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be allowed to exercise many of his privileges as a subject, and it is only reasonable to argue that he should be held responsible for many of his acts. A man who believes that he sees a decollated head is not thereby incapacitated from selling an estate, and if that man puts his hand into a neighbor's pocket and takes his handkerchief, there seems to be no reason why he should not suffer the penalty for larceny. Again, suppose a man to imagine that his own father was compassing his death, and if he believed that the only way to preserve his life was by knocking down his father, there is every reason why he should not be punished for assault; the prominent argument being that had any sane men been placed in the real position in which the monomaniac believed himself placed, he would have done exactly what the insane man did. Now the law would not have held the sane man guilty of assault, and as the maniac's beliefs are as real to him as the perceptions of the sane man are to him, it would be very unjust to punish him. That the connection between the insane delusion and the quasi-criminal act is almost invariably close and easily distinguished, makes the carrying out of this view, which has been urged as the correct one by Foderè and Hoffbauer, exceedingly easy.

136. Objections to this Rule considered.—Many medical jurists have, however, argued that it is not by any means easy to trace the connection between any idea and any act in a sane mind, and that the difficulty is infinitely increased when the mind is diseased. Georget has said: "In conversing with patients on topics foreign to their morbid delusions, you will generally find no difference between them and other people. They not only deal in common-place notions, but are capable of appreciating new facts and trains of reasoning. Still 180 more, they retain their sense of good and evil, right and wrong, and of social usages to such a degree, that whenever they forget their moral sufferings and delusions they conduct themselves in their meetings as they otherwise would have done, inquiring with interest for one another's health, and maintaining the ordinary observance of society. They have special reasons even for regarding themselves with a degree of complacency; for the most part, they believe that

they are victims of arbitrary measures, fraudulent contrivances, and projects of vengeance or cupidity, and thus they sympathize with one another in their common misfortunes. Accordingly, the inmates of lunatic asylums are rarely known to commit those reprehensible acts which are regarded as crimes when dictated by sound mind, though the most of them enjoy considerable freedom. They often talk very sensibly of their interests, and some even manage their property perfectly well.

"Those patients who are insane on one point only, more or less limited, may have experienced some severe moral disorders which influence the conduct and actions of the individual without materially impairing his judgment. Those who conduct themselves so well in the asylum in the midst of strangers with whom they have no relations, and against whom they have conceived no prejudice nor cause of complaint, and in quiet submission to the rule of the house, are no sooner at liberty in the bosom of their families than their conduct becomes insupportable: they are irritated by the slightest contradiction, abusing and threatening those who addressed the slightest observation to them, and working themselves up to the most intolerable excesses. And whether the reprehensible acts they commit are really foreign to the predominant idea or not, ought we to make a being responsible for them whose moral nature is so deeply affected?"i From this statement of what he considers to be facts, he infers that it would be unjust to punish the monomaniac for his criminal acts, while it is just to allow him to retain his civil ability. Now in some respects the statement is not correct, and in every respect the inference is erroneous. The statement that lunatics in an asylum sympathize with each other on account of the consciousness of common misfortunes is not borne out by our own experience or by that of some of those whom we have consulted and who have had the amplest means of verification or refutation. With 181 regard, then, to the inference he draws, is it not evident that it is the discipline of the asylum that produces the effects he describes, and that it is the laxity of home or the houses of friends or

1 Discussion Medico-lgal sur la Folie, p. 10

relatives that leads the insane to those annoying excesses of which he speaks. The best child can be spoiled. "It's own way" is bad for a child or a lunatic, and yet Georget proposes to remove these very persons from the operation of that large system of discipline in a country which is called the criminal law, after proving their liability to be influenced by motives. This is surely a peculiar mode of procedure. In opposition to these views, we would point out that the possibility of influencing motives is the ground or meaning of punishment, and that wherever the threat of punishment might have, but has not, influenced the conduct of an individual, there on every ground of law and justice is punishment due. The objection that it is certain, as has already been admitted, that a monomaniac is not as good a man as he was before the occurrence of the disease, that his mental force is not so great, and that therefore, even although the act is not connected with the prominent delusion, he is still less capable than he was in times past to judge of the relative value of motives, and the reasons for refraining from his act, has occurred to us and has been considered by us. The assertion is evidently true, but if the law was to consider the relative power of different individuals to judge of motives, no such thing as justice could ever be done. A grocer who made up his mind to sell exactly a pound of sugar would never succeed in doing it, and his first mercantile transaction would occupy him a whole lifetime, and even then his efforts would not be crowned with success. It is well for those who would get through the world at all comfortably to be content with what will do. The absolute is a will-o'-the-wisp: so it is with laws-we must be content with what is "enough." Any laws which laid down an absolutely just code of enactments, containing punishments to be awarded in all cases according to the actual moral responsibility of the individual, would be much too good for earth. We must be content with a law which will punish a Shakespeare or a Milton if he commits a crime, very much as if he were a chaw-bacon.

137. Other Objections discussed.-Perhaps it is in relation to this question of delusion and its effect upon the responsibility of the patient that the most fierce war has

been waged, and in connection with the legal principles applied to this question that lawyers have been served with the greatest amount of cheap vituperation at the hands of medical men. The objections which are urged against it have no intrinsic weight, but owing to the persistency with which they are pushed forward, have acquired a considerable amount of momentum. They consequently demand consideration. We have stated the law with regard to erroneous beliefs. We have seen (182) that when a person under an insane delusion as to existing facts commits an offence, in consequence of such delusion, he shall be considered in the same situation as to responsibility as if the facts with respect to which the delusion exists were real. It has been objected to this principle that it is based on the notion that insane persons reason correctly from wrong premises, and that this conception is erroneous.' But it is not so: it is founded on a belief that insane persons who labor under monomania aro capable of reasoning in every way like sane men upon all the subjects which are unconnected with their delusion. And that this fact can be proved by a hundred examples is beyond a doubt. Now, this doctrine takes for granted the possibility of these individuals being influenced by the fear of punishment or the hope of immunity. And this being the case, all the elements are present which constitute legal responsibility for criminal acts.

138. Inadequacy of Motive not a Proof of Insanity.Another objection has been urged against this theory of the responsibility of the insane. It is argued that if a man kills his neighbor because he believes that his neighbor spat in his face, or insulted him, and although the fact of the delusion is admitted, the man suffers punishment because he would not have been justified in killing the neigbor if the injury actually had been done, that that is unjust. The reason given for this opinion is that the utter want of proportion which exists between the insult and the retribution is itself indicative of the insanity of the act. But it is surely impossible for law to admit such an excuse. Ex hypo

1 See Kraft-Ebing, Vierteljahrschrift f. Gericht Med. XIII. 1.

thesi, the man is monomaniac. If general moral mania could be proved, the question would have to be argued on other principles. But in this case the man is admitted to be a monomaniac; to have a prejudice in the flesh. He believes he has been insulted, and he kills the man he imagines offered him the rudeness. Now, the belief is insane by admission; but there is surely nothing insane in the want of proportion between an offence and its resentment. The mere fact of such a disproportion cannot be admitted as an indication of the insane character of the act. Were it so, we would invariably find the provocation infinitesimal in all cases of crime. But the smallness of the motive in relation to the gravity of the act proves nothing but a carelessness of consequences, or an expectation of immunity from punishment. We have seen tyrants take off their subjects' heads for reasons which to us seem insignificant, and only upon account of the impossibility of their [183] being called to account. And we have seen many men who were undoubtedly of sound mind commit crimes after real injuries, when the disproportion was quite as startling as that in the supposititious case alluded to above. There can be no reason for admitting such an argument as in the least degree relevant. If there is an insane impulse besides the delusion, then there might be some reason for admitting irresponsibility, but in a case of simple monomania, such an exculpatory plea is not to be thought of for a moment. Those who would have us believe in such a doctrine are either stupid, or would try to win an admission by means of that mental legerdemain, a shifting premise.

139. Apparent Diversity in Criminal Courts as to Admission of this Plea.-It has been argued that there is an inference as to the unsatisfactory nature of this rule of law from the diversity which is said to have characterized the practice of the Courts. But there always is much diversity in the practice of criminal Courts. We have ourselves seen a man sentenced to ten years' penal servitude for stealing a few lozenges, and we have seen a man, for setting fire to two haystacks out of ill will to the owner, sentenced to five years' penal servitude. And to any one who did not know that in

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