heartily: and wrote a prescription on a leaf of
his memorandum-book, remarking that, though a
simple purgative, it had made short work of a
great many serpents and dragons, and not a few
spectres and hobgoblins into the bargain.

The young gentleman thanked him graciously,
and said kindly to Maxley, "get that made up—
here's a guinea—and I'll send somebody to see
how you are to-morrow."

The poor man took the guinea, and the
prescription, and his head drooped again, and he
slouched away.

Dr. Wycherley remarked significantly that his
conduct was worth imitating by all persons
similarly situated: and concluded oracularly:
"Prophylaxis is preferable to therapeusis."

"Or, as Porson would say, 'Prevention is
better than cure.'"

With this parting blow the Oxonian suddenly
sauntered away, unconscious, it seemed, of the
existence of his companions.

"I never saw a plainer case of Incubation,"
remarked Dr. Wycherley, with vast benevolence
of manner.

"Maxley's?"

"Oh no; that is parochial. It is your
profoundly interesting son I alluded to. Did you
notice his supercilious departure? And his
morbid celerity of repartee?"

Mr. Hardie replied with some little hesitation,
"Yes; and, excuse me, I thought he had rather
the best of the battle with you."

"Indubitably so," replied Dr. Wycherley:
"they always do: at least such is my experience.
If ever I break a lance of wit with an incubator,
I calculate with confidence on being unhorsed
with abnormal rapidity: and rare, indeed, are
the instances in which my anticipations are not
promptly and fully realised: by a similar rule of
progression the incubator is seldom a match for
the confirmed maniac, either in the light play of
sarcasm, the coruscations of wit, or the severer
encounters of dialectical ratiocination."

"Dear, dear, dear! Then how is one to know
a genius from a madman?" inquired Jane.

"By sending for a psychological physician."

"If I understand the doctor right, the two
things are not opposed" remarked Mr. Hardie.

Dr. Wycherley assented, and made a remarkable
statement in confirmation: "One half of
the aggregate of the genius of the country is
at present under restraint; fortunately for the
community; and still more fortunately for
itself."

He then put on his gloves, and, with much
kindness but solemnity, warned Mr. Hardie not
to neglect his son's case, nor to suppose that
matters could go on like this without
"disintegrating or disorganising the grey matter of the
brain. I admit," said he, "that in some recorded
cases of insanity the brain on dissection has
revealed no signs of structural or functional
derangement, and that, on the other hand,
considerable encephalic disorganisation has been
shown to have existed in other cases without
aberration or impairment of the reason: but
such phenomena are to be considered as
pathological curiosities, with which the empiric would
fain endeavour to disturb the sound general
conclusions of science. The only safe mode of
reasoning on matters so delicate and profound is
à priori: and, as it may safely be assumed as a
self-evident proposition, that disturbed intelligence
bears the same relation to the brain
disordered respiration does to the lungs, it is not
logical, reasoning à priori, to assume the
possibility that the studious or other mental habits of
a Kephalalgic, and gifted, youth, can be reversed,
and erotic monomania germinate, with all the
morbid phenomena of isolation, dejection of the
spirits, and abnormal exaltation of the powers
of wit and ratiocination, without some considerable
impairment, derangement, disturbance, or
modification, of the psychical, motorial, and
sensorial functions of the great cerebral ganglion.
But it would be equally absurd to presuppose
that these several functions can be disarranged
for months, without more or less disorganisation
of the medullary, or even of the cineritious,
matter of the encephalon. Therefore—dissection
of your talented son would doubtless reveal at
this moment either steatomatous or atheromatous
deposits in the cerebral blood-vessels, or an
encysted abscess, probably of no very recent
origin, or, at the least, considerable inspissation,
and opacity, of the membranes of the encephalon,
or more or less pulpy disorganisation of one or
other of the hemispheres of the brain: good
morning!!"

"Good morning, sir: and a thousand thanks
for your friendly interest in my unhappy boy."

The Psycho-cerebrals "took their departure"
(Psycho-cerebral for "departed"), and left Jane
Hardie brimful of anxiety. Alfred was not there
to dispose of the tirade in two words, "Petitio
principii," and so smoke on: and, not being an
university woman, she could not keep her eye on
the original assumption while following the
series of inferences the learned doctor built so
neatly, story by story, on the foundation of the
quicksand of a loose conjecture.*
* So novices sitting at a conjuror see him take a
wedding-ring, and put it in a little box before a
lady; then cross the theatre with another little box,
and put that before another lady: "Hey presto!
pass!" in box 2 is discovered a wedding-ring, which
is instantly assumed to be the ring: on this their
green minds are fixed, and with this is sham
business done: Box 1, containing the real ring all the
time, is overlooked; and the confederate, in livery
or not, does what he likes with it: imprisons it in
an orange—for the good of its health.
So poor Argan, when Fleurant enumerates the
consequences of his omitting a single—dose shall I
say?—is terrified by the threatened disorders, which
succeed to each other logically enough, all the
absurdity being in the first link of the chain; and
from that his mind is diverted.

"Now not a word of this to Alfred," said Mr.
Hardie. "I shall propose to him a little foreign
tour, to amuse his mind."