PREFACE. A devout physician once told a friend of the writer, that "he never knew a triumphant death when the disease of the pious patient was below the diaphragm." This remark may be taken in a broader sense than its author intended, and from which we should earnestly dissent; but it recognizes a power of our bodily maladies to control and pervert the healthful functions of the mind, which none are more concerned to know than they who have the cure of souls. Within the range of almost every pastor's charge of moderate extent, cases of spiritual distress are occurring to which he can minister no relief; they lie beyond the reach of any remedies to which he can resort. The latent cause is the morbid condition of the physical part, which brings them legitimately within the province of the physician. On the other hand, the instances are scarcely less multiplied, in which all the science and skill of the healing art are impotent, till the thorn is extracted from the conscience. The influence of physical agents on moral states, moreover, is too little understood or heeded by the instructors of our children. They do not sufficiently consider the connection between intellect and morality, or between sensation and thought. "The study and the statistics of mental disease teach a fearful lesson concerning the giant evils resulting from ignorant mismanagement of the body in relation to the mind and the moral nature.” It has been intimated by judicious friends, that our smaller work on this subject first published, would have been made more instructive and extensively useful by a considerable amplification. The last two letters that we ever received from our lamented friend and correspondent, Dr. James W. Alexander, related mainly to its reproduction and enlargement "on several points," which he thought "should be treated more fully." None of all our friends ever expressed a deeper interest in the subject of this book, nor helped us more by their counsel, than the late Doctors Alexander, both father and son. The removal of the former, like a shock of corn in his season, though causing wide spread sorrow, did not take us by surprise. Multis ille bonis flebilis, occidit; The death of the latter, in his full strength, and at the time of so great and increasing usefulness, was painfully abrupt, and seemed to be premature. He was taken from a large circle of admirers, whose memory lingers on their irreparable loss, with the mournful reflection expressed in that "exquisite inscription of Shenstone's," whose aroma no translation can preserve, Heu! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse! They almost forget the living in their reminiscences of the dead. We have so far respected the suggestions of our advisers as to add to what was presented in the prior edition many interesting facts, which, however familiar to persons conversant with the standard works on Physiology and Hygiene, will be new to others. Changes have been made in other respects by additions and various modifications, especially under the heads of TEMPTATIONS and COUNSELS, which have ma terially increased its size, and made it more conducive to the purpose for which it was written. The author makes no pretension to originality or deep thinking, nor to such an acquaintance with psychology, or physical science, as a more thorough and enlightened discussion of the subject requires. So far as the thoughts of others have been approved, and were adapted to the purpose of the writer, they have been adopted, often in their own language, and are here acknowledged in general, to supersede the necessity of multiplied marginal references and marks of quotation. The authors of certain well-written papers on subjects kindred to this, in the Literary and Theological Review, the Biblical Repertory, and Christian Spectator, will perceive our obligations to them. Doctors George and John Cheyne, Combe, Good, Moore, Broussais, Burrows, Rush, Dunglison, Brigham, Hall, and Esquirol, have been consulted, especially Dr. James Johnson, justly called "the ablest and most effective writer of the age on every subject to which his attention was directed." Little is left for a successor to glean in any field of medical research after having been reaped by him. We have also had much assistance from "the soundest and ablest medical periodical in the English language"-the Medico-Chirurgical Review. As reference will be found in the present work to certain writers on subjects akin to that of which it treats, we give the titles of a few for the guidance of any who may have leisure and inclination to read them. In addition to those already named, we would mention Pritchard, Pinel, Prout; Voison on the Moral and Physical Causes of Mental Maladies; Tissot on the Health of Men of Letters; Hitchcock's Lectures on Diet, Regimen, and Employment; Shepherd's Sincere Convert; and Robe on Religious Melancholy. Most of these, of course, view the subject of which they treat, as philosophers or men of science; but those who have access to the older English divines will find that questions of casuistry, spiritual troubles, evidences of grace, &c., are discussed with great ability, and are made far more prominent and important in them than they are in the theological works of times more modern. The writings of the Rev. Timothy Rogers, several times quoted in the ensuing pages, are peculiarly instructive to persons labouring under spiritual distress, as having been dictated by his own experience. Those who can |