Observations on the nature, kinds, causes, and prevention, of insanity / by Thomas Arnold.

Date:
1806
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the nature, kinds, causes, and prevention, of insanity / by Thomas Arnold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    in such operations as we call perception^ remem- bering, considering, reasoning, The faculty of perceiving material objecls, and their grosser qualities, by means of the senses, we possess in common with brutes: but the power of comparing and arranging their several relations and properties, and of reasoning analogically con- cerning them ; the power of abstradlion ; and that reflex adlion of the mind by which it is enabled to review its internal treasures, and to contemplate its own faculties and operations; which lead to the discovery of almost an infinity of new truths and probabilities; and are the inexhaustible sources of every species of knowledge ; are, in a great mea- sure, the exclusive privilege of man. About the former it is obvious that the mind can err, in any considerable degree, only by some defect in the bodily organs, whether natural or ac- quired, permanent or transient. About the latter it may err from a variety of causes ; which might all, perhaps, not unaptly be arranged under the following heads:—a natural incapacity, or habitual deficiency of attention,~ w'eakness of memory,—too great activity, and in- dulgence of imagination,—depravity of will,—ex- cess of passion, which is the natural consequence of them all—and disease of body. * Essay on Human Understanding, book ii rhap. i. § 23, vol. i, p, 162. E 3 These