Again, in confirmation of the same argument, we may here remark, that the greatest number of those who become insane, become so between the ages of thirty and forty,—a period when establishments are formed, and habits have been strengthened by time, while the feelings yet retain all their energy and susceptibility of action. Thus we can conceive why reverses and disappointments should then have the most fatal and overwhelming influence.—Still less need we wonder that this should happen to those whose animal propensities and sentimental feelings have been exclusively cultivated, as they then find that if understanding and principle are insufficient to restrain them, the claims of society forbid their gratification. Hence the conflict becomes dreadful and dangerous, confounding and overturning the balance of the mind. Even without this, bad passions, disjointed and exclusive habits of feeling and thinking can hardly go on progressively increasing to this age, without becoming so irresistible as to threaten to destroy and swallow up in their vortex all that remains of the man within them. Such is a true and beautiful description that Johnson has given of Imlac’s insanity in his Rasselas. Any passion or propensity of our souls, when improperly indulged and carried to excess, is an abnegation of reason; and in saying this, we give a true definition of insanity, however startling this wide application may appear. What is the most obvious history of most cases?—Thoughts and feelings are indulged on any given point, to the detriment or suppression of others which might draw us from this dangerous and exclusive habit of the mind; till at last we become incapable of resisting any other train of thought, and feeling, and action; “they are at first imperious, and at last despotic.” When and how are all these evils to be best prevented? We answer, in the preliminary stage of our existence. We shall revert to this important subject in an essay on the primary principles of education; and shall only now remark, that where we perceive a soil full of the seeds of all these evils, we can expect only corresponding fruits? We shall conclude these remarks by directing the reader to look to the soil where these evils exist: we do this, because it exhibits the truth of the principle for which we are contending. We see, in the history of families, that the extremes of heartless tyranny on the one hand, and the foolish fondness of blind affection on the other, engender soils equally favourable to the production of these terrible fruits to which we allude: still more so is this the case where these extremes exist in the same family.