Of employment the author of the "Description" thus speaks: "The female patients in the Retreat are employed as much as possible in sewing, knitting, or domestic affairs; and several of the convalescents assist the attendants. Of all the modes by which the patients may be _induced to restrain themselves, regular employment is perhaps the most generally efficacious_; and those kinds of employment are doubtless to be preferred, both on a moral and a physical account, which are accompanied by considerable bodily action, that are most agreeable to the patient, and which are most opposite to the illusions of his disease."[134] We find it insisted upon by those who had the management of the Retreat that moral treatment is of the greatest importance; that gentleness must take the place of violence;[135] that it is erroneous to suppose it necessary to commence an acquaintance with lunatics by an exhibition of physical strength; that every effort should be made to divert the mind of melancholiacs by bodily exercise, walks, conversation, reading, and other recreations; that the desire of esteem is a more powerful principle to appeal to than fear; that the best form of restraint is self-restraint; that patients should be treated as much as possible as rational beings, but that little or no advantage arises from reasoning with them on their particular delusions; that it is desirable to encourage the influence of healthy religious principle over the mind of the insane; that those who manage them should sedulously endeavour to gain their confidence and esteem, to arrest their attention and fix it on objects opposed to their delusions, to call into action every remaining power and principle of the mind, and to remember that in the wreck of the intellect the affections not unfrequently survive.