62 OBSERVATIONS ON INSANITY 



his actions are inordinate and inj urious, is the degree of his insanity. 

 Mr. Browne remarks, concerning definitions, that however interest- 

 ing and edifying these investigations may be to mere philosophers, 

 the philosophical practitioner ought to make the inquiry invariably 

 bear reference to the question, whether isolation would be for the 

 benefit of the patient. He continues — 



" The criteria, however, in forming a judgment are supposed to 

 be various and adequate. Is a man able to manage his own affairs, 

 is he violent, virulent, extravagant, or troublesome? These are 

 the questions addressed to medical witnesses : it is rarely demanded, 

 whether confinement will conduce to the restoration of health. 

 That incompetency for business, or irritability, does occasionally 

 require the interference of the law, may be true. Property and the 

 public peace of society must be protected : and, where either the 

 one or the other is threatened or disturbed, no difficulty can be ex- 

 perienced as to the propriety of coercing the violator. Insanity is 

 evidently the cause of such outrages, and insanity of a kind that 

 cannot be efficiently treated without isolation. But, even in such 

 cases, the offender sometimes proves to be a delinquent — a criminal 

 rather than a lunatic, and an asylum becomes more of a penitentiary 

 than an hospital. This is a minor evil : a much greater results 

 from the universal application of such tests leaving lunatics at 

 liberty, and incarcerating sane, or comparatively sane individuals. 

 Thus, for example, the cunning vindictive maniac may be perfectly 

 competent to conduct mercantile, or even more complicated affairs, 

 with ability ; he may even prosper in his enterprizes ; and yet his 

 treatment of those dependent upon him, of all those who have of- 

 fended him, of all whom he suspects, may be marked with the ma- 

 liciousness of the demon, and the indiscriminate ferocity of the 

 maniac. If subjected to such tests, he may never be suspected, 

 until some out-burst of fury, when he is deserted by his usual cau- 

 tion, consigns those around him to death or misery. This man 

 ought to be confined ; but he escapes until the evil is done. Again, 

 the man who, from natural inaptitude to details of business, is inca- 

 pable of conducting hit affairs advantageously, may be in all other 

 respects rational and praise-worthy : he may be a good mechani- 

 cian, an artist, a man of strong affections and irreproachable man- 

 ners. This man ought to be free ; but, being subjected to the 

 same tests, he is confined, until his whole mind is as much enfeebled 

 as were his powers for business. All chances ought certainly to be 

 in favour of the lunatic; for a greater injury is done by the sacri- 

 fice of one sane individual, than by the freedom of many lunatics. 



