INSANITY means all unhealthiness of mind, This consists, according to one opinion, in such disorganization or degeneration of the nervous structure as to render the exer cise of reason impossible; according to another. it consists in disorder of the reason itself; and according to a third, in perversion or destruction of the soul, or the moral part of our nature. The prevailing view of physiologists is, that insanity is a symptom or expression, manifested through the functions of the nervous system, of physical dis ease. The legal term, lunacy, represents only those deviations front that standard of mental soundness which is universally recognized, although difficult of definition, in which the person, the or the civil rights may be interfered with. These devia tions are, briefly, where the incapacity, or violence, or irregularities of the individual are such as to threaten danger to himself or others, and to unfit him for his ordinary business and duties. Insanity is more comprehensive, and includes all states of the feelings and passions, as well as of the understanding, which are inconsistent with the original and ordinary character and habits of the individual, and with his relations to the family or community of which he is a member. It has been stated broadly, that if a man be deprived of the enjoyment of his religious rights by exclusion from membership of the church to which he belongs; of his civil rights in giving evidence in a court of justice or on oath; and of his personal rights in the management of his property and affairs, he may be regarded as insane; but more correct views of the human mind have led to the belief, that many degrees of feebleness of the faculties, many forms of eccen tricity and extravagance, and many defects in the will and moral sentiments, which were formerly regarded as crime and wickedness, but which do not involve such depri vation, may be classed under the seine designation. Very recently, the interpretation
of insanity has been greatly widened, and now includes various degrees of moral per version, morbid habits, and sudden impulses, such as dipsomania and homicidal mania. The great divisions of this class of diseases into mania. melancholia, and remain popularly very much the same as they were 2,000 years ago. While Iris fact may indicate that such a classification has a foundation in nature, it has, unfortunately, tended to render the treatment, or rather the maltreatment, of the insane as stationary as the view of the diseases under which they labor. The following arrangement may serve to explain what insanity is, as well as what it appears to be.