Insane people who have been good scholars, after a long confinement lose, in a wonderful degree, the correctness of orthography; when they write, above half the words are generally mis-spelt--they are written according to the pronunciation. It shews how treacherous the memory is without reinforcement. The same necessity of a constant recruit and frequent review of our ideas, satisfactorily explains, why a number of patients lapse nearly into a state of ideotism. These have, for some years, been the silent and gloomy inhabitants of the Hospital, who have avoided conversation, and sought solitude; consequently have acquired no new ideas, and time has effaced the impression of those formerly stamped upon the mind. Mr. Locke well observes, "that there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive; so that if they be not sometimes renewed, by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection on those kind of objects, which at first occasioned them; the print wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen." As it has been attempted to explain, how an imbecility or loss of memory will obstruct the operation of the other powers of the mind: the next object is to shew, how necessarily our ideas must be disarranged where the determination on their comparison is wrong, or where the mind determines, or judges, with little previous examination or comparison. An example or two will illustrate this more satisfactorily than any length of reasoning. I remember a patient who conceived, that, although dead men told no tales, yet their feeling was very acute. This assumed principle he extended to inferior animals, and refused to eat meat, because he could not endure to be nourished at the expence of the cruel sufferings, which beef steaks necessarily underwent in their cookery. Another madman, who pretended to extraordinary skill in surgery, contrived to steal the wooden leg of an insane patient, and laid upon it for a considerable time, with a firm belief of hatching it into a limb of flesh and blood. If a man shall form such ideas, and conceive them to be true, either from a defect in the power of his judgment, or without any comparison or examination shall infer them to be so, such defect will afford a sufficient source of derangement. Some who have perfectly recovered from this disease, and who are persons of good understanding and liberal education, describe the state they were in as resembling a dream; and, when they have been told how long they were disordered, have been astonished that the time passed so rapidly away. Others speak of their disorder as accompanied with great hurry and confusion of mind, where the succession of ideas is so rapid and evanescent, that when they have endeavoured to arrest or contemplate any particular thoughts, they have been carried away by the tide, which was rolling after them.