Excerpt from What Asylums Were, Are, and Ought to Be: Being the Substance of Five Lectures Delivered Before the Managers of the Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum I have no claim to originality, either in the design or the execution of the present production. A large portion of the volume refers to the past, and is necessarily occupied with historical details: that portion which refers to the future I have as scrupulously as was practicable collected and collated from the writings and Opinions of others: and when present ing a synoptical view of the different forms under which mental disease may appear, I was indebted rather to the science upon the principles of which that arrangement was founded, than to any peculiar views or philosophical analysis of my own. To those who are acquainted with the doctrines of Phrenology, the extent of my obligations in this particular case, and throughout the work, will be readily recognized; and to those who are still ignorant of these doctrines, I have to offer the assurance that Insanity can neither be understood, nor described, nor treated by the aid of any other philosophy. I have long entertained this opinion I have for many years put it to the test of experiment, and I now wish to record it as my deliberate conviction. While, however, I have con stantly availed myself of the principles, I have avoided the phraseology of the science, first, because my original auditors were not, and my readers may not be phrenologists and, se condly, and chiefly, because my object was'not to advocate or promote particular truths, but to employ and apply these in the elucidation of the object in view, and thereby to place in as clear, and conclusive, and acceptable a manner as possible, the noble cause which I have undertaken. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.