An essay on the relation of the theory of morals to insanity / by T. Mayo.

  • Mayo, Thomas, 1790-1871.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the relation of the theory of morals to insanity / by T. Mayo. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    the above argument if we did not candidly allow this exception to hold good. Aristotle, describing such a class of men, ob- serves, that in them the/SeXrio-Tov, the moral sense, has not indeed been corrupted, (as in the natural ioxm of vice mentioned by Dr. Butler), but has never existed;* and he gives them a name, expressive of a nature purely animal. He dismisses them, indeed, with a very brief notice as an unsound and morbid part of the species. With us, however, the definition of insanity is not at present so widened as to com- prise them; and it will, I imagine, be a valu- able subject of inquiry to examine the relation in which this irregularity of the moral constitu- tion of man, may stand to the irregularities of the- lunatic, in the ordinary sense of the word. Such an inquiry must also be interesting as it concerns the great subject of education. It will be obvious, indeed, that the persons thus morally constituted, if such there are, want those qualities of the heart, on which the ordi- nary systems of instruction rely for the regula- tion of the appetites and passions. * Ov yap ^ii(^dapruL to [Uknarot', dXV oh^ tx^*- Ethic. Nicomacli.