let us not be startled at the idea of the transmission of mental disorders; it follows but the same rule as other disorders. It is now generally admitted that consumption, scrofula and insanity are merely variations of one disease; they may be compared to three grafts upon one stem, differing, indeed, in form, yet deriving their vitality from the same source. When developed under the form of consumption, we never make a question about hereditary tendency. Take, for example, the returns made by the Brompton Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, and we find that out of 1000 cases - 660 men and 340 women, -no less than 117 men and 119 women were born of consumptive parents, or, in other words, that one in every four patients had hereditary predisposition. In reference to insanity, there was 11.9 per cent. males and 13.4 per cent. females— or, combined, 123 per cent. of the cases under observation; so that the chance of the hereditary transmission of consumption is just double in comparison to that of insanity.

In reference to insanity which results from moral causes, a distinction must be drawn between the educated and the uneducated. Among the latter class, intemperance takes a prominent placeaccording to Lord Shaftesbury, seven-tenths of the lunacy cases may be ascribed to this propensity; while another fruitful source is the love of speculation which is even apparent among the poor and indigent. Want of food also depresses the nervous system, and grief, care, or disappointment acting on the unbalanced mind of ignorance, unhinges and destroys its equilibrium. In Ireland, out of 220 men and 461 women, grief was found to be the predisposing cause in 47 of the former, and 85 of the latter; next came fright, then loss of property, jealousy, and domestic trials. We glean from the reports furnished by American asylums, that out of 12,838 patients, 22.7 per cent. were connected with grief, disappointment, and other depressing emotions; 8.2 with excitement and exaltation consequent upon erroneous views of religion; 6.9 with property, poverty, and business, and their attendant anxieties and losses, and 5.5 per cent. for over mental application. In France the statistics give a similar result. Among moral causes, the most frequent is grief arising from the loss of money; next to that is religious exaltation; next, disappointed love, pride, sorrow resulting from bereavement, jealousy, political events, excess of intellectual work; and lastly, isolation and solitude. It would be mere repetition, to give the statements made from observations on insanity