84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



diminished resistance of the will and the consequent overaction 

 of the lower centers, permitted to become fixed or to express itself in 

 a grossly exaggerated manner. 



That voluntary power is invariably impaired in insanity is not 

 perhaps evident to those who have not looked closely into the 

 matter. Is it not true, it may be asked, that some insane persons 

 exhibit extraordinary fixity of purpose and persist in some course 

 of conduct as, for example, the refusal of food with dogged ob- 

 stinacy ? That is so, but insane obstinacy is no more an indication 

 of voluntary power than is the late rigidity of a paralyzed arm. 

 That state of late rigidity in which the arm could not be stretched 

 without being broken betokens that certain lower centers have 

 been cut off from intercourse with higher ones and are undergoing 

 degeneration ; and so the unreasonable obstinacy of lunatics in 

 insane conduct merely indicates that certain mental functions 

 have escaped the regulation of volition, which is enfeebled, and 

 are acting in an irregular and self-willed manner in consequence. 



No doubt in all cases of insanity a certain amount of volitional 

 power is retained, and this may in certain cases be effectual to some 

 extent over the morbid mental manifestations. There may be con- 

 tributory negligence on the part of a lunatic, just as there may be 

 on the part of an invalid. Prof. Ruble, of Bonn, recommends the 

 birch-rod and shower-baths in certain cases of chronic vomiting, 

 and asserts that children often die of a bad bringing up, and 

 adults because they can not, when ill, make up their minds to do 

 what is right and omit what is hurtful ; and Niemeyer quotes 

 with approval the dictum of the wife of a Prussian general, a 

 most determined woman but a tender mother, that whooping- 

 cough is only curable by the rod. But no one in this country 

 would now sanction such heroic treatment, or believe that any- 

 thing but evil could come from such stringent appeals to a mere 

 remnant of will in its corporeal relations ; and so it would be dan- 

 gerous in cases of insanity, in which will is obviously and seriously 

 involved in its mental relations, to infer that what survives of it 

 might, if put forth, have prevented a criminal act. In insanity, 

 in which the mental movements are typically involuntary, but 

 yet susceptible of some control, we must not expect of the patient 

 what is beyond his strength the habitual suppression of his 

 morbid impulses. The criminal act of a lunatic is sometimes so 

 alien to his healthy disposition, or so clearly motiveless, that we 

 have no hesitation in concluding that his true will must have 

 been in abeyance when he fell into it. At other times it follows 

 upon mental struggles which he has himself described, and asked 

 help in, previous to its commission, and is therefore clearly but 

 the climax of a pathological process signifying the overthrow of 

 the will. And at other times, again, it is associated with mental 



