This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. WHAT CONSTITUTES INSANITY? This is a question not easily answered, for the line which separates sanity from insanity is invisible, and there are as many kinds and degrees of the disease as there are sufferers. In sanity every individual mind has its own peculiar mode of acting; and there is a visible law which rules and regulates, so that by a man's antecedents you can tell what he is likely to be or to do in the future. Individuality is also strongly marked in insanity. No two cases are exactly alike; but instead of serving for a guide, it is a meteor which, if followed, will ever lead you astray. What his nature has been gives no clue to what he is. What he is has no traceable connection with what in the next hour he may be. There may be real or apparent exceptions to this; but it will be understood that exceptions must apply to almost every thing that can be said on this subject. If we reverse the question, and ask what is perfect sanity, we find that before that utopian state can be attained, the mind must be entirely free from all irrational or false forms of belief--must be a fountain which contains, and from which flows, nothing save pure unmingled elemental truth; and also that union of mind and body named man must be in a state of mental and physical perfection--: every thought and action in unison with a state of being which we have never known. This is sanity; but if we infer from it that every one who comes not up to this standard is insane, then have we come to a most startling and sweeping conclusion, though perhaps a shade nearer to the truth than some people who have a very great and perhaps a very singular opinion of their own wisdom would like to acknowledge. The scale must be lowered very much before the...