, 1881-12-17
WHAT Is INSANITY.
Pertinent Questions which Expert
Night Probably Consider.

A
Have the experts who test insanity and
who watch Gnitesu 50 narrowly ever
studied their own mental states or condi-
tions with reference to this matter !
Would not proportion of people thor
oughly honest with themselves be willing
TO acknowledge that there has been
times when they were half crazyo or enc
third crazy or one-eighth crazyl How
many pecpls ought 10 be thoroughly
confident of perfect mental soundness |
Does not every decade show Us the fal
lacy of some long held agreeable OF dis
agreeable delusion, which in the past We
have believed in and which has inhu-
enced our acts and liyesl
Is insanity punishable Certainly il is
Ii is punished among us every day. Men
are born with extremely irascible tempers,
sour tempers, sulky temgers and ugly
tempers, who in their contact with the
world are only As eisil as the world com-
pels them To be. At home, feeling little
or no check, they maltreat their wives by
tongue, by manner or fst They are in
various degrees insane and are occasional
ly punished for their acts.
The patient in the insane asylum is
controlled by fear and by authority, and
IS amenable 10 it. So are the unconfned
patients outside.
A portion Of the confined insane have
skill in certain directions and Use II
They sew, they knit, they work in the
garden, aud would be able TO DO much
more were proper opportunities offered
them
Insanity, too, under asylum treatment,
is in its main phases made accountable
for its acts. unruly patients are con-
fined or threatened with penalties, and
they understand this quite well enough
and govern themselves accordingly. .
Here the confined and uncon6ned IN
sane patients meet on common ground,
and are made amenable to the same cor
receive influences One class, society can
manage to bear with outside prison walls,
and the other 1t cannot
May not. then, the limit OF unconfned
insanity be drawn where society finds it
necessary to protect Itself from the
patient
Are not thousands born with inherent
and inherited mental as well rs bodily
disease Are not the two closely allied !
Are there not Of these Deficiencies
thousand degrees and shadingsl
One person is born with just sufficient
will, Judgment, discretion and general
common sense to be barely able 10 ge. on
in the world lie is termed simple,
reckless, ne 'er-d Dwell OF half -witted.
Another is born still less possessed Of
these qualities, cannot get on at ali, and
is cared for by friends OF placed in the
asylum Another is born with ked
degree of skill OF talent in some special
calling, but SO entirely deficient in com
mon prudence and discretion as to fail to
apply his ability properly, and therefore
to remain all his life IN pauperism OF on
its verge.
Why not catalogue all these among the
manifold shades of insanity
Grant, then, that mental ailments and
defects may exist in many forms and de-
grees grant that Wat goes under the
current name of insanity Is bnt the ex-
tremer type Of such ailment grant that
like Hamlet's brilliant mind may become
morbidly turned, cbscured and diseased
IN some certain direction while retaining
its full powers in others grant that men
tai defect may grade all the way from full
ability to detect its iailings and govern
and seek 20 correct them, down to the
partial ohscurity and partial lack of con
troll, down still further to almost complete
obscurity and control, where he light Of
reason is completely quenched in idiocy
or madness, and it does seem that
there was furnished a key to the solution
of this problem and something suggesting
the future rational basis for the treatment
Of mental maladies.