834 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to commit tlie crime springs from a slow and reflective process 

 ■whicli increases from the weak or static (obsession) state until it 

 becomes an irresistible impulse and takes a violent and dynamic 

 form, finding vent in the criminal act, is very frequent under the 

 influence of the delusion of persecution, in chronic alcoholics, in 

 hysterical subjects, etc., and is also seen in other non- violent forms 

 of mental alienation. Sometimes the madman has a perfect cog- 

 nizance of his own madness, so that he will often warn others as 

 to the crime he intends to commit and knows the punishment due 

 to it, and yet nevertheless this will not deter him unless fortuitous 

 external causes intervene. In fact, it often happens that madmen 

 affected by homicidal obsession, incapable of restraining them- 

 selves, afraid of themselves, in order not to yield to the homicidal 

 impulse, take the precaution of wounding or mutilating them- 

 selves, in order thus to divert their ungovernable impulse, and 

 render it impossible to execute their purpose. A case in point is 

 that of a man who, unable to dominate the violent force impelling 

 him to murder his wife and children, consigned himself to the 

 police and had himself shut up in an asylum. 



The second type, in which the determination to homicide pro- 

 ceeds from a spontaneous impulse (the transitory mania of the 

 old school of psychiatry), from a species of impulsive vertigo, 

 without a real impulse or motive, is found generally in epileptic 

 subjects. This tyrannous impulse toward crime is also due very 

 frequently to hallucination and illusion, often ignored by those 

 who have to do with madmen. Homicide from hallucination pre- 

 sents three subtypes : first, that in which the madman acts under 

 the terror of a fearful hallucination (epileptics, alcoholics, etc.) ; 

 secondly, in consequence of delirium from delirious homicidal 

 premises (persecution mania) ; thirdly, in obedience to the im- 

 perious commands of an inward voice. Nevertheless, this does 

 not exclude the criminal motive (vendetta, jealousy, etc.) which 

 sometimes determines the insane to commit homicide (especially 

 the epileptics), motives which they readily, however, confess. 



To complete the psycho-pathological characteristics as to the 

 deliberate moment of homicide in the insane, Ferri treats of homi- 

 cide as an end in itself or as a means toward a legitimate end, 

 observing that if in mad homicides murder is an end in itself 

 (killing to kill, impulse without motive) or as a means to an end, 

 more often social and juridic (defense from imaginary perils, 

 withdrawal of their victim from misery, etc.), in common mad- 

 men it is always a means to reach an antisocial end. This re- 

 mark is all the more important because, besides refuting the 

 ancient affirmation whicli is still repeated, that delinquents have 

 always a motive for their deed, while madmen have none, it 

 also refutes the other no less erroneous affirmation of Esquirol 



