INSANITY AND CRIME. 577 



caused by disease, and of such a nature that a strong motive, 

 as for instance the fear of his own immediate death, would 

 have prevented the act. A's act is a crime whether (c) is 

 or is not law. 



" (6.) A permits his mind to dwell upon and desire B's 

 death ; undei' the influence of mental disease this desire 

 becomes uncontrollable, and A kills B. A's act is a crime 

 whether (c) is or is not law. 



"(7.) A a patient in a lunatic asylum, who is under a 

 delusion that his linger is made of glass, poisons one of the 

 attendants out of revenge for his treatment, and it is shown 

 that the delusion had no connection with the act. A's act is 

 a crime." 



You will perceive that the learned author from whom I 

 have quoted leaves it in doubt whether the want of the power 

 of self control, such want being caused by defective mental 

 power or by disease of tlie mind, does or does not absolve 

 the person committing an act from responsibility to the 

 Criminal Law, and, in his History of the Ciitninal Law 

 (vol. ii, p. 150), he says that although some of the terms in 

 which the law is expressed are well settled, their meaning 

 and the manner in which they ought to be applied to certain 

 combinations of facts are not settled at all. This uncertain 

 state of the law, in which even a jurist of the highest 

 eminence and a judge (until recently) of the High Court of 

 Justice, England, is unable to define with completeness and 

 precision the law upon the subject which we are now con- 

 sidering, is not creditable to English jurisprudence. It arises 

 from the fact that, except where the legislature interposes 

 with an authoritative amendment or declaration, the law has 

 to be settled from time to time by the judges who hear par- 

 ticular cases, and who give their judgment (a) according to 

 statute or precedent, or both combined, and {b) where these 

 are wanting or fall short, according to their own ideas of 

 " right and justice and the natural reason of the thing." The 

 consequence is that, though the law is thus endowed with 

 an admirable elasticity and ])ower of shaping itself to the 

 changing conditions of society, it is left, uncertain in all 

 cases not provided for by statute or covered by authority. 



This question of ci-iminal responsibility where the power 

 of self control is absent, is one upon which medical men feel 

 strongly. Dr. Maudsley says (Preface to Responsibility in 

 Mental Disease, p. vii.") — " It is a matter of common obser- 



