At a time when so much public interest is manifested in lunatic asylums and their inmates, it scarcely requires the memory of the illustrious Pinel, Esquirol, and Guislain, or the knowledge of what has been done by the present Morel, Baillarger, Falret, Moreau, &c., to tempt one over the Channel, more especially when a visit to the far-famed Gheel is contemplated. So in July and August last, having leave of absence from my duties to spend some weeks in rest and recreation, I resolved to find both in a visit to the French and Belgian asylums, having learned by experience that to travel without an object is neither profitable nor pleasant. Believing that what interested me, and regarding which my curiosity had sometimes been excited at home, might not be devoid of interest to others, I made “notes” regularly of what I observed, recording facts and impressions on the spot and on the day, rather in the order of observation than of coherence, and striving only to observe well, and to state the exact truth.

The great progress which medicine in general has made during recent years, must in considerable part be ascribed to the anatomical direction it has assumed. The study of pathological anatomy has entirely changed the character of medical science, which, instead of a chaotic medly of unfounded theories and ingenious hypotheses, the fruits of speculation, is now a philosophic system resting on a firm foundation of facts with mutual and definite relations. To such an extent has the pathological investigation of disease been carried, that, in the ordinary maladies which attack the body, the instances are now exceptional where we cannot demonstrate certain gross, palpable changes of structure having an invariable causal connection with functional disturbance. By bringing diagnostics to our aid, we can also in many cases predict with confidence and precision the nature and extent of the lesion which will be found after death. But the triumph does not cease here. In conjunction with chemistry and the microscope, pathological anatomy has passed from the gross alterations of organs, and succeeded in elucidating the processes and changes which take place in their ultimate elements; and Virchow, bringing to the subject all the zeal and instinct of genius, has given us an insight into the arcana of cell-life, and laid down the comprehensive generalisation as the basis of a new pathology, that the cell is the ultimate agent by which, both in health and disease, structural and functional alterations are effected. All the practical departments of the healing art have participated more or less in this progress. Medicine proper, or that branch which restricts itself to the study of internal diseases, has separated itself more and more from dynamics, and found a natural explanation of its symptomatology in anterior changes of structure; while surgery and mid-wifery, with their outbranching specialities, are daily becoming more anatomical in character.

It might seem unaccountable that, notwithstanding the common sense of mankind has in all ages recognised the existence of intellect in animals, certain philosophers should always have been found to repudiate the vulgar opinion; were it not that experience proves there is much truth in the description which Condillac gives of the philosophers, as “men who love much better an absurdity that they imagine than a truth which all the world adopts.” Though Plato tells us that in the golden age men derived all their knowledge from communication with beasts, and though the little understood and much misunderstood Egyptians of old paid divine honours to certain animals—not, as is sometimes superficially concluded, on account of their brute wisdom, but really as living symbols of Divine intelligence, which they embodied and instinctively displayed—yet the Cartesian philosophy actually denied sensibility to animals, and designated them living machines. For such unmerited ignominy they have, however, been more than compensated by writers who, like M. Charles Bonnet, maintain the existence of immortal souls in them, and predict for them a future world and a happier destiny. The ancients would appear generally to have entertained a somewhat similar opinion; for, without referring to the doctrine of metempsychosis, we have the authority of Homer, who represents Orion as chasing the souls of stags over the plains of hell. And modem instinct, when not perverted by the prejudices and conceit of learning, never fails to acknowledge the rationality of brutes. According to a Scandinavian aphorism, the bear has the strength of ten men and the sense of twelve; and the Red Indians are so impressed with the intellectual powers of this animal that, whenever they have killed one, they scrupulously strive to appease its manes with various important ceremonies. They deck out its head with various trinkets, and make a long speech in which the courage of the departed is praised, its living relatives profusely complimented, and a hope expressed that the conduct of its slayer has been satisfactory both to itself and them. The intelligence of civilisation may dismiss with a smile of pity or contempt such barbarous displays; but the most advanced intelligence will not forget that there is some substratum of truth beneath every superstition, by virtue of which it lives. As no nation ever yet worshipped a piece of carved wood or chiselled stone otherwise than as a symbol of the Great Incomprehensible, by which both barbarous and civilised men are surrounded; so we may rest satisfied that the Red Indian only labours to propitiate the ghost of the bear because he has at times found, to his cost, that its intelligence has surpassed his own. The extremes of attributing too much and too little intelligence to animals will, however, be alike avoided by that sincere and unbiassed observation which, while discrediting all exaggerated theories, willingly recognises the undoubted existence in them of intelligence in its rudimentary form, and strives to point out the evidences of its gradual development through them.

[The French alienists, as deeply interested as we have been in this country, in the much-mooted question of the value of the Gheel system, have preceded us in an earnest and praiseworthy effort to solve it with an impartial and educated judgment. At the meeting of the eminent Medico-Psychological Society of Paris, held in July last, the society formed a commission to visit Gheel and to report. The commission consisted of the following eminent alienists:—MM. Michèa, Moreau, Mesnet, and Jules Falret, Trelât and Baillarger. The report has been drawn up by M. Jules Falret. The multiplied writings upon Gheel which have hitherto been put before the general and medical public have dealt, for the most part, only with the surface of the system, and too frequently with its sentimental appearances; this careful consideration, therefore, of its merits and demerits, founded upon a minute investigation made by a commission of eminent psychologists, is of great value. The early pages of the report, in which the details of the Gheel system are described, have been omitted by us, because they do not differ materially from the descriptions given in these pages by the able pens of Dr. Cox and Dr. Sibbald, and even in the present number by Dr. Carmichael McIntosh.—Ed.]

We perceive with no ordinary satisfaction that our talented and straightforward Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, has put his hand to the plough in right earnest, by carrying, on 10th January, 1862, fortiter et suaviter, through the Irish Privy Council, the revised rules for Irish Asylums, cancelling the stupid and contradictory ones of 27th March, 1843.

Mental Science, in the forms under which it usually exhibits itself, is a subject of extreme generality. It deals with the phenomena of consciousness, as these are common to the whole human race. It hardly takes into account those peculiarities of the mind, from which individual character is formed; nevertheless, in the practical application of mental science, it is with individual character that we are for the most part engaged. Shall we, then, conclude that the prevailing systems of mental science afford no insight into the practical uses of that science ? Certainly not—and for this very sufficient reason, that the peculiarities of individual minds bear but a very small proportion to the operations which arise in obedience to laws affecting all the sound-minded members of our race. Hence, in the study of the practical uses of mental science, while it is incumbent upon us to fix a strict attention on the general laws of thought, means must at the same time be sought to bring to light the limits of the range, within which these laws, in particular minds, suffer modification.

The introduction of this important measure so soon after the interminable and wearisome Windham case, has led to the too hasty supposition that the Lord Chancellor has been induced to prepare his Bill mainly in consequence of what occurred in that case, which was indeed a fine exemplar of the evils of the system which are sought to be remedied.