It would be a curious and instructive enquiry to ascertain under what circumstances the mind admits as rules for action, those principles which do not admit of proof: because, if we could detect the manner in which the knot is tied, we might probably be able to unloose it. In the course of our education we are taught to adopt many maxims, the truth and expediency of which may not be very evident; however as we advance in life, experience and good sense gradually dispel many of these prejudices and erroneous adoptions. But in the insane mind the same process does not take place, and generally in proportion to the reasoning adduced to confute the delusion, or the demonstration employed to exhibit its absurdity, it becomes more strongly confirmed and inveterately fixed; and the logic brought forward for its refutation, is by the lunatic held as ignorance or misapplication. A person in his senses may
entertain and believe a number of unfounded and erroneous opinions, but on the exposure of their falsity he is capable of being convinced, but the madman never is; and this forms the great distinction between them. This incapability of being convinced of the Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Truth and Falshood of his Belief is that, which as an intellectual being, renders him different from other men, and constitutes his distemper. To our present purpose, it is immaterial how this arises, the knowledge of its existence is sufficient: and it concerns us but little to ascertain if this state depend on a morbid condition of the intellect itself, or of the organ destined for the display of its phenomena.
This belief appears physiologically to constitute his disorder; and the hope of placing this subject in a distinct point of view may be an apology for the relation of the very
remarkable case of Nicolai of Berlin.[25:A] In consequence of a series of calamities which afflicted him with the most poignant grief he had in January and February of the year 1791, the additional misfortune to experience several very unpleasant circumstances which were followed on the 24th of February by a most violent altercation. “My wife and another person came into my apartment in the morning in order to console me, but I was too much agitated by a series of incidents which had most powerfully affected my moral feeling, to be capable of attending to them; on a sudden I perceived, at about the distance of ten steps, a form like that of a deceased person, I pointed at it, asking my wife if she did not see it? It was but natural that she should not see any thing, my question therefore
alarmed her very much, and she sent immediately for a physician, the phantasm continued about eight minutes. I grew at length more calm, and being extremely exhausted, fell into a restless sleep, which lasted about half an hour; the physician ascribed the apparition to a violent mental emotion, and hoped there would be no return, but the violent agitation of my mind had in some way disordered my nerves, and produced farther consequences which deserve a more minute description.
[25:A] Vide Ferriar on Apparitions, P. 41.—As the Doctor has not cited whence he obtained this curious document, I have been under the necessity of employing perhaps his own translation.
“At four in the afternoon, the form which I had seen in the morning reappeared. I was by myself when this happened, and being rather uneasy at the incident, went to my wife’s apartment, but there likewise I was prevented by the apparition, which however, at intervals disappeared, and always presented itself in a standing posture:
about six o’clock there appeared also several walking figures, which had no connexion with the first.
“I cannot assign any other cause of all this, than a continued rumination on the vexations I had suffered, which, though calmer, I could not forget, and the consequences of which I meditated to counteract: these meditations occupied my mind three hours after dinner, just when my digestion commenced. I consoled myself at last with respect to the disagreeable incident which had occasioned the first apparition, but the phantasms continued to increase and change in the most singular manner, though I had taken the proper medicine and found myself perfectly well. As when the first terror was over, I beheld the phantasms with great emotion taking them for what they really were, remarkable consequences of an
indisposition, I endeavoured to collect myself as much as possible, that I might preserve a clear consciousness of the changes which should take place within myself; I observed these phantasms very closely, and frequently reflected on my antecedent thoughts to discover, if possible, by means of what association of ideas exactly these forms presented themselves to my imagination. I thought at times I had found a clue, but taking the whole together I could not make out any natural connexion between the occupations of my mind, my occupations, my regular thoughts, and the multifarious forms which now appeared to me, and now again disappeared. After repeated and close observations, and calm examination, I was unable to form any conclusion relative to the origin and continuation of the different phantasms which presented themselves to me. All that I