tal, or even partial, privation of memory and understanding on all subjects, but in the maniac's "immovable assumption" of certain wild fancies as realities; and the question respecting the guilt or innocence of the accused was made to depend on the connection shown between his particular delusion and the act which he had committed. Hadfield was admitted to be sane in most respects, and his conduct while at the bar was perfectly rational. But he fancied that he was the Saviour of mankind, and that, in order to fulfil his mission, it was necessary for him to die. As he was not permitted to commit suicide, he thought he must do some act for which he would be subjected to capital punishment; and, acting under this belief, he loaded a pistol, went to the theatre, and shot at the king. The relation here between the disease and the act is apparent, and the principle of law laid down by Mr. Erskine being acknowledged by the court, Hadfield was acquitted, and sent for the remainder of his life to Bedlam hospital. Here he remained for thirty years, showing hardly any signs of insanity, except once, when he suddenly became so furious that it was necessary to chain him. But the paroxysm soon passed off, and he continued tranquil till the time of his death.

The principle stated in Hadfield's case, however, must be taken with one qualification, according to the present mode of interpreting the law. It must not only appear that the accused labored under a delusion respecting the very act which he committed, but the insane belief must be of such a nature, that, if true, it would have justified the deed. If the madman fancies, for instance, that his keeper is about to kill him, and if, under this delusion, he murders the keeper, he must be acquitted; for if his supposition were true, the act would be one of self-defence. But if he killed the man only for some imaginary trifling wrong, or to remove a supposed obstacle to the attainment of an estate, though the estate existed only in his own insane fancy, he must be convicted; for such motives, even if well founded, would not excuse so grave a crime. This is the law as laid down by Chief Justice Shaw in the trial of Rogers; and the doctrine seems to be countenanced, though rather indistinctly, by the answers given by the English judges to the questions proposed by the House of Lords. The delusion must be such," says Judge Shaw, "that the person under its influence has a real and firm be

lief of some fact, not true in itself, but which, if it were true, would excuse his act." The English judges declare, that though the man entertains an insane fancy, if he knew, at the time of committing the crime, that he was acting contrary to law, he is punishable. Of course, we cannot penetrate into the recesses of the mind, and ascertain directly whether the man was conscious, at the time, that he was doing a wrong, or transgressing the law. Such consciousness can be inferred only from the character of the deed, and the nature of the fancied provocation to it. If we suppose the motive to be well founded, but find that it is still inadequate to justify the proceeding, we may infer that the man knew he was doing wrong. And this appears to be the doctrine of the English

courts.

Dr. Ray objects to this principle of law, and we think with good reason. The delusion usually consists, not merely in the assumption of some wild fancy as a reality, but in the exaggerated importance which the maniac attributes to the supposed fact, and in the influence which he allows it to exert over his whole mind and conduct. He is insane upon this one subject in all its relations; he has no right judgment either of its moral character or its consequences. He imagines, for instance, that an insult has been offered to him; and though it be of so slight a character, that it would hardly move the resentment of a sane man, to him it is an offence worthy of death. "When a person," says Dr. Ray, “is so insane as to imagine that another is disturbing his peace by spells and incantations, is it strange, that, at the same time, his notions of right and wrong should be so confused, that he thinks himself justified in sacrificing his disturber ?" The fancied wrong seems never to leave the mind of the madman, and appears to him as the sole injury, or the greatest, which one is capable of suffering, and consequently that no punishment is too great for its author. Poor Lear imagines, when "his wits begin to unsettle," that nothing but the ingratitude of children is sufficient to drive a man mad :

"Nothing could have subdued nature

To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters."

This harsh maxim, that the monomaniac must be supposed capable of appreciating the moral character of an action, and of weighing out to it the precise measure of retribution

which it deserves, though the action never took place except in his disturbed fancy, seems to have proceeded from the reluctance of the courts to abandon the old principle of law, which never admitted insanity as an excuse for crime, except when it amounted to a total inability to distinguish right from wrong. This principle, in all its generality, was broken down at last, when it was shown by numberless instances, that a man may be insane on one topic, and still show a sense of duty and of right with regard to all other subjects, and be perfectly conscious that the commission of ordinary crimes would subject him to the penalties of law. The moral power seems hardly ever to suffer a total eclipse, and many an inmate of Bedlam will gravely reprove his companions as wrong-doers, when he is eagerly watching for an opportunity to gratify his own homicidal propensity. Compelled to admit the true theory of partial insanity in this respect, the legal tribunals have still insisted, that, when the premises are granted to a maniac, he must be held responsible for his conclusions. Suppose it true, that his victim was his enemy, he must still be condemned, if the supposed cause of enmity was no justification to a sane man for killing his fellow. The severity and injustice of this rule will not long allow it a place in the law, and it is even now relaxed in practice.

But we go much further. We deny the reasonableness or the necessity of punishing a decided monomaniac for 'any crime, even though it appear totally disconnected with the subject of his particular delusion. Who can trace the tortuous train of association in a disordered intellect, and declare with certainty, that the act did not grow out of the morbid belief, because seemingly far removed from it? It does not appear very readily why Hadfield thought it necessary to shoot at the king in order to fulfil his fancied mission as the Saviour of the world. If nothing but the fact of his entertaining this fancy had appeared at the trial, this rule of law would have required his condemnation. Luckily, the testimony supplied the intervening links in his insane reasoning, and showed that he committed the crime under the belief, that, in order to complete the parallel between himself and the Saviour, he also must be convicted and suffer death from the law. There must be many cases, in which it would be impossible to prove such a connection as was here estab

lished, or even to indicate it except by such obscure and farfetched analogies as would fail to convince a jury. Who can even say, that the acknowledged infirmity on a single point is not joined with a liability to insane impulses, or with some other latent but general disorder of the intellect? When the mind is known to be a ruin upon one side, who can tell that the whole structure is not dilapidated and unsound? Besides, even if it were certain that the monomaniac was fully conscious of the criminality of his act, it may be doubted whether he is a proper object of human punishment. The hand of God is already upon him with an infliction heavier than that of death, severing him from the brotherhood of mankind, and marking him out, perhaps, for the unthinking derision of a child. Humanity recoils from the thought of bringing upon such a miserable culprit the last terrors of the law. To afford security to the community is the avowed object of punishing any criminal, and we cannot see how society will be much better protected by putting this class of persons to death, than by incarcerating them in a lunatic asylum. Monomaniacs are neither so numerous nor so wicked, that we need entertain any great apprehensions from them; and to do away with the law, which is unjust to them, will not encourage any other class of criminals. Nor is there any ground to fear lest sane culprits should escape by counterfeiting this form of insanity; for all medical authorities agree, that it is far more difficult to act the part of a person partially insane, than to feign a total deprivation of reason. "Partial insanity," says Dr. Ray, "in consequence of the superior difficulty of the attempt, is much less frequently simulated, and with a much smaller degree of success, than the general form of the disease."

"One of the principal objects of punishments should be, to deter from the commission of crime, by impressing the mind with ideas of physical and moral suffering as its certain consequence; and whenever it is found to produce a very different effect, it is the part of enlightened legislation to devise some other means of prevention. Nothing can be more absurd than to inflict the very punishment which the delusion of the monomaniac often impels him to seek,- to put him to death, who voluntarily surrenders himself, and imploringly beseeches it as the only object he had at heart in perpetrating a horrid crime. What is it but converting a dreadful punishment into the dearest boon that earth can offer? In religious monomania, it is not uncommon for the patient to be

lieve that the joys of heaven are in store for him, and, under the excitement of this insane idea, to murder a fellow-creature, in order that he may the sooner enter on their fruition. To execute one of this class is to perpetuate an evil which needs only a change of penal consequences to be effectually remedied. A kind of delusion has sometimes prevailed in certain parts of Europe, which persuades its unfortunate subjects, that eternal happiness can be gained by being executed for the murder of some innocent person. The idea is, that suicide, being itself a sin, will not be followed by the happiness they seek; but that murder, though a greater crime, can be repented of before the time of execution. This delusion prevailed epidemically in Denmark, during the middle of the last century, and, to avoid sending an unprepared person out of the world, the victim generally selected was a child. Death, of course, was no punishment in this case, and, at last, the king issued an ordinance directing that the guilty should be branded on the forehead with a hot iron and whipped, and be imprisoned for life, with hard labor. Every year, on the anniversary of their crime, they were to be whipped. Lord Dover, in his life of Frederic, relates, that such was the severity of discipline to which the Prussian troops at Potsdam were subjected, that many wished for death to finish their intolerable sufferings, and murdered children, whom they had enticed within their power, in order to obtain from justice the stroke they dared not inflict upon themselves. Abolish capital punishment in such cases, and the delusion will disappear with it; continue it, and no one can tell when the latter will end." Ray on Insanity, pp. 258, 259.

The nature and legal consequences of what may be called "impulsive insanity" form one of the most curious and difficult subjects which courts of law ever have occasion to consider. In the cases ranked under this head, the patient is suddenly led to the commission of an atrocious crime by an uncontrollable impulse, which seizes upon him without premonition or apparent cause. When the idea first presents itself to his mind, he is perfectly conscious of its horrible character, and seeks to drive it, like a spectre, from his thoughts. But it recurs again and again, until the sufferer, if he have sufficient strength of mind remaining, discloses his condition to his friends, and entreats to be put under restraint, so that he may not be able to gratify his dreadful propensity. More frequently, the disease masters reason and conscience at once, and the unhappy individual perpetrates an act which he shudders to hear mentioned a moment afterwards. It is