Farmers 3 Military men 33 Seamen 3 Merchants 50 Students 25 Clerks in public offices 21 Engineers 2 Lawyers 11 Chemists 4 Physicians 4 Artists 8 According to the prevalence of the ideas connected with their former pursuits do we observe the hallucination of these unfortunate persons to be of a different character. Dr. Abercrombie relates the case of a Scotch clergyman, who was brought before a jury to be what is called in Scotland _cognosced_, or declared incapable of managing his affairs. Amongst the acts of extravagance alleged against him was, that he had burnt his library. When he was asked by the jury what account he would give of this part of his conduct, he replied in the following terms: "In the early part of my life I had imbibed a liking for a most unprofitable study, namely, controversial divinity. On reviewing my library, I found a great part of it to consist of books of this description, and I was so anxious that my family should not be led to follow the same pursuits, that I determined to burn the whole." He gave answers equally plausible to questions which were put to him respecting other parts of his conduct; and the result was, that the jury found no sufficient ground for cognoscing him; but in the course of a fortnight from that time, he was in a state of decided mania. What a school of humility is a lunatic asylum! What a field of observation does it not present to the philosopher who ranges among its inmates! We find the same aberrations that obtain in society; similar errors, similar passions, similar miserable self-tormenting chimeras, empty pride, worthless vanity, and overweening ambition. There we See that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. Each madhouse has its gods and priests, its sovereigns and its subjects, terrific mimicry of worldly superstitions, pomp, pride, and degradation! There, tyranny rules with iron sway, until the keeper's appearance makes tyrants know there does exist a power still greater than their own. In madhouses egotism prevails as generally as in the world, and nothing around the lunatic sheds any influence unless relating to his wretched self. In this struggle between the mind and body, this constant action and reaction of the moral and the corporeal energies, when reason has yielded to the brute force of animal passions, and the body with all its baseness has triumphed over the soul, one cannot but think of Plutarch's fanciful idea, that, should the body sue the mind for damages before a court of justice, it would be found that the defendant had been a ruinous tenant to the plaintiff.