Without following him in the successive stages of his work, it is sufficient here to say, that the first step--that of showing that the insane are not necessarily under the dominion of brute instinct, incapable even of appreciating the arts of kindness and of using a restricted freedom--was soon succeeded by another of no less importance considered in its relations to humanity and psychology. Pinel, who began his investigations at the Bicetre in the old belief that insanity implies disorder of the reasoning faculty, discovered, to his surprise, that many of his patients evinced no intellectual impairment whatever. They reasoned on all subjects clearly and forcibly; neither hallucination nor delusion perverted their judgments; and some even recognized and deplored the impulses and desires which they could not control. The fact was too common to be misunderstood, and having been confirmed by subsequent observers, it has taken its place among the well-settled truths of modern science. Not very cordially welcomed as yet into the current beliefs of the time, it is steadily making its way against the opposition of pride, prejudice, ignorance, and self-conceit. The magnitude of this advance in psychological knowledge can be duly estimated only by considering how imperfect were the prevalent notions concerning mental disease. For the most part, our ancestors thought no man insane, whatever his conduct or conversation, who was not actually raving. If the person were quiet, taciturn, apathetic, he was supposed to be melancholy or hypochondriacal. If he were elated and restless, ready for all sorts of undertakings and projects, his condition was attributed to a great flow of spirits. If, while talking very sensibly on many subjects and doing many proper things, he manifested a propensity to wanton mischief, why, then he was possessed with a devil and consigned to chains and straw,--unless he had committed some senseless act of crime, in which case he received from the law the usual doom of felons.