240, 1716._ If in a chain of ideas, a number of the links are broken, or leaving out the metaphor, if there be an inability to recollect circumstances in the order, in which they occurred, the mind cannot possess any accurate information. When patients of this description are asked a question, they appear as if awakened from a sound sleep: they are searching, they know not where, for the proper materials of an answer, and, in the painful, and fruitless efforts of recollection, generally lose sight of the question itself. Shakespeare, the highest authority in every thing relating to the human mind and its affections, seems to be persuaded, that some defect of memory is necessary to constitute madness. "It is not madnesse That I have uttered: bring me to the test And I the matter will _re-word_, which madnesse Would gambol from."--_Hamlet, Act III. Scene 4._ In persons of sound mind, as well as in maniacs, the memory is the first power which decays; and there is something remarkable in the manner of its decline. The transactions of the latter part of life are feebly recollected, whilst the scenes of youth and of manhood, remain more strongly impressed. When I have listened to the conversations of the old incurable patients, the topic has generally turned upon the transactions of early days; and, on the circumstances of that period of life, they have frequently spoken with tolerable correctness. In many cases, where the mind has been injured by intemperance, the same withering of the recollection may be observed. It may, perhaps, arise from the mind at an early period of life, being most susceptible and retentive of impressions, and from a greater disposition to be pleased, with the objects which are presented: whereas, the cold caution, and fastidiousness with which age surveys the prospects of life, joined to the dulness of the senses, and the slight curiosity which prevails, will, in some degree, explain the difficulty of recalling the history of later transactions.