We do not see Power as we see any extended object; nor do we touch it; nor is it, properly speaking, an object of the taste or of the smell. But, as it is itself an attribute of mind rather than of matter, so it is revealed to us as an object of perception and knowledge, by the Internal rather than the External Intellect. Nevertheless, although it is not a thing which is cognizable by the outward senses, it is as much a reality, as much an object of emotion and desire, as if that were the case. This being the case, we may with entire propriety speak of the Desire of Power; for, wherever there is a thing, a reality, an object, that object may, in possibility at least, be desired; but, on the other hand, where there is no object before the mind, it is not possible for desire to exist.

In connexion with these explanatory remarks we repeat, what has already been stated, that the desire of power is natural to the human mind; in other words, it is an original or implanted principle. Such is the doctrine of Dugald Stewart; and it is a view of the subject which at the present time is very generally assented to.

§ 183. This propension, like others, susceptible of derangement.

We will not stop to enter into proofs of the view which has now been presented, for that is not our appropriate business at present; but taking it for granted that such an original principle exists in the human mind, we proceed to say that this important propensity, like the other propensive principles, is

susceptible of a disordered and insane action.And why should it not be so? Men place Power before them in its various forms of authority, honour, high office, titled dignity, and the like, as a specific and brilliant object of contemplation and pursuit. This great object, whatever the particular shape in which it presents itself, they behold constantly with an excited heart and a constrained eye, till the corresponding Desire, strengthened by constant repetition, becomes the predominant feeling. If the desire increases beyond a certain point, as it is very likely to do under such circumstances, the excess of its action cannot fail to interfere with the appropriate action of other parts of the mind; and the result is in all cases a state of disorder, often existing in the specific form of insanity.

The leading characteristic of a sane and well-ordered mind, as is well understood, is a harmony of all its parts. But such harmony does not exist, and no approximation to harmony, when any one principle becomes so strong, so overbearingly dominant, as to suppress and trample on all the rest. The principle under consideration may, by a gradual increase and exercise, become so powerful (and who can say that this was not the fact even in the case of such men as Julius Cæsar, Napoleon, and others of that class?) as to bring the Will itself, which is the great regulating principle of the mind, into subjection. And such complete subjection, too, that persons in this situation can no more be accounted persons of truly free and sane minds than the drunkard can, mentioned by Dr. Rush, whose appetite was such,

that cannon balls discharged between him and his liquor could not prevent his rushing after it.

6184. Results of a disappointed love of Power.

And this is not all; nor the only point of view in which the subject is to be contemplated. If the aspiring and ambitious tendency, when it has increased in strength to a high degree, is suddenly and greatly disappointed, as it is very likely to be, the reaction upon the whole mind may be such as to cause disorder in all its functions, and leave it a wide mass of ruins.

The history of those who are confined in Insane Hospitals furnishes a strong presumption that such results are not unfrequent. Although the mind is deranged, the predominant feeling which led to the derangement seems still to remain. One individual challenges for himself the honours of a chancellor, another of a king; one is a member of Parliament, another is the lord-mayor of London; one, under the name of the Duke of Wellington or Bonaparte, claims to be the commander of mighty armies, another announces himself with the tone and attitude of a prophet of the Most High. Pinel informs us that there were at one time no less than three maniacs in one of the French Insane Hospita, each of whom assumed to be Louis XIV. On one occasion these individuals were found disputing with each other, with a great degree of energy, their respective rights to the throne. The dispute was terminated by the sagacity of the superintendent, who, approaching one of them, gave him, with a se

rious look, to understand that he ought not to dispute on the subject with the others, since they were obviously mad. "Is it not well known" (said the superintendent) "that you alone, ought to be acknowledged as Louis XIV.?" The insane person, flattered with this homage, cast upon his companions a look of the most marked disdain, and immediately retired.

§ 185. Additional illustrations of this subject.

Dr. Gall has given an account of an individual, in whom undoubtedly the passions of self-esteem and pride were somewhat marked, but who seems equally well, and perhaps in a higher degree, to furnish an illustration of the inordinate exercise of the principle before us. He speaks of this individual as a person who, in childhood, could never get familiar with his companions, nor in adult age with his equals. During a long-continued illness, resulting from a blow on his head, he exhibited his predominant traits in a still higher degree; so much so, that if he could not be considered insane in the ordinary sense of the term, he certainly could not be considered a person of a perfectly sound mind. Among other things indicative of his peculiar state of mind, it is remarked of him, that "he treated his superiors like subordinates, and wrote them letters in a laconic imperative style, ordering them to yield this or that favour or distinction."*

Mr. Locke also, in his Letters on Toleration, gives some notice of an individual of an ambitious * Gall's Works, Boston ed., vol. iv, p. 178.

temperament, whose mind was so long and earnestly fixed on some high object that he became insane.

§ 186. Of this form of Insanity in connexion with particular periods of society.

During the tremendous events of the first French Revolution, and for some subsequent years, when, in consequence of the great disorganization of civil and political principles and precedents, the way was open to the indulgence and the attainment of splendid hopes, the desire of Power (the ambitious principle, as we may, perhaps, conveniently term it) was called into frequent and energetic exercise: so much so as to authorize the assertion, by well-informed persons, that the cases of insanity occurring during that period took their character in a very marked degree from this state of things. Superior to various other influences which sometimes disorder the human mind, they nevertheless went mad with Ambition. Accordingly, if a person entered the lunatic establishments of that country during the period in question, he found, in the language of Dr. Conolly, a great proportion of the male patients believing "themselves to be persons of great importance, mayors, prefects, directors of France, generals, marshals, kings, or emperors, possessing vast territories, or extensive influence, or wealth which nothing can exhaust."

Some, it seems, took a higher bound than this, and, like Alexander, who, in the intoxication of success, claimed to be descended from Jupiter Ammon, were not satisfied with anything short of the ac