Unfortunately according to the temperament of individuals their ecstasy has frequently led to an enthusiasm which knew no bounds, and induced the illuminated visionary to consider all men who did not coincide in his opinions the enemies of Divinity—hence arose fanaticism and persecution—yet did these murderous madmen conceive that they were wielding their hateful sword in the cause of an offended God; and, although we read of their excesses and cruelty with horror, they were not bad men, and many of them imagined that they were fulfilling a heavenly mission. I have known many worthy and amiable ecclesiastics in Spain and in Portugal who advocated the inquisition as a useful institution, although they readily admitted that it had too frequently been rendered instrumental to ambition and political intrigues.
This state of mental exaltation is not unfrequently within the province of a physician’s care. The treatment like that of all moral affections is a task of great difficulty. Perhaps the best curative means to be adopted is occupation of the body in active pursuits. St. Augustine was so convinced of this necessity of occupation to prevent ecstatic habits, that the monks of the Thebaid cultivated their ground with such industry, that they freighted several vessels with their produce. Priest has observed in his extensive practice in insanity that he never met with an insane naturalist. Travelling is also to be enjoined. Marriage has also been advised, although it is to be feared that the little charms men of this description may have to suit a woman’s fancy, might lead to contemplation of a nature widely different from beatitude. The Jewish Rabbi tell us, that as soon as Moses became contemplative and prophetic, his wife Marjarin left him. It is certain that enthusiasm produces a concentration of mind prejudicial to all other functions.[5]
There is no doubt that melancholy or intense cogitation may bring on this morbid condition. Zimmerman relates that the mathematician Viote was sometimes so wrapped up in calculation, that he was known to remain three days and three nights without sleep or food: and Mendelsohn the philosopher, who was called the Plato of Germany, fell into a swoon the moment philosophy was talked of; and he was therefore ordered by his doctor not to think. Being asked one day what he contrived to do when not allowed thought, he replied, “Why, I go to the window and count the tiles on the roof of the opposite house.”
This morbid condition of our intellectual faculties has been admirably described by Johnson, in his Rasselas. “To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation. He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginary conditions that which for the present moment he would most desire; amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures, in all combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with all their bounty cannot bestow. In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention: all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or leisure, returns constantly to the favourite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of raptures or of anguish.”
The celebrated physician Boerhaave was once engaged in so profound a meditation that he did not close his eyes for six weeks. Any fixity of idea may be considered as a monomania. Pascal, being thrown down on a bridge, fancied ever after that he was standing on the brink of a terrific precipice, which appeared to him an abyss ever ready to ingulf him. So immutable was this dread, that when his friends conversed with him they were obliged to conceal this ideal peril with a chair, on which they seated themselves, to tranquillize his perturbed mind. This is an instance of a painful fixity of thought, the result of which is melancholic mania; whereas ecstatic exultation is the enjoyment of a delicious sensation unknown in our habitual earthly enjoyments, and beautifully expressed by Shakspeare, when Pericles thus addresses Helicamus—
O Helicanus! strike me, honoured sir;
Give me a gash,—put me to present pain,
Lest this great sea of joy, rushing upon me,
O’erbear the shores of my mortality,
And drown me with their sweetness.
Archimides was heedless of the slaughter around him. Father Castel, the inventor of the ocular harpsichord, spent an entire night in one position, ruminating on a thought that struck him as he was retiring to rest. And it is related of an arduous student, that he was reflecting so deeply on some interesting and puzzling subject, that he did not perceive that his feet were burnt by the fire near which he was seated.
VARIETIES OF MANKIND.
The most approved classification of mankind is that of Blumenbach. He divides them into five varieties: 1. The Caucasian; 2. Mongolian; 3. Ethiopian; 4. American; and 5. Malay: and the following are the characteristics of each.