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prone to evil, and deeming this tendency to sin incompatible with mental sanity, arrives at the conclusion that one being alone can be said to be of sound mind, and that he is God. Were unsoundness, however, tested in such measure to except from the consequences of crime, villany would stalk rampant throughout the length and breadth of the land, unchecked by those restrictions and awards which society has been compelled in self-defence to apply under the name of punishment. The law very properly draws a distinction between moral depravity and mental infirmity, and between the sequences of both. conceives that individuals are placed here in a probationary situation, endowed with wills, appetites, and passions, over which they possess a guiding and ruling power; that according to the manner in which they employ, or neglect the use of, this power, so do they render themselves amenable to the laws of God; that these agencies are also apt to engender offences against the laws of man, and provided that this influence be capable of regulating and controlling these, so should the being be held responsible to those laws; but that if from disease or other cause, the command over this power be lost or impaired, it is sufficient to absolve from the penalty which would otherwise attach to the transgressor.

The following is the legal test, given explicitly by the whole of the judges in conference, in answer

to queries put by the House of Lords, in 1843, to distinguish between sound and unsound mind, in reference to criminal irresponsibility:

"The jury ought in all cases to be told that every man should be considered of sane mind, until the contrary were clearly proved in evidence. That before a plea of insanity should be allowed, undoubted evidence ought to be adduced that the accused was of unsound mind, and that at the time he committed the act, he was not conscious of right or wrong. Every person was supposed to know what the law was, and therefore nothing could justify a wrong act, except it was clearly proved that the party did not know right from wrong. If that was not satisfactorily proved, the accused was liable to punishment. If the delusion under which a person laboured were only partial, the party accused was equally liable with a person of sane mind."

"From this it would appear that the law, in order to render a man responsible for a crime, looks for a consciousness of right and wrong, and a knowledge of the consequences of the act." There are not a few individuals whose sense of right and wrong is always dull and incomplete; these are moral idiots: the affections in some human beings are as imperfect or as wanting as any of the faculties of the intellect are in others; such an excuse for crimes cannot, it is evident, be recognised without danger; yet it sometimes exists, and, in strict

justice, ought to be admitted. Hereafter it will devolve upon us to show that forms of unsoundness may and do exist, which, nevertheless, it is not only expedient, but correct in reason, to hold as responsible; but, granting this, we yet object to the legal test, because there are manifestly many cases to which it will not apply-cases which most undeniably should be exempt from punishment, but which, tried by this test, could not avoid it. A man, for example, who has led a steady and consistent life, one tenderly attached to his wife and family, respected and esteemed by his neighbours and friends, without any conceivable motive, possibly without manifesting even any premonitory symptoms indicative of mental derangement, and it may be without any traceable hereditary tendency thereto being discoverable, rises in the night, murders his wife and children, and probably attempts his own life. Should the unfortunate succeed in committing self-destruction, but little difficulty then is found in arriving at the verdict of "temporary insanity;" but if he survive to take his trial, the plea of insanity must fall to the ground, and the madman will be left for execution, unless sufficient interest be excited to procure a reprieve of the sentence. What evidence, let me ask, would there be in such a case to prove that this individual was not conscious of right and wrong at the time he committed the act? Positively none, excepting the negative testimony afforded

by the previous unblemished reputation, excellency of disposition, and absence of all motive; but who, knowing the circumstances, would for a single moment entertain a question of the insanity of such an individual? Now, the above is no imaginary sketch, but is drawn from what has passed under the author's personal observation, wherein the learned judge remarked, in reference to the expressed medical opinion in favour of the prisoner's unsoundness of mind, founded upon the consideration of the details of the case, and their knowledge of moral insanity, that "to allow the plea on such terms would be in the highest degree dangerous and unsafe." The prisoner was therefore condemned, but a well-directed intercession procured a remission of the sentence; ere long the latent evil developed itself in unmistakeable madness, and the poor fellow died insane, within the twelve months after his conviction. Taylor relates the following case, tried on the Midland Circuit, July, 1837: "A man named Greensmith was charged with the murder of his four children; he was a person of industrious habits, and an affectionate father, but having fallen into distressed circumstances, he destroyed his children by strangling them, in order, as he said, that they might not be turned out into the streets. The idea only came to him on the night of his perpetrating the crime. After he had strangled two of his children in bed, he went down stairs, where he

remained some time, but thinking he might as well suffer for all as for two, he returned to the bedroom and destroyed the two whom he had left alive. He shook hands with them before he strangled them. He left the house and went to a neighbour's, but said nothing of the murder until he was apprehended, the next day, and taken before the coroner, when he made a full confession. Not one of the witnesses had ever observed the slightest indication of insanity about him. He made no defence; but several humane medical practitioners came forward to depose that he was insane. The surgeon of the gaol said that the man was feverish, complained of headache, and had been subject to disturbed sleep and sudden starts since the death of his wife, a short time before. He spoke of the crime he had committed without the slightest excitement, and the witness said he had heard enough of the evidence to satisfy him that the prisoner could not have committed such a crime as this, and be in a sane state of mind. Dr. Blake, physician to the Nottingham Lunatic Asylum, said he was satisfied that the prisoner laboured under a delusion of mind; the prisoner's grandmother and sister had been under his care, the latter for entertaining a similar delusion, namely, that of destroying herself and her children. The judge declined receiving the evidence; and under his direction the prisoner was found guilty, and sentence of death was passed upon him. By the