THE JURISPRUDENCE OF INSANITY. 55 



would hang for it, because revenge and not self defence would be at 

 the foundation of his act. 



The only other point in which the judges make answer was that 

 already referred to. In their view of the law to establish a defence 

 of insanity it must be clearly proved that at the time of committing 

 the act the accused was labouring under such a defect of reason fi'om 

 disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act 

 he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know he was 

 doing what was wrong. 



It would be impossible towards tlie end of this paper to refer to 

 the criticism that has been bestowed by medical writers on these 

 extra-judicial opinions of the judges of England. To hang or im- 

 prison as a felon an insane man seems a shocking proceeding. Not 

 that insane peo])le are to be let at lai'ge, or that sane people are not 

 to be protected. A man nurses delusion until it masters him, is 

 controls his acts, it forces him to do extraordinary things. The 

 kings and queens in our asylums would consistently pvit to death the 

 subjects unreasonable enough not to pay court to them, and outside 

 the asylum they would possibly hang for such an act. If the mind 

 has its separate compartments for an individual craze leaving the 

 others as in sane people, there may be reason for the law, but it is 

 hard to suppose a case where there is deeply seated delusion so 

 clearly cut from all other notions as not to influence them in some 

 degree. I think that Mr. Stephen, following the idea in Lord 

 Brougham's totality of the mind, was well justified in recommending 

 a verdict of guilty, but his power of control was weakened by 

 insanity. To punish for the same offence an insane man in the same 

 way as you punish a man in his full senses appears an unequal dis- 

 pensing of justice, and so far as the ends of punishment are concei-ned 

 must fail to a great degree in the case of the insane man. 



Dr. Cassidy referred to the difference between the legal 

 and medical views of insanity. The lawyer naturally directed 

 his attention to the conduct of the individual, and endeavoured 

 to form an estimate of it. The physician, who studied the 

 nature of the disease, its origin, symptoms and character, 

 would be better qualified than the ordinary observer to pro- 

 nounce on the insanity of an individual. In many cases 

 where there was a degree of unsoundness of mind, it was 



