“It may probably be urged, and I am very well aware of it, that there is a considerable class of patients, whose eccentricities may, in great measure, be controlled; and who may be kept in subjection and apparent orderly habits, by the strong excitement of the principle of fear.—They may be made to obey their keepers, with the greatest promptitude; to rise, to sit, to stand, to walk, or run at their pleasure; though only expressed by a look. Such an obedience, and even the appearance of affection, we not unfrequently see in the poor animals who are exhibited to gratify our curiosity in natural history: but who can avoid reflecting, in observing such spectacles, that the readiness with which the savage tiger obeys his master, is the result of treatment, at which humanity would shudder; and shall we propose by such means “To calm the tumult of the breast, Which madness has too long possest; To chase away the fiend Despair, To clear the brow of gloomy care; Bid pensive Melancholy cease to mourn, Calm Reason reassume her seat; Each intellectual power return?” “If those who are friendly to what may be termed the terrific system of management, could prove, that notwithstanding it may fix for life the misery of a large majority of the melancholies; and drive many of the more irritable maniacs to fury or desperation; yet that it is still, in its operation upon a large scale, adapted to promote the cure of insanity; they would have some apology for its discriminate adoption. If, on the contrary, a statement of the proportion of cures in the Retreat, shall sufficiently prove the superior efficacy of mild means, would not those, who are adopting an opposite line of treatment, do well to reflect on the awful responsibility which attaches to their conduct. Let us all constantly remember, that there is a Being, to whose eye darkness is light; who sees the inmost recesses of the dungeon, and who has declared, ‘For the sighing of the poor, and the crying of the needy, I will arise.’” “From the view we have now taken of the propriety of exciting fear, as a means of promoting the cure of insanity, by enabling the patient to control himself, it will, perhaps, be almost superfluous to state as our opinion, that the idea, which has too generally obtained, of it being necessary to commence an acquaintance with lunatics, by an exhibition of strength, or an appearance of austerity, is utterly erroneous. The sentiment appears allied to that cruel system, probably dictated by indolence and timidity, which has so long prevailed, and unhappily still prevails, in many receptacles for the insane.”