John Haslam's Illustrations of Madness, written in 1810, occupies a special place in psychiatric history, it was the first book-length account of one single psychiatric case written by a British psychiatrist. John Haslam, apothecary to London's Bethlem Hospital, and a leading psychiatrist of the early-nineteenth century, details the case of James Tilly Matthews, who had been a patient in the hospital for some ten years. Matthews claimed he was sane, as did his friends and certain doctors. Haslam, on behalf of the Bethlem authorities, contended he was insane, and attempted to demonstrate this...

John Haslam's 'Illustrations of Madness', written in 1810, occupies a special place in psychiatric history, it was the first book-length account of one single psychiatric case written by a British psychiatrist. John Haslam, apothecary to London's Bethlem Hospital, and a leading psychiatrist of the early-19th century, details the case of James Tilly Matthews, who had been a patient in the hospital for some ten years. Matthews claimed he was sane, as did his friends and certain doctors. Haslam, on behalf of the Bethlem authorities, contended he was insane, and attempted to demonstrate this by...

The indulgence of the public has been already extended to several works which I have submitted to its decision on the subject of INSANITY; and the same favourable interpretation is now solicited for the present performance, --which attempts the more difficult investigation of SOUND MIND. In treating of Mental Derangement, I became very early sensible, that a competent knowledge of the faculties and operations of the Intellect in its healthy state, was indispensably necessary to him, who professed to describe its disorders

The indulgence of the public has been already extended to several works which I have submitted to its decision on the subject of Insanity; and the same favourable interpretation is now solicited for the present performance, -which attempts the more difficult investigation of Sound Mind. In treating of Mental Derangement, I became very early sensible, that a competent knowledge of the faculties and operations of the Intellect in its healthy state, was indispensably necessary to him, who professed to describe its disorders: -that in order to define the aberrations, the standard should be fixed....

This is a health book. Some modern psychologists would say, not only that it takes its origin from needs and is posterior to action, but that it always remains in its whole structure subservient to practical ends. Just as some ancient thinkers held that virtue was simply a kind of knowledge, so for these moderns thought is nothing more than a kind of will; will itself being assumed to be primarily directed to practice. What distinguishes thought from mere trains of associated ideas is that the passive states of consciousness that enter into it are seized upon by an active 'apperception', and,...