are replaced by a perpetual inclination to tease, worry and embitter the existence of others. The ordinary scene of its manifestations is the patient's own domestic circle, the peace and happiness of which are effectually destroyed by the outbreakings of his ungovernable temper, and even by acts of brutal ferocity. Frederic William of Prussia, father of Frederic the Great, undoubtedly labored under this form of moral mania; and it furnishes a satisfactory explanation of his brutal treatment of his son and his utter disregard of the feelings or comfort of any other member of his family. About a dozen years before his death, his health gave way under his constant debauches in drunkenness, he became hypochondriacal, and redoubled his usual religious austerities. He forbade his family to talk of any subject but religion, read them daily sermons, and compelled them to sing, punishing with the utmost severity any inattention to these exercises. The prince and his eldest sister soon began to attract a disproportionate share of his hostility. He obliged them to eat and drink unwholesome or nauseous articles, and would even spit in their dishes, addressing them only in the language of invective, and at times endeavoring to strike them with his crutch. About this time he attempted to strangle himself and would have accomplished his design, had not the queen come to his assistance. His brutality towards the prince at last arrived to such a pitch, that he, one morning, seized him by the collar as he entered his bed-chamber, and began beating him with a cane in the cruelest manner, till obliged to desist from pure exhaustion. Oh another occasion, shortly after, he seized his son by the hair and threw him on the ground, beating him till he was tired, when he dragged him to a window apparently for the purpose of throwing him out. A servant hearing the cries of the prince, came to his assistance, and delivered him from his hands. Not satisfied with treating him in this barbarous manner, he endeavored, though unsuccessfully, by a similar course of conduct, to make him sign an act renouncing his claim to the succession of the Prussian throne, in favor of his brother. To obtain this end, though in a different manner, he connived at the prince's attempts to escape from his tyranny, in order that he might procure from a court-martial, a sentence of death, and this even he was anxious to anticipate, by endeavoring to run him through the body with his sword. Not succeeding in procuring his death by judicial proceedings, he kept him in confinement, and turned all his thoughts towards converting him to Christianity. At this time, we first find mention of any delusion connected with his son, though it probably existed before. In his correspondence with the chaplain to whom he had entrusted the charge of converting the prince, he speaks of him as one who hati committed many and heinous sins against God and the king, as having a heardened heart and being in the fangs of Satan. Even after he became satisfied with the repentance of the prince, he showed no disposition to relax the severities of his confinement. He was kept in a miserable room, deprived of all the comforts and many of the necessaries of life, denied the use of pens, ink, and paper, and allowed scarcely food enough to prevent starvation. His treatment of the princess was no less barbarous. She was also confined, and every effort used to make her situation thoroughly wretched,—and though, after a few years, he relaxed his persecution of his children, the general tenor of his conduct towards his family and others, evinced little improvement in bis disorder, till the day of his death.1

§. 119. There can be little doubt that the affection above described, is far more common in the ordinary walks of society, than is generally imagined. It is so imperfectly understood, however, that those singular freaks of conduct and whimsical notions which would unquestionably subject a person to the imputation of insanity, were there the slightest aberration of reason, are set down to eccentricity of temper, or inherently vicious dispositions. The suspicion that they spring from insanity, is immediately dispelled by calling to mind the general correctness of his views, and the steadiness and sagacity with which he pursues his daily avocations. And so intimately connected are the ideas of insanity and delusion in the common mind, that it requires no little courage and confidence on the part of the practitioner who ventures, in a given case, to declare the existence of the former, independently of the latter. The consequences of these erroneous views are often strikingly and painfully exhibited, when a person thus affected becomes the object of a legal procedure. While he may be described by one, as acute and methodical in his business, and rational in his discourse, and believed to be perfectly sane; another will testify to the strangest freaks that ever a madman played, and thence deduce the conviction of his insanity; while one represents him as social and kindly in his disposition, ready to assist and oblige, and to accommodate himself to the varying humors of those about him, it will be testified by another, that in his domestic relations, his former cheerfulness has given way to gloom and moroseness, that equanimity of temper has been replaced by frequent gusts of passion, and that the warm affections, which spring from the relations of parent and child, husband and wife, have been transformed into indifference or hate. These are the cases that confound the wise and defy the scrutiny of the skilful, while they tempt the superficial and conceited to betray their ignorance, under the delusion of superior penetration; which tarnish many a professional reputation, and expose even the pretentions of true science to popular mockery and derision.

Section II.
Partial Moral Mania.

§ 120. In this form of insanity, the derangement is confined to one or a few of the affective faculties, the rest of the moral and intellectual constitution preserving its ordinary integrity. An exaltation of the vital forces in any part of the cerebral organism, must necessarily be followed by increased activity and energy in the manifestations of the faculty connected with it, and which may even be carried to such a pitch as to be beyond the control of any other power, like the working of a blind, instinctive impulse. Accordingly, we see the faculty thus affected, prompting the individual to action by a kind of instinctive irresistibility, and while he retains the most perfect consciousness of the impropriety and even enormity of his conduct, he deliberately and perseveringly pursues it. With no extraordinary temptations to sin, but on the contrary, with every inducement to refrain from it, and apparently in the full possession of his reason, he commits a crime whose motives are equally inexplicable to himself and to others. The ends of justice require that this class of cases should be viewed in their true light; and while it is not denied that their similarity to other cases in which mental unsoundness is never supposed to have existed, renders such a view difficult, yet this very difficulty is a fresh reason for extending our inquiries and increasing our information. In the account now about to be given of partial moral mania, those forms of it only will be noticed which have the most important legal relations.

§ 121. Instances of an irresistible propensity to steal, unaccompanied by any intellectual alienation, are related on good authority and are by no means rare. "There are persons," says Dr. Rush, "who are moral to the highest degree as to certain duties, but who, nevertheless, live under the influence of some one vice. In one instance, a woman was exemplary in her obedience to every command of the moral law except one,—she could not refrain from