Acts of Legislation may interfere with, cramp, or destroy the heaven-born and heaven-directed energies of the mind.—It is dreadful to paralyze or destroy the spirit of kindness, guided by experience and wisdom, by confining it to rules which have merely for their object the prevention of evil, and not the production of good! Those who legislate, should be careful not to meddle in the province out of the reach of human interference. By so doing, they may destroy, but they can never give, the spirit by which alone good can be done. The present system adds to the horrid association of these houses, (and for which some of these houses may be accused of all the blame,) and prevents them from becoming what I conceive would be of the first importance,—I mean places for the voluntary seclusion of an exhausted mind, or of a nervous invalid, which would be of the first advantage to them, and would besides take away the feeling of horror associated with such houses. It is so in France. On the same principle, those who are sent without their own concurrence, should never be treated as if they were insane; the names “Asylum,” “Patient,” “Keeper,” “Insanity,” should never be heard among them; many have been made worse by a contrary system of treatment; and I may also mention that I am more and more convinced of the necessity and efficacy of proper medical aid, and of course of a medical man, or of one having acquired medical experience, being amongst them,—I repeat “that no man ought to keep a house for the care of the Insane, who does not make cure his ruling motive for receiving, detaining, or discharging patients from his house.” Again, the arguments are endless to prove every thing should be done not to _increase_, _but diminish_, _the horror_ associated with these places. No act of Parliament can give knowledge and principle, and good feelings; and no Act should be made as a substitute for knowledge and principle and good feelings, which every one in his specific sphere should possess. No Act can give knowledge and principle, but an Act can carry with it so much opprobrium, that men of feeling and knowledge and principle, are deterred from undertaking a department of the profession, which the law supposes is only in the hands of base, unprincipled men. The aim of the Legislature should be, to add to its respectability, and to offer encouragement to those persons who possess that knowledge and principle and have it in effectual operation. Mankind in general, are not made better by treatment that shows our want of confidence in them. Though the mild system is universally allowed to be, not only the most judicious, but that which ought exclusively to be adopted, it will be seen that it may be carried further than it has hitherto been done, and much greater latitude given than we have yet conceived possible, and all this with the best possible results.