Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley.

  • Henry Maudsley
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    308/356 (page 272)
    It would be quite useless to inculcate rules for self- formation upon one whose character had taken a certain mould of development ; for character is a slow and gradual growth through action in relation to the circum- stances of life ; it cannot be fashioned suddenly and through reflection only. A man can no more will than he can speak without having learned to do so, nor can he be taught volition any more than he can be taught speech except by practice. It was a pregnant saying, that the history of a man is his character; to which one might add that whosoever would transform a character must undo a life history. The fixed and unchanging laws by which events come to pass hold sway in the domain of mind as in every other domain of nature. A striking illustration of the difficulty of realising the reign of law in the development of character and in the events of human life is afforded by the criticisms of those who have blamed Goethe because he made Werter commit suicide, instead of making him attain to clearer insight, calmer feeling, and a tranquil life after his sorrows ; had they reflected well they must have perceived that suicide was the natural and inevitable termination of the morbid sorrows of such a nature. It was the final explosion of a train of antecedent preparations, an event which was as certain to come as the death of the flower with a canker at its heart. Suicide or madness is the natural end of a morbidly sensitive nature, with a feeble will, unable to contend with the hard experiences of life. You might as well, in truth, preach moderation to the hurricane as talk philosophy to one whose