Melancholia, the other form in which this disease is supposed to exist, is made by Dr. Ferriar to consist in "intensity of idea." By intensity of idea, I presume is meant, that the mind is more strongly fixed on, or more frequently recurs to, a certain set of ideas, than when it is in a healthy state. But this definition applies equally to mania; for we every day see the most furious maniacs suddenly sink into a profound melancholia, and the most depressed and miserable objects become violent and raving. There are patients in Bethlem Hospital, whose lives are divided between furious and melancholic paroxysms, and who, under both forms, retain the same set of ideas. It must also have been observed, by those who are conversant with this disorder, that there is an intermediate state, which cannot be termed maniacal nor melancholic: a state of complete insanity, yet unaccompanied by furious or depressing passions.[4] In speaking of the two forms of this disease, mania and melancholia, there is a circumstance sufficiently obvious, which hitherto does not appear to have been noticed: I mean the rapid or slow succession of the patient's ideas. Probably sound and vigorous mind consists as much in the moderate succession of our ideas, as in any other circumstance. It may be enquired, how we are to ascertain this increased, proportionate, and deficient activity of mind? From language, the medium by which thought is conveyed. The connexion between thought and utterance is so strongly cemented by habit, that the latter becomes the representative of the former. The physiology of mind, I humbly conceive to be at present in its infancy, but there seems good reason to imagine, that furious madness implies a rapid succession of ideas; and the circumstance of rage, from whence its origin has been deduced, points out the hurried consecution. In this state of mind the utterance succeeds --------------------"sudden as the spark From smitten steel; from nitrous grain the blaze." and it frequently happens, after the tumult has subsided, the person remembers but little of that which had escaped him. "I then, all-smarting with my wounds, being cold, (To be so pestered with a popingay) Out of my greefe, and my Impatience, Answered (neglectingly) _I know not what_-- _He should, or should not_: for he made me _mad_." From this connexion between thought and utterance, we find many persons (particularly those who are insane) talking to themselves; especially when their minds are intently occupied; and taking the converse, we frequently observe those who are desirous to acquire any subject by heart, repeating it aloud. From the same cause we have often occasion to remark, that strong, and perhaps involuntary, propensity to repeat the emphatical words in a sentence, and which are commonly the last, before we endeavour to reply to, or confute them.