It is therefore not the fear of death which can
arrest the projects of the maniac mind; for on many occasions they seek it as the greatest consolation; and quietly submit to seclusion and its consequent privations sooner than renounce their opinions, or withhold their endeavours to accomplish that which appears to them, from the disordered state of their intellect, Good and Right, and which by those of sane mind is denominated Evil and Wrong. A very different opinion has however prevailed; and it has been conceived that the terror of example would deter lunatics from following the dictates of their distempered minds: and many worthy and pious persons who have been the stanch fautors of the dignity of our species, have maintained, that the Deity never so far abandons the being fashioned in his own likeness, and to whom he has imparted a ray of his intellectual light, as to deprive him of the power of discriminating between right and wrong.
To such assumptions, unsupported by reason, and clashing with daily experience, the reader will not expect a serious reply—they must have originated in minds more confident of the perfection and endurance of the intellect, than grateful for its possession.
It is not the object of these pages to shelter crime under the pretence of insanity; or to suppose that some degree of derangement must exist in the mind of the perpetrator:—on the contrary, it is believed, because every day furnishes instances, that men of the highest attainments and most lucid faculties will deliberately commit acts of turpitude,—foreseeing the consequences, and feeling the criminality of the act. But, it would be as much the subject of regret and against the law, that a human being, under a delusion which he firmly believed, and in the persuasion that he was acting from the immediate
influence or instigation of the Divine command, should undergo the sentence of the law to the disgrace of his family:—as that science should ever attempt to contaminate the source of justice, by shielding criminality under the cover of disease.
It has been stated in a former part of this tract, that the medical evidence, in order to impress and satisfy the tribunal before which his testimony is given, should not merely pronounce the party to be insane, but ought to adduce sufficient reasons as the foundation of his opinion. For this purpose it behoves him to have investigated accurately the collateral circumstances. It should be enquired if he had experienced an attack at any former period of his life?—if insanity had prevailed in his family?—If any of those circumstances which are generally acknowledged to be causes of this disease had occurred? as injuries
of the head, mercurial preparations largely or injudiciously administered—attacks of paralysis—suppression of customary evacuations, &c. It should likewise be ascertained, if previous depression of mind had prevailed, resulting from grief, anxiety or disappointment—and it should not be neglected to collect any written documents; as insane persons will very often commit to writing their feelings and opinions although they may suppress them in discourse.
There appear however sufficient criteria to discriminate crime from insanity, although it must be confessed, and such has been the opinion of distinguished legal authority, that they have often seemed to be intimately blended; yet there is a partition which divides them, and it is by such well defined interposition that they are to be separated:—for madness, clear and unequivocal insanity, must be
established by the medical evidence. It is not eccentricity, habitual gusts of passion, ungovernable impetuosity of temper, nor the phrensy of intoxication,[50:A] but a radical perversion of intellect, sufficient to convince the jury that the party was bereft of the reason of an ordinary man.
[50:A] A broad distinction should be made between the immediate and remote effects of intoxication. A man is not held guiltless who perpetrates a crime during the state of intoxication. He voluntarily introduces into his system a stimulus which augments his ferocity, diminishes his moral affections, and overshadows his reason. But the usual effect of this stimulus is temporary, he awakes from his debauch rational, and commonly drags after him the heavy chain of reflection. It is however equally true that this single excess may be continued into permanent insanity: he may remain for many months in a state of mental derangment, and during the prevalence of his disorder may be compelled to forego all intoxicating beverage.—If such person after the elapse of several weeks from the commencement of his disorder, should, under its influence, commit a fatal outrage, no system of jurisprudence would connect the violence with the cause which originally produced the disease.