with misery, as to flee from the comforts of friendship, and the calls of business or pleasure, that he may indulge his gloomy meditations: the sand of life ebbs in its glass, the flame of genius quivers in its socket, he dies! the pity, if not the contempt, of his acquaintance! This is the melancholy effect which may follow timidity in not attempting, and want of perseverance in not executing, the designs of genius. The only essential imperfection of genius which we will now cursorily notice, is that in which the imagination is disproportionate, in its action, to the judgment. In our description of genius, we mentioned that the speculations of one with a great disproportion of this kind in the powers of the mind, would end in folly ;-it has often ended in insanity, as the records of every lunatic asylum testify:* but, even when existing in a smaller degree, it is often productive of baneful consequences. While it constantly exposes its possessor to errors and imprudencies in conduct, which, in a well-proportioned mind, judgment would have prevented, it makes him liable also to the most cruel disappointments. By a morbidly-active imagination, hypotheses, which have but the semblance of probability, are embraced as truths; it sees a friend in every smile, and hears the promise of success in every whisper of hope; it never supposes that the day which is bright at the dawn, can blacken with clouds; and concludes, that the attainment of its object of pursuit will be as easy as. its desires are ardent. Thus acting beyond the control of judgment, if that power is not altogether dispossessed of its seat in the mind, the consequence, at least, must be disappointment. The best-concerted schemes are often thwarted, wellfounded hope is often deceived; then how frequent must be his failure and dissatisfaction, who begins to build without counting the cost, who has never considered that deception smiles, or that friends can betray,-that hope can be illusive, or merit envied. Chagrin often occurring, as it will, in the paths of such an one, apt to drive him to a contrary extreme: some having deceived, he supposes himself the object of the deception of all; the world seems bis enemy, every misfortune is exaggerated; falsehood having betrayed him, he now suspects every kindness, and mistrusts every promise; having failed of obtaining his objects by not employing proper means, those objects, he conceives, by some malignaut fatality, are placed beyond his reach; disappointment preys upon him, and too often produces that gloomy melancholy, with its direful consequences on mind and body, which we have already described. is 3d. In a state exposed to vicissitude and vexation, encum bered with a body liable to lassitude, sickness, and pain, genius See Rush on the Mind, p. 38. is often chained in its exertions; no wonder that it hails with pleasure what can set it free: shut out from the paradise of its meditations, it readily yields to any influence that can open the gates of lost happiness. With the powers of his mind languid or ruffled, the man of genius, to restore their activity and soothe their commotion, too often resorts to artificial means: alcohol and opium are both subservient to his purpose. We will now only notice opium, as thus used, and some of its hurtful effects. The effects of this drug, in exciting the mind to action, is peculiarly enticing, especially to those who revel in the regions of fancy: under its influence, the storm of passions is hushed to a calm, the clouds of despondency dissolve away, and the mental faculties seem to acquire new strength and splendour. But this state of enjoyment does not last long; the charm is soon broken, and more than in proportion to former elation and enjoyment is the depression and misery that follow. This is according to the experience of all who have observed the effects of opium on themselves or others. The depressing consequences of each dose taken is a new inducement to repeat it, and at the repetition of each dose habit calls for a larger portion. The deleterious effects of indulgence in it, on mind and body, are various. The effects on the body are, dyspepsia, and all the consequences of diminished secretions. "Probat, ab usu hujus remedii (opii) diuturniore, organa chylopoiesi et sanguificationi inservientia, adeo debilitari posse, ut officiis suis imparia reddantur." "Experimenta Alstoni opium circuitum in vasis minimis, priusquam in majoribus, cohibere probant.' "Secretiones cohibet." "Alvum constipat."-BARD de viribus opii. Under the effects of opium, the body is rendered less susceptible of external impressions, on account of the diminished circulation in the smaller vessels; and this, perhaps, conduces to produce increased vigour of mind, by preventing interruption of thought. When those effects have ceased, the circulation, returning to the smaller vessels, will render the nerves connected with them morbidly sensible, and hence more liable to violent impressions. We now perceive how the continued use of opium may produce disorder of mind: the viscera of the body are diseased, which, as we before observed, produces a depressing affection of the mind; the nervous system is irritable, and the mind often sympathizes in its irritations; the mind is often at the height of joy, or in the depth of misery, through the excitement of opium, or the want of it; and Rush observes, that frequent and rapid transitions from one subject to another, is a cause of intellectual derangement. These combined consequences, if they do not produce mania, often produce that modification of it generally called hypochondriasis, or, as we think, more properly styled by Rush, tristimania. Perhaps it is scarcely affirming too much when we say, that, after a person has long indulged in the use of opium, whenever he is not under its inebriating influence, (that is, whenever he is himself,) his mind is more or less deranged; for it is then deprived of its powers of action, and sees objects in a false light. 4th. We will next attend to the diseases of genius arising from excessive exercise. The mind, as well as the body, is ren dered by proper exercise more strong and healthy; but is liable to much harm from exertion very violent or too long continued. As the mind is affected by fatigue of body, so is the body by fatigue of mind. Men of genius, who, aided by industry, are enabled to make deep researches, and take comprehensive views in science, to range among objects which inferior minds dare not attempt, are too apt to exert the mind to excess. Bodily feeling is lost in the ardour and intensity of intellectual exertion, and it is not till the mind has in some measure attained its end, and has begun to rest from its labour, that the hurtful effects on the body are perceived: then is felt langour, depression, anxiety, and restlessness, in proportion as the mind has been laboriously employed. Excessive exertion of mind, long continued or often repeated, soon affects the organs of diges tion; and hence frequently originates that distressing mental complaint, well denominated tristimania. In any great exertion of the mental faculties, there appears to be a considerable flow of blood to the head, occasioning there some degree of congestion;* as is evident from the head-ach, vertigo, redness of the face and eyes, which occur in debilitated persons from a very slight exertion of mind, and in healthy persons, when the exertion has been uncommonly great. This How of blood to the head, acting as a preternatural stimulus to the blood-vessels of the brain, is followed by indirect debility of the brain. Through the connexion that exists between the different parts of the body, its other organs will sympathize in this debility; which also is partly the cause of that mental depression and anxiety which attends disease of the body, from too great exertion of mind; for, as the perceptions of external objects are conveyed to the mind through the medium of the nerves and brain, these being in a disordered state, must generally affect the functions of the mind. Moreover, debility of body from mental exertion seems also to arise from this, that, while there is a preternatural flow of blood to the brain, the secretions of the body in general are lessened; the organs of digestion and chylification are deprived of their proper action, as the diseases of studious men plainly Crichton on Mental Derangement, vol. ii. p. 29. evince; the intestinal canal loses its due irritability for it is found that cathartic medicines are much slower in their operation on one who is engaged in study, than on another whose mind is unoccupied. The body is also weakened by loss of sleep, which is often the effect of intense application of mind to any subject; for it is found that, when the attention has been very much engaged on any particular object, the associations thereby excited continue to act long after all voluntary exertions of attention have ceased every one must have observed this. Boerhaave mentions, that, having been exercised with intense thought during a whole night on a serious subject, he did not sleep for two weeks, and during that time was perfectly indifferent to everything around him. Zimmerman, in his work on Experience in Physic, mentions the case of a young man, which strongly exemplifies the hurtful effects of intense study. This person engaged very ardently in the study of metaphysics; and, after combating, by increased exertion, an inertness of mind which he perceived coming upon him, lost at last the exercise of every mental faculty, while his bodily health was much injured after some time his body recovered its wonted health, but his mental disease continued for a year: "without being deaf, he seemed not to hear; without being blind, he appeared not to see; without being dumb, he did not speak." He became afterwards an eminent philosopher. Many instances might be adduced, in which intellectual exertion has proved destructive of life. Too frequent is the melancholy record of genius snatched from the hopes of friends and the world, when its budding flower just began to give promise of the rich fruit that would be produced. Were bodily disease the only evil resulting from over-exercise of genius, it might admit of question, whether, as life is short and uncertain at best, it were not better, in order to make greater improvement in a shorter time, even like Kirke White to die but sad experience shows, that not only the body, but the mind also, is diseased by its own exertions. One disease of the mind thus arising, and intimately connected with the corporeal affections already noticed, is tristimania. This disease of the mind often, perhaps it is better to say generally, arises from disease of the digestive organs. Why disorder of those organs so generally produces this distressing complaint, may be explained in the following manner: The nerves of the stomach, and parts connected with it, are subject to impressions of a peculiar kind, but which are never so powerful as to attract any particular attention of the mind to them; but, when these organs are diseased, unaccustomed impressions are made upon their nerves, both by the disease of the parts themselves, and by the aliment taken into the stomach not having undergone the proper process of digestion. Moreover, while new impressions are thus made on the nerves of the digestive organs, these new impressions are transmitted to the brain with more force than the old ones were wont to be, on account of the excitability produced in the brain, from the preternatural stimulus applied to it, by the inordinate flow of blood thereto, which we before remarked as a consequence of intense study. The mind, being acted upon by these impressions, which are new, from the unnatural state of the digestive organs and of the stimuli applied to them, which are strong, from the peculiarly irritable condition of the brain, and which are often painful, is alarmed, and, not guided by experience in referring them to their proper cause, is often led to assign the most absurd. Hence the numerous anecdotes which are related of persons supposing they had living animals within them; that they had been changed into wood, glass, &c.; that they had been poisoned, or changed into animals of a different species. We will not intrude a repetition of these. From no disease does man suffer more than from that whose cause we have just endeavoured to explain. During its paroxysms, (for it is observed to have paroxysms,*) all the faculties of the mind cease their useful action, and are exercised with the most severe suffering: genius loses its pre-eminence; and the torment of the patient is such, that he often wishes for, and often seeks, death as a relief. Tristimania, as well as that other form of mental disease which we shall presently mention, often terminates in general intellectual derangement, which perhaps always precedes suicide. The next disease which we notice, as arising from excessive exercise of the mental faculties, is that which is caused by intense study upon a particular subject, the full comprehension of which may be within the scope of human intellect, but is oftener beyond it. Mental perceptions appear to have corresponding sensorial impressions, which are transmitted to the extremities of different nerves with a force proportioned to the vividness of the mental perceptions. When the extremities of nerves are strongly impressed, we are liable to ascribe the impression to external objects, through the dictates of experience; so a person of full habit stooping down, and thereby occasioning some congestion of blood in the vessels of the head, which produces an unusual impression upon the optic nerve, is led to believe the spots, &c. which he sees, to be objects without him, until better informed. Now, the brain being in a state of excitement from intense study, and receiving repeated impressions from one particular set of notious indulged by the mind, it is easy to conceive that these impressions may, at last, acquire a * See Rush on the Mind, p. 38. |