CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. 899 
“ INTOXICATION. 
“30. The provisions of the last preceding section apply to the 
ease of a person whose mind is disordered by unintentional intoxi- 
cation or stupefaction caused by drugs or intoxicating liquor or 
any other cause. 
“They do not apply to the case of a person who has intention- 
ally caused himself to become intoxicated or stupefied in order to 
the commission of an offence, whether the offence with which he 
is charged or not, or in order to afford excuse for the commission 
of an offence. 
“When an intention to cause a specific result is an element of 
an offence, intoxication, whether complete or partial, and whether 
intentional or unintentional, may be regarded for the purpose of 
ascertaining whether such an intention in fact existed.” 
There is, perhaps, no branch of the criminal law which has 
given rise to more discussion and difference of opinion than the 
relation of mental infirmity to criminal responsibility. The rule 
of the Common Law is generally thus stated : ‘‘ Every man is pre- 
sumed to be sane until the contrary is proved: To establish a 
defence on the ground 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, from 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.” 
These are the terms in which the rule is expressed in the 
answers given by the Judges to the House of Lords in McNagh- 
ten’s case (10 Cl. and F. 200). In that case, however, the real 
question was as to the proper rule for judging of the criminal 
responsibility of a man labouring under specific delusions, but 
otherwise of sound mind, and the learned Judges prefaced their 
answers by pointing out that they assumed that the questions put 
to them by the House of Lords were confined to such persons. 
The language of the learned Judges has been much criticised. 
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn said: “ What is*meant by the nature 
and quality of the act I really do not know. Does it simply 
mean that the person committing the act knew what he was 
doing, or that he knew that the act was legally wrong or was 
morally wrong? What is meant by the alternative ‘or that the 
act was wrong? Is this phrase meant to be synonymous with 
the ‘quality’ of the act as just before mentioned? If not, what 
is the difference between the two forms of expression ?’—(Letter 
to Attorney-General, 12th June, 1879, p 15.) In practice every 
Judge amplifies the rule by telling the jury what in his opinion is 
meant by the ‘nature and quality’ of the act. 
