tion of crime and punishment less invariable, seems absurd. It is just because this consequent and antecedent are not invariably and inevitably connected that some men commit crime, and that those who have a tendency to commit crime through strong passions, habit, or disease, are not restrained. It is true, there are some insane persons whom an invariable sequence will not teach the lesson of life, and whom the pain which is the invariable consequent of violently striking one's head purposely against a stone wall, will not teach to refrain from that act. When such a state of mind exists, whether it arises from imbecility or mania-intellectual or moral-it is absurd to punish. In most of the cases of moral mania which have been brought under our notice, the tendency to sin is, doubtless, due to disease; but it is not so strong that an absolute certainty of proximate suffering could not restrain from the commission of the criminal act-indeed in many cases it is not stronger than the tendency which exists in those persons that circumstances have brought to sin, and that habit has made criminals; and as it is for the latter class that laws are enacted, it seems to us, the former class are co-heirs with them in the advantages to be derived from the infliction of punishment. Another case may be quoted to illustrate this position; it is a case "where, with great natural shrewdness, general information, and gentlemanly manners, where no delusion or incongruity of thought can be detected, there exists an inveterate desire to torment and irritate those around: to enjoy the dissension and disputes which ensue, and to violate every rule of decency and delicacy by obscenities of look, word, and action, when these objects can be accomplished without detection."* We imagine that the case just quoted, and the following case, which we take from Prichard,† prove that in many of the relations of the morally insane to the State, they may, for all the purposes of just governmental discipline, be regarded as sane; and that, in many respects, those who are afflicted with moral insanity mnst be treated in the same way as those in whom we can only discover moral turpitude.

“Mr. H. P— had been for many years confined in a lunatic asylum, when, an estate having devolved upon him by inheritance, it became necessary to subject him anew to an investigation. He was examined by several physicians, who were unanimous in the opinion

* Crichton Institution Report' for 1850, p. 26.

+ Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine, Art. Insanity,' p. 834.

that he was a lunatic; but a jury considered him to be of sound mind, attributing his peculiarities to eccentricity, and he was consequently set at liberty. The conduct of this individual was the most eccentric that can be imagined; he scarcely performed any action in the same manner as other men; and some of his habits, in which he obstinately persisted, were singularly filthy and disgusting. For every peculiar custom he had a quaint and often ludicrous reason to allege, which indicated a strong mixture of shrewdness and absurdity. It might have been barely possible to attribute all these peculiarities, as well as the morbid state of temper and affections, to singularity in natural character, and to the peculiar circumstances under which this person had been placed. But there was one conviction deeply fixed on his mind, which, though it might likewise be explained by the circumstances of his previous history, seemed to constitute an instance of maniacal delusion. Whenever any person, whom he understood to be a physician, attempted to feel his pulse, he recoiled with an expression of horror, and exclaimed, 'If you were to feel my pulse you would be lord paramount over me for the rest of my life.' "The result has proved," this author goes on to say, "that confinement is not always necessary in cases of this description. Mr. H. P has remained at liberty for many years, and his conduct, though extremely singular, has been without injury to himself or others."

This is one case, and many others might be collected in which an illiterate jury have, in spite of medical evidence, succeeded in doing the right thing; but it is also a case which shows how very frequently moral insanity is connected with intellectual delusion. Indeed, we are convinced that many observers have not-in their anxiety to prove the fact of a kind of insanity which exists independently of any prominent intellectual symptoms-been sufficiently careful to look for signs of the existence of that which they did not wish to see. Many people, like Nelson-when he was told that there was a signal from the Admiral's ship commanding his return— put the telescope to their blind eye, and say, "I cannot see anything." So Dr. Ray* quotes the case of the Earl Ferrers, who was executed in 1760† for the murder of his steward, in illustration of what he regards as moral insanity. Dr. Ray does not, in the

* Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity,' p. 119.

description he gives of the condition of the accused-in which he asserts that the disease was in a more advanced condition-state that it was proved that his lordship was occasionally insane, and incapable, from his insanity, of knowing what he did, and of judging of the consequences of his actions. He laboured under the delusion that his relations and friends had formed a conspiracy against him, and he regarded Johnson, his victim, as an accomplice. His conduct was of such a character as to convince those who knew him of his insanity. That the verdict of guilty may have been erroneous, and that the sentence and execution may have been inexpedient, is true, but that the accused laboured under moral mania seems to us false. In another place we point out the relation of those afflicted with intellectual mania to the State; here we would-while we praise the caution of our courts of law in hesitating to recognise moral insanity, and point out that, from the rarity of cases in which this disease is unaccompanied by very prominent intellectual symptoms, very little injustice has been done, in consequence of the law's unwillingness to recognise this kind of insanity-censure the dogged persistence of lawyers who will not, even in the present state of medical psychology, and with the amount of evidence which has been accumulated, admit that there can, or ought to be, a recognition of such a form of disease by our criminal law.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON PARTIAL MORAL MANIA.

ALTHOUGH it is difficult to see how one set of mental operations, as, for instance, those which go to determine a difference between right and wrong, can be affected with disease while in all other respects the mind is sane; still it is a fact that a man's relations to external nature may be distorted in so far as one series or class of acts are concerned, while in other classes of acts or impressions those relations may be in a perfectly normal condition. A man may be blind without losing the use of his ears. But still it is not altogether correct to say that a man can be morally insane while at the same time he is intellectually normal. For, as what we know of mind is only thought, we cannot regard a mind which always thinks wrongly with respect to certain matters, although in other matters its process may be without error, as in its intellectual wholeness complete.

I now propose to consider a class of cases in which even a more limited species of acts is affected by disease-a class of cases in which only one or two of the social relations of the individual are interrupted by the presence of the abnormal conditions of brain. Although it is difficult to separate a man's feelings from his thoughts, it is not difficult to make a distinction between various desires or passions in relation to their objects. Thus, if we found morbidity only manifested in relation to the appropriative tendency in human nature, it would be reasonable, for the sake of convenience, to distinguish such a manifestation of disease from that in which the tendency to destroy one's own life was found to be the most prominent mental feature. It is really madness in relation to the same mind and thought, whether its symptom be stealing a handkerchief or cutting one's throat; but as there are different kinds of skill acquired by different parts of the body, so there are different propensities

acquired by mind. Skill is the direction of energy to the educated part, partial moral mania seems to be the direction of morbid energy, or energy manifest under abnormal circumstances, through certain tendencies of disposition. And the most convenient means of classification is presented by the similarity of the most prominent features or symptoms of the disease in different cases, as it is these features and their object that call attention to that part of the disposition which is primarily affected. The disposition is just the stereotyped edition of a man. While a man is young and under favorable circumstances, his tendencies are only movable types. If we say a man's disposition is good, it is that the circumstances of the past have biassed him—like a bowl-to run over this green world in a direction we think heavenward. This is disposition in the lump. But we all know how infinitely the various rooms of the house-disposition, so to speak-vary in different individuals. We find one man liking solitude and the great lessons it teaches, while another seems to enjoy his neighbour's elbows in his side as he is jostled in the market-place. One man has great ventures forth in the waves' hands, and prays that the wind may bring home his ships, and that his coffers may be at their golden flood tide. Another man lives in the shadow of great quiet hills, with nothing but books for friends, and would rather hear the babble of the streams than the chirp of all the coins in the world. One man imagines that

"To breathe is not to live,"

while another man thinks that "well fed" is the acme of happiness, and never to want, the highest perfection. It is the sum of all a man's tendencies to the external that we designate his "disposition;" and when we use such words as "miser," or "glutton," we mean to express, with as much exactness as one word can, the whole disposition of an individual. To say that a man whose disposition impels him to choose what is bad rather than what is good, is a bad man, and a stupid man, seems to be warranted by the dictionary meanings of words. We see many who choose the evil and eschew the good every day of their lives, and we see others who prefer the good of the spirit to the good of the body. But liberty is an excellent thing, and if we were all compelled by law upon all occasions to do well we would make the millenium a seven months' child-a consummation not to be desired. So we are all allowed to choose what is bad, if