Religious Insanity Metaphysically Considered
67 ET. V. Being an Address delivered by the Editor before the Medical Society of London, January 25, 1875. Mr. President and Gentlemen,?
It is my intention this evening to place before you some of the chief characteristics met with in religious insanity. The subject is a most important one, and it is impossible to do justice to it in the time allotted; however, I have endeavoured to select some of its salient points. I propose to treat the subject metaphysically, and shall briefly consider its nature, symptoms, diathesis, special features, complexity, and causes?social, intel- lectual, and moral.
The world presents itself before us in a twofold aspect of health and disease?the sound and the unsound, both of body and mind. We are living, moving, and acting in the midst of this twofold world, which imparts to the scene around us both its grandeur and defects. The moving panorama appears in varied lights and shades to different eyes. The statesman views it from an elevated point of his own; the man of business and the man of pleasure each of them look at it from his own standpoint, and through his own particular medium. But the psychologist sees it in its double aspect?the healthy and the diseased, the sane and the insane; and discerns in these two aspects the constituent elements of our daily existence. Religious madness is by no means peculiar to modern times or to civilised periods. It has been recognised as a particular form of insanity from the earliest periods of the world. In ages of ignorance it was regarded as a divine inspiration or flatus.
It is the most formidable species of insanity there is; and though it is said to leave the rest of the mental faculties un- touched, yet we can scarcely trust the integrity of the mind that labours under its delusions.
By some it is supposed to be nothing more than an exag- gerated sentiment of religion; and that the person under its influence may, by a sufficient effort of the will, overcome and subdue it. It cannot, however, be regarded as a mere mental emotion to be cherished or discarded at pleasure. No particular disease can be justly said to give rise to it, but it is more than probable that the perverted sentiment of religion provokes some bodily ailment, by its morbid action on the nervous system.
The infatuation usually shows itself by running aground on some of the truths or data acknowledged by all the world. The mind fixes upon a well-known truth, and exaggerates its importance to the exclusion of everything else. The idea enlarges, and at length becomes gigantic; it grows and increases ; it has no context and admits of no relationship with any other truth; it stands alone?it is a monomania. The person so possessed is a dangerous lunatic.
At its first accession it is scarcely discernible; very fre- quently it is not so much as suspected by those in immediate contact with it, for in its early stages it is withdrawn from sight by cunning and reserve.
At various periods of our history religious insanity pre- vailed very widely as an epidemic, and extended over large portions of the universe. This mental enthusiasm was usually introduced by a particular mind of great energy, exercising its influence over other minds, that one mind being only the exponent of other minds of that particular epoch.
During the 15th and 16th centuries large numbers of per- sons were dealt with by law who at that time were living and acting under the influence of a religious epidemic.
In the reign of Francis I., 1515-47, ten thousand persons were either killed or punished whilst under these religious fanaticisms. The victims of these public persecutions belonged to different grades of society. The individuals selected were chiefly wretched old women, whose ugliness and eccentricities rendered them remarkable, and who were usually members of some of the convents. Large masses of females were submitted to the austerities of these abodes, and consequently suffered from perverted religions ideas, and were attacked with hyste- rical symptoms. They gloried in the profanation of the religion they had sworn to observe, and also in their professed intercourse with supernatural and diabolical agencies. Incan- tation was the remedy resorted to : priests and bishops devoted days and nights to the employment of every known mode of expulsion; but instead of any good resulting from their interference, the disease, on the other hand, became conta- gious in the convent, and frequently epidemic in the neigh- bourhood, months, even years, elapsing before tranquillity was restored.
These women, who had hitherto lived irreproachably, con- fessed, whilst under the influence of these paroxysms, to having perpetrated the greatest atrocities and enormities, and they did not hesitate to accuse their dearest relatives and friends as being the principal actors and originators of these crimes. Many of these poor victims were burned, and hundreds perished in consequence of their own morbid religious ideas. It fre- quently happened that those who were falsely accused, and excited by the religious ceremonies to which they were subjected, eventually acknowledged all the atrocities attributed to them, and even the priests themselves, though at first firmly ignoring these imaginary delusions, ultimately became the victims of these morbid ideas, and were, so to speak, epidemi- cally seized.
After the suppression, at the time of the Reformation, of what were then called the religious houses, the insane became^ a wandering body, and were permitted to wander, uncared for by their relatives, about the country naked, and frequently exposed to various forms of insult and degradation. The term ” Abraham-men ” was universally given to lunatics, who depended upon the charity of others for their livelihood. They pre- tended to be insensible to all sensation of pain, and allowed various experiments to be made in proof of their being thus destitute of bodily anguish. A writer living in those times alleged that ” their skin was quite benumbed, and that they did not feel any inconvenience from punctures, blisters, or setons.”
Decker, in the ” Bellman of London,” alludes to the beggars of his time, who imitated the “Abraham-men,” in order to excite public sympathy and so extort money.
It is impossible to read the history of the irregular and turbulent conduct, or of the groundless and absurd expecta- tions of most fanatics, without concluding that while some were merely designing and wicked, others were actually influ- enced either by a temporary or a permanent insanity; and it will appear the less wonderful that so many should become insane at the same time, by a kind of epidemical contagion, when we reflect on the influence of example and of any favourite and popular notion in exciting the wildest and most outrageous extravagancies of a misguided mob ; if we consider how apt the brain is to be affected by a constant attention to one subject, and how liable such attention is to be excited, when the sub- ject is of a religious nature, and is regarded with emotion and ardour.
A person whose religious education has been imperfect or neglected, and whose temperament is highly susceptible, is suddenly afflicted with some domestic grief. For the first time his eyes are opened to the vanity of life ; his heart is softened; he is directed by a pious friend to seek consolation in religion ; his conscience is awakened, and he is distressed by the dis- covery of his own sinfulness and shortcomings; grief and remorse subdue him. The subject is all engrossing; he reads, and meditates. Sin stands before him like a giant; this life is now to him as nothing?the next is everything ; hell gapes at his feet, and he sinks into a fit of despair and gloom. The conscience once being alarmed becomes morbidly sensitive, and the new convert begins the work of godly reformation by abjuring amusement as a sin, and the world as a snare. He shrinks with the greatest horror from all former habits, friends, and associations ; grows taciturn and morose ; and withdrawing more and more from society, finds himself shunned, in just proportion as he deliberately shuns others.
The understanding is weakened and led astray by religious fervour and excitement, when ill-directed and unreasonably made use of, and this may terminate in insanity of a most obstinate character. It is difficult at first to fix upon any one isolated fact which is of itself conclusive of a wandering mind; the symptoms are negative rather than positive; it is retire- ment rather than overtact. Besides, the popular notions are so vague upon the subject of religion, that the world is prone to mistake religious eccentricities for true religion.
The first deviation of the mind from sober reason towards religious insanity is so like an earnest and truthful warmth of feeling on this all-important theme that we are very likely to be deceived by its ingress, and thus incautiously suffer the enemy to steal a long march upon us before we are conscious of its proximity. It is only possible to arrive at a certain con- clusion respecting it by remarking attentively the ordinary behaviour of the religious enthusiast. If the religious fervour tends to render the behaviour and motives of conduct more circumspect, sober, and correct than they have hitherto been, we must conclude that it is not insanity; but if, on the con- trary, it seizes hold of new ideas, and gives way to eccentric manner or speech, we are wont to suspect the approach of mental disorder. But even in this case it may be nothing more than a passing enthusiasm, a transient paroxysm, and the excitement of the brain passes away without leaving any of its traces behind. But if hallucinations be evinced, then there can be no doubt as to the nature of the case, for there is scarcely any form of religious insanity devoid of hallucina- tions, spectral illusions, preternatural voices, and special revelations, even in the very incipient stages.
The patient, in the midst of imaginary felicity, fancying himself rich, handsome, and dwelling in a palace, is troubled with mournful thoughts. This state is followed by hallucina- tions arising in connection with some painful circumstance in his past life. At this conjuncture nothing is more remarkable than the abnormal sentiments and religious ideas which occur suddenly in persons not usually religious. A lunatic with exalted mania swears and blasphemes without the least respect for what is holy. After he has been in this state for some time, his condition is changed; he becomes calm, sober, and sorrowful; he speaks of his sins, of divine mercy, of hell, of the relation between his malady and religion.
Religious insanity very rarely occurs suddenly. It is a disease, as I have before observed, of slow growth, but of persistent and formidable pertinacity. It incubates, or begins with sullenness, moroseness, enthusiastic piety, and slight eccentricities of, at first, an unnoticeable and pardonable descrip- tion. The patient evinces keen instinctive feelings, and often betrays an almost unaccountable servility, cowardice, or pre- cipitation upon unexpected occasions; this nervousness most probably arising from a strong, though morbid, desire of self- preservation from the fear of hell, both on his own account and those in whom he is interested.
In the early stages of religious insanity a kind of mysterious reserve is maintained, but after a time, and in proportion as this form of peculiar mental aberration maturates, the patient seeks to force his sentiments on others ; and if his notions are questioned or rebutted, he resents such reception of them as a personal insult. From conversation he proceeds to preaching and exhortation, often affecting a miraculous conversion. At times he becomes the subject of ecstatic fears, and gives way to extravagancies of speech and behaviour; the ideas chase each other rapidly through the mind; but after- a time this rapidity ceases, and the ideas become irregular and involuntary, and disease of the brain is surely progressing; there may be indications of softening, atrophy, or inflammation. The con- junctiva is jaundiced-, the liver deranged, the decarbonisation of the blood is impeded, the respiration oppressed, the right side of the heart overloaded, and cerebral congestion results. The conscience becomes timid, and is beset with scruples. Dangerous ideas next occupy the patient’s mind, relating to suicide, homicide, infanticide, or pyromania. As the disease progresses the ideas become very much confused; he is restless at night, sleepless, and during the day is in a state of excessive excitement; at the same time a notable change is observed in his dispositions and manners ; his appetite becomes abnormal, his person neglected, and he is unable to fix his restless thoughts even momentarily on worldly affairs, however urgent they may be; even domestic ties and affection seem to lose their hold upon him, an utter indifference being evinced for what goes on around him. In this stage he is undoubtedly the victim of partial insanity; reason has not its fair play; it is not gone; it is not even impoverished, if you can but once break the charm a work of more than ordinary difficulty, for he is spell-bound by his own conscience. He will be rational enough, and converse upon any other subject with his customary sense and judgment but only touch the tender chord of religion, and his rationality takes flight, leaving him insane or foolish.
As the disease progresses the mental depression increases ; he cannot rouse himself from his torpid state of mind, refusing to converse upon any subject except his imaginary wickedness. The delusions chiefly tormenting the patient have reference to his former life or business, and one of the most prominent morbid ideas connected with religious insanity is that ?the unpardonable sin has been committed, and that the victim of this delusion is forsaken by God. The unhappy believer in this sad delusion is generally reduced to the utmost extremity of despondency and despair.
A wonderful singularity is usually met with in the symp- toms associated with this variety of mental unsoundness, and it is my intention, as an illustration of my subject, to give an exact description of the symptoms, as given to me verbatim from the hps of a patient I have recently seen. I quote the patient’s own words:
” I am the unhappiest man in the whole earth; my life is the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. I feel to be under G^s condem??ation I have no comfort in rising up or sitting down, in going out or in coming in. I cannot eat without condemnation. I desire to cat and to drink to satisfy the cravings of nature, but when I partake of God’s good creatures I feel it is without God’s blessing. I desire God’s blessi,,- beyond all expression for it is that only which maketh rich, and addeth no sorrow with it I feel my life has been a failure, that my works have not been perfect before God; all men have spoken well of me, as they did of the false prophets; I have been as much deceived mTself as others have been deceived m me. With God .actions are weighed, and He will bring every work into judgment, and every secret thoight, “whether it be good or evil. J D ‘
” I have been greatly troubled and perplexed in my mind for the past four or five months ; difficulties have increased ; at first there were temporal losses, but not to such an extent as in ordinary circumstances would have occasioned solicitude ; then my mind and spirits were dis turbed I began to predict loss and ruin. For a long time religion has been declining in my soul. I used very highly to prize the Sabbaths, but for the past nine or ten Sabbaths I have not been able, something within has made it in a way impossible to go to God’s house, although I would desire His blessing. I have not been able to obtain it; God seems to have laid open to me all my heart and all my life. His promises I can’t lay hold of; I fear His dreadful threatenings. I fear God has forsaken me. I have thought all my life long that I sincerely loved my Saviour, and desired to serve Him. There seem to have been two principles striving and working in me: I thought the good was the prevailing one, but I have been deceived. I try to pray, and at times I seem to be able to pray. This world seems to be all in con- fusion, everything contradictory, men walking in a vain show and dis- quieting themselves in vain. I feel that I have been a slothful servant, and that I am doomed to everlasting perdition.” This patient is now in a state of acute mania, and has to be fed mechanically.
The general appearance of a patient when the disease has progressed is characteristic of the mental unsoundness from which he is suffering. He has an anxious expression of coun- tenance, the face is worn, haggard, and pale, and wears a constant frown. He is restless, and appears to be in a most pitiable state.
The delusions as a rule haunt the patient day and night, and no arguments, however weighty or by whom stated, will make the least alteration in the firm morbid belief. In fact, the stronger the argument against the delusions, the more con- firmed will they become.
In these cases the relatives, not recognising the real mental condition, will allow arguments to be brought forward by clergy- men and others, in order to disperse the insane notions, but, alas ! with no good resulting, but positive injury. For it is not simply a mistaken idea, but a morbid perception, resulting from a brain functionally or organically disordered, and the person so afflicted being an irresponsible agent, and thus incapacitated by disease from shaking off his mistaken belief.
All patients suffering from religious insanity must be re- garded as suicidal; they generally either have a disgust for this life, and are consequently anxious to leave it, or are under a morbid conception of a text of Scripture, and will attempt self- mutilation.
Some patients will artfully seize an opportune moment to conceal a weapon to inflict self-injury. Others will openly and shamelessly avow their intention of destruction, and if left to their own inclinations will starve ; frequently this pertinacity in refusing food becomes so excessive that mechanical means have to be used to feed them. The thoughts are generally directed towards the evils of a future existence, and this unseen state causes gloomy anticipations of melancholy and remorse, and they are taunted by self-inflicting imaginations.
Whilst in this state of perturbation and gloom, the very face of nature appears to them obscured, and a veil to be hanging over sun, moon, and earth : ? Melancholy spreads itself ‘Twixt heaven and earth, like envy between man And man?and is an everlasting mist.” The immediate friends and relatives of a patient who has these premonitory symptoms frequently refuse to believe in the opinion as expressed by the physician as to the case being one of mental unsoundness, and at the same time will not even re- gard it as suicidal. Medical men, who have these cases brought under their immediate eye, frequently see frightful results in consequence of the relatives not following out their advice.
Were I disposed, I could narrate many cases which have come under my own observation of persons in the incubatory stage of religious insanity who committed suicide, in consequence of the obstinacy of the friends in refusing either to place the patient under supervision in an asylum, or allow a proper attendant to be placed with him until the dangerous symptoms had subsided. , , .
As the disease advances the sadness and gloom become excessive; he rarely smiles or exhibits any symptom of gratifi- cation, seeking solitude and avoiding cheerful society, the mind burdened as if by some hidden sorrow. At times he is irrit- able, worried and disturbed by the slightest noise; the least thing contrary to his own individual wish annoys him; he fears danger from the smallest circumstance, and exaggerates the slightest difficulty into one of the greatest importance. Pain and remorse are caused by impressions which were formerly most agreeable to him. He is either in a state of perpetual discontentment, or, by shunning society and seeking solitude, he is able to brood uninterruptedly over his insane imagination? ” I want to be alone, to find some shade, Some solitary gloom, there to shake off These tumultuous cares, that vex my life, This sick ambition on itself recoiling ; And there to listen to the gentle voice, The sigh of peace, something?I know not what? That whispers transport to my heart.”* The feeling of hatred and indifference often shows itself in a morbid dislike to those by whom he is surrounded. This * Thomson.
incipient stage of melancholia is accurately depicted by Shakespeare:
” I have of late (but wherefore I know Dot) lost all my mirth, fore- gone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile pro- montory ; this most excellent canopy, the air?look you, this brave o’er- hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire?why it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.”
The melancholic patient, having been in a state of dread and apprehension for some time, gradually passes into a state of helpless despondency. Religious insanity is usually of long continuance, and may terminate either in a restoration to a normal state of mind and body, or in incurable insanity and confirmed mania. This latter is remarkable for its destructive propensities and depraved state of morality. The mode of its termination depends on the character and general disposition of the patient. Sometimes it terminates in profound insanity and hypocrisy, the most profound and obdurate condition of the mind there is, for the knave knowingly acts a part which he no longer believes to be true. Superstition and fanaticism are other modes of its termination, leading oftentime to murder, the infliction of bodily cruelties, or revenge, the deadliest of the evil passions.
I propose to consider very briefly the intellectual, social, and moral causes of religious insanity. There is in the world a common propensity to create a religion of our own, founded simply upon the instincts of religion. It is in fact nothing more than yielding to the instinctive feeling of piety which pervades every breast. By mixing up our private feelings with those in common to the rest of the world, without definition or agreement, we confuse ourselves, become puzzled or dis- gusted, and end by setting forth our own individual feelings in the place of the public standard of rectitude. In so momentous a matter as that of death and futurity, which is, in short, the essence of Christianity, the probability is, that what is private is wrong, and that what is common is right; for true religion is a revelation from external sources, whereas false religions are hallucinations from within. The external law of the Gospel is binding to mankind, but an internal ideality is not binding even to the idealist himself. It has been acutely said that man makes his God like himself, whereas Eevelation proposes to make man no longer like himself, but like its own Great Author. In an intellectual sense, it is from mistaking a particular idea for universal truth that religious madness springs. This fatal mistake may be the result of imperfect education, or of a particular education on a particiilar idea, or it may be the result of a mind invincibly defective, perverted or impaired by bodily disease. It is with the two last causes that we are chiefly concerned.
Knowing as we do the all-engrossing nature of religion, and the intensity of the emotion evoked by it in sensitive minds, we should be prepared to expect every form of mental aberra- tion from a perversion of religious truth. Religious madness is usually attributed to religion itself. No such imputation can be lodged; it is more than probable that the strong religious sentiment and feeling guides a man rightly when he would otherwise have failed, and that it is actual brain disease which aggravates this sentiment, rather than that this sentiment pro- duces the brain disease, and as a result its manifestation, religious insanity. But it must be admitted that in some cases religious excitement develops mental disorder.
Considering that sensitive minds are generally morbid, the result of organic changes going on in a body morbidly alive to every external stimulant, we shall perceive that religious mad- ness is the complex result of partial knowledge, imperfect faith, excessive sensibility, and cerebral disease combined. Hence the inveteracy of its character and the difficulty that is ex- perienced in treating it properly and successfully; for it is not a mere mental act, it is not a violent effort of volition, but, on the contrary, it is an excitement upon the abstract truths of religion, originating from or closely connected with actual organic changes of structure, so that it has often been affirmed that religious excitement will be found to resolve itself into animal excitement. Eeligious insanity must be considered as a disease of the brain, and not as a metaphysical alteration and abstraction of ideas. The victim of this form of mental disease is subject to well-marked delusions and hallucinations. These symptoms, especially the latter, indicate very seriously a disturbed circulation through the encephalon, or else actual disease of the brain itself. Hallucinations of the insane are not voluntary, and always co-exist with impaired intelligence, resulting from an impaired or disorganised brain. The con- sciousness is diseased ; the lunatic is often convinced of the truth of the false delusions of which he is conscious.
The several moral intellectual powers and qualities that enter into and make up the mind and character of man are very irregularly distributed.
One is favoured with a large proportion of one faculty and a disproportionally small quantity of another, very little of a third, and none at all of a fourth. From the lowest idiot, who cannot even control his muscular powers so much as to move his limbs rightly, or masticate his food, who neither is gifted with the senses of seeing, hearing, or feeling, up to men of the highest order of intelligence and intellect, are to be found all intermediate grades of intelligence, without an interval between them.
But paramount to this variety of intelligence is conscious- ness, that fundamental principle of the mind common alike to the understanding, the passions, and the intellect?that faculty which cannot be entirely lost except by the total destruction of the mind itself.
The most miserable idiot is gifted with consciousness, and many of the insane are perfectly conscious of the extrava- gancies they commit. Their motives may be irrational, but their act is a conscious one, be its consequences what they may. But, at the same time, no form of insanity ever exists without a perversion of the conscience, as well as an impairment of one or more of the mental faculties, inducing a loss in the power of comparison. Judgment?and as religious insanity is specifically a disease or error of judgment it follows therefore that the person religiously insane is incapable of appreciating the value of the just evidences of truth. One of the moral causes of re- ligious insanitv is a diseased consciousness interfering with the clearness and independence ot the judgment.
The fear of death may be mentioned as another of the moral causes. In many cases, when the conviction that death is immi- nent and irretrievable, the mind is so depressed that it never afterwards entirely recovers from the shock. Indeed, the mental faculties are so much impaired as to render the account and narrative of these persons often incorrect and exaggerated. They are hallucinated at the moment, deceived by their own sensa- tions, which are perturbed and confused, and which lead them to deceive others without meaning to do so.
I will consider, in conclusion, a few of the special features met with in religious insanity. The zeal which accom- panies this variety of insanity is as distinct from true reli- gious conviction and practice as health is from the heat and flurry of stimulants, and the majority of religious madmen have not one correct idea of religion nor of a single article of faith. The mind, if turned especially to one subject, particularly if it be an abstruse one, cannot dwell on this one idea exclusively for any length of time without incurring a great risk of becoming disordered, and if it does not become visibly deranged, it will form a false perception and estimate of things, and will attach to trivial and unimportant matters a weight and importance they do not deserve.
The greater number of people are never taught anything accurately. They grow up by chance, they live and die by chance, and, when they die, they depart this life to go they know not where and to be they know not what. In all of them the religious instinct is innate. They feel they were not born for this short life alone. They are conscious that they were not meant to die like the beasts that perish. They look upwards to the heavens, and wonder who and what they are. The meanest intelligences among them feel as much as this ? and how much more would they not feel and do, were they but properly instructed and trained, as moral agents and responsible beings, to play their parts in time, so as to be sure of winning their reward in eternity? The moralist, the philosopher, and the politician cannot contemplate such a critical disorder of so- ciety?shall we say of civilized society??as this without dismay nor ponder on the future without anxiety and regret ‘ Religious insanity may be considered as the unavoidable consequence of religious ignorance. Those who have been care- fully grounded in their faith can scarcely go mad upon it It is the same in this respect as in most others?a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. No one can teach himself. At the best he is only an amateur. Earnest indeed he may be, but if so’ only so much the worse, for the more earnest, and if earnest then sincere, the more certain he is of falling into errors both in matter and form of the gravest description. To become a proficient, he must have a master, go to school, and learn his rudiments, beginning from the beginning, and working upwards to the top. Without this preliminary groundwork, every sub- sequent effort will be contemptible and worthless. Smattering is the bane of every art and science, and so it is of religion. If it happens to be religion that the enquirer takes up late in life, the mind is exclusively directed to one dogma, doctrine or point of discipline, to the total neglect of other doctrines or their partial obscuration ; and this magnified doctrine or doo-ma generally one of secondary importance.
A mind untrained in religious discipline is prone to vagaries and easily becomes deranged at the first peep into the stupen- dous truths of Revelation.
Religious sentiment or instinct enters so materially as well as intimately into every motive and every action, and tinges so deeply and indelibly every thought, implicit or express, that it may be said no event happens in the world which is not a scene in one of the acts of a vast religious drama. It is manifested in every deed both public and private, and is displayed with the greatest intensity by such as are highly nervous and suscep- tible. Even the infidel is an actor whose life is passed in braving his own instincts, and the devotee, too, is another actor, whose days are passed in nursing and putting forth his instincts. Religious feelings, when intensely professed or denied, whether true or false, cannot fail to leave their traces upon the fine organism of the brain, and heresy and sometimes mania is the result. The heretic is often only a religious madman, while, on the other hand, the religious madman is sure to be a heretic, since his insane notions are partially distorted and irrelevant.
The most dangerous errors, both public and private, are the miserable consequences of degenerate piety and ignorant devotion. Wars and cruelties of all kinds have been perpetrated by all parties to root out a hostile creed; and were we to look only on the dark side of Christianity, we might be induced to despair of human happiness both here and hereafter. Fana- ticism, folly, and knavery are traceable in every form of religion, and very distinctly can they be traced in the false superstition so prevalent in the age we live in. Under the cloak of religion, what enormities have not been perpetrated? what stupidities have not been enacted?what misery not inflicted?what confusion not created! Were we permitted to do so, we would drop the curtain over the lurid scene, and shut it out from every eye. But this may not be. Its extra- vagancies are the test of its reality, and its abuse the proof of its utility.
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