olition is expended on mistaken objects, and would not be relieved, though
we were to gain or escape the objects, that excite it. Thus I have seen two
instances of madmen, who conceived that they had the itch, and several have
believed they had the venereal infection, without in reality having a
symptom of either of them. They have been perpetually thinking upon this
subject, and some of them were in vain salivated with design of convincing
them to the contrary.

4. In the minds of mad people those volitions alone exist, which are
unmixed with sensation; immoderate suspicion is generally the first
symptom, and want of shame, and want of delicacy about cleanliness.
Suspicion is a voluntary exertion of the mind arising from the pain of
fear, which it is exerted to relieve: shame is the name of a peculiar
disagreeable sensation, see Fable of the Bees, and delicacy about
cleanliness arises from another disagreeable sensation. And therefore are
not found in the minds of maniacs, which are employed solely in voluntary
exertions. Hence the most modest women in this disease walk naked amongst
men without any kind of concern, use obscene discourse, and have no
delicacy about their natural evacuations.

5. Nor are maniacal people more attentive to their natural appetites, or to
the irritations which surround them, except as far as may respect their
suspicions or designs; for the violent and perpetual exertions of their
voluntary powers of mind prevents their perception of almost every other
object, either of irritation or of sensation. Hence it is that they bear
cold, hunger, and fatigue, with much greater pertinacity than in their
sober hours, and are less injured by them in respect to their general
health. Thus it is asserted by historians, that Charles the Twelfth of
Sweden slept on the snow, wrapped only in his cloak, at the siege of
Frederickstad, and bore extremes of cold and hunger, and fatigue, under
which numbers of his soldiers perished; because the king was insane with
ambition, but the soldier had no such powerful stimulus to preserve his
system from debility and death.

6. Besides the insanities arising from exertions in consequence of pain,
there is also a pleasurable insanity, as well as a pleasurable delirium; as
the insanity of personal vanity, and that of religious fanaticism. When
agreeable ideas excite into motion the sensorial power of sensation, and
this again causes other trains of agreeable ideas, a const