We will not give the recital, by M. Edmond Cazales on Dominica Lazzari, the Patiente de Capriana, because the case, however extraordinary, bears no direct relation to our subject.

Great joy, like great grief, is equally favorable to ecstasy, by the elevated character it gives to thought.

Ecstasy is not uncommon in insane asylums; but to shun error, it is necessary to notice whether the patient is not obeying some superior order, which tells him to remain motionless, or to take such or such a position. It may be exhibited under the forms of mania and monomania.

Leuret has described the case of an hallucinated mad woman, who had ecstasies, in which she saw God. She knelt before the sun, and then experienced a great inward exaltation, and exceeding pleasure. God spoke to her; the pleasurable sensations were chiefly confined to her breast and stomach; but God, she said, could excite these sensations in all the members. It was not only when she looked at the sun that she beheld the Creator, but she saw him in her dormitory and in her walks. To beheld him, she had but to pray. She saw him also during her sleep, and even before going to sleep. He appeared to her as possessing a physical form; fair, and clothed in the habiliments of man; infinite goodness and benevolence beamed upon his smiling face. In speaking of her sensations, she observed that bread and water, and that exaltation, was the highest pleasure that could be experienced; and if all could be satisfied of this truth, they would require nothing more.

As ecstasy can be produced whenever a high degree of moral exaltation exists, it will be understood that it did not cease its manifestations with the Dark Ages, although these were favorable to it. We find it existing in the eighteenth century, and daily produced before our eyes. Lately, the rapid spread of the religious ecstasy in Sweden in the form of an epidemic, and with which we will close this notice, proves the truth of the assertion.

In the course of the year 1841 to 1842, there appeared, in the country about the central part of Sweden, a disease characterized by two striking and remarkable symptoms: the one, physical, consisted of a spasmodic attack, involuntary contractions, contortions, etc.; the other, psychical, was announced by an ecstasy more or less involuntary, during which the patient believed that he saw or heard things divine and supernatural, and was instigated to speak, or, as the people expressed it, to preach. (Many medical men consider this disease as one form of the chorea of the Middle Ages.)

During their ecstasies, the persons attacked were remarkable for an irresistible loquacity, a constant mania for preaching the Word of God, and for visions and prophesyings. In consequence of the peculiar tendency of this singular affection, it has been called the preaching-disease. Most of the faculty, who witnessed these paroxysms, have compared them to somnambulism, or the magnetic sleep; but no one has been able to say positively that they belonged to either of these states.

The sick persons frequently spoke of visions which they had had in heaven and hell, of angels, etc. They also predicted the end of the world, the last judgment, and the day of their own death, always with the assumption that their predictions were real and holy prophecies. It will be remembered that the greater number of the convulsed of St. Medard also predicted that the end of the world would occur on a day which they fixed; but, as with the Swedes and Millenarians, their prophecies were not accomplished.

These ecstatics, when the paroxysm was over, appeared as though they emerged from a dream. They averred that they had seen supernatural sights, and recited the prophecies; that they had seen the place of punishment for the condemned, and, also, the elect seated at the Lord's table.

This state may be associated with mania, with hypochondria, and with madness. The malady usually attacked persons from sixteen to thirty, frequently also children from six to sixteen, and even some aged persons. It is another point of resemblance to the Shakers of the Cevennes; and, in the Theatre sacre des Cevennes (p. 30), is the following deposition by Guilliaume Bru-guier: "I saw at Aubersaque three or four children from the ages of three to six, seized with the spirit. When I was with a man named Jacques Boussige, one of his children, aged three years, was attacked, and fell to the ground; he was much agitated, and beat his breast violently, saying, it was for the sins of his mother he was suffering." Another witness assured me that he had seen a child of fifteen months in a similar condition.

The greater number of the persons so attacked were of the lower class. It was a psychical contagion, brought on by imitation. In one year several thousand persons had the epidemic.

A development of the intellectual faculties was not remarked in this disease; or, if it did exist, it was an exception; the greater number of the discourses and sermons were paltry and void of ideas; often consisting of pure nonsense, more frequently of exclamations repeated unto satiety, and continual repetition of the same trifles, uttered in a sententious tone.

We would enforce this remark, because the ecstatic state is often accompanied by a sense of exaltation which gives eloquence to ordinary minds. On this point, we could relate a curious history of a person, who', in his inspired moments, exercised such an influence over the malefactors in the prison with him, that they obeyed all his commands.

Fanaticism, ignorance, and the thousands of religious tracts distributed amongst the people, had, according to the opinion of the Swedish faculty, induced a state of preparation for this epidemic. The causes are clearly pointed out by the author, who says justly, that the origin of a mental disease has rarely been so distinctly shown.*

The ecstatic state is frequently met with amongst primitive people, in whom the religious feeling is strongly developed. M. Ferdinand Denis relates that a friend of his, who has resided fourteen years in the East Indies, has frequently seen the Hindoos voluntarily fall into ecstasy. The North and South Americans have traditional recollections that throw them into an ecstatic state, during which they believe they have communion with spirits.

The phenomena of ecstasy are developed in the most remarkable manner, among the Kamschatdales, the Yakouls, and other people who inhabit the far north, where the diviners wound themselves horribly, without either suffering or appearing to suffer.

The ecstatic state is also exhibited in Otaheite, in the Sandwich Islands, and in Polynesia. Mariner† relates that the son of King Finow often told him that he was inspired by the soul of Toogoo-Ahoo, the last king of the Tonga Isles; that he no longer felt his personal existence, and that his body seemed animated by a spirit not his own. Being interrogated as to the nature of the spirit that moved him, and how it descended upon him, ho replied: "What a foolish question! Can I tell you how I know it? I know it because I feel the conviction, and because I am warned by a voice."

We could multiply facts of this nature; but it will be sufficient to remind the reader that they are described in ancient and modern travels of all nations.*

* Gazette Medicale, No. 33, t. xi. 1842, Memoire sur l'Extase reigieuse epidtmique that raged in Sweden in 1841 and 1842, by M. le Docteur C. N. Souden, physician in the insane hospital at Stockholm.

† Voyago to Tonga-Taboo.