A monograph on mental unsoundness / By Francis Wharton.

  • Wharton, Francis, 1820-1889.
Date:
1855
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A monograph on mental unsoundness / By Francis Wharton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    mitted a distinct character. It is important then to know exactly the precise characteristics of the passions and of insanity. But here science fails, for it must be admitted that we are unable to point out the place where passion ends or where madness commences.(«/) M. Orfila draws the following distinction between a man acting under the impulse of the passions and one urged on by insanity. The mind is always greatly troubled when it is agitated by anger, tormented by an unfortunate love, bewildered by jealousy, overcome by despair, humbled by terror or corrupted by an unconquerable desire for vengeance, etc. Then, as it is commonly said, a man is no longer master of himself, his reason is affected, his ideas are in disorder, he is like a madman. But, in all these cases, a man does not lose his knowledge of the real rela- tion of things, he may exaggerate his misfortune, but this misfortune is real, and if it carries him to commit a criminal act, this act is per- fectly well motived. Insanity is more or less independent of the cause that produced it; it exists of itself; the passions cease with their cause, jealousy disappears with the object that provoked it, anger lasts but a few moments in the absence of the one who by a grievous injury gave it birth, etc. Violent passions cloud the judgment, but they do not produce those illusions which are observable in insanity. They excite for a moment sentiments of cruelty, but they do not produce that deep moral perversion which influences the madman to sacrifice, without motive, the being he most cherishes.(z) (1.) Remorse. § 116. When remorse, says Cogan, is blended with the fear of punishment, and rises to despair, it constitutes the supreme wretch- edness of the mind.(a) And of all stages of passion, remorse is the one most liable, when the conscience is acute, to be mistaken for insan- ity itself. Of this we have a very melancholy case in our own local experience. A young gentleman of peculiarly nice sense of honor and keen sensibility, killed an intimate and beloved friend in a duel, hastily forced on by his own undue susceptibility. For twenty years he has never ceased to stride to and fro the chamber in which he has been confined, firing an imaginary pistol at intervals, and then throwing himself back with the acutest expression of misery. In this instance remorse has run into madness. In others it has made but a slight progress in that direction; in others entire sanity and responsibility remain. And yet in all it presents symptoms which it is well for the forensic physician to examine in relation to their moral as well as their psychical origin. Harpsfield, in his Ecclesiastical History, gives us the following graphic report of the' dying words of Cardinal Beaufort, which is a pow- erful illustration of the efl'ect of this passion : And must I then die ! Will not all my riches save me ? I could purchase the kingdom, if that would save my life. What! is there no bribing of deathr When my nephew, the Duke of Bedford died, I thought my happiness and my 0/) M6&. L£g. p. 551. Paris, 1852. (z) M6d. L£g. Tome I. p. 407. Paris, 1848. (a) Cogan on the Passions, Vol. I. chap. 2. sec. 3.