At the winter gaol delivery for the West Biding of York, held at Leeds in December, 1866, Henry Gabites was indicted for the murder of Arthur Allen.

Life and mind, in their abstract nature or essence alike inscrutable to us, are problems which belong to the same category; for, in this world, we know nothing of life apart from an organism, and we have no manifestations of mind independently of a brain and nervous system. Here living organisms are required for the display of the vital phenomena, and a brain and nervous system for the manifestations of mind. Life has accordingly been defined as “the collective expression for a series of phenomena which take place exclusively in bodies that are organized,” and “mind as the functional manifestations of the living brain.” But then, and at the outset, it is to be remembered that in affirming sensation, emotion, thought, and volition to be functions of the nervous system, what is really maintained is this, that the vesicular matter of the encephalic ganglia furnishes the material conditions—the medium through which these mental phenomena are made manifest in this life. It may indeed be asked, Are not the physical forces of external nature, which underlie all vital phenomena, and the changing states of consciousness which constitute our mental life, as inscrutable to us in their nature or essence as are life and mind ? and it must be conceded that they are. Matter and force are coexistent, and are correlative. Nor can we conceive of the one but in association with, by, and through the other, any more than we can conceive of life, in our present state of existence, apart from an organism, or of thought independently of a living brain.

For twenty-one years the criminal lunatics of Scotland have been, with only one or two exceptions, confined in a branch or separate building of the General Prison, called the Department for Criminal Lunatics. This department was opened in October, 1846, under a public grant; and due inquiry having been made throughout the kingdom, all prisoners of the criminal lunatic class confined for life or during Her Majesty's pleasure were transferred thither in terms of Act 2 and 3 Viet., c. 42, and 7 and 8 Viet., c. 31.

Mr. President and Gentlemen,—The fact of my having been frequently summoned as a medical witness in the civil and criminal courts of justice, in cases in which monomania has been alleged to exist, ana the examination of the evidence in two recent and important cases of disputed wills induces me to bring under the notice of the Medico-Psychological Association the present practice of the Courts in relation to monomania, and to attempt a concise description of this form of disease for consideration and discussion.

The following tables are compiled from the three official lunacy reports of the kingdom, and give (Table I) the total number of lunatics and idiots in England and Wales, in Scotland, and in Ireland, on the 1st January, 1867, with their place of maintenance and (Table II) their distribution per cent. at the same date.

The labours of the reformers of lunatic asylums in England have been beneficially felt in the remotest countries in the world. While in France, where the humane method of treatment was initiated, and in certain other continental countries, the amelioration in the con dition of the insane has been less conspicuous than could have been desired or expected in nations which have attained a brilliant de velopment in most of the other arts of civilisation, Eussia and the Scandinavian kingdoms have exhibited an earnest desire to avail themselves of the advantages of the most enlightened treatment.

The three works whose titles we have placed at the foot of this article∗ represent almost entirely our current English literature on the disease, ‘progressive locomotor ataxia,’ of which they all treat, and it is therefore the more unfortunate, and almost provoking, to find that all three of them, although most excellent so far as they go, are professedly incomplete in their purpose and scope. Thus Dr. Althaus has given us a lecture, which is admirably calculated to give a general notion of the disease to a beginner, but does not answer many questions which the more advanced practitioner would ask.

In his address as President of the Medico-Psychological Association Dr. Robertson discusses the various modes of making public provision for the insane poor; and one of the three modes which he recommends is that of disposing of a certain number of them in private dwellings.

Since public attention was directed to the mode of treating the insane practised at Gheel, much controversy has taken place both in this country and on the continent as to the value to be attached to the system. Alienists from all parts of the civilised world have visited the locality, and have recorded their opinions of its merits. These opinions have been almost as various as their authors are numerous, and have contained the most enthusiastic praise and the most emphatic condemnation. But the discussion seems now to have reached a point at which a reliable estimate of the chief peculiarities of the system, such as will be concurred in by the majority of those who have studied the subject, may be formed. A letter conveying a very favorable impression of the colony has been addressed to the editors of this Journal by Dr. Edmund Neuschler, of the Royal Lunatic Asylum at Zwiefalten in Wurtemberg, of which I present the following ranslation. I shall afterwards endeavour to indicate what appears to me to be the true view of the question.

Those of us who have kept our attentions directed to the insane poor of Middlesex—to say nothing of outside counties—must have been struck with their largely increased and increasing numbers year by year. Whilst it is a high source of satisfaction to us to know that there are diseases, neither few nor far between, which it is in our power to very materially modify and diminish, if not entirely to eradicate—whilst, in other words, typhus and cholera and other bodily ailments succumb, in so material degree, to light, air, and water—it must be and is with deep regret we are compelled to confess our inability to contend, with anything like a parallel success, against the dominant and proximate causes so painfully rife among us throughout the length and breadth of this land, and within the small area of the county of Middlesex more especially, of the mind's disorders and irregularities of action. The art and science of hygiene embraces, it may be said (to speak critically), but the outside conditions, the accessory or predisposing phenomena, which lead to insanity; it takes cognisance of the distal links in the chain rather than of those proximal—of the remote and not the near or immediate cause of madness, ln what, then, it may be asked, does this proximate or immediate source or starting-point of this dire malady, as it exists among the unfortunate classes alluded to, consist? The reply is a brief one; a single word can embrace it in all its entirety, and that word is—” POVERTY.” Poverty, of which it has been truly said “it eclipses the brightest virtues, and is the very sepulchre of brave designs” It is, indeed, the boast of modern medicine to prevent disease—to strangle it at the birth. It is our pride to develop that condition of things in the physical world with which preventible disease is incompatible; but how and where shall we find the clue to the removal of poverty ? Is there no hope ? Can it be said that poverty is a normal state of things ? Is it not true, rather, that it is the mere product of a civilisation only spurious and unreal—of a Christianity only theoretical ? I am disposed to believe this, and hence it is I am sanguine that the beneficent results of a reformed and progressive legislation, dictated by the really good and truly wise among men, will, ere very long, so greatly diminish poverty that insanity will decline to no small extent among us. But pending such a state of things, and accepting the fact as it stands, let us see if we cannot lessen somewhat the evil complained of, i. e. attack the effects of poverty, or, what is the same thing, reduce more or less the great numbers of insane poor in Middlesex, for whom to this time there has never been, and is not now, the necessary asylum accommodation.

Upon the noble ship of medicine, which sails proudly on the ocean of knowledge, decked out with gay and varied flags, there floats, my honoured friends and colleagues, one banner inscribed with the word “Psychiatry.” It is, I might almost say, the last one added and the lowest in position. For although in the future we may hope that it will be uplifted higher, and acquire more and more prestige, so as probably at length to range itself on a level with its auxiliary sciences, with pathological anatomy, physiology, and practical medicine, and with other specialities of this last, as a worthy equal with them, yet, alas! this happy event is not yet realised! Still, my friends, we must feel impelled to advance further and fur ther along the new road that we have entered upon-that practical and positive path whereby alone we can attain to that goal at which we aim, the goal of truth and perfection. And, in fact, my friends, if I to-day, in this introductory discourse, do not unveil before you the dreary picture of the past in respect to this science of psychiatry–if I withdraw from memory all those dark deeds and barbarities that prevailed of old, and gladly let oblivion cover them, it is with the view that I may do homage to progress, and thereby place myself in harmony with you; for the purport of our inquiry into this science of psychiatry is, to find not what was, but what is, and still more what shall be, and what shall be for the better, and at the same time to investigate and advance it. In considering to-day the principles (stand-point) of this science, I shall therefore, first of all, take up that division which is known as clinical psychiatry.

In the April number of the ‘Journal of Mental Science,’ the editors append a foot-note to a paper by Dr. Edgar Sheppard,∗ asking from some members of the Association the results of their experience in the treatment of the troublesome class of patients referred to in that paper, and at the same time recording their dissent from the opinions expressed by the author. Moreover, at the end of his paper Dr. Sheppard writes:-

Mr. President and Gentlemen—Allow me before I go into my subject to thank you for the kindness you have displayed to me in electing me a honorary member of your Association, and much more so as it is perhaps to-day for the last time that I shall have the honour to address you before my retirement from this branch of science.

When we reflect that the sciences of astronomy, physics, and chemistry have only recently got rid of the metaphysical spirit, we cannot wonder much that physiology is not yet entirely emancipated from the pernicious thraldom. It was plainly impossible that physiology should be cultivated in the spirit of the positive method of investigation while the sciences upon the advance of which itsadvance is dependent were not sciences at all, but clouds of idle andshifting fancies. But there has been another and weighty reason why the science dealing with the structure and functions of the organism has remained so long in a metaphysical bondage: because psychology, the last stronghold and the forlorn hope of the meta physical method, is an important branch of it. Metaphysicians have for at least two thousand years been supremely self-satisfied to evolve, from the unfathomable depths of the inner consciousness, ingenious mazes of vague and ill-defined words which they have dignified with the name of mental philosophy; and the consequence has been that the physiologist, when he came in the course of his inquiries to the brain, contented himself with the anatomical de scription of it, and never dreamed of studying its functions as the mental organ. By a prescriptive right, sanctioned by the authority of generations, mind belonged to the metaphysician; and it naturally seemed sacrilegious to venture a scientific step in such holy ground. Not only so, but the mischievous influence of the metaphysical spirit spread beyond the department of psychology, and infected more or less strongly all physiological inquiries. However, this state of things could not last in face of the active progress of positive science; the or ans and functions of the body became objects of positive investigation, and even the brain no longer escaped scientific study. So it has come to pass that the germs of a mental science having a physiological basis have appeared, and now threaten to disturb the ancient ascendancy of metaphysical mental philosophy. The present position of matters is this: there are two systems of philosophy dealing with the same subject, but not having the slightest connection one with the other, and cultivated according to different methods by different men-metaphysical mental philosophy and positive mental science. A man might be deeply learned in all the wisdom of the former, and yet entirely ignorant of the very meaning of the simplest facts of the latter. It is hardly worth while considering seriously at the present day which of these rival systems is likely to prevail over the other; one of them is the latest issue of the advance of positive science, has its foundations deep rooted in the relations of natural laws, and exhibits a promising growth; while the other has moved in an everlasting circle, has no better foundations than the clouds and conceits of men's thoughts, and exhibits symptoms of active decay. Now and then it is skilfully galvanized into a spasmodic semblance of life, but each artificially excited convulsion is plainly the fore runner of an increase of the inevitable paralysis. Much remains to be done, however, before we can claim acceptance for a positive mental science. Not only is our knowledge of the structure and functions of the brain very defective, but there is nothing like exact information to be had regarding its pathology. It has been the fashion to give the name of some disease to a group of symptoms, without attempting to connect these with particular diseased states of the nervous centres. The pathology of all the diseases of the nervous system is, it must be confessed, in a most unsatisfactory condition.

Case 1.—S. E—, female. Admitted Jan. 22, 1866. Tried for wounding, with intent to murder, Dec, 1865. Found insane. She lived in a cellar with her husband and child. From the evidence given at the trial and from her own account, it appears that she wounded her child slightly with a razor in order to frighten her husband, who had treated her with great cruelty, into better behaviour. After she had been taken into custody it was found that “her mind was much shaken, and that she was the subject of delusions.”

The subjective character of sense-consciousness.—To the physiologist of the present day it must be clearly manifest that, in respect to what is revealed to us by the senses, we have no immediate knowledge of anything but sensation. Even according to Sir Willam Hamilton, perception proper takes note of nothing but the sentient organism. “All perception is a sensitive cognition; it therefore apprehends the existence of no object out of its organism, or not in immediate correlation to its organism, for thus only can an object exist now and here to sense”∗ An effect is produced upon the peripheral extremity of a nerve of sense; this is conveyed to the appropriate centre, and there calls forth a sensation.

I quite feel with the Superintendent of Colney Hatch Asylum, as he has said in his first paper, that a “dispassionate consideration of a subject” is the best course to pursue when seeking after “Truth.” Unhappily, stung and provoked by a reply, emanating from a gentleman who, though only an “assistant” physician, has evinced a fitness to attain a higher position, he has soon forgotten the position he started to uphold, and has launched out into an invective that is scarcely to be wished for in the pages of a Journal that lays claim to a scientific character.