To constitute madness, the minds of ignorant people expect a display of continued violence, and they are not satisfied that the person can be pronounced in that state, without they see him exhibit the pranks of a baboon, or hear him roar and bellow like a beast. By these people the patient is stated only to be intemperate; they confess that he does very foolish things when intoxicated; but that he is not mad, and only requires to be restrained from drinking. Thus, a man is permitted slowly to poison and destroy himself; to produce a state of irritation, which disqualifies him for any of the useful purposes of life; to squander his property amongst the most worthless and abandoned; to communicate a loathsome and disgraceful disease to a virtuous wife, and leave an innocent and helpless family to the meager protection of the parish. If it be possible, the law ought to define the circumstances, under which it becomes justifiable, to restrain a human being from effecting his own destruction, and involving his family in misery and ruin. When a man suddenly bursts through the barriers of established opinions; if he attempt to strangle himself with a cord, to divide his larger blood-vessels with a knife, or swallow a vial full of laudanum, no one entertains any doubt of his being a proper subject for the superintendance of keepers, but he is allowed, without control, by a gradual process, to undermine the fabric of his own health, and destroy the prosperity of his family. All patients have not the same degree of memory of what has passed during the time they were disordered: and I have frequently remarked, when they were unable to give any account of the peculiar opinions which they had indulged, during a raving paroxysm of long continuance, that they well remembered any coercion which had been used, or any kindness which had been shewn them. Insane people, are said to be generally worse in the morning; in some cases they certainly are so, but perhaps not so frequently as has been supposed. In many instances (and, as far as I have observed) in the beginning of the disease, they are more violent in the evening, and continue so the greatest part of the night. It is, however, a certain fact, that the majority of patients of this description, have their symptoms aggravated by being placed in a recumbent posture. They seem, themselves, to avoid the horizontal position as much as possible, when they are in a raving state: and when so confined that they cannot be erect, will keep themselves seated upon the breech.