LAW AND INSANITY. 83 



fjing phrase, 'and is not in other respects insane.' That is, if insanity pro- 

 duces the false belief, which is the prime cause of the act, but goes no further, 

 then the accused is to be judged according to the character of motives which 

 are presumed to spring up out of that part of the mind which has not been 

 reached or affected by the delusion or the disease. This is very refined. It 

 may le that mental disease sometimes takes a shape to meet the provisions of 

 this ingenious formula ; or, if no such case has ever yet existed, it is doubtless 

 within the scope of Omnipotent power hereafter to strike with disease some 

 human mind in such peculiar manner that the conditions will be fulfilled; and, 

 when that is done, when it is certainly known that such a case has arisen, the 

 rule may be applied without punishing a man for disease. That is, when we 

 can certainly know that although the false belief on which the prisoner acted 

 was the product of mental disease, still that the mind was in no other way im- 

 paired or affected, and that the motive to the act did certainly take its rise in 

 some portion of the mind that was yet in perfect health, the rule may be ap- 

 plied without any apparent wrong. But it is a rule which can safely be applied 

 in practice that we are seeking ; and to say that an act which grows wholly out 

 of an insane belief that some great wrong has been inflicted, is at the same 

 time produced by a spirit of revenge springing from some portion or corner of 

 the mind that has not been reached by the disease, is laying dow;n a pathologi- 

 cal and psychological fact which no human intelligence can ever know to be 

 true, and which, if it were true, would not be law^ but pure matter of fact. No 

 such distinction ever can or ever will be drawn into practice ; and the absurd- 

 ity as well as the inhumanity of the rule seems to me suflSciently apparent with- 

 out further comment. ... It is a question of fact whether any universal test 

 exists, and it is also a question of fact what that test is, if any there be.'" 



Since the answers of the judges were made to the House of Lords, 

 the law as relating to insanity in a criminal trial has been laid down 

 in conformity with their conclusions : if the accused person at the time 

 of committing the offense knew right from wrong, and that he was 

 doing wrong, he must be brought in guilty, whether insane or not. 

 If insane, he is not necessarily exempted from the punishment of his 

 crime; the question is, whether he was at the time capable of com- 

 mitting a crime ; and that must be determined by evidence of the ab- 

 sence, not of insanity, but of a knowledge of right and wrong. Was 

 his insanity of such a kind as to render him irresponsible by destroy- 

 ing his knowledge of right and wrong ? Nevertheless, juries often, and 

 judges occasionally, out of a natural humanity repudiate this dogma in 

 particular cases, and, so far from any certainty of result having been 

 secured by its application, it is notorious that the acquittal or con- 

 viction of a prisoner, when insanity is alleged, is a matter of chance. 

 Were the issue to be decided by tossing up a shilling, instead of by 

 the grave procedure of a trial in court, it could hardly be more uncer- 

 tain. The less insane person sometimes escapes, while the more insane 

 person is sometimes hanged ; one man laboring under a particular form 

 of derangement is acquitted at one trial, while another having an ex- 

 actly similar form of derangement is convicted at another trial. No 



1 State V. Jones, p. 388. 



