were ever equally guilty. Search all time and you will not find one offence which was exactly similar in its moral aspects to any other. Are these arguments for such a system as that I have indicated? But the argument may be carried one step farther. Are not truth and falsehood in the same relation as guilt and innocence? Are there not white lies and black lies, and a hundred shades of grey lies? Is there not a science of casuistry? Can any one say where truth ends or falsehood begins? True, many people know a downright lie when they see it, just as many people have no doubt about the presence of mania from the wild broken conduct of a man. But can we draw a line betwen truth and error? These depend upon nature as much as sanity and insanity, and are, or may be, as much dependent upon organism as mental health or mental disease. Truth is like white light: it is made up of many colours, and the mediums of minds it passes through tincture its rays. Well, if no line can be drawn, should law draw a line, and should such a difficult question as the trustworthiness of philosophers or physicians be left to the decision of a jury? Certainly not! Therefore, if the question of trustworthiness cannot safely be left to a jury, there would be nothing upon which they could decide in the proposed investigation of the opinions of medical men or philosophers. If we withdraw one of these questions, sanity or insanity, guilt or innocence, truth or falsehood, from a jury, we must withdraw all. They are precisely analogous. If we withdraw all there is nothing left for a jury to do, and the proposed tribunal has ceased to exist. Some people may go so far as to assert that if it did it would be no great loss; but it is to be remembered that this reductio ad absurdum has been proved only with reference to a court which was to decide upon opinions, and which was formed with that view because of the impossibility of definition. That a trial of criminals is a necessity few will deny, and that all questions of guilt and innocence could be left to an experienced medical assessor for decision, not many will be found to assert. Are these objections answered? It seems absurd to use so much time for so little purpose. Who takes a mitrailleuse to shoot a

rook?

Guilt and innocence, then, cannot be clearly distinguished. Even when we have satisfactory proof of the commission of a crime, or of what we call a crime, we cannot be certain that there is any moral turpitude connected with the act. "There is no crime," says Jacobi, "but has sometimes been a virtue." This requires no consideration. The fact is palpable; and yet although that is so, it is not argued that there should be no criminal law; it is not argued that there should be no punishments; it is not argued that the present confessedly rough

That

method of judging of guilt or innocence is satisfactory. Even those physicians who argue that there is no distinction in nature between crime and insanity, and who blame organism for all errors, do not, so far as I know, assert that there should be no such thing as government. The police is an institution which is still regarded as necessary. being so, why should any different method of procedure be adopted in relation to the insane, than that which is adopted in relation to the sane? The state exists for the sake of healthy men, and not for the sake of those who are diseased; yet some advocates would have us believe that it is above all things important to protect those who are mad, instead of endeavouring to secure the greatest amount of happiness to those who are sane. Those persons only misunderstand the fundamental principles of the constitution of society. If, then, we are to have a test of guilt, why should we not have a test of insanity? Not because the latter is a disease, because the former is, according to many, a disease likewise. If it is argued that insanity depends almost entirely for its recognition upon medical experience, it is at the same time emphatically denied by those who have had no little experience of mental disease, the present chairman of the Commissioners in Lunacy maintaining," that persons of common sense, conversant with the world, and having a practical knowledge of mankind, if brought into the presence of a lunatic, would in a short time find out whether he was or was not capable of managing his own affairs." But even if it were granted that we must depend upon physicians for the recognition of insanity, it is surely certain that medical experience is like all other experience, an experience of facts, and that facts are capable of expression by words and of appreciation, after due explanation, by

common sense.

The questions which come before a court of law in cases where insanity is not mentioned, are sometimes quite as complicated as any case which involves a question of mental disease. Questions of intention or of patent law are much more abstruse to an ordinary jury than questions of conduct. Yet in all these cases juries are thought competent enough. Take, for instance, a case of poisoning. A common jury know nothing about toxicology. They are not acquainted with the complicated phenomena of death; they do not know anything about symptoms, poisonous doses, and post-mortem appearances, and yet, if they have these things stated in evidence, if they hear the symptoms enumerated, the postmortem appearances described, and the other parts of the case laid before them, they can come to a satisfactory conclusion as to the difficult question as to the cause of death, and the guilt or innocence of the accused, and they do

this by means of a legal test. Why should that not be possible in the case of insanity? Only one reason can be suggested why it has not been practised with as satisfactory results, and that is the strange incompetence of medical psychological witnesses, for the most part, who have occupied themselves far more in declaiming about the unsatisfactory state of a law they did not understand, than in becoming acquainted with a disease which they pretended to treat.

So far what I have said only goes the length of proving that there must be a legal test of insanity, and I have not yet dealt with the question as to whether the present test of insanity is satisfactory or not. It is one thing to prove the necessary existence of some law, and another to prove the excellence of the existing rule. We have seen, then, that law cannot be made conformable to accurate science; that uniformity in rule is an advantage which must not be sacrificed to a pseudo exactitude of justice; and it is better that those youths who are capable of managing their own affairs at the age of seventeen, should wait a few years before they enjoy the whole control of their property, than that there should be no definite rule with regard to minority and majority. But although that is indisputable, there must be some means of discovering whether the existing rule, say as to minority and majority, is a good or a bad one. If it was agreed on all hands that every man was able to make a good use of his property at the age of seventeen; if it was admitted that the great mass of mankind came to their prime at that age, and that they were no more likely to be under the influence of others, or be affected with boyish rashness at that age than at thirty, then, unquestionably, the rule, as it at present exists, would be a bad one. The rule is founded, not upon a scientific estimate of the development of mind, but upon a commonsense experience; and it is because that common-sense experience is in conformity with palpable facts, that it is adopted by law and approved of by mankind. This indicates, then, that the rules of law are to be judged of, as to their excellence, by a reference to facts, and that these facts must not be occult and discoverable only by the microscopes of science, but must be visible to the unassisted eyes of ordinary men. By this criterion, then, we must estimate the worth of the existing test of insanity. At the present time the law with regard to this subject may be supposed to rest upon the answers given by the judges to the questions proposed to them by the House of Lords after the trial of M'Naughten. According to these answers the knowledge of right and wrong is made the test of insanity, and without entering more fully into the doctrines involved in their answers as to the presence of delusions, and as to the exis

tence of partial insanity, I may enter upon the consideration of the question whether that test is satisfactory or not.

The argument most frequently urged against it is that it cannot be a test of insanity, because a great many insane persons know right from wrong. Thus, those persons who labour under melancholia are often free from all delusion, and very often have the sense of right and wrong in a morbidly acute condition. Superintendents and directors of asylums for the insane manage to maintain discipline and order in their institutions by means of a system of rewards and punishments, and that fact proves that those persons who are upon all hands admitted to be insane, have a knowledge of what is permitted and what is forbidden-a knowledge of right and wrong. This argument is thought by many persons to be a satisfactory proof of the absurdity of the present legal test. What can be more absurd than to set about distinguishing between two classes of men by a knowledge which is common to both?

One preliminary question requires to be answered before we arrive at any satisfactory conclusion as to this matter, and that is, is there such a disease as monomania? Is there such a thing as a mental disease, which makes a man mad at one time, although he is sane at another; which makes him mad in relation to certain circumstances, while he is sane in other relations? Can a man be sane with reference to one subject, and insane with reference to another? The answer to these questions has been over and over again given in the affirmative by medical men, and even those who know nothing about medicine are in a position to answer it. Men have delusions about particular things or persons, or events, but upon every other subject they are rational and sane. The existence of such words as klopemania, pyromania, homocidal mania, in the nomenclature of insanity, shows that the separateness of diseases, in relation to these manifestations in act, has long been recognised. It being decided, then, that a man may be sane with reference to one subject, and insane with regard to another, or, as Baron Alderson put it, "may be non compos mentis quoad hoc, and yet not non compos mentis altogether;" and it being certain that a man is never wholly, and, with regard to any subject, utterly and always insane, is it not evident that the argument that the insane know right from wrong proves nothing? Should we not expect to find a man knowing right from wrong in relation to every subject upon which he was sane, and yet unable to appreciate the distinction in relation to his conduct which resulted from his insane belief? Can that be said to be any reason why right and wrong should not be the test of insanity? Does not the existence of the moral sense in all lunatics; does not the fact that order and discipline

in hospitals for the insane are preserved by means of rewards and punishments, prove that lunatics are, in relation to many of their acts, sane? If a monomaniac speaks truth, are we to deny him virtue? If he lies, is it not vice? Can a man who is partially insane not at the same time be vicious? Then why plead the possession of right and wrong by all lunatics on subjects apart from their delusion as an argument against its use as a test on subjects connected with their delusion? It tells the other way if we can prove that an insane man lacks the power of distinguishing good from evil in relation to his erroneous and diseased impression.

In that case it will be proved to be a most accurate means of distinguishing the sane acts of a man from his insane acts, which is much more important than distinguishing the insane man from the sane.

Suppose an individual to labour under a delusion that God speaks to him, and commands him to give light to the world, and that the voice even indicates in what way it is to be done -say, by burning down the house. Although that man may know right from wrong; may know that it is wrong to lie, or steal, or swear; yet in relation to that one act he cannot distinguish right from wrong at the time he does the deed; the supposed voice of God has made the distinction between these impossible, and, therefore, he should not be punished for the

arson.

In interpreting the law as to this point, medical men have been influenced too much by their feelings as to the unsatisfactory nature of the rule to endeavour accurately to understand what it means. The best argument which has been produced against it is to the following effect, and it is urged by some physicians who are clear of glance and intelligent of appreciation. The speculative is very different from the active, they say. Many men can reason well, but do ill. Men live two lives; one in their heads, and the other in the world; and a great gulf often yawns between these which it is impossible to bridge over. There is a wide difference between a speculative knowledge of right and wrong and the power which enables men to put speculative beliefs into action. This gulf may be left unbridged voluntarily or involuntarily. Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations, for never intending to go beyond speculation it costs nothing to have it magnificent. But the madman may be incapable of going beyond speculation. He may know right from wrong, and yet have none of the capacity to refrain from doing the crime, although he may be fully convinced of the criminality of the act. There is a great deal in this suggestion which is worthy of consideration. Man is, as it were, two. He thinks and he acts. It is with the latter that law has to do, and it