54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



On the criminal side the law is not easily stated, nor is it so satis- 

 factory. The foundation of irresponsibility is the inability to distin- 

 guish right from wrong; but if a man has this power of distinguishing, 

 and is yet impelled by mental disease to raise his hand and slay some 

 one, he may not be punished. An act is not a crime, unless the 

 person committing it knows not only that it is wrong, but knows the 

 nature and quality of act, and is free to do it or leave it alone. 

 These elements combine a number of things about which people are 

 not always agreed ; people who are perfectly sane, and who can give 

 a good account of their belief. What is highly reprehensible to one, 

 may be less so to another, or to a third more so ; and so in an 

 ascending or descending scale from the average mind. Yet this part 

 of the verdict is the least difficult, because the results are as evident 

 as if the element of insanity did not exist. A. man killed or injured 

 by a lunatic is as palpable a i-esult as if killed by a sane man. But 

 to discern whether or not the accused was impelled irresistibly to 

 kill him, or if the doing of it was believed by the accused to be a 

 wrong forbidden by law, are things generally much more difficult to 

 determine. 



If a man has an insane delusion that by shooting his neighbour he 

 will benefit the whole community, he may work himself up to the 

 degree of committing the deed. He knows that death will ensue ; 

 he expects it, his delusion would not be satisfied without it; he 

 knows too that it is forbidden by law, but he is impelled by his 

 delusion to go on consistently in his insane project. For such an 

 act, under the law as it stands, this man would hang, unless he was 

 insane in other respects. But this rule of the judges, and a hard 

 rule it is, really applies only to one class of the insane — to mono- 

 maniacs. To one man who wants to steal everything, and to another 

 who desires to set fire to his neighbours houses, or to kill people, the 

 plea of insanity is unavailing until the mind is shown to be gone in 

 other respects. 



The fourth answer given by the English judges to the House of 

 Lords raises a cognate question to this. If a man labouring under 

 an insane delusion believes that his neighbour is attempting to take 

 his life, and if he kills him in self defence he is free, though his 

 neighbour may have only the kindest feelings towards him. But if 

 ha killed him because he fancied his neighbour did him a wrong, ho 



