National Insanity.

Southland Times, Issue 13428, 14 April 1896, Page 4

National Insanity.

(New York Nation.)

There is a story told of Bishop Butler, the author of the " Analogy," that, walking in hia garden one night with his chaplain, he asked him whether " publio bodies might not go mad as well as individuals," adding that " nothing else could account for most of the transactions in history." The question is an exceedingly interesting one, and seems to grow more so with the passage of time and the increase of intellectual activity; and yet there has been but little discussion of it by either historians or alienists. For instance, if we wre to examine Socialism — or rather the various schemes which are laid before the world under that name — with the aid of tests and standards which a. professional alienist applies to Eigns of mental di.-easo in individuals, it would be almost impossible to avoid placing it in the category of morbid symptoms. It may be. true that men would behave under a Socialist reyime in the manner which its champions predict, and in which they must behave in order that it should succeed, but there is nothing whatever either in our experience of human nature in tbe past, or in our observation of the human nature we see around us, to warrant us in expecting anything of the kind. Approached from the point of view from which we apprcaoh all the ordinary affairs of life, and examined under the same gnidesce. nearly all Socialist proposals appear to be tbe prodact of a disordered imagination. If tlie Sjcialiste are sane, the rest of mankind is insane, or 'rice versa, and yet au immense body of people, all told, •who are leading ordinary lives, are given up to thia (apparent) delusion, and hold it with a certain morbid fierceness.

The Crusades, the extermination of tho Albigenses, the wars of Edwatd 111, with France, the French Revolution, and tbe recent suddjn outbreak of war worship among ourselves, are all historical illustrations of the theory that large masses of men may be seized with mental disturbance, which, examined as individual aberrations are examined, yields undoubted proofs of what alienists call mania — such as expectations of things wbich there is no experimental ground for expecting, absence of that regard for consequences which is the leading regulator of individual conduct, great suspicion of the designs of some neighbour, great fear •I stupendous and calamitous events, and great dislike of the ordinary pursuits of life, ■uch as steady industry. In the beginning of the Crusades, a movement in which whole nations took part, and mobs 600,000 strong started for the Holy Sepulchre, the mental condition of the crowd undoubtedly closely resembled that of our Jingoes. They had, in the first place, a ** doctrine," and this doctrine forbade them to discuss the probability of success or the possible effect of their enterprise on their own lives or on their own country. In the secoud place they 6u*pected and bated everyone who J tried to dissuade then-., aa either "heretics" or "iDfidels," which was the media; val equivalent for Mugwumps or Anglomaniacs. There is in Joinville an interesting account of the way in which the reign of reison began slowly to return among the Cru3ader3. The very first sign of ir was a consideration of the consequences, of whut had happened at home after the first Crusades, and what would probably happen after another one. This is, in both n-ttional and individual madness, the earliest sign of recovery. Joinville was urged to go on the second crusade. Says he: "The King of France urged me strongly to go on crusading and follow -the road of the pilgrimage of the cross. But I answered him, that while I was abroad in the King's service the King's officers had so levied on ani oppressed my people that they were impoverished to such a degree that I did not i hink either they or I should ever recover from it. I saw clearly that if I went on another pilgrimage of the cross it would be the total destruction of my poor subjects, and I have since heard many say that those who advised il did great wrong and committed mortal sin. As long as the King remained in France all the kingdom lived in peace and justice reigned. But aB soon as he went abroad everything began to decline and run down." Now Joinville, in refusing to go crusading for these reasons — that is, in order to p- event the impoverishment of his people and the desolation ot bis territory— was doiDg the exact thing which our Jingoes ca'l " considering the pocket b< fore patriotism." He was bound to cruse de by the eame order of considerations which bind ua to fight for the Monroe Doctrine ; and in sacrificing the Holy Sepulchre for a life of quiet pei.ee and industry he was giving up honour for comfort. But he was neveitheless recovering his sanity in the sense in which tbe word is used by mer.tal pathologists.