56 FORMS OF MENTAL DEFECT AND DERANGEMENT. 



morbid impulse ; they steal in spite of, and undeterred by, 

 any kind of punishment. The only difficulty in regarding 

 these apparently motiveless eccentricities of theffcuous ab- 

 straction and concealment as forms of insanity in other 

 words, as equivalent to man's kleptomania is, that the pro- 

 pensity seems to be a moral characteristic of certain species 

 or even genera, while, as in the case of the Tasmanian devil 

 and other animals, which, as species, are said to possess 

 peculiarities of temper, it is contrary to all analogy to regard 

 such normal and specific characteristics as belonging to the 

 category of insanity. 



Where, however, any such morbid propensity is developed 

 in an animal whose natural character formerly led it to act 

 in an opposite way where an animal that was formerly 

 honest cannot resist the propensity to steal trash, articles 

 utterly useless to it, and where the only result to it can be 

 severe punishment there can be no difficulty in setting this 

 kind of theft down to the credit of kleptomania, as it occurs 

 in man. Just as in man, however, in cases of persistent 

 theft of an incorrigible kind, close observation and much 

 reflection may be required to determine whether or not it is 

 uncontrollable and purposeless in other words, the result of 

 disease and in itself morbid. 



The subject of theft, morbid and natural, is treated at 

 greater length in the chapter on ' Crime and Criminality.' 



That dipsomania a morbid craving for alcoholic or other 

 stimulants, or something akin thereto occurs among the 

 lower animals, is shown in the chapter on ' Alcoholic Intoxi- 

 cation.' 



Erotomania, kleptomania, and dipsomania in man, are 

 classed as forms of what is termed moral insanity. But there 

 are among the lower animals certain other forms of moral 

 defect, perversion, depravity, or insanity loss of moral self- 

 control or equilibrium which have their exact counterparts 

 in the human subject. Thus there are many individuals 

 among such animals as the dog and horse that are incorrigibly 

 vicious, or that have most uncertain or most peculiar tem- 

 pers, or that show no natural affection, or that display morbid 

 antipathies to their nearest relatives, or to those kindest to 



