In laying before the members of this Association a descriptive notice of the Sussex Lunatic Asylum, it is my grateful task to record the obligations I am under to several of its most distinguished members for the aid and counsel they so liberally lent to me while engaged in the task of fitting and furnishing this asylum, and bringing it into working order; an undertaking, I venture to add, more difficult than one, who has not personally tried it, would suppose.

In all ages of the world, from the earliest dawning of society down to our own enlightened day—theologians, philosophers, and legislators, those called upon to govern and to guide mankind, have agreed as to the importance to be attached to the physical, mental, and moral training of infancy and childhood. States and societies, and the Church too, have admitted the truth of their theories, and have practically applied them to the affairs of life, to the prevention of crime, and to the advancement of the human race in many social and moral respects. For it is well known to these that it is during infancy and childhood that the being, with a mind plastic and educable, may be taught that discipline and self-control, the application of those principles of responsibility, of justice, and of truth, which are afterwards to fit him to fight the battle of life, and to become a useful member of society.

Before entering on the special subject, it may be well to state briefly the existing arrangements made for the poorest portion of the community throughout England and Wales.

The first class of objects to be viewed as producing a distinct order of consciousness embraces the fundamental sensation, and its attendant sensations. But perhaps it is necessary to explain before entering upon the task of analysis, that it would be foreign to the nature of Logical Psychology to enumerate, and enlarge upon the objects contained in each class of that nature. The demands of that science are fully answered when we have pointed out that a certain class of objects—though we may know little else about it—marks out a distinct variety of intellectual power. Let it be remembered then, that it is the aim of these contributions to describe—not the objects of consciousness, even when these are mental in their character—but, exclusively, the cognition of them. The following table will, it is trusted, clearly determine the boundaries of that department of psychology to which these researches are confined.