consider an individual sane act as a lucid interval, and infer soundness of mind, which is the abstract term for all the intellectual phenomena, and implies the aggregate of the ideas, of the individual, from a single and successful effort.
[102:A] Vide Observations on Madness and Melancholy pages 44 and 210.
If the performance of a sane act by an insane person should be deemed valid, let the converse of the proposition be allowed. Many who have been of accredited soundness of mind have in some instances made such a testamentary disposition of their property as has astonished those who have survived them. Without apparent reason or provocation they have left their property away from their nearest relations to public institutions, officers of state, or to those with whom they were very slightly acquainted. Has this single act, independently of other concurring or collateral evidences of
derangement, born the imputation of insanity? Would the uniform tenor of sane and consistent conduct, for many years, both prior and posterior to such act, be set aside for this individual deed? If it should, then long existing insanity ought to be overlooked by a single act of consistency. The reader must be aware that this is general reasoning, as no particular case has been the subject of discussion. The search has been directed to a broad and general principle, without prying into subtil distinctions;—it is reasoning as far as a knowledge of the human intellect, in its sane and disordered state, may be expected from medical opinion; but it presumes not to dictate to that constituted authority denominated law, which in all civilized nations, has been wisely established for the protection and happiness of the community.
Printed by G. Hayden, Brydges Street, Covent Garden.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as in the original.
The following corrections have been made to the original text:
Page 9: wanted the means[original has “sn” in inverted type] of direct information