mit suicide; although they believe they run headlong into the
hell, which they dread! Such is the power of oratory, and such the debility
of the human understanding!

Those, who suffer under this insanity, are generally the most innocent and
harmless people; who are then liable to accuse themselves of the greatest
imaginary crimes, and have so much intellectual cowardice, that they dare
not reason about those things, which they are directed by their priests to
believe, however contradictory to human apprehension, or derogatory to the
great Creator of all things. The maniacal hallucination at length becomes
so painful, that the poor insane flies from life to become free from it.

M. M. Where the intellectual cowardice is great, the voice of reason is
ineffectual; but that of ridicule may save many from those mad-making
doctors; though it is too weak to cure those, who are already hallucinated.
Foot's Farces are recommended for this purpose.

16. _Satyriasis._ An ungovernable desire of venereal indulgence. The remote
cause is probably the stimulus of the semen; whence the phallus becomes
distended with blood by the arterial propulsion of it being more strongly
excited than the correspondent venous absorption. At the same time a new
sense is produced in the other termination of the urethra; which, like
itching, requires some exterior friction to facilitate the removal of the
cause of the maniacal actions, which may probably be increased in those
cases by some associated hallucinations of ideas. It differs from
priapismus chronicus in the desire of its appropriated object, which is not
experienced in the latter, Class I. 1. 4. 6. and from the priapismus
amatorius, Class II. 1. 7. 9. in the maniacal actions in consequence of
desire. The furor uterius, or nymphomania, is a similar disease.

M. M. Venesection. Cathartics. Torpentia. Marriage.

17. _Ira._ Anger is caused by the pain of offended pride. We are not angry
at breaking a bone, but become quite insane from the smallest stroke of a
whip from an inferior. Ira furor brevis. Anger is not only itself a
temporary madness, but is a frequent attendant on other insanities, and as,
whenever it appears, it distinguishes insanity from delirium, it is
generally a good sign in fevers with debility.

An injury voluntarily inflicted on us by others excites our exertions of
self-defence or of revenge against the perpetrator of it; but anger does
not succeed in any great degree unl