654 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



trol should be exercised according to the capacity for it in each case. Beyond 

 that point, he says, is endless confusion if we hold men irresponsible. Men are 

 responsible if they possess "mental capacity for ordinary reason, reflection and 

 judgment, the knowledge of right and wrong as applied to the particular act, the 

 power of self control within reasonable limits, the absence of insane delusions 

 overpowering reason." With the exception of Dr. Beard's views, the general 

 drift of the discussion tends toward holding Guiteau responsible. — GlobC'Dem. 



STATE ASSASSINS AND THE DEFENSE OF INSANITY. 



BY JAMES W. CLARKE. 



The tragedy of the 2nd of July, last, suddenly revived public interest in an 

 old topic, — the defense of insanity in capital cases. It is a well-worn theme, 

 much discussed, and always with an unsatisfactory result What is moral insan- 

 ity? What is legal insanity ? Conclusive answers to both these questions have 

 often been attempted, but never given with such definiteness and decisiveness as 

 to shut off debate. Every day the controversy is resumed in our courts, and ap- 

 parently will go on to the end of time. It is settled one day, and the day after 

 we find it is not settled at all. " What," said the late Dr. Forbes Winslow, "is 

 my test of insanity? I have none. I know of no unerring, infallible, and safe 

 rule or standard applicable to all cases." So, too, the British judges, whose 

 effort to define the undefinable we shall presently examine at length, after all 

 their elaboration of statement touching what does and what does not constitute 

 legal insanity, finally confessed that "the facts of each particular case must of 

 necessity present themselves with endless diversity, and with every shade of dif- 

 ference in each case." But if it be difficult to define what is legal insani 

 which is a mere matter of human law, how much more difficult is it to determii. 

 and define what is moral insanity? Dr. Sam Johnson declares that "all power 

 of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity," and Montaigne asserts that between 

 genius and madness there is but "a half turn of the toe." M. Taine concurs in 

 this dictum, and philosophically avers that "insanity is not a distinct and sepa- 

 rate empire ; our ordinary life borders upon it, and we cross the frontier in some 

 part of our nature." 



It has been the periodic mission of the assassin to revive this moot question. 

 One day the world stands and shudders with an unanimous horror, and the next 

 divides upon the old issue, — Was he insane? It is oppressively monotonous, in 

 looking back over these historical tragedies, to find how invariably the modern 

 imitator of Brutus comes down to the foot-lights with a pistol in one hand and a 

 plea of insanity in the other. In American history, so far, we have had only two 

 creatures corresponding to what, in the vocabulary of Europe, would be called 

 regicides. In the first case there was no opportunity offered to the assassin to 

 plead insanity. A vast amount of legal lore and medical metaphysics was fore- 



