Insanity and Crime. 133 



exice of insane delusion, of redressing or avenging some sup- 

 posed grievance, or injury, or of producing some public benefit, 

 he is nevertheless punishable, according to the nature of the 

 crime committed, if he knew at the time of committing such 

 crime he was acting contrary to law ! " * 



Thus the English law decides the question of responsibility 

 upon singularly unscientific grounds. Its test is totally fallacious, 

 and it errs moreover, by a false assumption, upon which Dr. 

 Bueknill thus comments : — ■" It is the system of the English 

 law to allow no degrees of responsibility. A criminal is either 

 responsible or he is irresponsible : there are but two classes, 

 in one of which room must be made for every one who commits 

 an offence. In nature we find no such sharply defined classifi- 

 cation, "f So far indeed from absolute irresponsibility being 

 a result of insanity, it is scarcely, if ever, the case ; and Lang- 

 erman, cited by Dr. Bueknill, observes, "that even in the 

 highest degree of insanity there still remains a trace of moral 

 discrimination, with which we may connect the train of the 

 patient's ideas." 



In modern lunatic asylums a prominent part of the remedial 

 treatment consists in making the patients feel that they ought, 

 and can, comply with the wholesome regulations arranged for 

 their benefit. The directors of such establishments lessen 

 their inducements to act foolishly by removing incentives 

 thereto, and they strengthen their resisting power by calling 

 appropriate faculties into play. Long ago Haslam cited with 

 approbation the following passage from Dr. Cox, who said : — 

 " The maniacal patient, however torpid, must be roused ; or, on 

 the contrary, when an opposite state obtains, extreme sensibility 

 and impatience of powerful impressions, there may be much 

 expected from placing the patient in an airy room, surrounded 

 with flowers breathing odours, the walls and furniture coloured 

 green, and the air agitated by the softest harmony."! The use 

 of such attendant circumstances was to bring the patient's 

 organism to a more balanced state. Without the rousing or 

 the soothing influences, the disease controlled him; under them, 

 a condition of approximate self-guidance and responsibility was 

 attained. The experience of the Idiot Asylum at Earlswood 

 has demonstrated that even those deeply afflicted and imper- 

 fectly organized beings who are consigned to its care, may be 

 made partially responsible, because, under certain conditions, 

 they became invested with a certain portion of self-control. 



We have said that in criminal cases, before the plea of 



* We have cited these cases from Roscoe's Digest, edited by Granger, 

 t Unsoundness of Mind in Relation to Criminal Acts, by John Charles Bueknill, 

 M.D., London. Highley, 1854 P. 115. 



J Haslam on Madness. Second edition, p. 341. 



