that is, when the interest is only added to the capital once a year. If added every half year, the period of doubling must be still earlier.'

"When money doubles itself, the interest must equal the prin cipal: therefore five pounds paid regularly every year, and receiv ing compound interest, will at the end of fourteen years and a half, produce one hundred pounds. If the compound interest is added every half year, it will produce that sum earlier. Now five pounds a year is only two shillings a week, allowing two weeks deduction for Christmas.'

"Three-pence a week from the birth of a child to its years of of apprenticeship, will produce more than thirteen pounds, which if it is not an apprentice fee, may at least serve to clothe a son, so as to make him appear respectable among his fellow apprentices or workmen; a shilling a week will in fourteen years and a half produce fifty-two pounds, which if not employed in the mean while in the purchase of good tools or materials, may be reserved for a proper opportunity, and in a few years more assist a prudent son-inlaw in beginning life.'

"Many work people are employed only one half of the year; whatever they save during that period, may be working for them by producing interest. Whatever they are able to leave at the end of the dull half year, will be a certain productive stock gaining interest, whilst more is added during the busy season.'

"These are only the outlines of a plan, which is not to be considered as entirely crude in the author's mind; but the subject cannot be matured without the assistance of others, accustomed to calculations and commercial transactions." (p. 159.)

The subject of Hereditary Diseases, though of so important a nature, is one that we do not know has been systematically treated before. We know not how to offer an abstract, every part depending so much on each other. There is moreover so much pains evidently taken to divest the text of all superfluous matter, that it would be impos sible to give it in fewer words, the whole being contained in about thirty pages, by no means closely printed. The notes, as in the former work, occupy much the largest part of the book, and like them must be considered as distinct essays. We shall therefore transcribe the preface and a few notes. By these our readers will see the object of the whole, and judge of the manner in which it is executed.

"Two great sources of distress, much aggravated by the uncertainty in which they are involved, are the danger of contagion and the apprehension of hereditary diseases. The former has often embittered the enjoyment of all that Providence has bestowed upon us, and even stifled the feelings of consanguinity, friendship, and love; the ill effects of the latter have been in proportion to the strength of

the moral feelings. The dread of being the cause of misery to posterity, has prevailed over the most laudable attachment to a be. loved object; and a sense of duty has imposed celibacy on those who seemed by nature the best constituted for the duties of a parent!

In these, as in many other highly important questions, men seem afraid of inquiring after the truth; cautions on cautions are multiplied, to conceal the skeleton in the closet, or to prevent its escape, till our very fears bring the object constantly before us, not in its real form, but multiplied into every possible shape, and magnified in all.

"Mr. Hunter, by instructing us in the means of ascertaining the laws of contagion, and the characters of morbid poisons, has re lieved us from much of this uncertainty. I have endeavoured to continue his mode of research, and to elucidate his doctrines, not by a greater accuracy of expression, but by adopting, where it could be done, a more popular language. The opinion of the me. dical world has been so much in my favour, that I have only to regret the limited field in which I have been enabled to act as an interpreter to such an oracle. There are, however, sufficient documents to prove, that neither time, industry, danger, expense, Dor (what with most of us is greater than all) obloquy, ever arrested me in these professional inquiries.

“ Connected with them was one, the value of which I accidentally learned. Whilst Sir Joseph Banks did me the honour of pe rusing one of my papers, I waited with some impatience to hear his objection to my remarks on the hereditary properties of diseases. As soon as I learned that the pause did not arise from any difference of opinion, I had no difficulty in determining to make a distinct Essay on what had hitherto been only incidentally noticed,

On a discussion so new, some indulgence may be expected in the use of new terms, or rather in assigning to old terms, meanings more strictly appropriate. The work being intended for the general reader, every technical expression is carefully avoided; and in order that the attention may not be distracted from the chain of reasoning, every thing not necessary to illustrate the doctrine is added, in the form of Notes, at the end. The Reader will readily account for, and it is hoped, pardon the unexpected length of one of them." (p. v-vii.)

"NOTE 13, page 26.- Madness, as well as gout, is never hereditary but in susceptibility; and those who have paid the greatest attention to the subject, must admit the two degrees of susceptibility.

"Cases of very early insanity are recorded, but they appear to me rather to come under the description of mental imbecility. This leads to one of the most difficult questions in physics; and the more so, as it is scarcely possible to divest it of metaphysics: I mean a definition of madness. The great difficulty, however, in this, as in every other pathological inquiry, seems to arise from our attempting

too much. The shades of madness are so various, that few of us can be said to be at all times free from it; and of this we are so sensible, that we perpetually accuse others, and even ourselves, of acting under the impression of madness. We must also admit, that there are few madmen who do not show a soundness of intellect on some occasions. That madness consists in reasoning well on false premises, is a definition sanctioned by high authority; but it seems to me, that in order to apply this doctrine, we must be previously acquainted with the character and external circumstances of the man. Fox and Pitt both reasoned well, and on the same premises, yet we accuse neither of madness, though each drew a different inference. If interest should be suspected to have warped either, the same cannot be thought of Clarke and Lebnitz.

"If I were to venture a definition of Madness, I should call it a reverie from which a person cannot be recovered It will then be asked, What is a reverie? To this the general answer is, A waking dream! What then is a dream? If I must give an answer, I should say, That state of the body and mind, in which imagination passes for reality, the senses being at that time so torpid, as to require an unusually strong stimulus to produce any impression. The mind, during sleep, seems to have no power of arrangement or combination but from its activity, recalls certain impressions, in proportion, as the torpid state of the animal is less complete. In a reverie, the mind is so entirely engaged in a single subject, that external objects exposed to the organs of the senses, produce no impression whatever; or if any, those impressions are immediately associated with the subject in which the mind is engaged. In either of these conditions, a strong stimulus applied to the senses, brings the person to the clear perception of all the objects around him; the dream is found to have been a fallacy, and the train of thoughts during the reverie being now disturbed, external objects produce their full im pression.

"In madness, the organs of the senses still retain their capacity for impression, but no stimulus, however powerful, is sufficient to lessen the illusion under which the mind labours.

"After all, it may be difficult to distinguish such a state of mind from misguided enthusiasm; if then, we require a definition which will include every shade, there seems no objection to the proposition offered above, That madness is a reverie from which a person cannot be recovered.

"NOTE 14, Page 27. For this purpose, the hereditary pecu liarity should always be kept in view, in the direction of the early studies, in the subsequent employment, &c.'

"This attention should not be confined to those in whom an hereditary susceptibility is suspected. For, as it has been fre quently hinted, wherever disease exists, there must have been susceptibility to that disease, whether it existed in the parents or not: the same regard therefore is necessary in the management of all

young subjects, in whom we see strong marks of character at ari early period of life. The dangerous age with such is somewhat beyond that of puberty, when they first find themselves exposed to the busy world; and from the attention they receive, at that interesting age, feel as if the eyes of all their acquaintance were directed towards them. In proportion to the delicacy of their feelings, and often to the strictness of their education, they become more sensibly alive to every impression. Perhaps this may be entering on the subject of education, which I shall leave to others. Those, however, who have paid the best attention to it, must have remarked, that though one general system may be sufficient, as there is a general similarity in the human character; yet the plan should be varied, wherever we see any striking peculiarities in the progress of intellect, or the impulse of passion. The variety of character is so great, that it would be impossible to prescribe rules for all; but in our endeavours to repress forwardness, or give courage to timidity, we shall gain no permanent advantage, without a strict adherence to truth.

"It will be a vain attempt to undervalue the attainments of the early genius, or to over-rate the proficiency of the dull: each will be sensible to his own standard; and the only mode of checking the one, or encouraging the other, must be to remind each, that there is the same variety in the period at which the mind expands, as in that in which the growth of the body increases. Emulation, so much talked of, excepting where we can measure the capacities of the individuals, or have reason to suspect indolence in either, should rather be repressed than encouraged, as it is more frequently the parent of bad passions than of amiable affections.

"But it is the nearer approaches to perfect manhood that we have most to apprehend. The character, as well as the constitution, is then assuming a more permanent form, and must be watched, in both sexes, with a degree of delicacy which cannot be defined, as it depends so much on the variety of character and the influence of early impression.

"NOTE 15, Page 28.- The more advanced climacterics in both

sexes.

"Diseases excited during the changes about the age of puberty are, for the most part, temporary. I have known even hereditary madness arise from this cause, and cease as the change was completed, without returning for a long series of years; probably, the whole of life. But in the succeeding climacteric, the completion of manhood, the access of disease is usually attended with more permanent consequences. Madness, the most incurable, and with the fewest lucid intervals, sometimes originates at that age. Mr. Haslam has some very ingenious remarks on this subject.*

"I have not sufficient experience, to say whether madness occur

* Treatise on Madness, page 64 and 208.

ring at this age, if attended to as soon as suspected, could be cured. But, by the success I have met with in the early stages of epilepsy, under similar circumstances, I canuot help again urging the importance of watching the slightest alteration of character at that critical age."

It was our good fortune many years since to be in the classes of the learned author of these works, when during two series of lectures he explained at length the theories he has thus presented in a convenient form to the profession and to the public; but we little expected that we should be called upon to recur to our own notes taken at that period, in order to hazard an opinion on subjects which we then listened to with a degree of pleasure, considerably heightened by our strong persuasion of their importance. We now observe with satisfaction that in these productions, to the scientific inquiries more peculiarly adapted to a circle of medical students, are added illustrations of a popular description. With this assistance the statesman and the philanthropist, who destitute of professional knowledge, from the duties of his situation, or the benignity of his heart may be so disposed, will be enabled to correct the abuses and improve the advantages of the public institutions that are established for the relief of afflicted humanity.

The subjects of these works are both indirectly and directly connected with the early pursuits of the author. Before he was so generally known in the practice of his profession, he published "Observations on Morbid Poisons, Chronic and Acute;" and in 1807, delayed only by his absence from England, appeared a second edition, on a larger scale, including Diseases which, although not strictly originating in Morbid Poisons, are generally deemed to be contagious, but which the Doctor was satisfied were not of that character. The latter inquiry is resumed in the first of the publications, which gives the title to this article, and in the second Hereditary Diseases are considered, that (if not in the judicious treatise of Mercatus, which appeared in the 17th century,) have never been systematically examined..

We cannot take our leave without mentioning that report has alleged it to be the intention of the author to publish an improved edition of the whole, or a part, of the late John Hunter's works; in which a refutation is to be given of some calumnious mistatements, and the ambigu be removed as to some opinions insufficiently We hope that such a design is seriously entertang Pelion