THE JURISPRUDENCE OP INSANITY. 47 



To obtain the result of a perfectly legal and otherwise irreproach- 

 able lunatic or person of unsound mind, the assistance of two sciences 

 is requisite ; so law and medicine combine for that purpose, then 

 after each particular sentence is pronounced relapse into their accus- 

 tomed and time honoured antagonism. The offspring is begotten of 

 this wi-angling parentage, though the peace of the family be endan- 

 gered thereat and thereafter. 



It is natural and proper that each scientific person considering any 

 subject in his particular line, as it is said, should view it with refer- 

 ence to his own special training and profession. The metaphysician 

 and the physiologist meet on the one ground and each claims it as 

 his own, one surveying it from a mental the other from a material 

 point of view. In the same way a medical man and a lawyer 

 brought face to face with a madman in the dock or in the witness- 

 box come to regard his capacity or responsibility as subjects for 

 detection in their own particular way. Theoretically medical skill 

 must pronounce as upon any disease looking out for symptoms and 

 making a diagnosis. Practically it keeps its eyes and ears open and 

 observes what are less ordinarily the indicia of disease — of the 

 absence of health. Legal skill, on the other hand, is thrown entirely, 

 or almost entirely, on observations upon the conduct of the person in 

 question, on astuteness under examination, propriety of an action 

 under certain conditions, and on the thousand and one circumstances 

 that separate common from extraordinary conduct. The judges and 

 the Courts say — the law in fact lays it down — that what justice or 

 equity demands is, not whether the particular individual is diseased 

 mentally, but whether his conduct is the result of a sound mental 

 guidance. If it is, then he is to be treated as other persons, and the 

 law cares no moi'e for the disease than the jury cares for the name 

 of it. This disregard of medical science and of complicated classifi- 

 cation is not relished by doctors, but they console themselves by the 

 refiection that they instructed the Court, and possibly confounded all 

 others by the intensely scientific character of their answers. 



The law then is primarily concerned with the condition of the 

 mind, the disease is of secondary importance. Medical skill aims to 

 detect the disease, and if possible to remedy it ; for this the law 

 cai'es nothing ordinarily, its object is to discover capacity and res- 

 ponsibility. On this subject, as on all others within the province of 



