and it is presumed there may be an unsound exposition of the law. The human mind, however, is not the subject of similar investigation; we are able to discover no virus by which it is contaminated--no spreading rottenness--no morbid leaven that ferments, or canker that corrodes it. Although we may apply the word unsoundness, in a figurative or metaphorical sense, to the human mind, yet we cannot detect in it any of the marks or indications that characterize the unsoundness of substances acknowledged to be in that state: it is, therefore, under this conviction, and with the view of increasing our knowledge of the human intellect, that, on the behalf of the members of the medical profession, I venture to solicit your Lordship, on the first opportunity that may occur, to elucidate the nature of this UNSOUNDNESS OF MIND, so that physicians may be enabled thoroughly to ascertain its existence, and conscientiously depose to that effect, and also that it may be recognized by the jury, when they "proceed to make their inference," in order that, by their return, your Lordship may appoint the proper committees of the person and property. Respecting the human intellect, two very opposite opinions prevail among physiologists and metaphysicians. One party strenuously contends that the phenomena of mind result from the peculiar organization of the brain, although they confess themselves to be as "entirely ignorant how the parts of the brain accomplish these purposes, as how the liver secretes bile, how the muscles contract, or how any other living purpose is effected."--The other maintains that we become intelligent beings through the medium of a purer emanation, which they denominate SPIRIT, diffused over, or united with, this corporeal structure. The former of these suppositions is held by many grave and pious persons to be incompatible with the doctrines of the Christian Religion; and if I am not mistaken, your Lordship, on a late occasion, after having perused a work attempting to establish such principles, did incline, by "rational doubts," to suspect that these opinions were "directed against the truth of Scripture."