292 



The Plea of Insanity. 



understand its mysteries, is but little less than a madman himself. 

 Whether the subject be sanity or insanity, it will be found firmly and 

 securely intrenched behind ramparts, and surrounded by insurmount- 

 able difficulties — a terra incoffjiita" 



The difficulties are augmented by the great variety of forms and 

 hues which mental alienation assumes. From the raving maniac, ex- 

 hibiting the fury of a demon and the strength of a giant, there are all 

 degrees and shades, down to the imbecile, or the morbid misanthrope 

 seen in the picture of Byron, as drawn by himself in his Manfred. 



The perplexities of metaphysical study are also enhanced by inhar- 

 monious theories on the subject of mental unsoundness. 



The leading schools arc the psychic and the soinatic. The former 

 is based on the assumption that the primitive source of insanity is in 

 the soul itself, and that the soul is what originally suffers, imparting, 

 when there is sympathetic insanity, its malady to the brain. 



The latter, the somatic theory, assumes that the soul itself, as such, 

 is incapable of originating a disease; that the occasion of every 

 affection of the mind is to be found in some abnormal bodily develop- 

 ment; and that aberrations of the mind are nothing more than dis- 

 turbances of some functions of the soul produced by bodily abnormi- 

 ties. 



There is a third, or intermediate theory, which attributes to the body 

 and the soul alike originative influence in the growth of mental dis- 

 turbances. This theory has able advocates, and may be the golden 

 mean of truth between the two extremes. There are phenomena diffi- 

 cult, if not insusceptible, of explanation upon either of the extreme 

 theories alone; and the intermediate theory, which recognizes the 

 reciprocal influence of body and soul in mental alienation, seems to re- 

 solve some difficulties not otherwise explainable. While these conflict- 

 ing theories complicate medico-legal investigations to a considerable 

 extent, they are not so embarrassing as might at first view be supposed. 

 And this for the reason, that whatever theory be adopted respecting 

 cause, medical experts have to deal mainly with effects. 



The disciples of the psychic and the somatic school alike deal with 

 phenomena,, which in particular cases arc tlie same, whether the pro- 

 ducing cause originated in the body or in the soul. While it is easy 

 for medical experts to differ when interest or feeling excites antagon- 

 ism, on the other hand, it is comparatively easy for them to agree 

 Avhen they speak to the phenomenal rather than the causal character 

 of the case before them. 



In all matters of science and philosophy, and especially on meta- 

 physical and psychological subjects there always has been, and prob- 



