Is it more profane to think that the Deity should speak to us through the medium of our senses, than by the agency of a spirit? Recollect, I have presumed neither to enter deeply into metaphysical reasoning, nor to describe, minutely, the condition of the brain; and I have alluded but slightly to the supposed function of its varied structures. Lord Bacon has observed: “He who would philosophize in a due and proper manner must _dissect_ nature, but not _abstract_ her, as they are obliged to do who will not dissect her.” Dissection, however, in its _anatomical_ sense, has not, perhaps cannot, elucidate the coincidence of symptom and pathology in cases which so seldom prove fatal, and the causes of which may be so evanescent. Still, it is only by a combination of metaphysical argument and anatomical research, with the essential aid of _analogy_, that the phenomena and disease of mind can be fairly investigated. In the important question of insanity, there is an error among the mere metaphysicians that is fraught with extreme danger—the abstract notion of _moral_ causes being the chief excitement of mania. This error has led to that melancholy abuse of the coercive treatment and excitement of fear in a maniac; as if a savage keeper possessed the wondrous power of frightening him _into_ his wits. Hear what the magniloquent Reil writes on this point: “The reception of a lunatic should be amid the thunder of cannon; he should be introduced by night, over a drawbridge, be laid hold of by Moors, thrust into a subterranean dungeon, and put into a bath with eels and other beasts!” And Lichtenberg, another _moral_ philanthropist, sanctioned by the divine axiom—“the rod helps God,” urges the employment of coercion and cruelty for this sublime psychological reason: that under the infliction of the lash and the cane, “the soul is forced to knit itself once more to that world, from which the _cudgels_ come!” Think ye that these moralists, if not hood-winked by false metaphysics, would have so closely copied the malevolence of an inquisitor or a devil? We must believe that each illusive representation is marked by _some_ change in some certain portion of the brain, the function of which bears a reference to the subject or nature of the illusion: it may be so minute as not to be recognized by our vision. Indeed, if the bodily sensations of every human passion be faithfully analyzed, it will be proved that there is an _unusual feeling_ in some part, when even a thought passes through the mind, under these definitions:—_a thrill_, _a creeping_, _a glow_, _a flush_, _a chill_, _a tremor_,—nay, even fainting, convulsion, death.