his monomania as to
its real cause?

1. When we know that a man is suffering from a fever, or has been
drinking to excess, or has been addicted to the use of morphine, opium,
cocaine or to similar deplorable practices, it is then easy enough to
conclude from this that he is not in his right senses; knowing the
cause, we can fairly estimate the effect. But in many cases of
delusional insanity the cause is hidden; neither pulse nor other medical
test betrays it. Whether the mind is sane or not is then to be found out
from the man's words and actions; and these may be affected for a
purpose: he may play the fool to escape punishment.

2. Phrenologists have pretended that the peculiarities of a person's
mind could be known by the conformation of his brain, and even by the
elevations and depressions of the skull. But brain and skull do not
always correspond with sufficient closeness; and besides, Sir William
Hamilton has shown conclusively, I believe, that phrenology is quackery;
its principles are not scientific and its observations not reliable. He
points out, among other errors, that while women as a class are more
religiously inclined than men, what phrenologists call the bump of
reverence, an important element in religious sentiment, is generally
more developed in men than in women, and is often most conspicuous in
reckless criminals.

Nor is it at all certain that a lunatic's brain, if it could be examined
with a microscope while he is alive, would exhibit the marks of any
disorder to the eye of the observer. It is stated by Dr. Storer that
the results show that "insanity may exist without structural changes of
the brain, and that structural changes in the brain may exist without
insanity." Dr. Bell, of the Somerville Asylum, says that "the autopsies
of the insane generally present no lesion of the brain." Dr. Bucknil
maintains that "the brains of the insane appear to be certainly not more
liable than those of others to various incidental affections." Nor has
the microscope discovered in the demented any exudation or addition to
the stroma of the brain, or any change in size, shape, or proportional
number of its cells. Dr. Storer concludes: "It is thus seen not merely
that there is no direct correspondence between the exterior of the skull
and mental integrity, any more than between the exterior of the skull
and the shape and consistence of its contents" (Wharton and Stille,
"Mental Unsoundness," sec. 323). In the