Tendency of misdirected education and the unbalanced mind to produce insanity / by Edward Jarvis.

  • Jarvis, Edward, 1803-1884.
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tendency of misdirected education and the unbalanced mind to produce insanity / by Edward Jarvis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    position and a due proportion of all the intellectual and moral powers should be established during the process of development and growth in youth, but that they should be maintained during the whole of life. From the beginning to the end, each faculty and power should be cul- tivated or chastened in its due degree. None should be allowed to become excessively strong and active, while others are weak and dor- mant; none should absorb the force that rightfully belongs to the rest. The higher elements, then, should always be sustained in their com- manding position, and the lower should be kept subordinate. The appetites should be indulged, and the propensities allowed to act, only at such times, and in such periods, and so far, as the health of the system requires ; and all the passions and the moral affections should be applied to their legitimate purposes, and to no other. All should be measured, directed and controlled, by the reason, which should reign paramount over these, and yet, in its turn, be the faithful ser- vant of the conscience, rendering it a never-failing and implicit obe- dience. This condition of mental and physical health requires, — 1. Great discretion to determine what the proper arrangement of the faculties or elements of power is, and what their several forces should be, in order that they may make up the perfect man; 2. Constant self- analysis, through life, to see whether this due order and proportionate power is maintained; 3. An unfaltering self-supervision and self- discipline to maintain, in their proper position and relation, all the elements of our constitution and frame, encouraging the higher, direct- ing the mediate, and chastening the lower. BALANCE OF THE P0WER3 DISTURBED IN SOME. In manifold ways men fall short of this perfect standard of mental condition. In some the deficiency is so slight as to produce no appar- ent effect on their soundness of mind; in others it is so great as to produce manifest insanity; and between these two extremes there are all intermediate grades of unsoundness. The slighter variations from this normal standard are very frequent. Even after one has been properly educated, and enters upon maturity, there may be, and there commonly is, some one or more of the powers developed and strength- ened beyond the rest, in connection with some special employment, in the pursuit of some study, in the cultivation of some salutary taste for good, or in the indulgence of some passion or appetite for evil. Thus, in one man, the perceptive faculties are prominent and most active; and he has a quicker eye or ear, and more readily under-