seases of
the body. We may safely consider some infirmities and passions of the
mind as diseases, and could they be treated as we do the bodily ones, to
which they bear an affinity, this would be the great triumph of "morals
and medicine." The passion of avarice resembles the thirst of dropsical
patients; that of envy is a slow wasting fever; love is often frenzy,
and capricious and sudden restlessness, epileptic fits. There are moral
disorders which at times spread like epidemical maladies through towns,
and countries, and even nations. There are hereditary vices and
infirmities transmitted from the parent's mind, as there are
unquestionably such diseases of the body: the son of a father of a hot
and irritable temperament inherits the same quickness and warmth; a
daughter is often the counterpart of her mother. Morality, could it be
treated medicinally, would require its prescriptions, as all diseases
have their specific remedies; the great secret is perhaps discovered by
Camus--that of _operating on the mind by means of the body_.

A recent writer seems to have been struck by these curious analogies.
Mr. Haslam, in his work on "Sound Mind," says p. 90, "There seems to be
a considerable similarity between the morbid state of the instruments of
voluntary motion (that is, the _body_), and certain affections of the
mental powers (that is, the _mind_). Thus, _paralysis_ has its
counterpart in _the defects of recollection_, where the utmost endeavour
to remember is ineffectually exerted. _Tremor_ may be compared with
_incapability of fixing the attention_, and this _involuntary state of
muscles_ ordinarily subjected to the will, also finds a parallel where
the mind loses its influence in the train of thought, and becomes
subject to spontaneous intrusions; as may be exemplified in _reveries_,
_dreaming_, and some species of _madness_."

Thus one philosopher discovers the analogies of the mind with the body,
and another of the body with the mind. Can we now hesitate to believe
that such analogies exist--and, advancing one step farther, trace in
this reciprocal influence that a part of the soul is the body, as the
body becomes a part of the soul? The most important truth remains
undivulged, and ever will in this mental pharmacy; but none is more
clear than that which led to the view of this subject, that in this
mutual intercourse of body and mind the superior is often governed by
the inferior; others think the mind is more w