Excerpt from A Treatise on Mental Unsoundness: Embracing a General View of Psychological Law
But this was not the only circumstance that tended to an expan sion of the definition. Another influence, still more marked, had already prepared the public mind to treat as insanity much that was really only folly or guilty impulse. Between 1760 and 1764, Rousseau published his Contmt Social and Emile, works which, in the sentimental humanitarianism they inculcated, were the natural extreme reaction from the inhumanity of the prior absolutist regime. Rousseau flamed with a romantic admiration not merely for the liberty to do right, but for the liberty to do wrong. Even the grossest natural instincts were of divine origin, and should be nursed with delicate respect. Crime was something to which a man was impelled by his nature; else why should he indulge in crime? Heretofore all insanity was crime. Now all crime was to be in sanity. Sin was not to be viewed as horrible and odious, but as something abnormal, indeed, but provocative of curious regard and sympathy. And criminals were an interesting class of lunatics, who were especially consecrated to the restorative care of the state.
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