Note 2 — Chapter VI

Dr. Selden Talcott, of the State Asylum, Middleton, New York; according to whom early rising is the most prolific cause of madness. "A peremptory command to get up, when one's sleep is as yet unfinished, is a command which grinds the soul, curdles the blood, swells the spleen, destroys all good intentions, and disturbs all day the mental activities, just as the tornado disturbs and levels with advancing ruin the forest of mighty pines.... The free and lazy savage gets up when he feels ready, and rarely or never becomes insane." Dr. Talcott quotes the percentage of lunacy among country people as compared with professional men. The latter, almost without exception, get up comparatively late, whereas our manual labourers all leave their beds long before they should. "The early morning hours, when everything is still, are peculiarly fitted for sleep; and it is a gross violation of Nature's laws to tear human brains out of the sound rest they enjoy at this time." A weighty utterance, no doubt: still, it is but fair to point out that among monks, who perhaps, as a class, get up earlier than any men living, the number of those whose good intentions are destroyed and mental activities disturbed, and who finally become lunatics, is really not alarmingly large.